#famous(16)

“How?”

She shrugged. “My cousin’s doing drama at Yale, and she said everyone knows famous kids get preferential treatment.” Mo pushed her tray across the sticky wood veneer of the table. I forced myself not to pick the scraps off it. “Apparently there’s a kid from a boy band there who didn’t even take the SAT. And another whose dad is some big L.A. producer who gets all the parts, even though he’s barely literate.”

“Being famous because everyone hates you is different. No one wants that.” Monique frowned, opening her mouth like she was about to say something to contradict me. I hurried on. “Anyway, I don’t see how it would get us in.”

“Programs want publicity. If you’re an internet sensation with a million followers, they’ll want you talking about them. Period.”

“Yeah, but I’m not.”

“You could be.” I rolled my eyes. Mo ignored me. “There are two ways to think about this. You can let everyone be evil and jealous and do nothing—and really, who knows how long that could go on.” Monique twisted a tight curl around her fingertip. She’d been wearing her hair natural since school started, and she couldn’t seem to stop touching it. “Or you can try to take advantage of it before everyone moves on.”

“I don’t think I’m up for that, Mo. I just want this to go away.”

She sniffed, pointing at the TV hanging about twenty feet away. In the morning the cafeteria TVs were turned to announcements, like the ones in all the classrooms, but after eleven, they got real channels. Well, network. Usually everyone ignored them, but today it seemed like a lot of faces were locked on the screen.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to swing that,” she said.

There was Kyle, smiling easily and waving to the camera before he loped into school. He looked like he’d been doing this his whole life. The screen cut to a blue background and the Flit logo. “893,271 reflits and counting” scrolled across the top. I turned back to Mo, my stomach plunging to my kneecaps.

My parents didn’t watch local news much, but if someone from Apple Prairie was on it? Would someone mention it to Mom at the flower shop? She was always chatty with customers.

And once she knew, what would she do? Strap me to my bed until she thought my mental health was “stable” again? Would she even let me apply to the playwriting workshop?

Maybe I would be able to survive on a diet of almost nothing. The world kept making it impossible to keep food down.





chapter eight


KYLE

WEDNESDAY, 12:54 P.M.

In morning classes, girls tried to sneak pictures. Even ones like Erin Rothstein, who probably had pictures of me already from summer parties I went to with Emma.

After the newscast aired I could barely get through the halls.

A crowd of freshmen I’d never seen formed around me in the commons after lunch. One asked me to autograph her shoe. Was she walking around barefoot, or had she brought an extra? It was already in her hand when she asked, and I couldn’t see Shoe Girl’s feet through the crowd.

But I signed it. Signing a shoe: totally rock star. Not quite signing a bra, but close.

I felt a heavy slap on the back.

“Man, who would have thought a tool like you could get this much ass?”

I turned to Dave. He was staring at a skinny brunette a foot shorter than him with this dazed half smile. With his buzzed head and beefy build, it vibed creepy. The whole team knew Dave was all talk. Dave in the locker room: endless stories about what he’d “tapped.” Dave with actual girls: too nervous to string a sentence together. The girl’s eyes widened, she sorta cough-giggled, and she squeezed through the people behind her. The other girls melted away after her. Dave’s his own buffer zone.

But we’d both played lacrosse so long we were half friends by default.

“What’s up?” I said finally. Dave was not a conversationalist.

“Nothing really.” He yawned. The yawn: obviously fake. “I’d been wondering, since you’re gonna be up to your balls in willing underclassmen for the next few months, is Emma, like, up for grabs?”

I bit back my automatic no. After last night, wasn’t she?

“You’d have to ask her,” I said flatly. “Things have been weird with us.”

“So you wouldn’t mind if I tried to hit that.” He stuck his tongue between his lips. It looked like a slug crawling out of his mouth.

“I mean, yeah, dude. I’d mind.”

I wanted to add that only a massive tool would even ask, but Dave burst out with a laugh like a motor backfiring.

“Calm down.” He raised two ham-steak hands in mock defense. “I’m messing with you, bro.” He punched my shoulder. I forced myself not to flinch. “You think I’d break code that way?”

“No.” My mouth felt too full of spit. I had to swallow just to not drool. I laughed weakly. “I guess I get, like, weird about Emma.”

“Who wouldn’t? Emma is . . .” He made a boinging sound, flipping his hand up in front of his waistband. I forced a laugh, even though I could feel my stomach muscles tightening like my body was trying to make me lean in and shove him.

He cocked his head to the right. “This is me. I’ll catch you later.” He hulked toward the classroom. “Try not to get any freshmen pregnant between now and the bell.”