What We Saw(45)

Will leaps to his feet, screaming. I would say that he yelled, but it was higher pitched than that. Definitely a scream. His headphones rip from his ears, but not fast enough, and the wire pulls his laptop across the desk. It hits his leg, and the padded seat of his rolling chair before bouncing onto the carpet.

“What the hell are you doing?” He’s panting like he just ran a fast mile.

“I might ask the same of you,” I say calmly. “You’re not really about to post a rank on that girl’s Facebook picture are you?”

Will’s gaze darts to his laptop on the floor. He dives for it, but I smack my bare foot on top of it, and slide it toward me. His gangly ninth-grade limbs are longer than mine, but he’s not in full control of them yet—no match for my fast feet and twelve years of soccer drills.

“Watch it!” he yells. “You’re gonna break my computer.”

“I’m gonna break your face if you don’t knock it off.”

“Why do you care?” he huffs. “It’s just a game.”

I cross my arms as my eyes go wide. “Just a game? Putting that number on her Facebook wall so everybody can see it? Are you kidding me?”

“It’s a joke.” Will is pleading now, his eyes downcast.

“No, it’s not It’s somebody’s feelings.”

I flip open his laptop, and the screen blinks to life. The chat window is blank now. Tyler has disappeared back into the ether. He’ll stay there if he knows what’s good for him.

I put the laptop back on his desk. “Look at her,” I command.

Will rolls his eyes and sinks into his chair, his lips a locked vault.

“How would you feel if I ranked you? Or Tyler?” I ask. “What if I put numbers under your pictures and told the whole world that you two aren’t very attractive? Would you like that?”

His silent shrug makes me want to smack him in the back of the head. “Jesus, Will. She’s a human being, not a hashtag. There’s a person involved.” As the word hashtag leaves my lips, the blinking cursor in the comment box catches my eye. I point at #r&p. “What is this? What does it mean?”

Will leans in and looks where I am pointing. “I dunno.”

“Then why are you typing it under this girl’s picture? If you don’t even know what it means?”

He shrugs again. It’s an epidemic with the guys in my world, this shrugging. None of them know. Or want to know. Or maybe they do know and just want me off their backs. “I just saw it on a bunch of tweets about . . .” He doesn’t finish.

“Dooney’s party?” I ask.


“Yeah.”

“But you don’t know what it means?”

He shakes his head. “No. A bunch of the varsity guys have been using it.”

“Which ones?”

He huffs a huge breath and rubs his hands on his face. “Why do you care so much?”

“Why don’t you care at all?”

He chews his cheek and drops his head. “Dooney, Deacon, Greg, Randy—”

“So basically, everyone who was arrested this week.”

He nods, miserably. “But more, like LeRon and Reggie. Kyle, too.”

I lean over him and delete the words he almost posted. “You do know you’re not the only person who can see what you comment online, right? You may recall that whole thing about the police collecting people’s phones?”

He groans. “Jeez. Fine. Okay, Mom.”

“If you want, we can certainly talk to Mom about it.” This gets his attention. “Those pictures that girl posted? What’s her name? Emily? They’re not for you. They’re not your property. You aren’t entitled to use them however you please. How many other pictures did you rank?”

He grunts and plugs his earbuds back into the computer. “Why are you so hysterical about this?”

Something in me snaps. I grab the neck of his T-shirt and yank it toward me, almost pulling him out of his chair. My voice is a low, steady whisper. “I am not hysterical about anything. I am concerned that my brother is turning into an *.” I push him back into the chair. “Delete every rank you posted on a picture this morning.”

“Or what?” he counters. “You’ll tell Mom?”

“Nope.” I walk across his room and step over a pair of boxer shorts into the hallway. “You’ll deal directly with Dad on this one.”

As I close the door to my own room I hear what sounds like a shoe hitting the wall. I grab my phone and text Rachel.

I need to move my legs before I start using my fists.





UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE


HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................





twenty-five


BY THE TIME Lindsey joins me on the soccer field at school, I’m already in the middle of my first full line drill. Rachel and Christy are stretching and waiting by the goal nearest to the parking lot. I push buttons to clear and start the stopwatch on my wrist, then put my hands on top of my head to keep from folding in half.

Deep breaths.

Walking in circles.

Christy, bitching.

“Line drills? On a Saturday? How the hell did you let her talk you into this?” she asks Rachel.