The Takedown(52)

Can’t have it all. I’m sure you got everything else you wanted.

moi Yeah, tho I kinda miss the years when I didn’t.

Meaning?

moi Meaning I guess I kinda miss the years when my mom got it wrong.

Hmm. Because when your mom got it wrong, it at least meant she still knew you enough to guess what you might like?

Yeah. That was it exactly. After days of feeling misunderstood by everyone who knew me best, somehow my hater kept getting it right.

moi You’re pretty all right. If only you’d stop ruining my life.

AnyLies and I aren’t friends, I quickly reminded myself. AnyLies understood what I was going through because she—I mean, let’s be honest, it had to be a girl—because she’d put me there. Maybe I was txting my hater in the hopes that she would take down my video, but why was my hater txting me back? I reminded myself of the sheets of paper with my name written on them a hundred different ways and I almost called it quits on the whole enterprise.

But then AnyLies txted this:

You know, you aren’t the only one.

moi The only one what?

The only one who’s been through this.

moi This what?

I waited. But that was it. The only one…who had grown apart from her mom? The only one…who was questioning every single relationship in her life? The only one…who hated the holidays? Missed her grandma? The only one who…

I quickly sat up, crunching Kyle’s feet in the process.

“No, that’s fine, girl-Kyle, I didn’t need to walk ever again anyway.”

“Not like you do now,” I said as I did a quick search.

I wasn’t sure how to word my question, but the Internet helped with that. There were enough results to make your mind spin, but none that seemed to match. I swiped further and further into the search. Then, as Kyle clicked next on the seventh episode in a row of Cloaked Games, twenty pages into my search, I found her—a Christmas miracle.

Her name was Trina Davis. And, thanks to my hater, she was about to help me figure out who my hater was.





The next day, when I woke, warm sunshine was filtering through my curtains. The house smelled of Sunday—organic bacon, chocolate chip pancakes, and coffee. I cheered when I swiped on my Doc. Christmas was finally over. Plus, I’d slept until eleven, which meant I was nearly late for my own party. After quickly responding to a string of CB messages that Trina had sent me after I went to sleep, I leapt out of bed.

Twenty-five minutes later, the groggy versions of Fawn, Sharma, and Mac were in my living room, all decked out in their lazy weekend attire. Late last night, I’d invited them all over for an All Brains on Deck meeting. Now Mom brought in a huge pile of pancakes. Boy-Kyle passed out plates and in an effort to save room for dim sum brunch in a few hours, incredibly didn’t keep one for himself. My dad yawned. There was only one empty seat.

Audra was a no-show.

I’d expected it would take her a few days to cool down after our Christmas Eve fight over the B&P slut, but I hadn’t heard from her even once yesterday. And that was huge considering she’d come to my grandmother’s funeral two years ago. She knew Christmas wasn’t only tough on her nowadays.

moi Urgent. You okay? Please confirm not dead in gutter.

Since there was no worse feeling than not being able to reach someone, our code was that if we added Urgent to any message and you still had fingers on your hand, you MUST, caps and italics, respond. I could feel her gauging just how grudgey she felt like being. It took her a full two minutes to write back.

audy Sorry can’t make your big show and tell. Busy. There in spirit.

moi Busy with what?

audy Schoolwork.

moi Schoolwork?

On the room screen, my Doc on share mode so it would sync with the hub, I pulled up the G-File account I’d discovered last night while searching student-teacher sex scandals. Unlike mine, which came up first, the one on-screen was 336 entries in. But that didn’t make it any less relevant.

“Meet Trina Davis,” I said.

No response. This was one sleepy audience. Kyle’s eyes flickered to Fawn. Poor guy. He was crushing hard on my Fawnie and she was years more experienced. Meanwhile, Fawn’s eyes were focused on the pancakes. Sharma was absorbed in her Doc. Mom sat on the arm of Dad’s chair and absently rubbed his neck. Across from them Mac put up the hood on his sweatshirt and yawned, “Who’s Trina Davis, amiga?”

Ignoring the amiga descriptor, I said, “A girl who had an identical fake sex video made about her.”

There. That woke everyone up.





“Trina lives in Chicago. She’s a solid A-minus student. And two months ago, someone posted a video on their school’s faculty page of her and her young calc teacher having sex. Should I play it?”

“No,” my dad said.

“Yes,” everyone else said.

Sharma was one step ahead. The file was already on our living room screen.

The video had been filmed inside a car. The teacher propped his Doc up on the dash. Except in the beginning, when he hit record, you mostly could only see his back. Occasionally, Trina’s face surfaced over his shoulder. It was pretty clear that the teacher hadn’t said he was filming this. He’d acted as if he was just putting his Doc somewhere safe.

“I called this All Brains on Deck meeting because I thought you guys could help spot the other similarities between me and Trina. Why were we targeted for these videos?”