The Takedown(98)

Sharma, meanwhile, lives on an undisclosed campus in Virginia not too far from DC. I imagine she is fighting off e-ttacks or building apps that assist small businesses in developing countries or, who knows, hopefully fixing the free American universal Wi-Fi program. Aside from saying how much she loves it, she isn’t really allowed to talk about it. But that doesn’t matter. Since we agreed never to edit ourselves, it turned out we had lots of other things in common.

Over the summer, during my White House internship, she and I met weekly for lunch. (Weekends were reserved for her and Rory commuting to visit each other. Yup. Who didn’t see that one coming?) We’re closer now than we ever were at Park Prep. For the first time, when I say she’s my best friend, I mean it.

The weekend after I started at Yale, I had an erasing-Kyla-Cheng-themed sleepover. My college roomie, Electra, was the only person physically present. Sharma, Kyle, and Rory were there via FaceAlert.

Sorry, I don’t mean I erased myself completely. It wasn’t like I was going to stop listening to music or reading e-mags or commenting on Unicorn Wars or shopping—truth is, I do like clothes—and no way was I going to freshly enter a password every time I wanted to do those things. I only mean I canceled my ConnectBook account. It was actually a relief. Rory gave me two days before I reinstated it. Sharma gave me a week.

sharm Kyla =

rory (cb tech god) Nobody’s enough to not have a CB profile.

Nerds.

But I had to be strong, because the one huge perk about canceling my CB was that it effectively prohibited me from online Woofer stalking the daily life of Mackenzie Rodriguez. And I needed all the help I could get.

For 239 days—give or take some minutes—of our senior year and summer, Mac and I existed without labels and didn’t not date. And we grew cataclysmically close. But even good indefinite things must come to an end. And the morning my parents drove me to New Haven, Mac was inconsolable. He hugged me for so long that my mom teared up and my dad had to jingle his keys and say, “Traffic.”

“Promise.” Mac linked his pinky with mine. “Top five contacts when the lights go out.”

Initially we txted about a thousand times a day, but as our semesters geared up, those numbers fell off. With that hair and those eyes, Mac wasn’t going to have a hard time finding a girlfriend at NYU.

Oops, hold on.

My weekend guest wants to insert something….

Insert something? Gross, Kyla. Y en verdad, Mac wasn’t going to have a hard time finding a girlfriend wherever he went. But he was certain none of them would compare with the unlabelable Ms. Cheng, the one he would always be fondest of.—M.R.

For real, Macky? Unlabelable? And you can’t end a sentence on the word “of.”

You just did. You’re also not supposed to start them with “and.”—M.R.

I can do what I want. I’m the girl who took her video down.

Remind me how long you’ll be saying that for again?—M.R.

Yeah. Clearly we’re still pretty close. And maybe one day I will outright “date” Mackenzie Rodriguez, or maybe I won’t. But for sure I’ll do my best to keep that boy in my life. If the video taught me anything, it’s that you’d better do everything in your power to hold on to the good ones.

So as for me? I can’t possibly wrap up myself here.

As I told Yale in my amended application essay, who you are in five hundred words or less is an unanswerable question, yet another constricting label. I’m not just the pretty one or the smart one or the slutty one. I’d be disappointed in myself if I could be narrowed down to so few words. Considering there is so much life, knowledge, and emotion to experience, I like to believe there’s room for growth. I firmly believe that we make our own history.

So I, for one, fully intend to screw up, try new things, and, most importantly, have a little fun. Because that’s another funny thing I’m figuring out. The moments in my life that have mattered the most aren’t the ones that everyone “sees,” but the ones that they don’t.





Often, non-English or unfamiliar words are italicized in novels. The author believes that this is an antiquated tradition that should have ended yesterday. Not only does it cast a weird sheen of “other” on perfectly normal words that millions of people speak daily, but it hinders the natural happy process of your language becoming mine and vice versa. As you might guess, it is the preference of the author that italics not be used to accentuate non-English words in The Takedown. Thanks to translation technology, there will soon come a day when we’re all communicating easily across language barriers. Hopefully, a little of that begins here.





A tremendous thank-you to my agent, Sarah Burnes, for her relentless belief in this book and her all-caps enthusiasm and insistence that we get it RIGHT. This book would not be in the world if it wasn’t for you. To my editor and soul sister, Kieran Viola, who thought the most important thing was maintaining my voice. I am constantly astounded by how excellent you are at doing yours and how willing and supportive you are of letting me do mine. This book would not be any good if it wasn’t for you.

To my copyediting team for making sure all my trains ran correctly, my publicity and marketing team for being so pumped to get this book out into the world, and especially to Marci Senders for creating a cover so wonderful, I can no longer imagine the book without it. Also, to Ellen Goodlett, who read more early drafts than is humane. To Rose Costello, whose enthusiasm for a middle draft provided the oomph to finish. And to Julie Schiena, who read one late draft and knew all the right fixes. This book would not have such good bones without all of you.