B00B9FX0MA EBOK (4 page)

I grabbed my phone from my bag, hating that Adam was the first person in my address book. I
hated
him. I wanted him to be expelled. To have to move somewhere where I’d never,
ever
see him again.

He answered on the first ring. “Hayley, what’s up?”

“You know exactly what’s up,” I said in a low voice.

“I have many talents, but mind reading isn’t one of them. At least, not yet,” Adam drawled. “What do you need? Help with Osborn’s homework?”

“I’m not talking about this on the phone. Meet me at the Ugly Mug in half an hour,” I demanded, my voice shaking.

“Wait, what?” Adam asked. “I’m doing homework. Can we talk tomorrow?”

“No!” I exploded. “You have to talk to me tonight. I know what you did, and you need to fix it. Or else I’m calling the police. It’s harassment, you know. It’s not funny.”

“Hayley, what are you talking about? I haven’t harassed you. I haven’t talked to you all freaking summer.”

“Stop it!” I screeched. “Just shut up and listen. It’s not a joke, and I need to talk to you. Now.”

“I know you’re not kidding, I just don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t know why you’re yelling at me.”

“Will I see you at the Ugly Mug?” I asked, trying to contain the hysteria in my voice.

“Yes. Fine. Ugly Mug, half an hour, full-on Hayley freak-out. Can’t wait,” he said sarcastically.

I didn’t bother responding. I hung up, slammed my laptop closed, and ran down the stairs.

“Heading to town to study!” I yelled. But it didn’t matter. Mom and Geoff had already left for dinner.

I made it to the Ugly Mug in record time. I gazed around. No Adam. Just Percy, a philosophy-major barista, a few lone students wearing oversized headphones, and a couple in the corner feeding each other forkfuls of chocolate cake.

“What’s up, Hayley?” Percy asked, leaning on the counter.

“Nothing,” I said shortly. The clock above the door read seven twenty-five. If Adam wasn’t here by seven thirty, I was going to call the police. Which meant I had four and a half minutes to figure out how to explain to the Bainbridge police department why a fake Facebook profile was a legitimate emergency.

“Want the usual?” Percy asked companionably, already turning to the espresso machine.

“Sure.” I was way too keyed up for coffee, much less the double-shot latte Percy was whipping up, but I knew if I said no, he’d ask questions, and questions were the last thing I wanted right now. I perched on the edge of a moth-eaten purple velvet loveseat in the back of the shop. Who the hell did Adam think he was, and didn’t he
know
that I was smarter than that? I couldn’t believe he thought it’d be so easy to take me down.

The front door opened. As soon as I saw Adam, clad in his Varsity Debate jacket, I wanted to snap, run toward him, and claw his eyes out. How the hell could a guy who thought a
Varsity Debate jacket
was a remotely appropriate fashion choice even dare try to sabotage me?

“Over here,” I called sharply, annoyed as I said it.

Adam nodded at me, then headed up to the counter to order.

“Not now,” I growled.

Adam walked toward me. “Seriously, you’re not even letting me get coffee? Okay, this is way more serious than I thought.” His voice was jokey, but his brow was furrowed in concern. “What’s up?” He didn’t bother to sit down.

“You know,” I said, struggling to maintain an even tone of voice as I looked into his eyes. I could vaguely make out my
reflection in his glasses, and I tried to appear calmer. If he saw I was upset, then he’d win. “The Facebook page.”

Confusion crossed his face as he peered down at me. “Is that what you wanted to tell me? That you finally joined the twenty-first century? Well, congratulations, and I’ll be sure to not friend you, so you won’t scream at me for harassment.”

“No.” I stood up so I could look him in the eye. “The. Fake. Facebook. Page. That. You. Made. To Sabotage. Me,” I said through clenched teeth.

“Hayley, what are you talking about? I don’t have time for this.”

“You think I do?” I practically shrieked. Percy, who was walking toward us with my latte, paused midstep.

I lowered my voice. “Look.” I pulled out my laptop and logged on to the site. “I found it, Adam.”

Adam grabbed my computer as Percy hurriedly made his way to our table and practically threw my latte in front of me. I took a large gulp, feeling even more anger when the liquid burned the roof of my mouth.

“I didn’t make that. And it’s not even you.” Adam shook his head and passed the laptop toward me.

“What do you mean?” I’d expected him to deny that he’d made the page, but not deny that it was me. “Who else would it be?”

“Well, you’re not exactly the Queen of Frat Parties, are you? It could mean someone did a decent Photoshop job. They might have found an image of a girl who looked similar to you and morphed some features together.”

“Is that possible?” I asked in a small voice, beginning to doubt my suspicions.

“I don’t know,” Adam admitted. “But I didn’t do it, Hayley. I’d never cheat my way into something. Look, I want to win the Ainsworth. So do you. But we’ve always been pretty decent about separating friendship and competition, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but …” I trailed off as I realized that I’d wanted it to have been him.

Adam sighed. “Then it’s going to be a really long year for you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What does
that
mean?”

“Nothing. Hayley, listen, you’re under a ton of stress. I get it. So am I. But you can’t let everything get under your skin. I mean, this sucks, but I didn’t do it. And it’s just a stupid prank. You need perspective. It’s not like a million people are Googling you.”

I stared at him. Was he kidding? “The Ainsworth committee is,” I said flatly.

Recognition dawned on his face. “You think someone’s trying to sabotage you?”

“Yes!” I snapped. I didn’t want to be here anymore, playing amateur detective.

“Hayley.” Adam’s voice was firm. He reached toward my hand. I yanked it away.

“Sorry.” Adam let his hand fall into his lap. “Hayley, look at me.”

“What?” I asked flatly.

“I know you probably think I did this to win the Ainsworth. And I don’t know what I can say to make you believe me, except I didn’t do it. I’d never hurt you. I know we have fun being competitive, but I wouldn’t … I wouldn’t …” He trailed off.

“It’s fine.” I squeezed my eyes shut to stop tears from falling. I wasn’t crying at what Adam said. But I wanted to cry because even if he didn’t do it, the fact remained that someone did. Someone hated me enough to sabotage me.

Adam looked at me quizzically. “It’s not fine.”

“No,” I agreed. “But there’s nothing you can do about it.” I stared at the coffee-ringed table. If I looked at him, I’d lose it, and that would give him even more of an upper hand than he already had. And the thing I hated most of all was the realization that no one would have done this to him. He didn’t have a ton of friends, but he wasn’t actively disliked the way I seemed to be. And I didn’t need him feeling sorry for me.

“I can at least sit with you until you stop doing that shaky-hand thing,” he said.

I squeezed my hands together, realizing it looked like I was praying. I slid them into my pockets, instead. “I’m fine. Freaking amazing.
Je suis très bien
,” I practically shouted, realizing that my slipping into French meant I was seriously losing it.

Adam’s eyes widened. “Whoa, Hayley, don’t freak. It’s
fine
. It’s just some joke that got out of hand. Bet you anything that it’ll be taken down as soon as you tell Klish. It seems like the only people who’ve even seen it are Keely and her clique. I doubt the Ainsworth committee is doing any recon right now. I mean, no offense, but you don’t even know if you’re a finalist.
I
don’t even know if I’m a finalist.”

“I know. But …”

“Listen, if you want, I can hack into Keely’s e-mail and see if I find anything. I bet you anything her password is
spray tan
.”

“Do you think she did it?” I asked, ignoring Adam’s joke. I thought back to her comment this morning.
Even the losers are joining Facebook.
Had that been a dig at me, one so subtle I hadn’t even caught it? Probably.

“She could have. But it could also have been someone from that debate camp you went to. Did you talk to them about the Ainsworth?”

Fury shot through my body and I clutched my knees to keep from reaching up and strangling Adam. “Really? Do you really think that I’m running around, bragging to everyone? I’m just trying to be the best I can be, and no one will leave me alone.” My voice had taken on a high-pitched, hysterical quality. “Even
Jess
is trying to sabotage me.”

“Really?” Adam wrinkled his nose.

“What?”

“She doesn’t seem to be the sabotage type, is all.” Adam shrugged and I remembered that they’d worked on a physics project together last fall.

“Maybe not to you. But maybe she did it. She tried to get me kicked off the editorial board of Yearbook.”

Adam shook his head. “This has Keely written all over it. Jess plays by the rules. She was pissed that you were EIC of Yearbook and Newspaper, so she went to Klish. Keely’s just …”

“Just what?”

“Being Keely. Unless you think there’s someone else who might be mad at you.”

“So you think I just have a million enemies running around New Hampshire?” I asked flatly.

“No, Hayley, I’m just saying that sometimes you can be …”

“What?” I challenged.

“Intense.” Adam nodded toward the latte I was holding in my hand. “Like, right now, you’re holding your coffee like you’re gonna throw it at someone. You can be intimidating, and that
attitude
might rub people the wrong way. If they don’t know you.”

“And you can be an idiot,” I retorted, taking a large sip of my latte so he couldn’t tell how much he’d hurt me. It was one thing for Keely to think of me as an intense, intimidating weirdo, but it stung coming from Adam. “Anyway, I’m sure you’re right. It’s just a prank and I’ll discuss it with Klish tomorrow. Thank you.” I grabbed my bag from beside me, as if I were running late to a very important appointment, which both Adam and I knew was a lie.

Adam stood up. “Right.” He shifted from foot to foot, standing over me as if he expected me to say something else. “Well, good luck with everything. And if you need anyone …” he trailed off.

I didn’t bother to watch him leave. Instead, I stared at the screen when I noticed a response to the latest wall post alert. It was from Keely.

“Then
what
?” I said out loud. A girl in the corner, furiously highlighting a textbook, glared at me.

I angrily slammed my laptop shut and made my way out of the Ugly Mug. I still had a ton of work to do. I had a problem set due for Calc. I needed to read through Act II of
Macbeth
. I needed an actual agenda for the Yearbook meeting so it wouldn’t
dissolve into a free-for-all discussion like last time. I had a French conversation topic to prepare, and I should be making cookies for the next Key Club bake sale. But Facebook — which I didn’t even belong to for the very reason that it was a total time waster — had ruined all of that for me.

I headed into the still-empty house, crept upstairs, and crawled under the duvet, not bothering to wash my face or brush my teeth. I remembered an article I’d read about the secret to success in some hippie magazine my mom had left lying around. Most of it was about channeling your inner goddess and making a vision board, but one piece of advice had stuck with me. It said that the biggest mistake you could make in a crisis was to do something immediately.
Sometimes, you need your spirit guides to bring you to a decision in your dreams!
And while I didn’t think spirit guides could help me any more than Adam Scott could, I wondered if it might be best to just fall asleep and figure everything out in the morning.

Not like I could fall asleep. My mind felt mushy, like over-cooked oatmeal, and I couldn’t focus on anything besides the pattern of the shadows of branches on the wall. In the distance, I heard an owl hooting. These sounds normally calmed me down. But now, they only made me feel more jumpy.

I crossed the room to my DVD collection and scanned the titles:
Sleepless in Seattle.
No.
Valentine’s Day.
No.
Mean Girls.
That sounded about right. I pulled the disc from the box and pushed it into the DVD player, allowing myself to get lost in the familiar storyline. But now, the plot, about how girls try to
plan revenge on one another, just hit too close to home. I turned off the DVD player and slid back under the covers.

I couldn’t get the eyes from the photo out of my mind. Silvery and shiny, like the underside of a fish caught from a pond, my eyes had always been my trademark, the one thing I really liked about the way I looked. But now, they didn’t feel like
mine
. And now, even though the photo was just an encrypted piece of data lying dormant on my laptop, I imagined the identical eyes, the ones from the picture, watching me.

Toss.
I thought of the picture of her and the guy. She was smiling, but she didn’t look like she was having fun. Rather, she looked as though she knew some secret.

Turn.
I turned my pillow to the fresh side.

This was ridiculous. There was no way I could sleep.

Instead, I pulled up my laptop and opened Word.
Agenda for Yearbook Meeting
, I began. No matter what, at least I always had work.

H
ayley?”

I woke up to sun dappling my ancient pink-and-purple-striped comforter.

“What?” I blinked, disoriented. I’d fallen asleep on top of my laptop, and one of the keys had indented itself on my cheek. Since my contacts were still in, my eyes felt dry and sandy, and it hurt to blink. I looked at the screen, where I’d fallen asleep midway through my memo writing, the Facebook page still pulled up.

And everything came flooding back.

“Hi.” I struggled to sit up.

“Hayley bunny, are you all right?” Mom perched on the side of my bed and peered at my computer.

“Don’t do that!” I shrieked, my voice rising. I didn’t want her to see the pictures on the profile. It would just make her worry, and that would make
me
worry, and all the Advil in the world wouldn’t stop that headache.

Mom pulled back. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I was just concerned. I was about to leave when I saw your car in the driveway. Are you sick?”

I shook my head. “What time is it?” I croaked. My throat was sore, and I’d have given anything to just crawl back under the covers and hope everything had been a bad dream.

“Eight.”

“Eight? Why didn’t you wake me up?” I’d already missed Yearbook and Calc. Not only that, but if Kelsey, Emily, or Ingrid knew about the profile — which they
did
, since their comments were all over the wall, then
everyone
did. And I hadn’t even been there to do damage control.

“You look a little feverish.” Mom held the back of her hand to my forehead. I swatted her away.

“I’m
fine
. I just have to go. And you need to go to work, Mom.” The Sound and the Story opened at eight, and even though I was pretty sure that no one in Bainbridge was seeking their used copies of James Joyce quite that early, I did need her to leave me alone.

“All right. But if you’re sick …” Mom said uncertainly, concern evident in her large blue eyes.

“I’m fine,” I said, more gently this time. I wouldn’t bother her with this until I knew what, exactly,
this
was.

“All right.” Mom wandered out of the room and closed the door. I didn’t even have time to take a shower. Instead, I pulled my hair into a messy bun, pulled a pair of jeans puddled in the corner over my hips, and yanked on an oversized white T-shirt. And then, because my eyes were killing me, I took out my contacts and put on my glasses. I hoped I looked like
tired grad student
but knew when I caught a glimpse of myself in my rearview mirror that I looked more like a hot mess.
Hayley Kathryn Westin, tired party girl.
Just like I appeared on the fake profile.

Once I got to school, I hastily parked in my spot at the far corner near the auditorium. As I sprinted through the doors, I caught sight of six seniors, including Keely, huddled around an iPhone. Before I knew what was happening, Keely and I locked
eyes. Then, she turned away, leaning toward Emily. I tried to imagine what they were saying.

Look how easy she is to freak out.

Let’s give her a nervous breakdown. Hashtag: funsies!

The imaginary conversations made me run faster, bursting into the main office at eight thirty-seven a.m., gasping until Mrs. Miller, the office secretary, turned from her computer.

“Yes, Hayley?” she asked, her eyebrows rising at the sight of my disheveled self.

“I … need … a … late … pass,” I heaved, watching the second hand on the office clock jump forward. It was only a few minutes before AP English, and I wanted to get there early to talk to Mrs. Ross and make sure no crucial Yearbook decisions had been made without me.

“No you don’t.” Mrs. Miller waved me away. “Of course, for most students, we require a parent’s note to excuse tardiness, but I think we’ll let this one slide. After all, it’s nice to know that even Hayley Westin can come down with a case of senioritis.”

I didn’t bother to correct her. “Thanks,” I said miserably, hurrying down the hall to the English wing.

“What’s up, Westin?” Matt. I turned, not bothering to break my stride.

“Running late!” I called over my shoulder.

He easily caught up with me, matching my pace.

“What’s the rush?”

“I missed the meeting this morning, so I have to … Mrs. Ross … I need to explain that I was sick….” I panted, catching my breath.

“Oh … it wasn’t a big thing. Jess led it. I don’t think Ross
realized you weren’t there. She conked out as soon as Jess started dividing the calendar into deadlines.”

I stopped in my tracks. “What?”
Deadlines?

“Yeah, while you were sleeping off your epic evening at the U, she went ahead and gave everyone September deadlines. Hey, it’s the way to do things. Get others to do the grunt work, and leave the glory for you.”

I barely heard Matt’s philosophical rambling. Jess ran the meeting? I was at the U? I felt like I’d been dropped on some alien stage, unsure of my lines and even whether or not I was in a drama or a comedy.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your Facebook. If you want to rage, you should really think about changing your privacy settings.” Matt nodded sagely.

“What did I say I was doing?” I asked, simultaneously not wanting to hear the answer and knowing I needed to.

“Chillin’ with some dudes at the U. So you go from no partying at all to, like, partying with the big guys? That’s bold.”

“Chillin’ at the U?” I repeated. I cringed as the words left my mouth. I
hated
the word
chillin’
almost as much as the word
dope
. I’d never use those terms.

Matt nodded. “That’s what your status said. So tonight, want to hang at Alyssa’s barn? Everyone’s going to be there.”

I barely heard him. Alyssa’s barn was legendary. It was the site of pretty much every makeout, breakup, and scandalous Facebook photo that occurred in high school. I probably couldn’t have picked Alyssa out of a lineup, but even
I
knew what went down in her barn … and the hayloft … and the bank of the lake.

“Um …” If I
did
go, as myself, how would they post fake status updates? But if I went, then I’d have to face Keely. On her turf. My stomach churned. All I’d had was the PB and J from last night, and I could sense that was approximately ten seconds away from coming back up.

I gagged, clapped my hand over my mouth, and ran toward the bathroom, not caring how it looked or what Matt thought.

“Man, if you don’t remember, it must have been a
really
good time.” Matt laughed as I stumbled into the girls’ room. “Seriously, come to the barn! I promise it’ll make the U parties look lame!” he called to my retreating back.

“Move!” I yelled to a trio of freshmen huddling around the mirror, blocking the stalls.

“Um, say please?” one giggled.

“Shh, that’s a
senior
!” another whispered.

The three of them burst into snorts of laughter as I rested my head on the metal stall door. In there, the air was cooler and I didn’t feel like I had to throw up. But I didn’t exactly feel good. I’d always had a nervous stomach, and I hated the way it betrayed my nerves. Usually, the nausea would go away once I’d participated in a debate or given a speech. But now, it seemed like I was stuck with it. I took a few deep breaths, trying to ready myself to go back to class.

“She’s the girl who parties with frat guys at the U,” one of the freshmen said admiringly on her way out. My stomach dropped again.

I stumbled out of the stall and looked at myself in the mirror. Behind my glasses, my eyes were bloodshot and watery. My face was pale.
At least I didn’t look like the profile anymore.
That was the ironic upside. Profile Hayley was tan, confident, always
smiling, a girl with a glint in her eye who made it clear, even to the camera, that she didn’t give a damn about anything.

Get it together.
I’d said it to myself a million times in the past few days, and now it was even more essential. I was comparing myself to someone who didn’t exist. Shaking my head, I pulled my shoulders back, marched out of the bathroom, and headed across the hallway to the guidance office.

“Hayley!” Miss Marsted cooed, but I didn’t say hi. I walked straight for Mr. Klish’s office, not caring if I was interrupting another appointment. I wasn’t some random tenth-grader who’d decided he could no longer handle Honors Geometry or a sad junior who wrote depressed poems for the literary journal.

I opened the door and immediately saw the oh-so-familiar logo for Varsity Debate on the jacket slung on the back of the chair.

Adam was already here.

What the hell?
My mouth felt cottony. Had this been his plan all along? To make me suspect him, then confide in him, and
then
use my moment of weakness to move ahead in the Ainsworth finals?

“Adam,” I croaked.

“Hayley, good, I’m glad you came down!” Mr. Klish grinned.

“I’m sorry?” I said. I felt like I was outside my body, watching everything. This was the guidance office. This was my guidance counselor. This was my academic counterpart. The pieces, separately, made sense, but once they were together, I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do or what I was supposed to think.

“I’d called you down last period, but Dr. Osborn said you weren’t in class. I’m glad someone gave you the message, and I
am delighted to be the first to inform you that both you and Mr. Scott are officially invited to the New Hampshire round of Ainsworth semifinals. Now, this is one of the few times that our school has had one candidate, let alone two, and I am confident you both will do our school proud,” he finished, smiling broadly.

“Wait …
what
?” I asked. It was taking too long for his words to reach my brain, for them to click into meaning. “I’m … a
finalist
?” I whispered. I clutched the back of Adam’s chair.

“Yes! And you look like you’re going to faint!” Mr. Klish said jovially. He hauled himself from his chair and shuffled to my side. “Take a deep breath.” He rested his hand on my shoulder.

Mr. Klish lumbered back to his desk. After shuffling through an enormous pile of papers, he pulled out a single sheet. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, scanned the paper, and settled heavily into his chair.

“Now, kids, the semifinals are next weekend in Concord. I’d bring you, but unfortunately, that’s when the Renaissance festival is and …” Mr. Klish shook his head.

“It’s fine,” Adam said. “We can get there by ourselves.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, not really paying attention. All I could think of was the profile. Because now that Adam and I were both going to the semifinals, the fake Facebook profile would definitely be found and scrutinized.

“All right. So you two will get yourselves to Concord. They’re holding the interviews at the Vintage Plaza downtown. You’ll check in, grab one of those minimuffins they always have
at those types of events, get your coffee, maybe you’ll have time to read the paper, something to de-stress …” Mr. Klish babbled.

“And then when does the actual competition
start
?” Adam interrupted.

“Oh! Well, as you know, the semifinals are conducted as an Oxford-style interview, done in front of an audience of your fellow competitors. You’ll share what you know, be charming, and put Bainbridge on the map.” He smiled encouragingly at both of us. “Any questions?” he added.

Adam’s hand shot into the air. “What did they ask last year?”

Mr. Klish’s grin widened even farther. “Excellent question. Well, last year one of the more colorful prompts was to explain how Shakespeare would use social media to interact with his critics, and another topic was whether teenage popularity was innate or could be learned. Any other questions?”

“No,” I said, shooting a death stare toward Adam before he could come up with something else. For all I knew, he was just asking inane questions to waste time. After all, the longer the profile was up, the more chances the judges had to see it. “I have something I’d like to discuss
in private
,” I blurted out.

“Okay,” Mr. Klish said.

“I’ll leave,” Adam offered, as though it were a question. As soon as he brushed past me, I took a seat opposite Mr. Klish. I didn’t allow my eyes to wander toward Ian-or-Morris, who was gazing down dolefully from the UPenn poster. I didn’t want him to have to hear what was happening. He’d be above the high school drama.

“I know you said that the Ainsworth committee would be looking carefully at any online presence.” I shifted uncomfortably. “My online identity is being impersonated.”

Mr. Klish narrowed his eyes. “How so?”

“Well, someone has created a Facebook profile with a picture that looks like me. It’s
not
me. It’s clearly a Photoshop job,” I said hurriedly. “But it looks like me. And it’s not good.”

“How is it not you, if the photo is
of
you?” Mr. Klish’s voice was cold, accusatory, and I shrugged miserably. I wanted him to tell me that it didn’t matter, that he’d just been trying to scare me yesterday and the Ainsworth committee was entirely made up of people even more computer illiterate than he was. But he didn’t.

“I think maybe they were able to Photoshop the picture or … I don’t know. And I don’t know who did it. But I have my suspicions.”
Adam
. Keely wouldn’t have been smart enough to change the IP address.

“Can you please show me, Miss Westin?” Mr. Klish said, standing up from his chair and stepping aside.

“Of course,” I said, typing my name onto his crumb-covered keyboard. He breathed heavily behind my shoulder. Facebook took forever to load on his computer.

But instead of the profile popping up, a blank page with a single sentence appeared:
No user exists by this name.

“Maybe it’s in another browser,” I murmured, quickly typing
facebook.com
into Firefox. Again, the same message. Mr. Klish leaned even closer and I could smell the scent of stale coffee on his breath. I mashed my lips together, trying not to gag.