Unfriended (15 page)

FROM: Madison
TO: Ruth, Schuyler, Lisa
Date: 6/23, 8:34
A.M.

GUYS. There’s something really weird going on with Isabel. I’m not going to be able to explain it properly—and you’re not going to believe me—but The Evil One is back. And she’s planning on doing a lot of damage to us. We’re going to have to pretend not to be friends for a little while, just …

Sitting at the kitchen table, I paused and looked at the half-composed e-mail on my laptop screen. When I’d woken up early that morning, thinking a little more clearly, I realized that just because Isabel was making
threats didn’t mean I had to capitulate to them. After all, how would she know if I told my friends—and Nate, of course—what was really going on? We could keep up a facade that everything had fallen apart until we figured things out, but we could figure it out
together
.

I took a bite of my breakfast (two frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts) and a sip of my morning Diet Dr Pepper (with my mother gone, my father and I had both reverted to terrible nutrition) as I read over my words. The more I typed, the better I was feeling about this. And it was just past eight thirty—so I had plenty of time to talk to my friends before Isabel’s deadline.

My cell rang, and I saw that the number was blocked. I hesitated before answering, but then remembered Nate had said his service might be wonky—so maybe he was calling from Maxwell’s house line.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Madison.”

I drew in a breath as I recognized the voice. It was Isabel.

“What?” I snapped, looking at the time on my computer screen. “It’s not ten yet.”

“I am doing this even though I don’t have to,” Isabel snapped back at me. “I’m giving you a chance not to make a mistake.”

I felt myself frown. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, I told you not to tell anyone what I’d said or that I’d contacted you,” she explained crisply. “And I told you what the consequences would be if you did.”

I stared at the unsent e-mail in front of me, and looked around quickly. It wasn’t like Isabel could see what was on my computer screen. “I haven’t,” I said, glad that I could be entirely truthful on this point.

“No,” Isabel conceded. “But you’re thinking about it, aren’t you?”

I suddenly felt very creeped out. How had she known? “Isabel,” I said slowly, “how …”

“I told you I would know,” she said. “I know. And I’m giving you a chance not to be stupid, Madison. You play by my rules, or your friends, and your precious Nate, are going to get hurt.”

“How did you get all that information on my friends?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from betraying the fact that my thoughts were spinning. “It came from Dell?”

“Mostly,” she said. “I added some of my own, of course. But he was undeniably helpful. Frank’s very smart about certain things, you know. And one thing he’s always advocated is having information on your enemies.”

I closed my eyes. There had been a time in my life, I was almost sure of it, when things were fairly normal and I wasn’t being blackmailed and people didn’t keep dossiers on me and my friends.

“I hope you’ve come to a decision,” she continued, her voice growing more serious. I glanced at the clock, but this didn’t seem like the moment to mention I still had an hour and a half. I was feeling more and more like I was being painted into a corner, and my options were being taken away from me. But I still had to know for
sure before I made a not-entirely-metaphorical deal with the devil.

“I need to know something first,” I said.

“And what’s that?” Isabel asked, beginning to sound annoyed.

“I need some proof,” I said. “About Nate.” It was all very well for Isabel to tell me that she knew he was involved with the prank, but that might just be speculation. Isabel could have just heard this rumor from somewhere. After all, Nate had been one of the main suspects of the prank—he’d been called before his headmaster over and over again. But since they’d never been able to prove anything, he’d never gotten in trouble. Nate’s involvement in the prank was the biggest thing she could threaten me with revealing, and I had a feeling she knew that.

“Proof,” Isabel said. There was a small pause, and then she said, “That’s fair.” Then there was a longer pause, then a rustling and the faint sound of metal hitting metal. I pressed the phone to my ear and could hear the sound of keys clacking on a computer. “Well,” she said, “right now, I’m looking at a picture of your boyfriend breaking into Hartfield. And he seems to be wearing a polo. But instead of an alligator, it looks like …” There was a pause, and I heard more clacking of keys. “A camera, maybe?”

I swallowed. That was indisputable evidence. The one time Nate and Isabel had met, Nate had been wearing a tux. She wasn’t his friend on Friendverse, so she didn’t have access to any of his pictures. The only way
she could know about that shirt would be because she was looking at a picture of it. A picture that had the power to potentially wreck my boyfriend’s life.

“Okay,” I said after a moment. The word caught in my throat and came out scratchy and a little tremulous. My heart rate was speeding up, and I felt on the verge of panicking. Clearly, my body knew that I was wandering headlong into something that was a bad idea, and was trying to tell me to get out of it—flight or fight. But instead, I was choosing to do neither. “Okay,” I repeated, my voice steadier this time. “All right.”

“All right what?” Isabel asked.

I made myself take another breath, this one mostly so I wouldn’t throw my phone across the kitchen. “All right,” I said. “I’ll do it. I’ll say goodbye to my friends. Okay?”

“And Nate,” Isabel added, causing my stomach to drop.

“And … that,” I said, when I started to say his name and found that I couldn’t, not without betraying the storm of emotions I was currently trying to weather.

“Good,” Isabel said. I heard the smugness come back into her voice. “I really do think you’re making the right decision, Madison. And it is only fair. You have to admit that.”

I wasn’t about to admit anything, and certainly not that, to her. “Are we done now?” I asked. I was feeling, with every minute passing, that I needed to end the call and give the whole Victorian swooning thing another shot. Either that or go to bed for about five
years. But mostly, I needed to not be talking to Isabel any longer.

“Almost,” she said, and her tone became clipped and businesslike. “Here’s how this is going to work. After you bid your friends farewell, you’re going to unfriend them all on Friendverse, Status Q, and Constellation. And you’re going to do this today.”

I felt my heart begin to race even faster, which was not a good thing, since I was already feeling like I’d just run a marathon. “No,” I said faintly. I had hoped to take some time to get used to the idea, and figure out how I was going to do this, and then break the news to my friends. I was not going to be at all ready to do this in a few
hours
. “Today? Not possible.”

“I think you’ll find it will be possible,” she said, her voice frosty. “Unless you want me to let all this out. Or send the e-mail I’ve composed to Nate’s headmaster …”

“How do you
know
all this?” I asked again, my voice breaking midsentence.

“I thought you would have understood by now,” Isabel said, sighing loudly, “there’s not a lot I don’t know about you and your soon-to-be-ex-friends. So unless you want everything getting out, you’ll do it today. Everyone on the list.”

“Fine,” I said, forcing the word out, trying to concentrate on how much I hated Isabel right now, so I wouldn’t have to think about what I was going to have to do.

“And Nate,” she added. “
Today
.”

“Nate’s out of town,” I said. I heard her draw in a breath, and I jumped in before she could speak. “He’s
working,” I said shortly. “And I’m not going to do it over the phone, Isabel. You can forget that.”

“No,” Isabel said. “A big conversation like that? You’ll want to do that in person.”

I let out a breath, glad that Isabel had conceded this. I couldn’t even think about what it would mean to do this yet—my heart gave a sharp little pain every time I thought about it. But I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t going to be able to do it over the phone. Nate deserved more than that. “Yes,” I agreed hoarsely.

“And you’ll have to come up with a reason,” Isabel continued. “One that he’ll believe, since you were so disgustingly
smitten
with him only a few days before. But,” she added, her voice turning sly, “when he sees on Constellation that you were hanging out after-hours with your ex-boyfriend, it should give him some idea of why it’s suddenly over.”

My stomach plummeted like I was on a roller coaster that had just gone around its first loop. I hadn’t thought about that. I had never even
considered
what that might look like, since that had been the furthest thing from my mind. I suddenly realized how hurt Nate might get as a result of all this, and the thought made me feel physically ill.

I needed to get off the phone with her. This whole conversation was terrible. It was like being bitten to death by fire ants—somehow, hundreds of little tiny stings that were so much worse than just getting punched once, or something. “Okay,” I said shortly. “So—”

“And as for you,” she continued, as though I hadn’t
spoken. “You’re going to make your Constellation feed public, same with Status Q and Friendverse. I’m going to keep tabs and make sure that you haven’t gone back on our agreement. If you do—or if you tell any of your friends or Nate that I am the reason this is happening, I’ll know and I go public with everything. Understood?”

“How?” I blurted. I could hear the edge of hysteria in my voice. She was just a high-school almost-senior, like me. She wasn’t the CIA, or the IRS. How was she doing this? “How are you going to
know
, Isabel?”

“Because I will,” she replied calmly. “You tell a group that large something that big, and someone’s going to say something. In their statuses, in their quotes, in messages they send to other people or write on their friends’ walls. Your life is public, in case you hadn’t noticed, Madison, and it exists on the internet. If you say something, I will know. And then the very next thing I’ll do is release this information. Understood?”

“Yes,” I muttered. I wouldn’t have admitted it for almost anything, but she had a point. Getting
everyone
to not say anything about this—or pretend we weren’t friends when we still were, which was what I’d been hoping to pull off—had no chance of lasting. It would be as impossible as convincing everyone to leave Constellation, Friendverse, and Status Q. I might as well ask them to cut off a major appendage.

“Good,” Isabel said. She sounded content now, and relaxed, and I could hear that she was smiling again. “I really didn’t want to have to do this,” she added, almost conversationally. “But you brought this on
yourself, Madison. You don’t mess with me. And now you know it. Have a
great
rest of your summer, Mad.”

She hung up, and I was left staring at the phone in my hand. I was gripping it so hard that my hand was shaking. I unclenched my fingers and put it down in front of me on the table. My thoughts weren’t racing anymore—they were just centered on what I had to do today. I had to hurt everyone that I loved.

I looked at the half-written e-mail on the screen in front of me. Then I deleted it entirely. I took a breath, and logged on to Constellation. It was time to get this over with.