In the privacy of the darkness of her closet-room, Emmy googled Jude, then Jude-the-Dude, and Jude-the-Dude and Vancouver and juggling. The image search didn’t reveal much at all. There were other ways of getting what she needed. She searched singers now that she knew purple girl’s name. She had to scroll through a nightmare of selfies of pretty girls, an avalanche of shoes and food. And then . . . jackpot. Jude. He was tagged. She clicked on it, but he had set his account to private. At least now she had his online handle.
Hours passed as Emmy moved through a maze of unknown faces. She collected a few sightings and the first ideas of the kind of person Jude was when he was not at work or at the park. It was almost impossible to read him through the images. It made him all the more intriguing. What could you make of close-ups of his hands, a shot of him on a bike, and a picture of him pointing at a sandwich board: What pronouns does a chocolate bar use? Her/she. He looked like he was having a good laugh about that.
But one thing was unmistakable. Jude knew a lot of pretty girls. The same one kept jumping out at Emmy. It was the poet from the other night. Always dressed in black, she had a smile that spoke directly to the most insecure part of Emmy’s mind. Back off, girl. He’s taken.
There they were at the lake. He had his arm around her. There again at the gelato shop, where she fed him a spoon of ice cream while he made a goofy face. Emmy couldn’t see them acting that way unless there was something more between them than friendship. Her heart sank. Jude had said nothing about being in love.
Then again, it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing people walked around saying in their coffee shop jobs. Did they? Emmy remembered the way they whispered together at the poetry night. She thought about the pride in his voice when he introduced her. Why wasn’t there a sure sign? Some way of knowing. Emmy wished that everyone who had someone special was forced to wear a button or scarf, something to mark themselves as taken.
She’d been such a fool for thinking he could possibly want to hug her.
Then the horror of it struck her. Jude was taken, but she could not change how she felt. She was the creepy online stalker, who sat at home eating cookies, making up a life of dating Jude. Pathetic, she thought, as she turned off her phone. Her eyes were blurry and they hurt.
For several nights, Emmy did nothing but stare at the photos of Jude and try to dig up more. She began saving them so she wouldn’t have to scroll through the images of Jude’s friends and their beautiful lives. No matter how hard she tried not to look, she had to look.
Emmy hadn’t updated her own accounts in ages. There they were, the same angled selfies staring into empty cyberspace. Her lips were always slightly pursed, her cheeks sucked in, like she learned from the YouTube tutorials. There were barely any likes.
***
Emmy woke up to the darkness of the closet. There was no way to tell if she had slept until eleven or if it was still six in the morning. She reached for her phone, but it wasn’t there. She felt around. Nothing.
When she opened the door, it was light out. The clock on the wall confirmed that it was 10:30. Her aunt and uncle were already at work, but it was Tuesday so Paige might be downstairs. Emmy went to the bathroom to splash water on her face. She pulled on her hoodie and shuffled her way downstairs.
“Morning, stalker,” Paige said as she entered the kitchen.
“What?”
“Emmy, you psycho,” Paige said, laughing. She held Emmy’s phone in her hand. She thumbed her way through a series of Jude pictures.
“How did you do that? It’s password protected.”
“Your fingerprint.” She gave a smug smile.
“You snuck into my room and held my finger to the phone while I was sleeping? And you’re calling me a psycho?”
“I needed your mom’s number.” She made it sound like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“There are easier ways, more legal ways. Don’t you guys have her number stored in your home phone?”
“Um . . . bigger issue . . . why are you stalking Jude?”
“I’m not.”
“Right. More than a dozen photos in your private album is definitely stalking. You weren’t even there when these pics were taken. Half of them are from years ago.”
Emmy knew it had been wrong to save photos off other peoples’ accounts. But it was her dirty little secret. She never thought anyone would find out. She’d even made sure to hide her browsing history.
Looking at the floor, she turned on her heels and went upstairs. Nothing she could say would save her. What Paige said was true. Emmy was a pervert with an obsession that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard she tried. She was a Peeping Tom sicko, confused and destined to always be alone. There was nothing to do but go back to bed and tear open her emergency stash of chocolate chip cookies.
Tears flowed and snot ran out her nose. She sat cross-legged and crunched on the dry cookies. They didn’t even taste good. There was nothing good about any of this, about her life. It was just awful. What a loser she was.
Paige shouldn’t have spied on her like that. But Paige was that kind of person. She ignored boundaries. That was what popular people did. They rammed themselves at you even when you told them not to. Paige had always been like that. Trying to change her would be like trying to tell a snake not to eat a baby bird. It was going against nature.
By the time the tray of cookies was almost empty, there was a knock at the door.
“Go away.”
“Emmy . . . don’t be upset.” It was Paige’s voice.
“Leave me alone.”
More knocking. “I warned you to stay away from Jude.”
“We’re not talking about this, Paige. It’s not your business. Just forget it.”
The problem with closet doors is they don’t lock. Paige opened the door. There was Emmy, perfectly framed in her dark cave like some kind of troll, stuffing her face with the final crumbs of a bag of cookies. She was sitting in a filthy pile of laundry, books, and random food wrappers. Emmy knew she was the image of someone who would never be kissed or get married or have one of those cute pictures with someone feeding her ice cream.
“Get lost before I throw this at you,” Emmy said, reaching for a textbook.
“Fine. You deserve what you get. You two are probably meant for each other in some twisted way.” Paige slammed the closet door and stalked away.
At least Paige backed off. There was that to be grateful for. Now the biggest fear Emmy had was what Paige would do with the information. Would she tell Jude? And if she did, would that confirm to Jude that he was being harassed by a pathetic loser? He’d probably forgotten all about her by now, but if Paige reminded him . . .
She had to get out. She had to deal with this horror show. What could she do now that her inner life was made public?
Emmy went downstairs, where she found her phone on the empty breakfast table. It looked abandoned, like her.
She thought about what she would say to Jude if she could. She’d tell him he was special. She’d tell him that having the pictures of him made her feel closer to him, that she hoped it wasn’t weird. And in her fantasy he’d tell her that there was nothing weird about it. He’d tell her that when those pictures were taken, he had imagined his soulmate was out there somewhere. That he meant those images for someone just waiting to be a part of his life. And now here she was and it was all okay. Every step she had taken to get closer to him was fine.
Emmy felt that Jude was kind of with her everywhere she went, even in the closet. But she also knew she wouldn’t actually see him if she sat at home like this.