To: Regina Afton
From: The YourSpace™ Team
Subject: You have been invited to join the IH8RA group on YourSpace™!
Dear Regina,
You have been invited to join a fun new group on YourSpace™! Click the link to sign into your YourSpace™ account and find out who wants YOU to be a part of THEIR group!
Regards,
The YourSpace™ Staff
It’s probably from some band. No one I know e-mails me anymore.
But it’s fun to pretend to be wanted.
I click the link and I’m sent to a page that prompts me for my username and password. I type them in and wait for the browser to load.
A few seconds later, this pops up:
You’ve been invited to join the IH8RA group on YourSpace™. If you would like to join this group, click ACCEPT. If you do not want to join this group, click NO, THANKS (the group will not be notified).
My cursor hovers over ACCEPT. IH8RA. It’s an acronym. I contemplate it, even though I could just click the link and the mystery would be solved. But that’s no fun, and I’m smart enough to figure this out and—honestly—I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. My brain works to put the pieces together.
I H 8 R A. IH8RA. IH8RA. IH8. I H8. I hate. IH8 RA. I hate RA. RA.
Regina Afton.
I Hate Regina Afton.
You have been invited to join the I Hate Regina Afton group on YourSpace™!
I’m hunched over the toilet watching dinner come up, and my mind is doing this the whole time: It might not have anything to do with you it could mean anything you haven’t even seen the page yet how do you know it’s about you it could be a promo for some band it might not have anything to do with you how do you know it’s about you.
Knock-knock on the bathroom door.
“Are you sick, Regina?” Mom.
Yes.
I wipe my mouth and flush the toilet.
“I’m okay. It’s nothing.”
“Let me know if you need anything?”
No.
“Sure.”
But for a second, I think I do need her.
“Mom . . .”
She’s gone.
I run the tap as cold as it will go and splash my face. The computer hums in the next room, waiting for me, and I don’t have what I need to have inside me to go back in there and click the link. Courage.
But that’s not going to stop me from doing it anyway.
Psychedelic-colored shapes float across the monitor’s face. Screen saver. I jiggle the mouse, and the YourSpace page pops up. I stare at my choices: ACCEPT. REJECT. I choose neither. I click the blue link to take me to the group’s page to see what it’s about, because even though I know what it’s about, some small part of me hopes I’m wrong.
The page loads.
I fall back into the chair. The soft sounds of the television in the living room drift in, and then other sounds follow: Dad rocking in his recliner. Mom washing dishes in the kitchen. I can hear the clinking of glass in the sink. A day off. A fan whirs next to me, raising warm air. It’s all so quiet and so family and it’s so perfect, and I have to share it with this—a page as red as my locker.
In the upper right-hand corner of it is a picture of me. I minimize the screen, horrified, before pulling it up again. It’s not a nice picture. It wouldn’t be. I’m staring at the camera through half lids, caught in midblink. I look stoned. My mouth is lax, and my hair is sticking out at all ends. I’m not stoned. Anna woke me with the camera at a sleepover, and twenty-four hours later she had prints. It’s hideous.
The entire world can look at it, and they can see me hideous.
THIS IS A GROUP FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE REGINA AFTON. DO YOU HATE REGINA AFTON? FRIEND US AND LEAVE A COMMENT!!
I scroll down. The group has only one interest listed—hating me. Anna heads up the featured friends, followed by Josh—
And Kara and Marta and Jeanette and—
IH8RA has 300 friends in total. There are only 450 students at Hallowell High. The remaining 150 either don’t have a YourSpace account or they haven’t checked their e-mail yet. I click through the page slowly, checking out avatars, recognizing faces. So many people. Some I’ve spoken to, others I’ve never spoken to. Some I loathe, others I’ve never spared a second thought. A few I considered acquaintances. They’re all here, all tied together by their apparent hatred of me.
I navigate back to the main page, to the comments.
I shouldn’t read them.
I have to read them.
i fuckin hate that bitch.
The first—and latest—comment belongs to Jake Martin, some sophomore I’ve never really given a damn about. I thought he felt the same about me, but I guess not.
I guess he fuckin hates me.
Team Anna! :)
Kara, Jeanette, and Marta leave this comment several times, smiley face and all.
Team Anna.
Thnx for the add.
My less-astute classmates leave this comment. The ones who add anyone and everything and drop a little thank-you note before moving on to the next one, because that’s social networking for you. They don’t get it.
Or maybe they get it and they just don’t care.
slut
whore
tramp
keep trying with those sweaters, regina! they can’t hide what a
slut u r
loose
slut
whore
i fuckin hate that bitch
i fuckin hate that bitch
i fuckin hate that bitch
slut
thnx for the add
Team Anna! :)
The same things over and over again. Each comment taking a cue from the last, each one a sharp jab at me. After a while, I even start feeling bruised. I scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, and a link catches my eye:
REPORT ABUSE
My cursor hovers over it. Click it. Click it. Report abuse. Easy:
Dear YourSpace, I’d like to report abuse.
My friends are abusing me.
REPORT ABUSE
I refresh the page, and the friend count has jumped. 302. So have the comments. 203. I refresh again and the comments jump again. 204. I straighten. People hate me and they’re online right now, hating me. I want to know who they are and I want to know what they’ll say. I have to know, so when I step into school tomorrow I’ll have every comment tied to a face, so when I see those faces in the halls—I’ll know.
I refresh the page.