35

I knew the instant the video went live. I was in the hallway between first and second periods when phones began to ping, and the shuffle of feet went still. First there were gasps and giggles, then from a couple of guys – crude gestures and high fives.

It took a moment to realise I was the only one in the hall not looking at my phone. I pulled it out to avoid suspicion, but I didn’t load the website. I already knew what they were all seeing: Ashley stripping down to her bra and striking poses that looked a lot more silly than sexy when viewed by an audience of classmates.

The video was inescapable. Everywhere I went, every corner I turned, it was in my face or in my ear. I caught a glimpse of it over a girl’s shoulder in Advanced Lit; I heard a guy jerking off to it in the West Wing bathroom; and I witnessed teachers, red-faced, barking at students to put away their phones.

The only person I didn’t see watching the video was Ashley, who had obviously – and wisely – gone home. I should have done the same. I spent half the day in a walking coma, with my eyes closed and my headphones over my ears. I skipped lunch, and Zach didn’t even text me to complain. He’d probably given up on me.

Maybe I’d given up on me too.

I was secretly relieved after school when Isabel wasn’t at her locker. I had expected a text from her when the video went live, and I wasn’t sure how to interpret her silence. I would have to find out later, because right then, I had something important to do. I raced home, my bike leaving tire tracks in the soil where I sliced through the cornfield. If it hadn’t been for Spanish, I would have cut out earlier, but then again, the damage had already been done.

I dropped my bike on the lawn and blasted through the front door, not bothering to stop in the kitchen, even though I was starving from not eating all day.

‘Eli!’ Misty called as I pounded up the steps. ‘Hey, we need to talk—’

I slammed my bedroom door, cutting her off.

My fingers were already on the keyboard as my backpack hit the floor and my butt landed in my desk chair. I had never tried to manage our site from anywhere other than Seth’s house, but that deal was done now. The most important thing was to shut it down – even if it meant exposing my own IP address.

I typed in the admin login and cursed.

They had changed the passwords.

I took a swig from a warm, stale can of Red Bull, left over from the weekend, set my music to heavy metal, and got to work.

It turns out, it’s not so hard to hack your own website, since you know the code better than anyone – but Seth and Mouse were ready for me. On the other end of the connection, they were doing damage control – throwing up roadblocks every time I found a way in. It felt a lot like one of our ACC practise sessions, and I couldn’t help but note that we’d all gotten pretty good at penetration and defence. It would have been fun if I hadn’t been so damn desperate.

Seth and Mouse put up a good fight. Seth only texted me twice to call me a traitor and a pussy, and Mouse never looked away from the work to message me at all.

Sorry, was all I sent back.

Two hours later, Friends of Bishop was a ghost town. I didn’t just take down Ashley’s video; I deleted them all, one by one, until only the site’s headline was left. Tumbleweeds might as well have been rolling across the screen. Then, because I was high on energy drinks and adrenaline, I actually created little tumbleweed graphics and sent them skipping around the home page.

I sent one more text to Seth and Mouse.

You’re welcome.

Maybe they would thank me later and maybe they wouldn’t, but I was pretty sure I was off the team either way.

I reconfigured access to the site’s root directory, so they wouldn’t be able to do any more damage, then I passed out from exhaustion before the sun had even set.

*

I woke up in my pitch-black bedroom on top of my covers and still wearing my clothes. I felt around the bed until my hand closed over my phone and squinted at the sudden brightness of the screen.

3:00 AM

And wide awake.

I turned on the lamp next to my bed, illuminating a small round plate with a peanut butter sandwich on the nightstand.

Misty.

My stomach growled. How long had it been since I’d eaten? Twenty-four hours? More?

I ate the sandwich gratefully, then stripped off my stale clothes and took a shower. I intended to fall back into bed, but by the time I stepped out of the shower, I knew I was done sleeping. My brain was too busy, wondering if Seth and Mouse had cooled off, if clearing the site had been enough to satisfy police, if Ashley would be back at school.

I took my time getting ready, deliberately avoiding my computer. I did that sometimes after a coding binge – took a second to see the world offscreen. But usually it was just that – a second – before I was back online. This morning felt different. I didn’t even want to turn it on. I worked around it, instead clearing the cables and drives and dust off my desk. Then I emptied my overflowing hamper and scraped the dried toothpaste out of my bathroom sink.

It was still only 5:00 a.m. by the time I’d run out of things to do. I scanned my mostly clean room the way I would scan a line of code – looking for any tiny errors that changed the whole picture. I spotted one of those errors on the nightstand – the sandwich plate now sprinkled with crumbs.

I took the plate to the kitchen and rinsed the crumbs off in the sink, wondering what Misty had thought when she’d brought it up to my room only to find me passed out in yesterday’s clothes and probably snoring up a storm. I bet she was worried.

I squirted some dish soap on the plate and gave it a good scrub. When it was clean, I set it in the centre of the kitchen island and stuck a Post-it where the sandwich had been with two scribbled words:

THANK YOU

Then I slipped out the front door just as the sun came up.

*

It was kind of nice cruising around Haver while it was still asleep. Our tiny downtown was washed in the warm first light of the morning, all the storefront windows turned to panes of solid gold from the rising sun. I rolled my bike up and down the main drag a few times, waving at shop owners as they arrived, yawning, to unlock their doors and start their days.

I watched them checking their phones, firing up computers inside their stores, and I was grateful, for the moment, to be unplugged.

When downtown got too lively for me, I aimed my bike toward school.

With any luck, the cybersnoops would give up the search, and Friends of Bishop would soon be a memory. Maybe everyone at school would be talking about something different today. It was crazy how fast the world moved on to the next thing.

I reached the bike rack by the side door and locked up my wheels. Campus was strangely quiet. I checked my watch – half an hour until first period. Early, but not early enough to be the first person here, and the rack was full of wheels. Was there some morning assembly I hadn’t heard about? Another phony Jordan memorial? The side door was locked, so I circled the building to the front.

And the scene there caused me to stumble over my own feet.

I was not the first person at school – not by a long shot.