7

BATTLE

Eric gripped the phone in both hands as he exited the hotel bathroom. This Tessa person had better follow him fast. He only had a few minutes before Maury expected him downstairs, and then he’d have to endure his manager’s company for the hour-long ride to the poultry farm. Eric didn’t know if he could face it. Not without venting his overwhelming sense of frustration—fourteen million followers worth of pent-up rage.

He silently willed the Twitter notification to appear, and he let out a grunt of satisfaction when he saw it.

Tessa H (@TessaHeartsEric) followed you.

Eric tapped the DM button so hard he nearly cracked the screen.

Taylor: Hey, Tessa. Thanks for the follow.

Tessa H: Hi

Taylor: Hey can I ask you a question?

Tessa H: Um OK

Eric’s mouth twisted dangerously as he entered his next message. He knew exactly how to play it. He’d been around enough fangirls to know how they all talked.

Taylor: Personality quiz! If you were an animal, what kind of animal would you be?

Tessa H: I dunno. A gazelle maybe? Why?

Taylor: Cuz you know what kind of animal Eric Thorn would see, if he ever noticed you existed?

Tessa H: Ummm. I dunno. Not a gazelle? Maybe a chicken? :P

Eric didn’t even read her answer. He plowed on, texting like a man possessed, entering new messages as swiftly as he could move his fingers—not even thinking about the words.

Taylor: A leech.

Tessa H: Excuse me?

Taylor: That’s right. A nasty, bloodthirsty leech. With no purpose to your miserable, meaningless existence except to suck.

Taylor: And when he saw you there, sucking, he would shudder with disgust.

Taylor: And he would flick you off with his fingernail.

Taylor: And then you know what he’d do, Tessa? Then he’d forget you ever existed and go about his day.

• • •

Tessa’s jaw dropped open at the words that flashed across her screen. She’d been sitting in her beanbag chair, but she stood now and paced back and forth across the narrow bedroom. Her stomach churned. This couldn’t be happening. Her first foray into social interaction with a stranger, and she’d picked some nasty troll. She should have known better. She’d totally misread the signs. Personality quiz…

A leech?

It wasn’t true, of course. As if this Taylor person could see inside Eric Thorn’s head any more than Tessa could. Ridiculous.

Still, the DMs hit her like a gut punch. They knocked the wind right out of her, and Taylor managed to fire off a whole string of messages before Tessa finally gathered herself to reply.

Tessa H: Wow. Thanks for the insight. And this is from…who exactly? Oh that’s right. An egg.

Taylor: Yeah, I’m an egg. You know why I’m an egg? Cuz I actually have a life. In the real world. You might want to try it.

Tessa H: You don’t know anything about me!

Taylor: Why don’t you find a real person to obsess over instead of some pathetic celebrity?

Tessa H: For your information I have a boyfriend.

Taylor: Oh really? And what does your “boyfriend” think about your Twitter account?

Tessa winced. She’d already been feeling guilty about Scott—as if she somehow betrayed her boyfriend every time she tweeted about Eric Thorn. But that was all just paranoid nonsense. Lots of people had fan accounts. Celebrity crushes. It wasn’t like Scott even cared what she did on Twitter.

She’d only traveled a few feet across her room, but her legs felt like she’d just completed a marathon. She sank down heavily onto the edge of her bed.

Dr. Regan had it wrong, Tessa thought, as her breath rushed in and out in shallow gasps. Not every interaction had therapeutic value. This one would probably set back her progress for months.

Taylor: And…silence. Isn’t that interesting?

Tessa H: I’m done with this conversation. Bye.

Taylor: I’m guessing this “boyfriend” probably doesn’t exist.

Tessa moved to the settings menu. Her finger skimmed past Mute this time. She eyed the other options. Block, perhaps? Or should she hit Report and call out this Taylor person for abusive language?

Taylor: But if he does exist, I feel sorry for him because you’re kind of a shitty girlfriend.

Tessa’s eyes flew back to the message thread, and the last remnants of oxygen left her lungs. Her mind could barely put together a coherent thought. Really? Like…really though? OK, no. No way. The Report button wasn’t good enough for this creep. With a burst of adrenaline, Tessa leaped to her feet and texted back.

Tessa H: You have no idea who I am or what I’m dealing with!

Taylor: Oh let me guess. Are the cool kids mean to you at school? Boohoo.

Tessa H: For your information, I’m on Twitter a lot because I have a condition called

She stopped herself in midsentence. It was none of this loser’s business. Tessa quickly deleted the words from her message bar and wrote something else instead.

Tessa H: You know what? I don’t owe you an explanation. You’re the one with the problem. Maybe you should go take a good long look in the mirror.

Taylor: Hmmm like Eric? He loooooves taking good long looks in the mirror LOL

Tessa’s chest heaved as she sucked in the air, in full fight-or-flight mode now, texting too fast for Taylor to get a word in edgewise.

Tessa H: So according to you, Eric sucks. And I suck. And basically everyone sucks except for you. Do I have that right?

Tessa H: You know there’s a word for that. It’s called projection.

Tessa H: You should look it up sometime.

Tessa H: Or are you too “super busy” attacking random strangers?

She paused after the last message, clutching her chest with outspread fingers as she struggled to catch her breath. The whole exchange had brought to mind a Tumblr quote that she saw once. Tessa liked to save them to her camera roll sometimes—little quotes and sayings she could go back to and recite to herself whenever her anxiety level started to rise. She knew the one she wanted, and she scrolled through the endless sea of Eric Thorn pics to bring it up:

Tessa added the image to her message bar, with her finger poised to fire it back the moment Taylor responded. She stood stock-still, ready to spring, like a sniper waiting for her prey to wander between the crosshairs. The seconds ticked by as she held back.

Silence.

Was it over? Had she won? She had the distinct impression that Taylor had left the conversation. Off to find a new victim, perhaps.

The Tumblr quote still remained, and Tessa hit Send before shutting down her phone: a punctuation mark on the end of her victory.