I’m back in my room, and a kind of grim determination has settled over me, which is much preferable to the panicked helplessness of earlier. I may not be able to take Tori on directly, but at least I can do my best to stop her from the sidelines.
First things first: new Facebook profile. Bethany Anne Soames. Big pinned announcement: As you might have guessed my account has been hacked. Please report and block, thank you. Then I send out friends requests: to Amy, Indigo, Patrick, Auntie Sandie, Uncle Paul, my cousin Frankie who lives in America, the few people from school who tolerated me . . . everyone I can think of, which rather sadly ends up only being about twenty people.
But it’s a start.
With each friendship request, I send out a message, reiterating that this is the real me, that my old account has been hacked, please please please report and then block them.
To my surprise, the first person who gets back to me is Patrick, via Messenger.
Oooookkkaaayyy. I’m pathetically grateful for him believing me but could have done without the mention of the pictures. And what does he mean, viral? No, don’t look. Can’t get distracted.
Thnx P. U think u could get Amy to msg me? Been trying to get hold of her all day and she’s not picking up.
Oh. Well, I guess Amy was never going to be the type to keep her emotions to herself. Sounds like she didn’t tell Patrick what the argument was about, though—thank the lord for small mercies, I guess?
It’s a very long story. I just want her to know it’s not me, and for her to be careful. This hacker is not to be messed with on any level, k? That goes for u and the others too—DO NOT ENGAGE. Just report and block them.
Thanks for helping, Paddy—totes appreciate it xxx
A rather complicated emotion wells within me. It’s a bit like gratitude, but it’s also a bit like . . . being happy? And—I don’t know—some kind of affection? Whatever it is, it buoys me. Patrick has my back. And with any luck, Amy might talk to me and everything will be okay.
If I ignore the whole Dizzy thing, of course.
Whatever emotion Patrick briefly coaxed out of me flees like a deer. Because if this works, and Patrick rallies the troops around me and Amy comes back and we all prevail over Tori, it’s going to be a million times worse when they find out about Dizzy.
I bite my knuckles, paralyzed by the realization that, sooner rather than later, I am going to have to tell them. And they are going to hate me for it. And I am totally going to deserve that hate.
But for now, Operation Catfish needs to be kicked up a notch.
There are a couple more replies on my new Facebook page, and even a couple of friend requests. I’m not going to add them, though, not yet—can’t run the risk of one of them being Tori in disguise. I have to be completely in control of this or it’ll all go wrong.
I open my laptop and bring up the secret folder where I saved pictures of Tori. There are quite a few, some innocent, some not so innocent, and I take a deep breath before selecting one and running an image search.
Three seconds later, I’ve found her.
Unsurprisingly, her name isn’t Tori Heidegger. Her name is Adele Durand, and she’s an aspiring plus-size model. She lives in Quebec with her fiancé and fluffy gray cat called Claude.
I scroll through her Instagram account, feeling hollow. Even though I knew this would happen, it still hurts. Adele doesn’t have many followers, but she seems nice enough. She posts in both English and French, so I don’t always know what she’s saying, but it seems to be a lot of the old “love yourself” claptrap these girls like to promote. I wonder if Tori ever trolled her, or if she simply left her alone so she could steal her life? It’s hard, seeing what I thought was Tori’s face, smiling, laughing, pouting, pictures I had treasured, imagining that this was my girlfriend when it was all a lie.
I take a moment to grab a tissue and blow my nose. All fake. All lies.
Time to find out who Tori Heidegger really is.
I am not surprised when my initial Google search brings up nothing. I go through all the different internet handles she used in my presence, but they all come up blank. Then I try different versions of her supposed name: Victoria Heidegger, Vicky Heidegger, Victor Heidegger, Vic Heidegger . . . a couple of hits, but they’re obviously completely different people. Hell, Heidegger alone brings up a fucking Final Fantasy character, and I have to laugh—how the hell did I not put that together? She must have seen me coming a mile off once I fell for that one.
If she’s a she, of course. She could be a he. She could be absolutely anyone.
And that’s the scariest part of it all.
***
I keep scrolling through the names, trying to find something that might hint at “Tori” doing something like this to someone else, but there are so many stories out there of people being conned online, there’s no way of telling if it’s by the same person. It strikes me, a little too late, how sad all of this is. How sad our lives must be, both the perpetrators and the victims, for us to resort to this kind of contact. It takes a special set of awful circumstances for someone to end up in that headspace, and I can’t help but wonder what Tori’s are. Was the psycho-bitch-ex part true? It would explain a lot. Or was it something else, something even darker? Or maybe she is simply a first-class asshole, an entitled bitch who thought the world should bow before her—and when it didn’t, well, I was just another convenient scratchpost.
Or maybe she was one of my victims. Maybe she found out who I was and decided I needed taking down a peg. That thought makes me shiver. Because unlike the other scenarios, that one’s personal and completely of my own construction. Did I make the monster? Is this the universe finally telling me it’s fed up with my bullshit, and that it’s time to sort out my life?
Beside me, my phone buzzes. I seize it—it’s Amy, wonderful, lovely Amy, calling me at last.
“Hello?”
“Hi.” Amy sounds subdued. “You all right?”
“Yeah. I think so. I’m so sorry about all of this.”
“You don’t need to apologize. You were hacked. Totally and utterly out of order. Who would do that? Why do they do it?”
Good question. You got a couple of weeks? I might be able to tell you.
“I think it’s the girl I met online. You know, the one I told you about the other day? We had an argument, and a couple of days later—boom. I’ve been played. I should have known. Good things don’t happen to me.”
The ferocity in which all of this hits me takes me by complete surprise. Before I know it, I’m sobbing, gulping for air, apologizing to Amy for putting her through it, for putting them all through it. Thankfully, I catch myself before my confession leads to Dizzy. I know I need to tell her at some point, but this just isn’t it.
By the end of it all, Amy’s also crying; for some reason, she’s apologizing too, saying she overreacted the other day, and that it doesn’t matter if I’m a student or not, all I did was sit in a few lectures, oh, this is all so messed up . . .
“I feel terrible,” she sniffs. “Absolutely terrible. But I’ve reported everything and have spread the word. People are blocking your old account, and I reckon it’ll get pulled soon.”
“Oh my God, thank you so much,” I say, aware of how pathetic that sounds. “And you have nothing to feel bad about. I brought this on myself.” In so, so many ways that I can’t admit right now.
“No, you didn’t. No one asks for this. Bloody hell, what is wrong with these people? First Dizzy, now you . . .”
I shift uncomfortably. “Yeah.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m going to trust the powers that be on this. I’ve done all I can. There’s no point dwelling on it.”
I’m amazed at how sensible I’m managing to sound, and even more amazed that I actually kind of mean it. Once upon a time, I’d be spitting blood, doing everything I could to troll “Tori” back, even if it meant trolling my own page, but now I realize that’s futile. Why bother? Seriously, why? With any luck, I have Amy back. That’s about as good an outcome as I could wish for. Sure, there’s still the Dizzy issue, but let’s just focus on the now. That’s what all those Mindfulness morons go on about. Stop worrying about the future, and live in the present. It’s healthy. It’s productive. It’s avoidance of the first order, but we don’t talk about that. Everyone, chant after me . . .
“Oh, you’re so calm! I’d be all over the place if that was me. Look, I’ve got a lecture this afternoon, not that I need to tell you that”—she giggles nervously—“so I’m a bit busy today, but do you want to go and have a coffee tomorrow? Kind of start anew?”
Fresh tears well. “Yeah. That would be cool. I’d like that a lot.”