Every now and again, throughout the rest of the day, Amy’s phone pings and whistles, telling her various updates. My phone, in contrast, is fairly quiet. It did buzz once, but that was Amy tagging me into a status about Dizzy, so I’m not sure if that counts. The upshot is, I’m feeling pretty distant from something I was actually directly involved in, and it’s making me want to quit and go home.
Eventually we bump into a couple of people Amy knows and, well, you know Amy—she’s everyone’s friend. After hovering for a few minutes I make the excuse of having to catch the bus, and I split.
It’s only just past two, and as lectures don’t usually finish until four, I feel kind of up on the deal. It’s the closest you can get to time travel without knowing anything about quantum physics. I’ve managed to gain an hour and a half. Go me! Or that’s how I would be thinking if I didn’t just feel numb.
Indigo’s last text said Dizzy’s parents were on their way and that she and Max were coming back. I assume Max is Baby Colors, but who knows in this weird, hyper-connected world? On Facebook, people are talking about it on Amy’s page, and it leaves me feeling incredibly uneasy. Surely it’s up to Dizzy to tell people she had a meltdown that ended up with her being hospitalized? I know I wouldn’t like any of my issues being aired out in public like this, whilst I was in the hospital waiting for my parents to turn up, trying to think up a decent explanation for slicing my arms up like so many tomatoes and breaking their hearts yet again.
And yeah, sure, people are being supportive now, but what about when the vultures come circling? For fuck’s sake, she did this due to trolling. Talking about it openly just gives them a whole new playground to trash.
Except maybe not. Because while Dizzy thinks it was a group of people targeting her, it wasn’t. It was just two. Me and Tori. And I’m not about to start trashing this playground. I’m not about to let Tori do it, either.
Yes, yes, I know. I’m the one who told Tori that Dizzy existed, but I just wanted to dole out some payback. She was the one who took it to almost criminal levels.
Dizzy’s ripped-up arms are going to haunt me for some time. Too many memories I’d rather ignore being nudged awake.
I’m not nice.
And neither is Tori.
I almost clap my hand over my mouth, as if I’ve yelled it out at the top of my lungs rather than just thought it.
More thoughts come, thick and fast, piling up and up until they form a tsunami that teeters over me, threatening to crash down and drown me.
Never hacked anyone’s account until you met Tori.
Never destroyed a man’s marriage until you met Tori.
Never drove anyone to self-harm until you met Tori.
Never, never, never, Tori, Tori, Tori . . .
I cower in my seat.
I’ve allowed myself to be turned into a monster.
I just hope it isn’t too late to turn back.
***
When I get home, I don’t even check on Mum. I log in to my laptop, careful to avoid Metachat. Knowing Tori, she’s probably already worked out a way to tell if I’m logged in, despite it being supposedly completely anonymous.
First stop, new proxy. New VPN. New everything. I want to be as untraceable as I can for this. It takes a while to do it properly, but it’s worth it.
Then, Instagram. My favorite stomping grounds. If I’m honest, I can’t remember all the accounts I’ve shat all over, but I can remember enough of them to see a pattern—a wide trail of destruction and abandoned accounts. I stare at the screen. I can’t lay all of this on Tori, as some of these were before her time, but it is telling that most of the closed accounts are from the days of us tag-teaming. And to think, I once thought getting people to close accounts was a win. Getting one over the Beautiful People. Now, all I feel is shame as visions of Dizzy lying broken on the paramedic’s stretcher dance through my head.
How many more people have ended up like that? Not just at my hands, or at Tori’s hands, but at the hands of all the trolls? How many people have we laid judgement on? Destroyed their lives, and for what? A brief high, where we get to vent our hate and our frustrations and punish those who don’t live our lives.
Until we find out that they do live our lives. The struggles may be different, but we all have them, one way or another. I mean, what was I thinking? That Dizzy wasn’t real?
Just goes to show how easy it is to forget when people are an abstract concept, a few lines of code, a brace of photshopped pictures. To forget that they have feelings and emotions as real as yours, as legitimate as yours.
I stare out my window. A thin film of black mold is creeping up the seals, making the plaster bubble around it. Condensation has always been an issue in this house—it’s old, not that well-ventilated—but Dad used to keep it under control with yells of “Open your windows and let the place air!” while Mum came round with bottles of mold-killer that made the house stink of bleach. She hasn’t done anything like that this year, and now the price is being paid. I didn’t even notice how bad it was getting until now. I wonder if it’s too late to stop it. Probably.
Got to cut this stuff off at the root.
Back to the computer. Back to scrolling through page after page of hate. Less than half of it is mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel responsible for it.
There’s another ping from my phone. A text from Amy.
I bury my head in my hands and cry.