BY THE END OF THE WEEK, Fiona had more or less succeeded in putting the whole sexting episode behind her—aided greatly by a call from Lacey telling her that everybody at the party felt really bad about what had happened, and the way they reacted. Rick even wanted to find Ryan and kick his ass, although Lacey thought that was mostly just talk. Lacey put a message out on Friendjam, telling anybody who had received the photo to delete it immediately, so hopefully that was the end of it.
“Ignore it,” was Lacey’s advice. “Stay off of Friendjam for a few days, and just forget about it.”
Fiona briefly considered texting Ryan to tell him what a low-life scumbag he was, but she decided that would give him too much satisfaction. Lacey was right—the mature response was to rise above the whole thing and pretend it never happened.
It was Labor Day weekend and the beach was packed. A breeze off English Bay hinted at the end of summer, cooling down the open kitchen at the back of the food stand and putting Cathy in a good mood as she worked over the deep fryer.
“I’m going to miss you around here, kiddo,” Cathy told her, “but you must be looking forward to getting back to school.”
“I am,” agreed Fiona as she set up the coffee machine for a fresh batch. She wouldn’t have said so after her humiliation at Lacey’s party, but now that her world hadn’t actually ended, she was once again excited about grade ten, and about moving past last year’s mistakes—namely Ryan.
Cathy threw a nod toward the order window. “We got customers.”
Fiona turned to see a gaggle of three boys, doubled over with laughter, as though they were trying to outdo each other telling dirty jokes. From their scrawny frames and zit-pocked complexions, she pegged them as grade eights.
“Can I get you something?” asked Fiona, going to the window.
“Yeah,” said the boldest of the three. “How about a feel?”
Fiona stared at him in confusion for half a second. Then she saw the cell phone in his hand.
“You’re Fiona, right?” he said.
Fiona’s head was suddenly light. “Get lost,” she said, knowing she had gone every shade of red.
“C’mon!” shouted the shortest of the trio. “Show us your tits!”
Cathy was at the window in a flash.
“Get out of here!” she yelled. “Don’t you let me see you back here again!”
The three boys took off at a run, laughing even harder. Cathy turned to Fiona. “What the hell was that about?”
It was on the tip of Fiona’s tongue to say “nothing,” but instead she burst into tears.
“I did something really stupid,” she said. “I took this picture of myself…”
She trailed off, unable to say the words. Fiona couldn’t look Cathy in the eye, but Cathy must have understood, because the next thing Fiona knew she was being folded into a grandmotherly hug.
“Honey,” she said, “everybody makes mistakes when they’re young.”
Fiona’s mind raced. How did those walking pimples get hold of the photo? She imagined it loose on the Internet—forever!
“What am I going to do?” choked Fiona between sobs. “My life is ruined!”
“Kiddo, your life has barely even started,” Cathy replied, matter-of-factly.
But her words were no comfort. How could somebody Cathy’s age possibly understand how unforgiving cyberspace could be? But Fiona knew, and she also knew what was going to happen next. I’ll be the joke of Vancouver, of the whole country. Of the whole world!
Customers were lining up at the order window, and Cathy eyed them, no doubt thinking about how this was going to be one of the busiest afternoons of the year.
“Can you pull yourself together?” she asked, then smiled as Fiona gave a quick nod. “Attagirl. Go wash your face,” she said, “and don’t let the bastards get you down!”
FIONA MANAGED TO GET THROUGH to closing time, but she wondered with each hot dog and ice cream bar she served whether the customer had seen the picture—imagined that every group of teens trading laughs as they waited in line was laughing at her. After work, she sat at the back of the bus on the way to her dad’s, keeping her face turned to the window in case anyone recognized her, and her backpack on the seat beside her to discourage anybody from sitting down.
Never had Fiona been so grateful to climb the hill into her dad’s neighborhood, where nobody except her family knew her. But when she entered the house, a strange stillness greeted her. Katie was likely in bed already, but where was everyone else? She wondered for a moment if she’d gotten the night wrong, but—no—it was definitely her night at Dad’s.
“Hello?” she called.
“Back here,” came her father’s voice in reply.
Fiona headed to the large open kitchen at the back of the house, where she found her dad and Joanne seated at the glassed-in table that overlooked the backyard pool, apparently waiting for her.
“Hi,” her dad said, mustering a smile.
He tried to look her in the eye, but he couldn’t quite seem to manage it.
“What’s wrong?” asked Fiona, her mind rapidly processing various scenarios of disaster. Brandon and Katie must be okay, she figured, or Joanne wouldn’t be so calm.
“Sit down, honey,” her dad told her.
“You’re scaring me,” she said.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he replied. Joanne threw him an oh really? look, prompting him to add, “We just need to talk.”
Fiona sat down at the table, looking from one to the other.
“Are you hungry?” asked Joanne, but her manner was cold—lacking her usual determination to be the world’s best stepmom.
“I ate at work,” said Fiona.
Joanne looked to Fiona’s dad, as if to say, get on with it.
“I don’t think I was supposed to receive this,” he began. “Talia from the softball team must have me in her address book and sent it to me by mistake.”
Flustered and embarrassed, her father took his smartphone out of his pocket and handed it to her. With a sickened feeling, she glanced at the screen long enough to register a few words from Talia’s email below the photo—
“stupid dumb slut!” Fiona passed the phone back to him, wanting to die—right there, right then.
“We’re surprised, to say the least,” Joanne piped in. “What if Brandon or Katie saw that?”
“Joanne, let me handle this,” said her dad. Fiona had never heard him use such an angry tone with Joanne before.
“Saw what?”
They all turned to see Brandon standing at the top of the basement stairs, emerging from the rec room below with his friend Tommy.
“Nothing,” said Joanne with forced pleasantness. “Go downstairs and play Ping-Pong or something. I’ll bring you down a snack in a minute.”
Brandon and Tommy exchanged a look, like they knew they were missing out on something juicy, and reluctantly headed back to the rec room. Fiona’s dad waited until they were out of earshot before saying, “Fiona, you know we’re on your side no matter what. But obviously there’s stuff going on in your life that we don’t know about.”
“I made a mistake,” said Fiona, her voice small.
“I’m really struggling to understand why you would take a picture like that in the first place,” said her father, “let alone why you would send it to all your friends.”
“I didn’t!” protested Fiona. “I sent it to one person I thought was my friend.”
“Who?”
“Ryan, when we were going out.”
Fiona saw her dad struggling to process this. His little girl…
“Have you…been intimate with this guy?”
“No!” replied Fiona, shocked that he could even think that. “We only dated for a few weeks, and we broke up months ago.”
“And this guy sent this picture around?” said her dad, reddening with anger.
“Great company you keep,” remarked Joanne.
Fiona’s father snapped, “She’s my daughter—let me deal with this.”
“Fine,” Joanne bit back. She went to the counter and started pulling together a snack for the boys. Fiona glanced at her dad, but he seemed fixated on his balled fists resting on the table. He stayed silent until Joanne had disappeared down the stairs with a plate of cheese and crackers. His next words sent shock waves through Fiona.
“I’m going to need a phone number for Ryan’s parents.”
“Dad, no! Just leave it.”
“I just want to talk to his parents.”
“No! Let me handle it.”
“Fiona, how are you going to handle it?” he said, letting his exasperation show. “This guy took advantage of you, and now he’s damaged your reputation, possibly permanently. That picture is out there. I mean, ten years from now, future employers are going to google your name and find it.”
Fiona felt her stomach rise with renewed dread. “Thanks for the pep talk.”
“I’m just telling it like it is. Ryan has to take responsibility for what he’s done.”
“What you mean is, I have to take responsibility.”
He paused. Then, “Yes. That too.” He took a deep breath and sat up straighter. “Okay, so you want to handle it. What’s the plan?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid of making it worse.” She felt tears stinging in her eyes.
“Does your mom know?”
“No.”
“We should go talk about it with her, together.”
He pushed his chair back and got to his feet.
“No!” That was the last thing Fiona needed, her parents squaring off like pit bulls, with her as the bone in the middle. “I’ll tell her,” she promised.
He sighed. “We should go now, Fiona. Your mother should know what’s going on.”
“Tomorrow, okay? I’m really tired. I just want to go to bed.”
He hesitated, like he didn’t know what to say. From the painfully awkward look on his face, Fiona started to get it.
“What? Am I not allowed to stay here?”
“I’m sorry, honey. Joanne’s really upset,” he said, lifting his hands as if to say he knew it was crazy, but it was out of his control. “I’m going to drive you back to your mom’s.”
FIONA AND HER DAD drove in silence as they headed back across the bridge. She was glad it was dark out, so he couldn’t see how miserable she felt. As they crossed into the city, she watched twentysomethings walking in couples and in groups, and wondered if when she was that age the photo would still be out there circulating on the web, haunting her.
“Don’t worry about Joanne,” her dad told her as they got near her mom’s place. “She’ll get over it.” But the way he said it, it didn’t sound as though Joanne would “get over it” any time soon.
“What about my birthday?” Fiona asked uncertainly. It was just a couple of weeks away. They were supposed to have had a family party around the pool.
“I’ll call you, okay? We’ll figure something out.”
When he stopped the car outside of the apartment, he reached out his broad hand and cupped the back of her head, pulling her forward so they bumped foreheads. “Listen,” he said. “I love you, no matter what. You’ll always be my girl.”
Will I? she thought. Because it feels like you don’t even know who I am. But she said,
“I love you, too.”
She collected her things and opened the car door. As she climbed out, he leaned over to tell her, “Tell your mom.”
“I will.”
“I’ll call you.”
Famous last words. He drove away, leaving Fiona with the distinct impression that her own father had broken up with her.
FIONA CAUGHT ONE LUCKY BREAK—when she came into the apartment, she heard the shower running. She slipped down the hall to her bedroom, hoping to avoid a confessional with her mom for at least one night, but just as she closed her door, the shower stopped and she heard her mother shout out in alarm, “Who’s there?”
“It’s just me,” she called back.
“What happened?” her mom asked, pulling on her robe as she opened the bathroom door, wet hair dripping around her anxious face. “Why aren’t you at your dad’s?” Fiona’s chin started to quiver. She could feel tears coming. “Honey? What’s wrong?” her mom asked, taking her in her arms.
“I made a big mistake, Mom,” Fiona choked out.
Her mom held her away from her by the shoulders and gave her a reassuring look. “Fiona, nothing can be so bad that we can’t get through it. Are you pregnant?” she asked calmly.
“No!” What was it with her parents? Did they think she was some kind of sex fiend?
“I had to ask,” she said. She seemed relieved. “C’mon,” she told her, steering Fiona toward the kitchen. “I’ll make tea and you can tell me all about it.”
Once they were seated at the kitchen table with mugs of steaming tea, Fiona told her mom everything. She was surprisingly cool about the boob shot—“Everyone does things in a relationship they regret later,” she said, “Unfortunately, with the Internet the consequences are bigger than they used to be”—but she was furious when Fiona told her about Joanne’s reaction. “As though you haven’t been punished enough!”
After she’d calmed down a little, she told her, “Fiona, taking that photo wasn’t the smartest thing you’ve ever done, but what you do with your body is your business and nobody else’s. There’s going to be fallout, though, and you’re going to have to have a strategy to deal with it.”
Fiona knew what her mom was worried about—there had been several stories in the news in the past year about girls who were cyberbullied so badly after pictures of them got passed around the web that they wound up committing suicide.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. But would she? Did those other girls think they could handle the heat, until they couldn’t anymore?
“The main thing is to know who your friends are,” said her mom, getting up from the table and carrying their empty mugs to the sink. “Don’t allow anybody to turn you into a victim.” She came back to the table and kissed Fiona on the forehead. “I’m here for you, honey. And I’m sure your dad is, too. Just don’t get me started on Joanne again.”
Fiona put her arms around her mother and hugged her tight. “I’m sorry I’m so mean to you.”
“You can’t help it,” she said, stroking Fiona’s hair. Fiona looked up at her. One corner of her mother’s mouth was lifted in a wry smile. “Sadly, sometimes ‘mean’ is what teenagers do best.”
ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, Fiona sat in the auditorium with the other grade tens waiting to get their homeroom assignments. She had planned to wear a denim mini with a loose cami. Instead, she wore jeans and a long T-shirt to achieve maximum coverage, even though the day promised to be sweltering. The auditorium was loud with excited chatter and joking. Fiona was on alert for glances and whispers, trying to determine whether she was the center
of gossip, or—dare she hope?—if the photo had been forgotten. Lacey and Rick were seated on either side of her as protection, both having vowed to stay glued to her today, just in case anything ugly happened. A loud burst of laughter drew Fiona’s attention to the back row. She turned to see Ryan’s friend, Jeff, sitting with another jock, Max.
“Sweet rack!” Jeff proclaimed.
“Wonder what her ass looks like,” mused Max.
Max caught Fiona looking at them and, grinning, made a gross pumping motion against his crotch. Fiona turned her eyes forward and sunk down into her chair.
“Smarten up, douche bag!” Lacey snarled at Max.
“Omigod,” moaned Fiona. “The whole football team has seen it.”
“Fee, if you let this get to you, Ryan wins,” Lacey reminded her.
Vice-Principal Bains walked onto the stage and read off class lists. Fiona was disappointed she wouldn’t be in the same homeroom as Lacey, but at least she was in with Megan and Brit. After he was done, VP Bains dismissed the grade tens and told them their first full day would be tomorrow. Fiona filed out of the auditorium with Lacey and Rick, keeping her head down. Then she heard her name.
“Fiona?”
Fiona looked up to see Ryan just outside the auditorium door. Fiona wanted to spit in his face, but before she could do or say anything, Rick stepped toward him.
“Get lost!” he told Ryan, all macho—even though Rick was half a head shorter and, since Ryan had beefed up over the summer, about twice as scrawny.
“I just want to talk,” Ryan said to Fiona, ignoring Rick. He was acting nice, like when they were dating.
“She’s got nothing to say to you,” Lacey replied.
Lacey and Rick marched Fiona away, flanking her like her own personal bodyguards. She appreciated their loyalty, but after overhearing Jeff and Max, she was starting to realize that she couldn’t count on her friends to protect her forever, any more than she could avoid fallout from the photo. It was better to know what people were saying about her than to imagine something possibly worse. When she got home, she fired up her laptop and went onto Friendjam, bracing herself.
On the first page alone, Fiona had been tagged in the boob shot a half-dozen times. She scanned messages from people she didn’t even know, containing words like whore, skank, and stupid bitch. Oddly, it was the word stupid that hurt most of all. Nobody had ever called Fiona stupid before—not that they’d called her a whore or a skank—but she knew she was neither of those things. Now she felt like she had to prove to strangers she was smart. What was she supposed to do—post her GPA? Don’t give them the satisfaction! her instincts warned her. Don’t even acknowledge them! There was only one way for her to fight back, and that was to shut down her Friendjam account. With a few clicks of the mouse it was done—Fiona had severed ties with cyberspace. Now all she had to worry about was saving her reputation in the real world.