The Fallout Chapter 9

“Oh, you didn’t know?” He nods. “Took a bunch of pills over spring break at her grandparents’. Her grandmother found her.” I shake my head slowly. “And she still came back to school. That’s amazing, isn’t it? And that whole time you were ruining my life in the morning and seeing my mom in the afternoons….” I press my hand against my mouth. “What do they say, again? You reap what you sow.”

I didn’t know she tried to kill herself.

“Then this should make you feel good,” I say. “Chad Gilbert? I totally didn’t have sex with him, but not for lack of him trying really hard—” My voice breaks. “I even have the bruises to prove it.”

Silence. He gets it, and for a second he almost looks sorry, sick. “Hayley—”

“Tell Liz,” I say, “the mean girl totally got what she deserved in the end.”

This was stupid, coming here. I turn away from him, make my way across the concrete to that small strip of grass that will lead me out. I’m almost there when he calls my name, and then I stop and he says, “Nobody deserves that.”

My house is quiet. Empty .

My parents work. They work and work and work.

I sit at the kitchen table and press my face against its cold wooden surface. I stopped crying between my house and Josh’s, but I could start again, so I just want to stay here and not move. I am not moving.

Everything is fine, just so long as nobody moves me. But then the sun goes down and the room gets dark and I haul myself up from the table and shuffle to my room. I turn on the light and sit on the bed. Nobody deserves that. I imagine the words coming from Dakota’s mouth, Kara’s, Taylor’s mouth, and then I do cry.

One stupid tear after the other. My stomach doesn’t feel so great, so I take an antacid and then I take another one. Nobody deserves that.

But I’m starting to wonder.

To: Hayley Williams

From: The YourSpaceTM Team

Subject: You have been invited to join the IH8HW group on YourSpaceTM!

Dear Hayley,

You have been invited to join a fun new group on YourSpaceTM! Click the link to sign into your

YourSpaceTM account and find out who wants YOU to be a part of THEIR group!

Regards,

The YourSpaceTM Staff

It’s probably from some band. No one I know e-mails me anymore.

But it’s fun to pretend to be wanted.

I click the link and I’m sent to a page that prompts me for my username and password. I type them in and wait for the browser to load.

A few seconds later, this pops up:

You’ve been invited to join the IH8HW group on YourSpaceTM. If you would like to join this group, click ACCEPT. If you do not want to join this group, click NO, THANKS (the group will not be notified).

My cursor hovers over ACCEPT. IH8HW. It’s an acronym. I contemplate it, even though I could just click the link and the mystery would be solved. But that’s no fun, and I’m smart enough to figure this out and—honestly—I’ve got nothing better to do with my time. My brain works to put the pieces together.

I H 8 H W. IH8HW. IH8HW. IH8. I H8. I hate. IH8 HW. I hate HW.

HW.

Hayley Williams.

I Hate Hayley Williams.

You have been invited to join the I Hate Hayley Williams group on YourSpaceTM!

I throw up.

I’m hunched over the toilet watching dinner come up, and my mind is doing this the whole time: It might not have anything to do with you it could mean anything you haven’t even seen the page yet how do you know it’s about you it could be a promo for some band it might not have anything to do with you how do you know it’s about you.

Knock-knock on the bathroom door.

“Are you sick, Hayley?” Mom.

Yes.

I wipe my mouth and flush the toilet.

“I’m okay. It’s nothing.”

“Let me know if you need anything?”

“Sure.”

But for a second, I think I do need her. “Mom…” She’s gone.

I run the tap as cold as it will go and splash my face. The computer hums in the next room, waiting for me, and I don’t have what I need to have inside me to go back in there and click the link. Courage. But that’s not going to stop me from doing it anyway. Psychedelic-colored shapes float across the monitor’s face. Screen saver. I jiggle the mouse, and the YourSpace page pops up. I stare at my choices: ACCEPT. REJECT. I choose neither. I click the blue link to take me to the group’s page to see what it’s about, because even though I know what it’s about, some small part of me hopes I’m wrong. The page loads.

I fall back into the chair. The soft sounds of the television in the living room drift in, and then other sounds follow: Dad rocking in his recliner. Mom washing dishes in the kitchen. I can hear the clinking of glass in the sink. A day off. A fan whirs next to me, raising warm air. It’s all so quiet and so family and it’s so perfect, and I have to share it with this—a page as red as my locker.

In the upper right-hand corner of it is a picture of me. I minimize the screen, horrified, before pulling it up again. It’s not a nice picture. It wouldn’t be. I’m staring at the camera through half lids, caught in midblink. I look stoned. My mouth is lax, and my hair is sticking out at all ends. I’m not stoned. Dakota woke me with the camera at a sleepover, and twenty-four hours later she had prints. It’s hideous.

The entire world can look at it, and they can see me hideous.

THIS IS A GROUP FOR PEOPLE WHO HATE HAYLEY WILLIAMS. DO YOU HATE HAYLEY WILLIAMS? FRIEND US AND LEAVE A COMMENT!!

I scroll down. The group has only one interest listed—hating me. Dakota heads up the featured friends, followed by Taylor— And Kara and Cassadee, and Sarah and—

IH8HW has 300 friends in total. There are only 450 students at Franklin High. The remaining 150 either don’t have a YourSpace account or they haven’t checked their e-mail yet. I click through the page slowly, checking out avatars, recognizing faces. So many people. Some I’ve spoken to, others I’ve never spoken to. Some I loathe, others I’ve never spared a second thought. A few I considered acquaintances.

They’re all here, all tied together by their apparent hatred of me.

I navigate back to the main page, to the comments.

YOU ARE VIEWING THE MOST RECENT OF 202 COMMENTS.

I shouldn’t read them. I have to read them.

i fuckin hate that bitch.

The first—and latest—comment belongs to Jake Martin, some sophomore I’ve never really given a damn about. I thought he felt the same about me, but I guess not.

I guess he fuckin hates me.

Team Dakota! 🙂

Kara, Cassadee, and Sarah leave this comment several times, smiley face and all. Team Dakota.

Thnx for the add.

My less-astute classmates leave this comment. The ones who add anyone and everything and drop a little thank-you note before moving on to the next one, because that’s social networking for you. They don’t get it.

Or maybe they get it and they just don’t care.

slut

whore

tramp

keep trying with those sweaters, Hayley! they can’t hide what a slut u r loose slut whore

slut

i fuckin hate that bitch

slut

thnx for the add

Team Dakota! 🙂

The same things over and over again. Each comment taking a cue from the last, each one a sharp jab at me. After a while, I even start feeling bruised. I scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, and a

link catches my eye:

REPORT ABUSE

My cursor hovers over it. Click it. Click it. Report abuse. Easy: Dear YourSpace, I’d like to report abuse. My friends are abusing me.

REPORT ABUSE

I refresh the page, and the friend count has jumped. 302. So have the comments. 203. I refresh again and the comments jump again. 204. I straighten. People hate me and they’re online right now, hating me. I want to know who they are and I want to know what they’ll say. I have to know, so when I step into school tomorrow I’ll have every comment tied to a face, so when I see those faces in the halls–I’ll know.

I refresh the page.

The buzz of my alarm clock jolts me awake. My mouth is parched and there’s a crick in my neck. It

takes me a minute to remember why I’m not in bed. I fell asleep in front of the computer. The last time I looked at the YourSpace page, it was 6:00 a.m. Now it’s a quarter after eight.

Forget coffee; I barely have time to get dressed, brush my teeth and hair. It isn’t until I’m racing across the parking lot that I realize how stupid this is: I’m rushing to get to school. When I reach the front doors, I hit a wall. I can’t step inside. I have one hand on the door handle, and it’s like I’m paralyzed. My mind tells my hand to open the door, but my hand won’t do it. My insides are made up of millions of feral butterflies gnawing at every bit of peace inside of me until there’s none. I can’t open this door.

“Fucking move,” someone mutters behind me. When I don’t, they shove me out of the way. It’s “Thnx for the Add.” Nora Green. She glares at me, opens the door, and steps inside. I follow her in before it swings shut in my face.

I’m ten steps in when “Slut,”

“Whore,” and “Loose” walk by. Jeri Waters, Elliott Pike, Mary Schwartz. “I fuckin hate that bitch” is talking to Gary Doyle at Gary’s locker. I start to shake. They both look me up and down when I pass. Chad is crossing the hall. I don’t notice him until it’s too late.

We slam into each other and stumble backward. He looks as bad as me, maybe worse. Unshaven, dirty, disgusting, wrecked. It’s only been a week.

He glares at me and then he gets close, so close his mouth is inches from mine. I’m afraid he’s going to do something like he did at Taylor’s party, and I wonder if anyone would do anything about it if he did, because they all hate me.

“Die,” he says, and then he walks away. I close my eyes, trying to keep it together, and when I open them, Josh is halfway down the hall, at the water fountain, watching me.

I head for my locker, where my lock refuses me. I try it over and over and over again and nothing happens. So I kick it.

“What’s the problem?”

Josh. Behind me. I point at the lock. “I can’t get it open.” I swallow hard. “It won’t open.”

I must look really pathetic, because he nudges me aside gently and grabs the lock. I can smell his aftershave. Sort of earthy and clean at the same time. I take a step back because I don’t want to be this close to him.

“What’s your combination?” he asks.

“Uh…” Never tell anyone your locker combination. Ninth-grade orientation. It was the first thing they told us, but who follows the rules? “Twelve, twenty, thirty-two, and two…”

I watch his thumb spin the dial slowly, each number hitting its mark like I swear to God my thumb did. I rest my head against the locker.

“Maybe you should sit with me at lunch,” he says after a minute. “Maybe it’s safer that way….”

“I didn’t tell you about Chad so you’d feel sorry for me.”

“Your call.” He gives the lock a jerk. It breaks free. Miracle. “There you go.”

When I raise my head to thank him, he’s gone.

“I told them to set up the net,” Nelson mutters, surveying the gym .

“Where. Is. It?”

I don’t know who “they” are, but I’d hate to be them when they run into Nelson later. Red creeps up her neck to her face: She’s ready to blow. I overheard someone say her name and the word hangover in the same sentence earlier, and I think it might be true, because she hasn’t touched her whistle.

“Rae!” she barks. “Williams! Go get the volleyball net out of the storage room, and the rest of you, get out there and jog until I tell you to stop!”

No one moves. Everyone’s holding their breath. It’s so quiet I can hear the vein pulsing in Nelson’s forehead. Rae as in Dakota. Williams as in me. The net in storage. Rae! Williams! Go get the volleyball net out of storage. Together.

“What’s the matter with you people? Didn’t you hear me?” Nelson winces at the sound of her own voice. “Move! Rae, Williams, don’t make me tell you twice!”

“Ms. Nelson,” Dakota whines from her spot beside Kara and Taylor, “can’t Kara come with me instead?”

I glance at Josh. He’s across the gym standing near some guys, not quite a part of their group but definitely a part of the scene. He rolls his eyes, bored.

Muttering. The people around us are muttering. Nelson takes several deep breaths in and out, like Dakota’s just asked her the stupidest question in the world.

“Rae,” she repeats, “and Williams. Get. The. Net.”

She jerks her thumb at the door. Dakota’s not dumb enough to tempt fate twice. Taylor squeezes her shoulder sympathetically. Dakota gives a horsey shake of her head, turns to Kara, mutters something bitchy, and walks across the room like she’s on a catwalk, leaving me to chase after her.

“The rest of you, jog!” Nelson shouts.

The jogging starts up—a stampede. Noise explosion. As Dakota and I exit the gym, Nelson orders everyone to do sit-ups instead.

“Don’t talk to me,” Dakota says, as we march down the hall. “I’m serious. Anything you want to say to me, I don’t want to hear.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Good,” she says.

“Good,” I say.

“Fine,” she says.

“Fine,” I say.

“You—”

She makes an exasperated noise and keeps walking. I start stressing. And then the stress turns to laughter that tries to bubble up my throat and out of my mouth. It’s not funny. If I laugh, I’m dead. But I really want to laugh.

That must mean I’m losing it.

My stomach reminds me this is no laughing matter. I find myself stopping in the middle of the hall, searching my pockets for an antacid. Dakota doesn’t realize I’ve fallen behind until I’m shoving one in my mouth and forcing it down, and then when she sees me, she rolls her eyes. I’m white hot, like with Kara in the hall, except I don’t want to hurt Dakota, I just want her to see what a mistake she’s made. My hand autopilots back into my pocket for another antacid because I can feel my stomach boiling. “Pathetic,” she says.

I don’t blame whoever bailed on Nelson: The volleyball net is wedged at the back of the storage room, unraveled behind a row of gym mats against the wall. “Forget it,” I say.

“You want to be the one to tell Nelson that?”

I sigh and we start shifting mats. They’re awkward as hell. The first ten minutes pass in the sounds of us breathing and the shuffle of the mats as we move them. When my arms start to ache and cramp, I notice she’s stopped, letting me do the work for both of us, waiting for me to catch on.

“Would you help?” I ask. She just stares. I grab the edge of a mat and get back to work. “Fuck you, Dakota.”

“Fuck you ,” she returns. “I thought I could trust you, but I should’ve known you’d stab me in the back, especially after Liz. You were never the same after that. I should’ve known you’d fuck me over.”

I don’t want to hear Liz’s name come out of her mouth.

“Dakota, shut the fuck up—”

“Don’t tell me to shut the fuck up. He was my boyfriend. He was my boyfriend for two years, and no matter what you felt about him, whatever you think it was, he was still my boyfriend.”

I let go of the mat. ” I didn’t sleep with him!”

“Shut up—”

“I didn’t sleep with him.”

“Hayley—”

I’m going to keep saying it until she hears it. “I didn’t sleep with Chad, and Kara is totally setting you up. You look like a fool—”

“Hayley—”

“Dakota, he tried to—”

“Shut up!”

She pushes me. I hit the row of shelves behind us, and the metal edges dig into my skin, and then she’s gone and I’m alone. I sit on the floor and close my eyes, and when I open them again, it’s not quite threethirty, but close, so I leave.