“I … I’m sorry. So sorry.” Paxton held my gaze as devastation and something darker replaced his normally gentle humor.
His arms came around me and I stiffened to keep from curling into him, from letting go and completely losing it right there in the middle of the store. He immediately dropped his arms and stepped back. Not in a mad way, but like he sensed I needed the space to hold it together.
“I’m taking her home,” Elise said. It wasn’t a request. She led me out to her truck and opened the door, depositing me in the front seat like I was an injured kitten she’d rescued from the side of the road. “Your mom will know what to do.”
No, she wouldn’t. This was beyond her. Beyond any of us. In a matter of hours, amateur Internet sleuths had dug up my real name, my YouTube channel, and all my social media accounts. Every time someone googled my name, that was what they’d see.
And I couldn’t do a thing to stop it.
CHAPTER
FOUR
ELISE STOPPED SO ABRUPTLY in my driveway, I lurched forward on the seat. I clenched my hands together, like they were my sole reminder to keep breathing in, breathing out. Everything I’d built, worked for, swept away within hours. Elise moved to get out of the truck.
“Wait.” I gripped her arm. “I don’t want to tell my mom. Not yet.”
We’d just had one of the best days, and I couldn’t let her see what had come of it. Not when she’d had her first weekend off in years. It’s not like she could go on the Internet and personally scream down everyone who’d mentioned my name, though I wouldn’t put it past her to try. I still shuddered whenever I thought about the time she’d unleashed herself on the parents of three boys who’d stolen my doll and drowned it in the lake during one of our park days. She put momma grizzly bears to shame.
“Okay.” Elise waited. I didn’t need to explain anything to her; we’d had an innate understanding of each other since we were toddlers. “You can’t keep it from her forever though. People in town are going to talk.”
“I know. Just …” I stared at my house and swallowed. “Just give me a day.”
“I have to get back to work.” Elise squeezed my hand. “If you need anything, don’t even hesitate. I’ll have my phone on me all day.”
“Thanks.” I straightened my spine as I slid out of the front seat.
As soon as Elise drove away, I pulled out my phone and cursed the cracked screen. I opened Twitter. Before I faced the Bees and Mom, I wanted to see how involved Eric was—had he just retweeted Jessica, or had he been in on it from the beginning? The thought made my pulse pound in my ears again.
I scrolled through his timeline. He’d retweeted Jessica’s thread, but he didn’t comment on it like he knew it had been happening. So that was something. Still, he replied to people bombarding his mentions with a whole “Aww, shucks” demeanor I found disingenuous. And he lied about catching the fly ball. A ridiculous lie. If anyone had gotten a picture of me catching it, it would blow up with a quickness. He’d only posted one update since the night before.
@baseballbabe2020: Dreamed about a cute blonde and seashells last night. I hope she’s real. #baseballbabe
Barf. If he’d really been that into me, he would’ve gotten my number instead of acting like a lovesick puppy on Twitter. But texting me didn’t get him likes and retweets. Posting that he’d been dreaming about me did. A lot of likes and retweets. Over fifty thousand.
Still, I followed him. I needed access to his direct messages. There was no way I’d question him out in the open, not when my mentions were already a mess. He didn’t follow me back, and I closed the app before I threw my phone again and damaged it for good.
The chatter from the dining room halted as soon as the screen door slapped shut behind me. Usually the Bees were so elbow-deep in old lady gossip, they rarely noticed whether I came or went, but the silence that followed my footsteps had my gut twisting. Maybe they already knew. Maybe they’d found out from the web of information that spread across this town faster than it took for Wi-Fi to catch up. If I didn’t get to tell them myself, their reactions would be ten times worse. Gram would rage, Mom would worry. A roaring fire erupted between my temples. I’d burn the entire Internet down and feast on the smoldering bones left in its ashes.
Donna looked up at me as I entered the room. A woven leather headband circled her head, flattening her flowing gray hair. She’d never left her hippie days behind. Gigi gave me a little wave, and Paxton’s bunny shirt flashed in my mind. I had to choke down the laugh, for fear that if I let it go, it would become hysterical and never stop.
“Heard you caught a boy at the game.” Donna’s bright eyes twinkled. No doubt remembering all the boys she’d “caught” during the era of free love.
The muscles in my back stiffened. “What else did you hear?”
For the first time, I dared to slide a glance at Gram. If she’d found out from anyone other than me, I’d see it simmering within her like the tip of her cigarette. She looked me over and gestured for me to take a seat. My knees cracked as I slowly, so slowly, lowered myself to the wobbly chair next to Peg. Gram generally had more bark than bite, and most days I didn’t have a problem with testing her, but this was not most days.
The ceiling fan whirred above our heads, twisting the sticky paper that hung from it, littered with dead flies. I kept my gaze on the pear-and-apple design of the plastic tablecloth as Gram’s gaze pierced a hole in the side of my head, as if she could empty the thoughts in there from sheer will alone.
I turned, and Gram’s sharp gaze narrowed. “Why aren’t you at work?”
Gigi stared between the two of us, as if she’d be willing to throw herself in as a buffer if the interrogation got to be too much. Gram meant well. Underneath her scaly layers—deep underneath—beat the heart of a softie who would claw apart the world for her family. Even if those claws were sometimes directed at us and what she deemed as our shortcomings.
I sucked in a deep breath. “Butch hired a new guy, and he’s never had a job before, so I let him take my hours for extra training.”
Gram sniffed like she could scent the lie on my tongue. “That was nice of you,” she said, as if she meant the exact opposite. “And how are you going to make up those lost wages?”
Of course I had to get the lost wages lecture on the worst day of my life. Because no one could take a day off around Bizzy Evans unless you were sick, and at that point you better just die, because you could’ve powered through it otherwise. Mom had taken four days off for strep throat three years ago and Gram still brought it up whenever she was in a mood.
“I could try selling sex on the Craigslist,” I said just to annoy her.
Peg let out a cackling laugh. “Nobody wants what you’re selling, girl.”
“I haven’t seen any boys sniffing around the back door in ages,” Gram said.
“Thanks, you two. Really.” I crossed my arms. “I was just thinking the other day I had way too much self-esteem, and I’ve been looking for a way to get rid of some.”
“That’s the problem with your generation.” Gram put out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. She’d burn the house down one day. “You get your participation trophies and slack off at work, and then you’re left with all this time on your hands to think about self-esteem.”