TMI (2014 Collector's Dream Winner)

TMI - Chapter 38

By the time school ended, Bailey had been laughed at, pointed at, and yelled at so many times, she was sure she couldn’t possibly feel any more humiliated even if she’d gone to school in Gram’s old bell bottoms. She escaped to the privacy of her room and texted Ryder for the hundredth time.

Where RU?

She waited and waited but the only signs of life her cell phone displayed turned out to be a Message Not Sent error that claimed Ryder’s number was unassigned. It was wrong — the phone company was wrong. Her brain was stuck on the same song — He wouldn’t do that to me. He just wouldn’t do that to me.

Her eyes burned, her head spun, but she ran to Facebook. Her Wall was covered in comments, even though Meg did delete the post that had started the rumors. She didn’t bother to read them all, just kept scrolling and scrolling. Finally, she searched her Friends list for Ryder.

A link beside his name made her gasp.

Add as Friend

Oh, God. He'd unfriended her.

Defeat was a punch to her gut. Tears dripped and she picked up the phone. She would find him. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. She wiped her eyes and pecked out a text but the phone stayed silent. A new post caught her eye. Someone had posted video of her confrontation with Meg. It had been edited down to only the big reveal. The She’ll kill you part was looped.

Her notebook laughed at her from the corner of her desk. She ripped the pages out and shoved them in the trash. The sketches Meg did of her characters were next — she tore them to shreds. She turned her back on the computer and powered up her XBox.

WyldRyd11 was not online. WyldRyd11 could not be found. She tried his email. It bounced back. There was only one thing left. She called Information, got the number of the big warehouse store where Ryder said he worked.

“Sorry. Nobody by that name works here.”

A chill walked slowly up her spine while the truth grabbed her by the hair and spit in her face.

She was right. Oh, God, Meg was right. Ryder wasn’t real.

He never was.

But the pain — oh, that was real. And there was only one person she knew who got off on it. She should have seen it, should have known it was coming. Caitlyn had told her right to her face that getting her was fun, but no — she’d never had a clue.

Bailey swallowed hard, the truth tasting bitter on the back of her tongue and underneath it all, there was the dull steady throb in her ear whispering Meg was right.

Meg was right.

Meg was right.

She fell to her bed and sobbed.