Look - Zan Romanoff Page 0,86

warned you. Emma bought the pictures back from all the guys who had them and got one of them kicked out of school for other stuff—he was selling amphetamines to freshmen on campus like some kind of criminal idiot—so people don’t talk about it, and I don’t like to spread the story. But I wish more people knew about Ryan.”

“Me too,” Lulu says. “Me fucking too.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

JUST TYPING CASS’S name into the to field of a text makes Lulu feel like she needs to lie down and take a nap. They almost always messaged each other on Flash, so at least she doesn’t have to have the app reminding her how long it’s been since they spoke. Still, though, her pulse picks up with each letter she types. C-A-S-S. Lulu has never made a fool of herself for anyone before, not on purpose, anyway. She’s always figured out how to do the flattering thing.

Fuck flattering, she thinks, and writes:

You can ignore this or tell me to shut up, but I just wanted you to know that I saw Ryan after we talked, and he gave me a hard drive with some, um, “extra footage” on it. It’s been sitting on my desk and I haven’t known what to do with it, but I’m going to destroy it. I thought you might want to do that with me?

She adds four hammer emojis for effect.

Lulu has no idea if hammers will actually be involved. She just wants to be clear she isn’t trying to get Cass to, like, forget everything and start over. She’s just trying to facilitate a little bit of healing revenge and stuff-smashing. She wants to erase as much of Ryan from their lives as she can.

That sounds kind of ideal, actually, Cass writes back. Bonfire at mine?

You don’t think that’s a recipe for like . . .

an explosion?

You were being literal about the hammers?

Could be cathartic

Hang on, I’m googling.

Lulu is sitting in front of her laptop, but she figures she’ll let Cass run the search.

Instead, while she waits, she does something she hasn’t done in a long time: She googles herself. Owen’s dad’s fan sites come up first, the ones that were archiving her Flash. She wonders if they’ve figured out that she and Owen broke up, and if so, if they’ve stopped following her. She wonders if they’re on Kiley now instead, imagining her life as voraciously and inaccurately as they pictured Lulu’s.

She’s surprised to find, though, that a little bit farther down in the results, there are a couple of blog posts people have written about her. Maybe one of them is Naomi’s friend.

She can’t tell about that, but Lulu is mentioned in some feminist website’s essay about the Selfie Generation and, like, what does it mean that kids these days are documenting their lives? The essay mentions the Sloane video, of course, a “radical, virtual, viral coming out that announced her sexuality not with language or labels but by enacting it on a very public stage.” It praises her for her courage.

Then there are people’s responses to the essay, which argue Lulu’s actions and intentions, what other people think she meant and did with her Flash in general and that Flash in particular. They were all written before Ryan’s pictures came out; Lulu wonders what they would have thought of her if they had had that evidence at their disposal. They’d probably all still be wrong.

No one knows what it’s like inside of her. It’s not their fault, and it’s not hers either.

It’s strange to think of herself as the subject of feminist critique and debate, the same way the women she’s been hearing and reading about for months now are—to think of herself as a woman, much less a woman artist. Lulu imagines responding to all of these essays: “Thank you so much for your consideration, but I was just drunk and dumb and horny, tbh.” How hilariously disappointed they’d all be.

You know, you might be right about the hammers, Cass texts her. Weirdly, I think analog is our best bet in this case.

Let me know when you’re ready, Lulu says.

Can’t tomorrow, Cass says. What about Wednesday night?

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

WHEN CASS OPENS her door, Lulu holds the hard drive out between them like an offering, or a shield. “I brought it,” she says.

Cass smiles briefly. “Good.”

“Are your parents or anyone home?” Lulu asks as they make their way through the house. It’s 4:30 p.m. and starting to get dark already. She’s ready for