Truly, Madly, Like Me - Jo Watson Page 0,3

total loser. #FrankieFreaksOut

I needed a distraction, and lunges weren’t helping. I needed someone to talk to. So I went to WhatsApp and messaged Suzanne, a friend I’d met online. But when I saw the two blue ticks next to my message and didn’t get a response, the need to phone her kicked in. But you can’t just phone someone without first asking them if it’s okay to phone them. I typed her another message.

Can I phone you?

I stared at my new message and my hopes skyrocketed when I saw her typing back. I waited patiently for the moving dots to result in letters, but when they didn’t and the typing stopped and she went offline, my heart sank. She went offline in the middle of a conversation—she might as well have broken up with me like

@TheKyleWhite101 had done. The tears prickled in my eyes and, this time, I did make a call without asking.

“Hey, Jess,” I said, when my very busy-sounding sister answered.

“Frances.” She was the only person in the world who called me that. “What’s up? I’m in the middle of the school run.” She was always in the middle of something. Suburban mom in a Suburban, driving my niece Melissa to her myriad of extramurals, both cultural and sporty, so she would be well-rounded, as Jess was so fond of saying. And Melissa was only two. Jess had gotten married pretty young—high-school sweetheart, of course—and they’d actually conceived Melissa on their honeymoon . . . how perfect!

“I . . . I . . .” I stuttered stupidly and then the tears came.

“Frances, what’s happened?” she asked, sounding more irritated than concerned.

“No one likes me anymore,” I found myself wailing. “They’ve all unfriended me.”

I heard a sigh. A long, loud, protracted one. “I really don’t have time for this now. Isn’t there someone else you can call? One of your Facebook, Twittery friends or whatever you call them?” she asked, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in her voice. Jess had never really understood my “strange online life,” as she called it. She was all about real experiences, with real people, and couldn’t understand why I didn’t agree with her on this. Well, as far as I was concerned, IRL was not all it was cracked up to be.

“I went to the meeting with the lawyer the other day,” I suddenly said, sharing something real with her.

She paused. “That must have been difficult. What happened?” I sensed true sympathy in her voice this time.

“Well, I almost plunged to my death in an elevator afterwards, that’s what happened.”

I heard another sigh. I could tell she had now gone from feeling sympathy, to something else. She didn’t believe me. She was always accusing me of blowing things out of proportion. I’d once had the courage to share with her how I’d felt as a child growing up. How I’d felt utterly worthless, always standing in her perfect shadow. She’d said I was being dramatic and exaggerating.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said rather flatly.

I peered into my bag, and the white envelope stared back at me. I hadn’t opened it yet; I guess almost dying in the elevator and then having my entire life blow up had kind of put it on the back burner.

“He left me an envelope though. It’s white.”

“What’s inside?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“You should open it.” She sounded so rushed. My sister had always been the one person who still made me feel like a nobody, despite my followers telling me that I wasn’t. Well, in light of recent events, maybe she’d been right all along.

“Kyle broke up with me,” I moaned into the phone.

There was another pause. She’d never really liked Kyle. She’d once called him a narcissistic user. But that was only because she didn’t understand the nature of our relationship. It’s more complicated when you’re in the public eye and people turn to you for motivation and inspiration.

“Look, I’m sorry he broke up with you and you lost all your . . . friends. Although it’s not really a surprise—I’ve always said that guy was no good. But I really don’t have time for this now, Frances. I have a parent–teacher conference and then I have to make cookies for the bake sale so I can’t deal with you now.”

Deal with me?

I nodded. I could see that speaking to my sister was pointless, it wouldn’t give me what I was looking for, even though I didn’t really know what I was looking