Offline

by Donna Cooner

  He shrugged again and, after an awkward silence, put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. For a while now. I just didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Well, I am hurt.” More like destroyed. Shattered.

  No reply. His shoulders dropped. “I never wanted that.”

  Jameson stopped pacing. The air suddenly felt cold. I shivered as though someone had touched the back of my neck.

  “So, this is over?” I asked.

  He finally looked in my eyes. His face. So familiar. His voice. I’d know it anywhere. I forced myself to hold his gaze.

  “I think so,” he said.

  I crumpled in on myself, but I blinked hard to keep the tears from spilling out.

  “Are you okay?” Jameson asked.

  “What do you care?” Humiliation made my voice even sharper.

  “Of course I care about you, Annie. That hasn’t changed.” He reached out to touch my shoulder again, but this time I stood up.

  Despite my best efforts, the tears leaked out the edges of my eyes and down my cheeks. I knew people all around were watching. Before I could embarrass myself even more, I turned and hurried away. But I didn’t go back into the school. I couldn’t. I’d never cut class before, and I felt bad for doing it, but I would tell my teachers I’d been sick. I felt sick anyway.

  I left the campus and started walking. Out of habit, I looked down at my phone and checked ChitChat. As I suspected, videos of my conversation with Jameson had already been posted, and there was a new hashtag: #AnNOson. I read the comments posted below each video.

  DID I SERIOUSLY JUST WITNESS A BREAKUP IRL AND ON CHITCHAT???

  Y’ALL FAMOUS! #ANNOSON

  YOU R AN IDIOT. GROW UP, GIRL. HE’S DONE #ANNOSON

  UR DEFINITELY SINGLE NOW #ANNOSON

  I kept walking, and walking, and realized I was walking home. It would take forever, but I didn’t care.

  As long as I didn’t have to go back to school.

  LUNA: OH MY GOD ANNIE I SAW THE NEW VIDEO. I’M SO SORRY WHERE ARE YOU???

  CAITLIN: WE’RE IN THE CAFETERIA. SOMEONE SAID THEY SAW YOU LEAVE SCHOOL?

  LUNA: ANNIE????

  I gave him my heart, and he took it and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me.

  —Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

  “You could have texted us sooner. We were freaking out,” Luna said when I opened the door to find her and Caitlin on my doorstep after school. I’d finally texted them back once I got home, to let them know I was alive.

  “Seriously,” Caitlin said, looking worried. “Don’t disappear on us again, okay?”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I said, walking back into the living room and collapsing on the couch. My phone lay silent and dark on the dining room table. I’d turned it off after texting my friends, and then I’d spent the rest of the afternoon mindlessly flipping channels between reality shows and Judge Judy just to try to keep from thinking about Jameson and ChitChat.

  Luna and Caitlin joined me on the couch. Luna put her arm around me.

  I immediately felt my eyes welling up again. “I feel horrible.”

  “What hurts?” Luna asked. I rested my head on her shoulder.

  Sniffling, I whispered, “My heart.”

  “Jameson is an idiot,” Caitlin declared. “And so is everybody else on ChitChat.”

  I lifted my head from Luna’s shoulder. “Not everybody,” I argued, sort of pointlessly.

  Caitlin was looking at her phone, and she let out a huff. “Have you seen what people are commenting on my poll?”

  “No,” I admitted. I’d been so wrapped up in my own drama I’d forgotten about Caitlin’s poll.

  Caitlin shook her head. “The no votes are climbing. People in the comments are saying I could be on the football team if I weren’t the coach’s daughter. They’re saying it’s about nepotism, not talent.” She frowned.

  “Ignore them,” Luna said. “I voted yes, of course.”

  “So did I,” I chimed in, wiping my eyes.

  “Thanks,” Caitlin said. “But those other voices are not so easy to ignore.” She glanced at me sympathetically. “Right?”

  I nodded, then burst into fresh tears as my friends sat beside me in silence.

  “I’m sorry that you guys have to keep seeing me like this,” I sobbed. “But I think I know what I need to do.” It had come to me while I was watching TV. “I think I need a break. A new start.” My voice grew stronger with each word.

  “What do you mean?” Caitlin asked.

  “I’m not going back to school,” I said firmly. “Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

  “Of course you’re going back to school,” Luna said. “Where else would you go?”

  “I’ll transfer to Rocky.” Rocky Mountain High School was the rival school across town.

  Caitlin stood up with her hands on her hips. “No way. You’re not changing schools because of some … boy.”

  “It’s not just because of Jameson,” I argued, feeling a pang at even saying his name. “It’s what everyone at school is saying. You should have seen how Mariah looked at me today.” I shuddered. “I walked by her just as she was asking Jordyn if Jameson was really available.”

  “Ugh.” Luna rolled her eyes.

  “Mariah and Jordyn are the worst,” Caitlin chimed in.

  “But it’s even worse on there.” I nodded to my phone.

  Luna sighed. “I know it’s really hard right now. But come on, Annie. You can’t transfer schools. You can’t leave us.”

  I knew what she meant. The thought of going to school—any school—without my two best friends was terrifying. This year was supposed to be our best year ever.

  I tried to reassure all of us. “I’ll still have you guys, but we just won’t see each other every day at school.”

  Caitlin wasn’t having any of it. She shook her head vehemently. “You’re not going anywhere. We’re in this together.”

  “Besides,” Luna added, “I’m sure there are just as many jerks at Rocky as there are at our school.”

  That was probably true. There were mean kids everywhere. And then a new, awful thought took hold as I stared at my phone. Who was to say all the rude comments stopped at the doors of my high school? Some kids at Rocky might have already seen the posts. And anyone I met there would be able to find out everything about me within seconds. Especially if they knew the right hashtag.

  “You’re right. It doesn’t matter,” I said bleakly. “I can’t run away even if I wanted to. I wouldn’t escape ChitChat even if I went to a new school.”

  Luna frowned. “What if we blocked and reported everyone who was posting horrible things?” she suggested. “ChitChat must have some rules about cyberbullying.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll start doing it now.”

  “Same,” Caitlin said, sitting back down with her phone.

  “Thanks, guys, but it’s pointless,” I said, watching them and feeling empty. “We don’t know if ChitChat can actually take any of those comments down. And people can just come up with new, creative ways to post mean stuff.”

  “What if we told a teacher about it?” Luna said, always looking for answers. She glanced at Caitlin. “Cait, you could ask your dad, right?”

  “The teachers already know, I think,” I cut in, remembering Ms. Garcia’s sympathetic look today. “There’s nothing they can do.” I sighed. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “But we can do something,” Caitlin said, her brow furrowed. She looked carefully from me to Luna. “We can turn it off.”

  I frowned at her. “Turn off what exactly? Our phones?” I picked up my blank phone. Shutting it off this afternoon had made me feel a little better, but I knew ChitChat was still out there, waiting.

  “No,” Caitlin said. “We turn off ChitChat. We deactivate our accounts. We delete it from our phones. We go offline.”

  I felt tiny bumps rise on my arm. It was such a simple idea. My life was so intertwined with ChitChat that I hadn’
t even considered I could just … leave it.

  “Wait, yes!” Luna said, leaning forward, her eyes sparkling. “I recently read a news story about this. There are these, like, summer camps where adults and sometimes teens go and totally unplug from everything. They turn in their devices and aren’t allowed to go online at all. Supposedly it helps them feel refreshed and happier.”

  “How long do they go offline?” Caitlin asked Luna, sounding intrigued.

  “It depends,” Luna said. “A few weeks? A month?”

  “We can’t give up our phones for a month,” I said, gripping mine as if Luna was about to snatch it away. “What about texting? And email?”

  “And phone calls,” Caitlin chimed in. “Plus, I don’t know about you guys, but my dad always has me text him if I go anywhere alone, to let him know I got there safely.”

  “Same with my parents,” I said, and Luna nodded. That was an undeniable fact of our lives. “And we can’t give up the internet,” I added. “We need to research stuff for homework.”

  “And for news stories,” Luna put in with a sigh.

  We sat in silence for a moment, all looking down at our phones in our hands.

  “Well, maybe it doesn’t have to be that extreme,” Caitlin spoke up. “The issue here is ChitChat, right? Social media?” She glanced between me and Luna. “We love it, but we kind of hate it, too.” She talked fast, gathering steam as her idea took shape. “Maybe we deactivate all our social media accounts, and delete them from our phones and computers. And we don’t go back on them. For … one month.”

  “No social media for a month?” The thought made my stomach tighten. “Then how do we document the important things in our lives?”

  “We experience them,” Caitlin answered with a shrug. “In real time.”

  “How does anyone know we actually did them, then?” I whispered.

  “We know it,” Caitlin said.

  It still sounded extreme. I turned my phone back on and watched it glow to life in my hand. I felt a rising panic at the thought of disconnecting from everyone and everything. Not knowing what Jameson was doing, what he was posting. Not being able to follow my travel accounts. All those photos and videos … gone. My hand trembled.

  But suddenly, the ChitChat notifications started pinging again in my hand. Three … eight … twenty-two … and climbing. I felt like throwing up. Maybe Caitlin was right. Maybe this was the only way. But …

  “What about your poll?” I asked Caitlin. “Don’t you want to see the results?”

  Hesitation flashed across Caitlin’s face. Of course she wanted to see what happened with her poll. Who wouldn’t?

  I turned to Luna. “And what if you need to be on social media for the paper?” I said.

  My friends were both quiet, thinking.

  “What if I just delete my apps?” I suggested. “I’m the one with the problem. You guys don’t need to do it, too.”

  “No,” Caitlin said. She glanced at her phone again, then looked back up at us. “The poll is stressing me out anyway. I can ask Davis or someone to tell me when the final results go up.”

  “And honestly, going off social media will probably help be me more productive with my writing,” Luna said. She turned to me. “If you do it, we do it, Annie. That’s how this works. We’re in this together, like Cait said.”

  My heart melted and I blinked back tears. “Thank you, guys,” I said, touched that they’d do all this for me. “But I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough to really stay off ChitChat,” I admitted. “How can we resist the temptation? What’s to stop us from just reactivating our accounts anytime we want?”

  Luna bit her lip. “We should have rules,” she said. Of course she would say that. Luna was always the one to make up or enforce the rules.

  “Like what?” Caitlin asked.

  “Maybe we limit our time on our phones so we’re not tempted,” Luna explained. “For instance, I’m constantly texting you guys and checking my phone to see if I have new texts. Maybe we only text each other … what? Twice a day?”

  My heart dropped, and Caitlin and I exchanged shocked glances. Twice a day? That was nothing. “Three times a day?” I offered.

  “Fine,” Luna said. She pulled out a notebook and pen from her backpack and turned to a fresh page. “We only text each other three times a day—unless there’s an emergency, of course,” she began, writing everything down in her notebook.

  “I’ve got another rule,” Caitlin said. “Maybe we say no screens after ten o’clock at night. I’m always cranky because I don’t get enough sleep.”

  “Same,” I admitted. I was often up too late scrolling on ChitChat or doing online shopping. “And maybe … no phones during breakfast, lunch, or dinner,” I suggested. I thought about how my parents were always telling me to stop bringing my phone to the table.

  “No phones while eating, no phones after ten,” Luna repeated, scribbling away.

  “And maybe we have some … reward,” Caitlin said. “For staying offline.”

  Luna smiled. “Like what? Chocolate?”

  “That’s your answer to everything,” I said.

  Luna nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “No,” I said, feeling a new strength in me. “Our reward is that we’ll be free of ChitChat, and what everyone is doing and saying on there.” I sat up straight and held up my phone. “Right?”

  Luna reached out and grabbed my hand. “You’re right.” She looked at Caitlin. “Okay. Ready?”

  Caitlin nodded.

  I nodded, too, even though I didn’t feel at all ready. I took a deep breath.

  I watched as Luna pulled up her ChitChat account and hit DEACTIVATE. Then she pressed her finger to the ChitChat icon on her phone. A blue X appeared, and Luna clicked it.

  “I just took ChitChat off my phone. There. Gone,” she announced. Then she deactivated and deleted the rest of her social media apps.

  “I’ll go next,” I said. It was the least I could do since Luna and Caitlin were making this sacrifice for me. I deactivated my ChitChat account, then pushed down tight on the ChitChat icon. It began to pulse with life and my finger hovered over the blue X when it appeared.

  “Here goes nothing?” I looked up at the two faces staring at me. They nodded and I hit the delete button. Gone.

  I thought I should feel better. Like a weight had been lifted from my mind. But honestly, I just felt nervous. Like something was missing. I pushed the feeling away and quickly deactivated and deleted my other social media apps. Then I looked up from the screen. “That’s all of them. Now you,” I said to Caitlin.

  Caitlin deactivated and deleted all her social media apps, too. Then we sat in silence.

  “Now we promise. No, something even more serious …” Caitlin snapped her fingers. “A … vow.”

  Luna and I exchanged a glance. We knew what Caitlin meant.

  “Fire ring,” I said solemnly, and Luna nodded. I looked at them both, wide-eyed. This was serious.

  The first fire ring was when Caitlin’s parents took us all camping the summer before middle school. Cait’s mom was still alive then, and I remembered how we’d arrived at the campsite around dinnertime. The river was steps away, gurgling over the rocks and splashing into foam. Cait’s mom spread out hot dogs, buns, chips, and all the fixings on the concrete picnic table while her dad set up the tent. Caitlin coached me and Luna on how to find sticks just the perfect length for cooking hot dogs over the fire. Later, after the adults were asleep and the hot dogs were long gone, the three of us sat around the fire talking about the scary prospect of going to middle school.

  “Nothing will change,” Caitlin said.

  “Don’t be silly. Things will change,” I said quietly. “We’ll change.”

  The flickers of the dying fire lit Luna’s solemn face. “But we’ll still be best friends.”

  Caitlin nodded. “Of course.”

  “Promise,” I said.

  I stretched my hands out to each side, and we le
aned in to close the circle, our fingers entwining tightly. With the fire glowing in the middle, I said it first, then squeezed Luna’s hand to pass it along.

  “As this fire is my witness, I vow to always stay friends. No matter what. No matter how.”

  There were more fire rings after that, mostly at the outdoor firepit in Caitlin’s backyard when the weather permitted. The ceremony was only to commemorate the most important things. Like when Luna decided to ask out Blake Place in seventh grade. And then when Caitlin’s mom started losing her hair from cancer and Cait needed to help her shave the rest of it off.

  And today, it seemed, was another big moment.

  “Should we go to my backyard?” Caitlin offered.

  I shook my head. I was worried I’d lose my nerve and rethink everything if we didn’t take the vow right here and now.

  “Get a candle,” Luna said, reading my mind. “We’ll have to make do.”

  I slid off the couch and went into the kitchen. After rummaging around in one of the drawers, I finally pulled out a pink glittery candle decorated with butterflies. I brought it back out to the living room and shrugged.

  Caitlin laughed. “Seriously?”

  “My grandmother gave it to me for Christmas.”

  “It’s fine,” Luna said, getting up from the couch. Caitlin stood, too.

  The three of us settled onto the living room floor, our knees touching. I lit the candle and carefully placed it in the middle of the circle. We all stared at the flame.

  “What do we say?” Luna asked.

  “Simple.” Caitlin crossed her arms. “We vow to stay off social media for a month.”

  We went around the circle and repeated the words: “As this fire is my witness, I vow to stay off social media for a month.”

  It sounded a little silly, but by the time we were done, the vow felt real.

  “I bet we’re the only three people in the whole school who aren’t on social media,” Caitlin finally said after a moment.

  “Well,” Luna said with a smile, “at least we’re … unique.”