Read Online Spectacle (A Young Adult Novel) by Angie McCullagh - Free Book Online

a little more sparkle.
     
     
     

14. If I Could Chat with Anyone, It Would Be You
    O NLINE SHOPPING FOR jeans didn’t really work. Not in Emily’s opinion anyway. She needed to try the jeans on. Look at her butt in a three-way mirror. See if they clung to her just enough, but not too much.
    That morning she was at one of the household’s two computers (there was Melissa’s laptop, which she had taken over, and a full Mac upstairs in a small loft just off the stairway landing). She browsed sites she knew sold extra long jeans and put the clothes on virtual models, but, when it came down to it, she couldn’t submit the order.
    She clicked over to her Facebook page. She didn’t log on everyday. The updates were mundane, the cliquishness like an extension of school, right there in the kitchen.
    But Facebook was necessary. If not for Facebook, she’d be completely clueless at school, listening to other kids talk about links or videos she didn’t understand because she hadn’t checked her news feed.
    This time she saw she had two friend requests waiting.
    The first was from a girl, Julia Noma, who’d gone to Whitman Junior High with Emily, but then had moved to Wyoming. Accept.
    The second … and her heart started thumping faster … was from Ryan.
    She squeezed her eyes closed and told herself, Big deal. Big deal. So he wants to be your Facebook friend. He’s probably friends with everybody.
    She went to his profile page. Three hundred and eighty-two friends. Of course.
    Favorite movies: Napoleon Dynamite, The Bourne Trilogy, School of Rock, O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
    Okay, so he had decent taste in flicks.
    Favorite music: ( Please no rap, no rap, no rap , she thought.) Cake. White Stripes. Beck. Coldplay. Death Cab for Cutie.
    Favorite books: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , Anything Nick Hornby, Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.
    She sat back in her chair. So much of what he liked was what she liked. God.
    She read his favorite quote: “Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.” –Leo Tolstoy.
    Emily quickly looked to see if Trix was online. She wasn’t.
    She wrote her an email: Ryan just friended me on FB!!
    Then she deleted it. She didn’t want Trix to know that Ryan’s friend request was important to her. She didn’t want to give Trix reasons for not-so-covert glances at school or the possible slippage of Trix’s tongue.
    She was just about to log out of Facebook when the chat window opened. And there was Ryan’s photo—a black and white shot of him holding skis—next to his name.
    She read: Emily, my new friend. Thank you.
    She typed back: How could I not?
    Ryan: You could’ve refused.
    Emily: Why would I?
    Ryan: You could’ve sent me a personal message that said, ‘ I’m not friending you, lameass.’
    Emily: If u were, in fact, a lameass I might have.
    Ryan: So your opinion of me is one notch above lameass?
    Emily: Maybe a notch.
    Ryan: Relief.
    There was a long pause, where Emily reread their exchange.
    Emily: What are u up to today?
    Ryan: I just helped my dad fix the garage door. Now I’m drinking lemonade and looking for new music on iTunes.
    Emily: Bon Iver?
    Ryan: I’ll check it out. What about u? U finish that homework for Johnson’s class?
    The dark thought that maybe Ryan was trolling for homework help struck her and she recoiled from the screen. People more or less knew what kind of grades everyone else earned. So, he probably had a good idea that Emily was up there near the top of the heap.
    She didn’t want that to be true, that he was using her. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
    Emily: Theater of the Absurd assignment? No. But it shouldn’t take too long. U?
    Ryan: Did it Friday afternoon. H8 having that stuff hanging over my head.
    Emily: I know what you mean. Yet, I let it hang. Am lazy.
    Ryan: I find that hard to believe.
    Emily: It’s true.
    Ryan: Okay,