Pwned

  “Do you know how to pick a lock?” I asked skeptically.

  “No,” he admitted in shame.

  “So our only option is to wait here for the police to arrive?” I asked, already knowing the answer as I made my way back to the diving board. It was a nice little seat.

  Parker followed close behind me and soon we were both dangling our legs over the open water again, unsure of what to do.

  “How long do you think it’ll take them to get here?” he asked.

  “Parker, I haven’t been completely honest with you,” I said suddenly, ignoring the question and feeling like being trapped in our school’s pool room was as good a time as any to come clean.

  “About what?” he asked over the din of the alarm, looking slightly nervous.

  “I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a complete creeper,” I began, before stopping.

  There really wasn't a good way to say, “I’ve been pretending I don’t know you but really I do.”

  “I’m kind of worried for where this conversation is going,” he admitted, still smiling but looking unsure.

  “It’s just . . . I’m not a snotty cheerleader . . . I mean I am . . . or I was . . . but that’s not all I am.”

  “I already told you I know there’s more to you than that,” he said reassuringly.

  He really had no idea what was coming, did he?

  “Parker, I’m Xandris,” I finally blurted out.

  Maybe that was a little blunt, but if I didn’t come right out and say it, I’d never get it out of my system.

  He was silent for a long time, looking puzzled, as if trying to figure out how I could possibly know the name Xandris.

  “From Voyager’s Quest?” he asked after a long pause.

  “Unless you know another Xandris from somewhere,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “But how . . . I mean, did you know I was me when you were talking to me in game?”

  “After I ran into you at the café I did,” I admitted guiltily.

  “And you still let your friends do all of that crap to me?” he asked, sounding a bit mad.

  At that point, I knew this wouldn’t go as well as I had hoped. In my mind, he’d say “Oh yay, I’m so glad the girl I’m friends with online and the girl I like in real life are the same person! Problem solved.”

  Of course, things never go quite that perfectly, do they? And sitting on the diving board with the fire alarm ringing in the background while we waited to be arrested, I wondered if we would really be able to get everything resolved in the short time we had together.

  “I was awful. I can admit that. And I shouldn’t have let Tawny do all of those horrible things to you. Instead of running around trying to make it better after she locked you in a closet or dumped her food on you, I should've stopped her from doing it in the first place. I realize that,” I said, trying to make him understand how much I meant everything I was saying.

  I may have been the world’s biggest coward outside of the game, but I was working on it, and I thought I deserved some brownie points for that at least.

  “So all of those times I was asking Xandris for advice about you, I was just talking to . . . you?”

  “Elite Cheerleader,” I said timidly, raising my hand.

  “Huh,” was his response, his hand rubbing the back of his neck again.

  We were both silent for another moment, listening to the fire alarm and trying to figure out what to say next.

  “I hope you’re not too mad at me,” I said meekly. “I really would have told you, I just had some stuff to figure out first. And I promise I did try to keep Tawny away from you, but for some reason she went after you with more fervor than I’ve ever seen her possess. It was kind of weird.”

  “Seriously, Reagan? That’s your excuse for letting your friend torture me? You had some ‘stuff to figure out’?”

  His words weren’t biting like I had expected them to be. Honestly, he just sounded kind of resigned. But hearing how he actually felt about the situation after imagining him forgiving me a million times in my head was the killing shot.

  “It sounds bad when I say it like that, but I swear, I never meant to hurt you! I hated myself every time I let Tawny pick on you.”

  “I’m not helpless, Reagan. I could have handled Tawny on my own,” he explained, not looking at me anymore. Now his eyes were trained on the teal water that cast patterns across the face I had grown so fond of. “It bothers me that my best friend would let that happen.”

  “Best friend?” I asked, not following. Surely he meant best online friend . . . Though, I guess if I were being honest, he was my best friend too. I just never wanted to admit that my best friend was someone I didn’t even know for the first few years of our friendship.

  “I’m sure this solidifies in your book that I’m a sad nerd, but Xandris was my best friend. Hands down.”

  Was. He’d said was his best friend.

  “Parker, I don’t think you’re a nerd . . . I mean . . . not in a bad way,” I pleaded, trying to make him understand and feeling terrified that I had suddenly lost the only true friend I had.

  Way to nerf your own relationship, Reagan.

  “Great, that makes me feel better,” he said sarcastically, standing up from the diving board and walking away from me.

  I followed quickly behind him, not letting him off the hook that easily. He was my best friend and I’d wear him down with apologies until he had to forgive me.

  I’m aware that sounded a little creepy and desperate, but living a double life and being secretly in love with a nerd had kind of turned me into a creepy, desperate person.

  “Parker you have to believe me! I really like you. Like, a lot. I never wanted to hurt you and it would kill me if our friendship was over because I messed up.”

  “I don’t think it would kill you,” he mumbled, almost sounding like he was giving in even though I knew I had a long way to go to make up for everything.

  “You’re my best friend too,” I told him quietly. “You always have been. Every day, even before you got here, I couldn’t wait to get home to talk to you. Whenever Tawny was rude to me or I felt like a despicable human being, I’d think to myself, ‘At least I can talk to Parker tonight and he’ll make me feel better.’ I’ve never had someone like that in my life, Parker. You didn’t care that I was a mean, horrible person, you just told me I could change.”

  “In my defense, I didn’t know we were talking about you, since you left that little detail out of our conversations about Elite Cheerleader,” he said.

  “And I’m sorry about that. But please be that boy again—the one who sees that even though I did horrible things, I’m not a horrible person. I can change. And I have . . . because of you.”

  I had to make him see. There was no way I was losing a friend who actually cared about me over something as stupid as this. Okay, fine, he was totally justified in hating me, but that didn’t matter—I had to get him to forgive me.

  “I’m a ‘bind on pickup’ friend,” I told him with a smile, reaching out and taking his arm. “You can’t get rid of me even if you want to.”

  “Don’t try to get out of this by talking nerdy to me,” he threatened, though I almost saw a hint of a smile on his face.

  Almost.

  “Parker, please forgive me,” I pleaded one last time, thinking that maybe this night wouldn’t end so badly after all . . . Until the flashlights cut through the darkened room and I heard the shouts of policemen telling us to put our hands in the air.

  I guess my foray into the popular world hadn’t exactly ended perfectly, given the handcuffs that were soon secured around my wrists, but I still had time to set things right, even if it meant getting in trouble along with Tawny.

  I’d just have to hope that Parker could rez me after I sacrificed myself for the team.

  Or that he’d even want to.

  21. A Night Full of Win

  I’m not sure how a night in jail is supp
osed to go, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be quite so awkward.

  I should rephrase: I was sure it wasn’t supposed to be so socially awkward, as I profusely apologized to the boy who couldn't get away from me (you know . . . since he was locked in a cell and everything).

  Parker and I weren’t exactly dangerous criminals, so we’d been placed in overnight holding cells right next to each other and separated by metal bars. Boys on one side, girls on the other.

  I’d given my photos and videos to the police officers for review and told them that although the evidence pointed to Parker, he didn’t have anything to do with the school vandalism. The empty spray-paint cans in his locker definitely seemed to suggest otherwise, but there was one thing Tawny and her herd of bimbos hadn’t counted on—fingerprinting. That word completely made my day.

  I readily admitted to the police officers that the whole prank had been my idea, even though I hadn’t been too thrilled with actually executing it. They seemed to at least appreciate that I would turn myself in. I was sure they still wouldn’t go easy on me, but at least I could feel good about admitting my guilt.

  They seemed to believe me about Parker as well, but they kept him overnight anyway, to make sure his story checked out with mine, I guessed. So we sat, side by side on the floor of our cells, Parker trying to ignore my pleas and me trying desperately to get him to forgive me.

  Poor boy.

  “If it makes you feel any better, Tawny’s been torturing me my whole life . . . so we’re sort of in the same boat,” I offered.

  “Then I’m jumping ship,” he said, looking over at me seriously.

  “Parker, please—” I began again.

  “Oh my gosh. How about I’ll forgive you if you stop saying, ‘Parker please forgive me’,” he said in exasperation.

  “I’ll take that,” I said quickly. “I’ll take the ‘forgiving out of annoyance’ card. That’s what I was going for anyway.”

  I smiled over at him tentatively, hoping he’d return the smile.

  He did.

  Sort of.

  “I do hope you actually forgive me though. Because I really am sorry.”

  “I’m okay with it all . . . sort of . . . I just have to figure out if I told you anything too embarrassing about yourself when I didn’t know you were you . . . if that made any sense at all.”

  “All you did was make me realize I didn’t have to hide behind fake popularity to be happy in high school.”

  “Were you ever really happy when you were popular, though? I mean, really?”

  “I felt like I was safe from being taunted, that’s for sure, but I was never happy ruining people’s lives with Tawny,” I admitted. “But I never felt like I was brave enough to . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t know if I have an excuse for how I acted.”

  “Well, it’s a little weird that you never told me who you were, and one day down the road when you try to win an argument, I’ll pull that fact out as a ‘win 1 fight for free’ card, but for now, I think I can get over it,” Parker said.

  He was so forgiving, but really, it had taken him long enough! I’d been sweating bullets since the police brought us in. And oddly enough, that fact had more to do with the possibility that I might have lost my best friend and absolutely nothing to do with the being arrested thing.

  Okay, it had a little to do with being arrested.

  “I can’t believe you were Xandris this whole time,” he finally said with a smile. “I should have known. You sounded the same, you went to the Lights concert, and you knew who Felicia Day was. What cheerleader is that tapped in to nerd culture?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t do the best job of hiding my inner nerd, did I?” I asked.

  “You should have been meaner. Then I never would have believed you.”

  I laughed at his statement, thinking it probably wasn’t true. He tried to see the good in everyone.

  “Your avatar kind of looks like you, actually,” Parker said with a laugh, garnering an odd look from some of the other people in his cell.

  “Minus the pointy ears, right?” I joked.

  “Yeah. Minus that.”

  “Do you see now why I was such a spaz when Kaydinn recognized my voice at your house?”

  “I just thought you were so blown away by my kissing that you had to leave my presence,” he said in a mock cocky voice.

  “Yeah, that was the real reason,” I agreed, pressing my face against the cold metal bars and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  He turned his head quickly so that our lips met, and for the first time, I kissed Parker without feeling bad about hurting him or guilty about my double life. I reached my arms through the bars to place my hands on his shoulders as I kissed him, ignoring the hard metal between us that was definitely hurting my cheeks.

  He kept one hand on the cheek Tawny had bruised and the other on my waist, being deceptively suave for a nerd, and I allowed myself to revel in the feeling of his lips against mine.

  “No touching!” one of the guards yelled, hitting the cell bars loudly and scaring us apart.

  I smiled over at Parker, whose face was flushed from our intense jail cell kiss.

  We were such rebels.

  “Too bad I’m stuck in this cell—I’m just so blown away by your kissing right now,” I joked.

  “Not cool,” he answered, fixing his glasses that had slid down his face and grinning irrepressibly.

  “When do you think they’ll bring The Squad in for questioning?” I asked, suddenly curious and hoping I wouldn’t be sharing a cell with Tawny.

  “Honestly, I think they might be sending people out to their houses right now.”

  “I definitely gave them enough evidence. I have pictures and video of Tawny and the other girls vandalizing the school.”

  “I’m all for you breaking away from the plastic brigade and everything, but I’m surprised you’re doing it in such an extreme way,” he told me, reaching through the bars and lacing his fingers through mine. Apparently the “no touching” rule hadn’t phased him that much.

  My heart gave a little flutter at this gesture but I didn’t say anything, not wanting to shake his new resolve to forgive me for my sins.

  “I wanted to make sure no one else was going to get hurt by Tawny and her psychosis . . . unless, of course, all I’ve done is make her even more angry so now she’ll be worse.”

  “I don’t know—community service should teach her a thing or two, I’d hope.”

  “You can always hope, right?”

  We both fell silent again, and I had to wonder what school would be like now that I’d be on the other end of the popularity spectrum. Would Parker’s friends really accept the girl who had tortured them for so long? I hadn’t exactly been the nicest person in the world.

  Maybe once they saw Tawny being awful to me, they’d know I was officially on their side. They might even like me more, since as long as I was around, Tawny would always focus her efforts on making me miserable rather than them. I could only hope they’d accept me. I’d hate to be an outcast to every single clique in high school.

  If that did end up being the case, I guess I could form my own little guild with Parker. We would be happy with just the two of us in our nerd heaven.

  It was what we were good at.

  “Parker?” I asked.

  His head was leaning back against the concrete wall and his eyes were closed, though his fingers were still wound around mine.

  “Yeah?” he asked, sounding far away as he drifted in and out of sleep.

  I wanted to thank him for making me brave enough to stand up to Tawny. I wanted to thank him for making it okay for me to be myself. I wanted to thank him for finding something good in me when I was convinced that I was all bad.

  But there were never enough words right when you needed them, and all I could think of to say was a simple, “Thank you for seeing me.”

  22. /G Quit

  I knew it was impossible for everything to work out
perfectly when there were so many loose ends to tie up, but besides being forced to do community service with the rest of The Squad, everything actually ended up much better than I could have hoped for.

  Because I had turned myself in and had given the police the evidence linking the rest of The Squad to the crime, I’d gotten fewer community service hours than the rest of the girls. I would've felt guilty about that fact, but helping them get away from Tawny’s controlling clutches more than made up for it, I thought.

  Tawny had managed to get community service inside of a nice office building rather than picking up trash on the side of the road like the rest of us. I was sure her parents had something to do with that arrangement, but I was completely fine with it. It meant that, thanks to a rather fortuitous development, I’d never have to see Tawny again.

  For all of the time I’d spent stressing over how Tawny would treat me when I got back to school, I hadn’t expected her parents to pull her from our school and transfer her to a private boarding school, claiming that the influence of The Squad wasn’t good for her delicate young mind.

  That was a huge lie, but I didn’t protest it in the slightest. Anything that got Tawny away from me and the rest of the student body was definitely fine in my book.

  Another huge perk that I hadn’t quite expected was the disbanding of The Squad. Our principal was shocked by the many years of hazing details I’d saved up to tell him, and he immediately suspended the cheerleading program indefinitely.

  This was my final gift to the students I had tortured for so many years. I could say I was sorry all day long, but until I did something to make up for my horrible behavior, they were just words. Luckily, getting rid of the league of extraordinary plastics was high on everyone’s priority list, and I became something of a hero for being the person responsible for the end of an era.

  I was fine with that.

  It was much better to be loved for being a good person than to be sort of respected because people were scared of you, right?

  Parker and I had gotten past all of the weirdness that accompanied my big reveal (after several long talks and me repeatedly promising him that there were no more skeletons in my closet) and now we were happily gaming together, not caring that we were probably the world’s biggest nerd couple.