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  “Ah, yes.” He nods. “The Twitter trolls. Not as bad as the in-person trolls, but still pretty bad.”

  “Sure, yeah. A troll is no big deal. But then today there was this tweet.” I show him the second one from today.

  “Yikes. That’s harsh,” he says with a low whistle. “I’m sorry someone said that to you.”

  “But here’s the thing. I was in Jamba Juice when this was tweeted. And I realized that only one person knew I was at Jamba Juice, and only one person knew when I first met you, and that was my friend Ellie. So I realized she was behind it and we got into this huge fight. The only thing is I can’t figure out why she would do this. It’s such an immature thing to do, you know?”

  “How bizarre.” He looks at the phone, then at me, then at the phone, then at me, as if trying to figure out whether I’m crazy or not.

  “I’m not crazy,” I say. Smooth, real smooth.

  “I don’t think that you are. I just don’t know what to make of all this. I’ve had plenty of Twitter trolls, but this has to be the strangest. Well, no, the strangest was when some girl started tweeting that I was a hermaphrodite and said she had pictures to prove it. The pictures were photoshopped, I swear.”

  “Yeah, no, I believe you.” I laughed weakly. “Here’s the thing.” My inner self speaks up and I let her take charge. “I really like you. I had a great time the other night. But I don’t want to date a player. And I don’t want to change you, either. I’m not saying I need you to commit to me—­I mean, we’ve been on only one date; that would be ridiculous and way too soon. All I’m saying is that if you’re planning on dating me while also sleeping with all of Hollywood, I think we should just end it now. I just want to know what you’re looking for.”

  Dalton is silent for a long moment as he swirls the crystal in his drink. “I see,” he says slowly, at length.

  “It’s totally fine. I don’t want to make you be anyone you’re not or do anything you don’t want to do. We had a really nice night and I don’t regret any part of it. I think that you’re—”

  “Harper”—he puts his hand on my hand—“you’re tripping.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Well, don’t. Listen, yes, what they say on the Internet is true. I have a reputation for being a playboy and a bit of a flirt. I admit I wasn’t a good boyfriend to Jade or Christina—I mean, they’ve both done a thorough job making sure all of the world knows that—but hell, I deserved it. I’ve been working on myself a lot and kind of just growing up. I think I’m already a lot less childish than I used to be. I don’t want to be a player. I’m not interested in playing around anymore, actually.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was a bad boyfriend because I was young and stupid. And because I knew those girls weren’t right for me. It never felt . . . right. You feel right to me.”

  “Oh.” I mentally whack myself on the head for being so inarticulate and awkward, but I’m honestly floored by everything he’s saying. It’s pretty much the opposite of what I was expecting to hear.

  “This might seem kind of intense, but I really want to do this. I mean, I want a relationship. I know we just met, but you’re the one I’ve been looking for. It feels real, right? Don’t you feel that?”

  Wow. This was really not how I was expecting this conversation to go. Like at all. I figured once I spoke my heart and mind to him, he would go running in the other direction, straight into the nearest strip club or Victoria’s Secret fashion show or wherever rich and famous playboy types like to hang out.

  “Harper? Hello?” I guess there had been a few moments of my staring incredulously and silently at him.

  “Yeah, hey, what’s up?”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes. But I don’t believe it. You want to, like . . . be in a relationship?”

  “Pretty much.” He smiles shyly, like he’s caught off guard by his own bold gesture.

  “You want me to be your girlfriend,” I say slowly.

  “Yes.”

  “And you want to be my . . . boyfriend.”

  “Yes.”

  “But . . . But . . .” When something seems too good to be true, that normally means it is, right? I feel like at any minute I’ll wake up from the happiest dream of my life and be thrust back into the cold, hard reality where Dalton James has no interest in a lowly YouTube personality like me.

  “But what? Is that not what you want? We don’t have to. I just like you so much and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather—”

  “It is what I want. This is definitely what I want.” I try not to sound too enthusiastic, but I feel like freaking Cinderella and he can probably tell. He leans in to kiss me, and as our lips touch, I feel my worries and fears just melt away. Boy has that effect on me.

  “Listen,” Dalton James, my new boyfriend, says, “I have to go to London next week for a few days. For work.”

  “Oh, okay,” I say, somewhat disappointed. But my boyfriend is an A-list celebrity, after all. I suppose it comes with the territory.

  “I think you should come with me.”

  “What? Me? Go to London?”

  “Yes, is that too crazy?”

  “Yeah! I mean, no, it’s not too crazy. It’s definitely a little crazy, though. I have school.”

  “So just come with me when I leave on Friday and stay for Saturday and Sunday. Then fly back to Los Angeles on Monday. I’ll have to stay for some interviews, then fly to New York for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”

  “Okay, now you’re losing it. Fly to England just for the weekend?!”

  “Yeah, so what? Posh and Becks do it all the time.”

  “Posh and Becks?” I actually laugh out loud. “As in Posh Spice and David Beckham? Do I look like Posh Spice and are you David Beckham?”

  “Well, no, but if they can do it, we can do it. It’s not like you’d have to spend any money, you know? I’ll get your ticket, and when we get there I’ll book you your own room at the Kensington Hotel, on me. Whaddya say?”

  “Oh, wow. Well, I’m in, but I can get my own ticket. And my own hotel room, actually.”

  “Are you sure? They’re really expensive and I want you to sit with me up in first class.”

  “Yeah, I know. I got it.”

  “You can afford a first-class round-trip to London?”

  “Hell yeah, I can.” I grin. “Welcome to the life of a YouTube star.”

  I would never call myself that in front of anyone else, but hey, it’s Dalton James. I survey his face, and VICTORY, he is effectively impressed.

  “Hey,” he says, “I just have one question.”

  “Go for it.”

  “If your Twitter troll really is this girl Ellie, why would she tweet about Jamba Juice while you were in Jamba Juice? Wouldn’t that just make her extremely obvious and give away her cover too easily?”

  That icky feeling I had in the pit of my stomach after Ellie stormed out of Jamba Juice starts to creep back up again. “Well, sure.”

  “I just don’t get why she’d do that. If it really was her, you’d think exposing herself like that would be the last thing she’d want to do, in which case Jamba Juice would be the last place she’d tweet about.”

  “So then it’s just an insane coincidence?”

  “Maybe. But I think it’s more likely that it’s someone who wanted you to think that it was Ellie. Someone who wants to come between you two and tear you apart.”

  Oh, dammit, I think, he’s right, isn’t he? I think of the nasty things I said to her and feel literally like a subpar human. Ellie has always been a good friend, and at the first potential sign of trouble I turned around and treated her like garbage. Not cool, Harper.

  So if @ThatBitchHarper isn’t Ellie, then first of all, I have some serious apologizing to do. And second of all, I’m back to square one on finding out who this Twitter troll really is. Welcome to the real life of a YouTube star.

  * * *

  On my drive home, I call Elli
e at least three times, but she doesn’t pick up. Dammit, how could I be so stupid? After the way I jumped to conclusions, she’ll never forgive me, and I don’t blame her. I call one more time and this time I leave a message:

  Ellie! It’s Harper. I know you’re not my Twitter troll and I am so profoundly sorry for accusing you. I don’t know what I was thinking, I must have lost my mind for a second there. You must totally hate me right now, and I guess I would hate me too if I were you. I feel awful. I would do anything to fix this. All right. Bye for now. I love you.

  Ugh. This is the absolute worst. As soon as I’m home I text her:

  Ellie, I’m so sorry. Please call me.

  She writes back immediately:

  Not now, I need space.

  She needs space? How much space? And for how long? My heart rate rises, and I’m getting kind of panicky. This whole thing feels totally out of my control and I don’t like it one bit. There’s absolutely nothing I can do right now except give her space. I mean, that’s the right thing to do, right? Right. I click on my TV and try to zone out, but the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach won’t go away and the truth keeps creeping up: I’ve been a horrible, horrible friend. Feeling depressed, I send a quick email to my agent:

  Going to London on Friday, be back Monday, is that cool?

  And then curl into bed and fall asleep before the sun has even set.

  CHAPTER 7

  ••••••••••

  A Tale of Two Parties

  At lunch the next day I sit down with the Jessicas, a look of regret and self-loathing plastered across my face. I should be pumped about London, and don’t get me wrong, I am, but the excitement is being almost completely eclipsed by my guilt about Ellie.

  “Yikes, Harper, are you okay?” Jessa asks. “You look . . . ­exhausted.”

  “Where’ve you been?” Jessie adds, “I feel like we haven’t seen you in forever.”

  She’s right, it practically has been forever since I last saw the Jessicas. Last time I saw the Jessicas I hadn’t yet gone on a date with Dalton James. That was a lifetime ago, a “forever” ago, as far as I’m concerned.

  “I’ve, um . . . I haven’t slept a lot. A lot has happened this weekend, you guys.”

  “Like what? You can tell us.”

  “Okay, but you have to promise not to freak out, okay?”

  “We promise,” they say in unison.

  “I went on a date with Dalton James, and well . . . now he’s my boyfriend.”

  “What?!” gasps Jessa.

  “The movie star?” Jess gawks.

  “Shut up! I don’t believe you,” groans Jessie. “Okay, fine, I believe you, but I’m practically dead of jealousy.”

  “Yep. We had an amazing night and things just sort of . . . moved fast, I guess.” My eyes brighten and lighten at the memories of that magical night. “He invited me to go to London with him this weekend. I think I’m going to go.”

  “That is unbelievable,” says Jessa.

  “Then wait, why do you look so miserable?” asks Jess.

  “Yeah, if I were you, I’d be over the moon right now,” adds ­Jessie.

  “All of that is the good news. The bad news is that I have a Twitter troll.”

  “No offense, but don’t you have a million Twitter trolls?” asks Jessa.

  “Well, yeah, but this one is different. It’s someone who knows me, like, in real life. I think this one might be serious.”

  “What’s a Twitter troll?” asks Jessie.

  “Honestly, Jessie?” Jessa frowns. “It’s someone who bullies you on Twitter.”

  “She calls herself @ThatBitchHarper and she’s trying to ruin whatever this thing is I have going on with Dalton.”

  “Who would do that?” asks Jessie.

  “I don’t know, that’s the thing. It’s someone who knows me and my life, it has to be. I had reason to think it was my friend Ellie. I actually accused her of being behind it all; then I realized she couldn’t have been. Oh my god, I’m such an idiot. If I was her, I’d never talk to me again. I feel terrible. It kept me up all last night.”

  “Okay, whoa, hold on,” says Jessie. “You’re being really hard on yourself. Someone is trying to tear you down and you don’t know who it is, so it makes sense that you got a little paranoid, who wouldn’t?”

  “You’re in a really weird situation, Harper,” says Jess. “Like, this is not normal sixteen-year-old girl stuff.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You know what you need?” Jessa peps up then. “You need some good old-fashioned high school antics to put things in perspective, take your mind off of all this insanity.”

  “Oh yeah? What do you have in mind?”

  “Clayton Schaeffer’s parents are out of town tonight and he’s having a party. I say we give you a dose of that good old high school life and show you what you’re missing.”

  Party 1

  The Jessicas had good intentions dragging me to this party, I know they did, but there’s a reason I haven’t been to a high school party in a long time: I hate high school parties. I don’t fit in at high school parties; I feel awkward as hell at high school parties. I guess the reason I agreed to go along is that I felt desperate for a change of scenery, anything that might help me stop feeling like both victim and monster, anything that might help me feel normal.

  When we show up at nine p.m. in Jessa’s baby-blue 2001 VW Beetle, Clayton’s poor parents’ house is well on its way to being majorly trashed. Practically all of my peers are gathered around the dining room table playing beer pong, tossing white, light-as-air balls into red plastic cups of cheap beer, which splashes and spills all over the place each time someone decides on a refill, dripping down the table legs and soaking into the carpet while everybody hoots and hollers like cave people. No offense to cave people—they probably don’t deserve this comparison. They didn’t play beer pong, after all.

  In the living room, Calvin Harris is blasting so loud I can feel it in my bones, and Calvin Harris is definitely not something I want to feel in my bones. They’ve turned the living room into a dance floor and are grinding up against each other like snakes in a pit. I feel dirty just watching them. Some of my peers are smoking near the open windows, but the wind keeps blowing the smoke back into the room so that the air is thick with tobacco and nicotine.

  “See?” Jessa screams over the music. “Just regular people having a regular good time.”

  I look at her like she’s crazy. If this is regular, then please, PLEASE, show me irregular. If this is normal, show me bizarre.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see a group of my classmates whom I vaguely recognize from the hallways sort of leering at me. They’re looking at their phones, then looking back up at me. Oh God, I think, this can’t be good.

  “Excuse me.” I break from the Jessicas to approach this group of Aéropostale-wearing morons. “Can I help you?”

  “Sure,” Ashley Adler swoops in. Dammit, there’s so much smoke in the room I didn’t see her there. “You can tell us about how you got into the world of naked modeling.”

  “What? I have never in my life—”

  “Benji, show her.” Ashley nods to Benji, who looks like his mom dressed him five years ago and he’s been in the same outfit ever since. Benji turns his phone so I can see and my jaw drops so far to the floor that it might as well have been broken off my face. The picture I’m looking at is of my face photoshopped onto a naked girl’s body.

  “That’s not me! It’s so obviously fake.”

  “Doesn’t look fake to me,” Ashley snickers.

  “And what? You’re such an expert?” Normally I ain’t no holla­back girl, but I’m in fight-or-flight mode now and my blood is ­boiling.

  “Nothing to be ashamed of, Harper, it’s not uncommon for D-list celebrities to try and get some attention with a naked photo shoot.”

  “Oh, give me a break, Ashley, I’m sixteen. Besides the fact that I would never do something like
this, it would be completely illegal.”

  “As if there aren’t tons of perverts out there who break that law on a daily basis.”

  “You’re disgusting,” I snap, on the verge of tears.

  “Um, I’m not the one with naked pictures on the Internet.”

  “For all I know, you’re the one who made this picture! I don’t know why you hate me so much, I don’t know what I ever did to you, but—ugh, you know what? Forget it. I don’t have the energy.”

  With tears stinging my cheeks, I turn and make a dash for the front door.

  “Harper!” It’s Jessie, just barely catching up with me at the door. “Where are you going? Don’t go, we just got here.”

  “I’m sorry, Jessie, I know you guys thought it would be good for me to come out tonight, but I can’t be here. This isn’t for me. Besides, you guys are the only ones who actually want me here. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Not only did this party not make me feel normal, I think, it made me feel like an absolute alien freak.

  “Take me with you!” she blurts, her voice squeaky, almost desperate.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to be here either. I hate these parties. I hate the smell of smoke and stale beer and body odor. Please, I gotta get out of here.”

  Party 2

  And that’s how I ended up in an Uber with Jessica “Jessie” Dole headed to an address in the Hollywood Hills where Dalton said to meet him for an exclusive Hollywood party that “should be pretty chill.”

  “I can’t believe I’m going to meet Dalton James!” Jessie gushes as we pull up to the Spanish Colonial Revival mansion just off Mulholland.

  “You’re probably about to meet a lot of other famous people too, so you might wanna reign in the fangirl vibes.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Harper, I promise not to embarrass you. I’ll be cool.”

  “Thanks, Jessie, I’m counting on it,” I say, then am suddenly hit with a realization, a change of heart. “Actually, don’t worry about it, be as embarrassing as you want to be, they’re just people, not gods. Let them think what they want.”