Life Uploaded Page 17

  “Why on earth would she suddenly change her mind about sabotaging my life and try to undo her damage out of nowhere?” I ponder, more to myself than to Dalton.

  “I don’t know, I only spoke to the girl for about twenty minutes. But she said that seeing you reminded her that you’re just a human like anyone else, and no one deserves the pain she had wanted to cause for you. She said after she saw you, she just couldn’t feel okay about what she had done.”

  “She’s insane. I cannot believe she reached out to you. I can’t believe you gave her the time of day.”

  “And then I saw your video and felt even more guilty. You were the one apologizing to me when I should have been apologizing to you. You didn’t do anything wrong, but I was horrible to you. Truly, truly horrible.”

  “You called me a nobody,” I remind him, not having the heart to tell him the video I made was actually for somebody else. “On national television.”

  He nods earnestly. “And I am so, so sorry, Harper. That was the most immature thing I’ve ever done. I was devastated when I thought you had cheated on me. I was so blinded by the pain that I couldn’t see the reality of the situation. I acted like a child, and I’m so ashamed of myself for it. I would do anything to take it all back, I would do anything for a second chance with you.”

  “I don’t know, Dalton. You wouldn’t have said those things if you didn’t actually think them, at least in some small way.”

  “But I don’t! I don’t believe what I said at all!” He starts pacing back and forth in the front entryway. “It’s the exact opposite, Harper, I think you’re the most amazing girl on the planet, and I’m constantly impressed with the work you do and the way you live your life so true to yourself no matter what. You’re the first girl I’ve ever truly been myself around. The truth is I think the world of you. And the thing is, I don’t even see people as nobodies or somebodies. I don’t believe in that garbage. We’re all valuable human beings and I hate Hollywood for imposing a system on us where our value is determined by how many people know our names and faces. It’s disgusting, honestly, and I’m the biggest idiot in the world for saying what I said. I swear on my life I didn’t mean it. We can go public, I’ll tell the world what you mean to me. I’ll go back on Fallon and apologize for what I said. Anything to make it up to you.”

  The earnest, pleading look in his eyes is almost too much to bear. And his promise is familiar: it’s what I said to Ellie. I’ll do anything to make it up to you. I meant it when I said it to her, and I can tell he means it now.

  “You already have,” I say with a half-smile.

  “What?”

  “You’ve already made it up to me. By coming here now. By saying what you just said. I forgive you.”

  “You do? Really?”

  “Uh-huh.” This time I smile wide, showing all my teeth. And in that moment I really am happy. Maybe it’s Dalton’s passion or maybe it’s how lonely and sad I’ve been feeling, but I just get caught up in the emotion of it all and decide to stop thinking, just for a second. He smiles back, sighing deeply with relief, and wraps his rain-drenched arms around me until my shirt is soaked through and we’re standing in a puddle right in the middle of my living room, mouth to mouth, heart to heart, everything warm and heavenly and right. I am human and I need to be loved, I think as we passionately kiss, just like everybody else does.

  “Reunited and it feels so good,” he says when we finally break apart, stroking my hair.

  “It really does,” I say, resting my head on his shoulder, looking toward the living room window, where to my total and complete horror, Jack is standing in a red rain jacket, face white as a ghost.

  He has seen me kissing Dalton.

  I have seen him see me kissing Dalton.

  This is the point of no return.

  “No!” I shout, almost directly into Dalton’s face.

  “No?” He looks down at me quizzically, one eyebrow raised. “No, what?”

  But I don’t have time to explain. Jack is walking away. I bound to the door and chase after him, ignoring the rain pelting my hair. To my surprise, Dalton chases after me.

  “Jack, wait!” I call out. “Please. Let’s talk.”

  “Talk?” He whips around to face me. “You were just kissing some pretentious British celebrity idiot and now you want to talk? I don’t think so. I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Hey! I’m not pretentious.” Dalton is standing on the front porch, the only one of the three of us out of the rain. “And we’re kind of in the middle of something here, Jeep boy.”

  Jack looks at me, his face a pastiche of bewilderment and hurt. “Harper, what is he even doing here? How could you be kissing him after everything you said to me in your video?”

  “That video wasn’t about you, Jeep boy,” Dalton calls out from the porch. “It was about me. I’m her boyfriend.”

  Jack turns toward Dalton, his face contorted in anger and his fists balled by his sides. “You’re her boyfriend who went on national television and called her a nobody. Real stand-up move, buddy.” Then he turns to me. “Is that true, Harper, was the video for him?”

  “Well, I . . . uh . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter who it was made for,” Dalton interjects. “I’m her boyfriend and we’re working past what I said on TV. Now if you don’t mind, we were in the middle of something, Jeep. Boy.”

  “Screw you, you don’t deserve to be Harper’s boyfriend.” Jack isn’t backing down. This determination in them both is ­simultaneously attractive and irritatingly immature. “You just met her like what, last month? I’ve loved this girl since I was twelve years old and I’m not going to give her up just because you came along.”

  “Well, you don’t really have a choice in the matter, now do you?”

  “Oh, I think I do. See, that video was about me, and it does matter. Harper knows I’m the true love of her life. You’re just a fling. So actually it’s you who doesn’t have a choice in the ­matter.”

  “Really?” Dalton laughs, and it’s a harsh, almost ugly sound. “Then why was she in the middle of kissing me when you showed up out of nowhere?”

  “I don’t know.” Jack frowns. “Harper? What’s going on here?”

  Yikes. It’s a fair question. Why did I give in to Dalton so easily even after pouring my heart and soul into that video for Jack? Is it possible that I have major feelings for two guys at once? I gaze out at Jack standing tall in the torrential downpour and all I can think is My god, Harper, how did you get yourself into such a mess? Life used to be simple; it used to make sense. That was back before I had a following, before I met Dalton, before I knew the truth about Jack. For a moment I wonder if I wouldn’t just prefer going back to how things were, back when I was invisible and insignificant, back when the things I said and did were private, just for me, and didn’t matter to anyone else at all.

  “Harper?” Jack presses.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening.” Dalton is getting frustrated. “Who was the video for? Who do you want to be with?”

  “I . . . uh . . . I . . .” I take a deep breath, look from Jack, who’s like a wet rat in the rain, to Dalton up on the pedestal of my front porch, then back to Jack again.

  “Jack,” I say. “I’m sorry, Dalton, but it’s always been Jack.”

  Saying these words feels like falling from a cliff, cold wind in my nose so I can barely breathe. It’s all too much. I close my eyes and wait for all the pieces of my life to land where they will.

  I open my eyes, and to my dismay, both boys are still there. I think I was hoping Dalton would hightail it out of there and the awkwardness would be over.

  “Wow,” says Dalton, “I so don’t need this. I’m out.” He shakes his head in apparent disbelief and storms away into the rain. Then it’s just Jack and me, completely motionless. It’s an out-of-body experience; I feel like I’m hovering above the ground and might never come down.

  “I’m sorry I said I didn’t have feelings fo
r you,” he says. “I ­always have.”

  “I’m sorry I was a jerk to you for so long.” I smile, realizing this is the moment I’ve been waiting for since seventh grade, the moment Jack and I confess our feelings for each other and the feelings are reciprocated and it turns out it wasn’t all in my mind after all.

  “So, um . . . what happens now?” he asks.

  “Now I think you should kiss me,” I say, feeling light and brave like I’m on top of the world and nothing will ever be bad again.

  And that’s how it happens. My first kiss with Jack. He walks ­toward me and slips his arms around my waist. I can’t believe this is finally happening. He kisses me on the nose first, then on the lips, and when I close my eyes, I swear I see stars. I swear I can hear music play. For the first time in my life I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

  CHAPTER 17

  ••••••••••

  So Complicated

  Aw, what a happy little ending to the story! My friendship with Ellie is restored, my career is blossoming, and I’m finally dating my one true love—what more could a girl want? Nothing, the answer is nothing. Sadly, this is not where the story truly ends, because IRL there’s no such thing as The End (until the apocalypse happens, if that’s going to be a thing). In real life, the world always keeps spinning on, and nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, stays perfect for very long.

  * * *

  It’s May first and I’ve been dating Jack for two wonderful weeks when I open my locker to find a red envelope resting on top of my books. Inside the envelope is a scrap of notebook paper that reads: Meet me after school at the corner of Fourth and Pico. It’s so obviously in Jack’s handwriting. Aw, I think to myself, my boyfriend is so romantic.

  When I get to the corner of Fourth and Pico, he’s already standing there, waiting for me. He’s wearing the black hoodie I love, his hands shoved in the pockets.

  “I’m here,” I say. “Is . . . everything okay?”

  He takes my hand. “Of course everything’s okay, weirdo, come on.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “The beach.”

  “The beach? Now? I don’t have my bathing suit.”

  “It’s not like that.” He laughs. “We’re just going to sit on the sand.”

  “Okay . . . what for?”

  “Jeez, so many questions. Can’t a guy sit on the beach with his girlfriend?”

  “Sure, no, totally.” I squeeze his hand. “I’ll just go with it.”

  “You won’t regret it,” he says, kissing my cheek.

  Once at the beach, we walk almost all the way to the water. Then he unzips his backpack and pulls out a Mexican blanket. I burst out laughing.

  “Who are you, Mary Poppins?”

  “Maybe.” He gives me a sly smile, laying the blanket out. We sit down and I stretch my legs out over his legs so that we’re inter­twined like a hashtag. Oh, hashtag, the international sign of millennial love.

  He checks his watch.

  “In a rush to get somewhere?” I ask, wondering why he’s being unusually silent. Is it my imagination or is he being extremely, unusually silent? I start to get anxious. Is he going to break up with me already? Is the best thing that’s ever happened to me already over?

  “Nope, just checking the time.”

  “Okay.”

  “Oh, look at the skywriting.” He points up at the sky where a plane is beginning to write out a white, fluffy W in the sky.

  “Yeah,” I say, “cool.”

  “I wonder what it’s going to spell. What do you think it could be?!” His curiosity seems exaggerated, sort of over the top. I can’t figure out why he’s so invested in this skywriting. Has this always been an interest of his? By now the W has become a W-I-L-L, and the plane drifting over to the right, getting ready for the next letter. It’s starting to look like a Y.

  “I don’t know.” I try to guess. “Maybe ‘Willy’?”

  “Willy? No, look, there’s a space between the L and the Y.”

  “Will yo . . . will you . . . Oh,” I say, “it’s going to be a question. Will you something. Will you . . .” Of course then I’m invested too. What’s the big question in the sky going to be? We sit back and watch it unfold, until the final sentence is spelled out:

  WILL YOU GO TO THE PROM WITH ME,

  “Aw, so cute!” I’m a romantic too, after all. “I wonder who it’s for. Wait, why is there a comma? Shouldn’t it be a question mark?”

  Jack says nothing, just keeps looking at the sky. That’s when the plane starts back up again with the final letters:

  H-A-R-P-E-R?

  “Oh my god!” My hands fly to my mouth in shock. “Oh my god, Jack, you did this?” I can’t believe it. I couldn’t have anticipated this in a million years.

  “Uh-huh.” He grins. “So will you?”

  “Of course I’ll go to the prom with you, are you kidding?” I throw my arms around his neck. “I would absolutely love to. Obviously!”

  We kiss as the waves roll in, crashing against the shore like a lullaby.

  “You know I would have gone to prom with you no matter what, right? You didn’t have to do all this. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I totally love it, but it’s not why I’m saying yes. I’m saying yes because you’re my boyfriend and I’ve wanted to go to prom with you since I was twelve years old.”

  “I know, it’s just . . . no, never mind.”

  “What? You can tell me.”

  “It’s just, I don’t know, before me you were dating a movie star. That’s a lot to compete with.”

  “Oh my god, please tell me you’re kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding! Put yourself in my shoes. Imagine if before we started dating I was with . . . well, actually, I was going to say a celebrity, but you are a celebrity, so I guess you don’t know what it’s like to feel inadequate anymore.”

  “I still feel inadequate sometimes! I’m still a human being, Jack. And trust me when I say I don’t need you to be a celebrity. I dated a celebrity and realized the whole thing was overrated.”

  “I just don’t want you to think that because now you’re with an average Joe you won’t be treated like an absolute princess. Because you will be.”

  I grin. “Noted. Message received.”

  We kiss until sunset and then Jack hesitantly agrees to pose for selfies with me. Hey, if you wanna be with me, you gotta be down with the selfie.

  * * *

  “You know what would be amazing?” I say to Jack, who is now sitting on my bed while I sit at my desk, editing my latest video.

  “What’s that?” he asks, looking up from a copy of Catcher in the Rye, which we’re reading in Mrs. Bulow’s class.

  “If Ellie could come to our sophomore prom. Do you think one of your guy friends could take her?”

  “Yeah, totally. How about Bryce? He doesn’t have a date yet.”

  “Perfect! This night is going to be amazing! Limo ride with my bestie and my boyfriend, dancing the night away like there’s no tomorrow . . .”

  “Then back to my uncle’s beach house for a Disney movie marathon and vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles in rainbow-sprinkled cones.”

  “Livin’ the dream, Jack, livin’ the dream.” I sigh. “Can’t wait to tell Ellie.”

  That’s when my phone starts to ring.

  “Ooh, that must be her!” I exclaim and practically pounce on my phone. But it’s not Ellie calling, it’s Dalton. My face falls.

  “What’s wrong?” Jack asks.

  “It’s Dalton,” I say. “I don’t know what he wants.”

  “Well don’t be afraid, it’s all good. Just answer. No big deal, Harp.”

  I realize then that I should have just kept quiet about who was calling. That way I could have just ignored it. Once I said out loud that it was Dalton, I made it so that I had to answer. Otherwise Jack would think I was hiding something. I had nothing to hide, so I braced myself and answered.

  “Hello?”
>
  “Harper, hi!” The guy has a sexy voice, you gotta hand it to him.

  “Uh, hi, Dalton, what’s going on?”

  “So great to hear your voice, it’s been too long!” He sounds incredibly cheery, especially compared to the last time I saw him, when he was melodramatically stomping away in the rain.

  “Good to hear your voice too, Dalton. Can I ask why you’re calling?”

  “Well, besides just wanting to hear your voice and see how you’re doing, I thought now would be a good time to start planning for sophomore prom.”

  “Um, excuse me? What are you talking about?”

  “We’re going to prom together, remember? Our agents thought it would be a great publicity stunt for you to take a big celebrity to your high school prom, and quite frankly I still agree with them. It will be an amazing opportunity for both of our careers.”

  “I’m going to the prom with Jack,” I say, interrupting this nonsense before it goes any further.

  “Who’s Jack?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  “Oh, right. Well, going to the prom with him won’t do anything for your career. No offense to him.”

  “Well, you and I aren’t dating anymore, and the last thing I need in my life right now is a publicity stunt. So, I’m sorry, but this isn’t happening.”

  “You better tell your agent that, because I spoke to him this morning and he seems to think it very much is happening. He ­already has interviews lined up with Nylon and Teen Vogue.”

  “Ugh!” I groan into the phone. “Goodbye, Dalton,” then hang up and throw my phone onto the bed (so that it had somewhere soft to land, of course; I’m not trying to be too dramatic).

  “What was that about?” Jack asks, trying to hide his concern.

  “Dalton thinks we’re going to the prom together just because we told our agents we would a while ago. Apparently my agent thinks it will be amazing for my career and is counting on me doing this. I need to go talk to him, sort it all out.”