HDU (2 page)

Message from PrettyKitty29 (Moderator) to FilmFreak (Moderator):

Yes, definitely.
 
We both deserve some change in our
lives.
 
Tomorrow will bring us a
new day and New Year.
 
Let’s hope
that somehow, it starts off with a bang.

Despite being so cynical, Amanda had actually ended
her night praying for a miracle.
 
Anything would do – perhaps she’d awake with an epiphany or a
business idea, or at the very least a flatter stomach.

Instead, she woke up with just a headache, mostly
from drinking three vodka sodas the night before.
 
She had never been a big drinker.
 
She’d only been inspired to booze alone because of her
utterly depressing circumstances.
 
Newly single, newly friendless, and forever
alone
, she thought to herself.
 
She had tried but failed to get out of her small town, and that was
that.
 
Hope for change was over.

As had become routine in the past few months back
home, Amanda sat up in bed only to reach for her laptop, which she kept on the
nightstand.
 
She could spend the
next hour in the same spot without moving as she checked her mail, messages and
usual websites, including HDU.
 
If
there was a particularly good, juicy post, she could delay brushing her teeth
for another hour, too engrossed in contributing to and reading the hundreds of
comments to move.
 

“I hope you’re awake in there, Amanda Bree, because
it’s past twelve o’clock!”

Her mother’s shouting always came at a quarter to
noon, and she always pretended that it was later than it was to shame Amanda
for sleeping in.
 

“Your father’s been at work for
five
hours already and you’re still
sleeping
? Good God! Time to move out again because sleeping past
noon does not happen in
this
house.”

On this particular morning, there were no new emails
or messages.
 
She approved the
celebrity diet articles and blind items submitted by the users, but none of
them were interesting enough for her to comment on.
 
The gossip world was having a slow morning and thus, so was
Amanda.
 
Without Internet activity,
she was left without plans.
 
The
thought of having to get dressed and actually find something to do around town
was tormenting.
 
Neighbors and
small talk had become her biggest fears in the past few months.
 
They were desperate to expose her, to
confirm that she’d been in over her head.

“Wake up, Amanda,
now
!”

“One more minute,” Amanda murmured to herself,
deciding to check her messages one more time before surrendering to her morning
routine.

Inbox (1)

Yay
.
 
She was grateful for the lone email,
the one hope she had to stay in her virtual world for a little bit longer.
 

With more hope than ever, she read it.

Jan. 1 (12:02PM)

Dear PrettyKitty29,

Hi, my name is Liam Brody.
 
From the looks of your charming
website, you’ve heard of me.
 
Believe it or not, I’ve heard of you too.
 
I was recently tipped off about your little gossip
community.
 
I probably shouldn’t
call it little.
 
You are one of the
busiest gossip communities on the Internet.
 
Congratulations.
 
I’m always impressed with people who manage to stay indoors so
much.
 
You must have a sufficient
amount of Vitamin D.
 

I noticed that you seem to have an
odd and probably unwarranted agenda against me.
 
Almost every bitter post about me is put up by lovely
you.
 
I also noticed that your
hatred has spread pretty successfully among your users.
 
Wow.
 
What an influence you have on gossip hungry teens and
housewives.
 
Again, congratulations.

I apologize for dating models,
PrettyKitty29.
 
I just think
they’re more attractive than other people.
 
Some people steal, some people do drugs, some people sell
them.
 
I date models.
 
It could probably be worse.
 
I could be someone who makes bribes.

Speaking of those, I was emailing
you to let you know that despite the sarcasm throughout this email, I find your
strangely influential website interesting and am willing to make a substantial
payment to you if you stop posting negative stories and put up a few nice ones
instead.
 
I don’t know what a
gossip community moderator gets paid, but I’m sure that regardless, you could
use a few extra bucks.
 
It would
pay for food delivery, movies On Demand, and other indoor pleasures that I’m
sure you partake in.
 
Please let me
know.

Best,

Liam Brody

Amanda blinked, completely caught off guard.
 
Wait
…
what?
 

She had received prank emails from HDU users before,
but this was something else entirely.
 
It
got
to her.
 
It shamed her for ordering so much Papa
John’s and streaming Netflix in her room pretty much twenty-four seven.

Before she knew it, her fingers began typing a
response.
 
Most of what she wrote
ended up deleted though, because it was entirely too angry and defensive, and
the last thing she wanted was to give a troll the satisfaction of her
irritation.
 
She settled on the
shortest reply possible.

Dear “Liam Brody”,

Hi.
 
How interesting that you would personally email from
[email protected]
rather than have your publicist officially
contact me.
 
You’ve truly convinced
me that you’re actually Liam Brody with that shady email address.
 
Good work.

I’ll humor you though.
 
I don’t accept bribes from companies or
celebrities because if I did, I’d lose my job.
 
Simple enough.
 
Good thing you’re just some Internet creep and not an actual celeb,
right? Phew.

Best,

PK

P.S.
 
Congrats on mastering the art of condescension.
 
Your time must be well spent.
 

Despite having craved an L.J’s Diner slinger since
moving home, Amanda steered clear of the place and drove in the opposite
direction.
 
L.J’s was a place to be
seen, where people went to show off fresh blowouts and go public with new relationships.
 
It was where the town convened to eat
and make small talk before separating into cliques and gossiping in hushed
voices over greasy food.

For that reason, Amanda opted to go to her usual safe
spot, The Donut Basket.
 
Since
middle school, she’d known and loved Gail, the shop owner.
 
Not only that, people only went to The
Donut Basket between 7AM and 10AM, which made it an ideal place for Amanda to
quietly visit and fill her quota of going out once a week.
 
Not only would Gail throw in a few free
vanilla Long Johns, she would also tell the town the next morning that Amanda
Nathan had been by and was doing just fine.
 
No one would believe her, of course, but it made Amanda feel
like she wasn’t a
complete
hermit.

Gail had been partial to Amanda since she’d been in
eighth grade, walking over to the shop with Megan a few days a week after
school.
 
It was all for Jake
Pearson, a then-sophomore at Merit High School who stopped by the place on
Mondays and Wednesdays before football practice.
 
He was Megan’s first big crush, similarly jet-haired and
blue-eyed.
 
She liked to think that
she could always get what she wanted, so despite having no interest in
doughnuts, she made herself a regular at The Donut Basket.
 
Amanda’s role was always to join and
keep her company for the days when Jake and his teammates brought high school
girls with them, ruling out the chances of flirting or even being looked at.

 
But on
the days that the older girls didn’t come along, Megan had the ability to make
Jake late for practice.
 
They’d
flirt as if two days ago, he hadn’t ignored her for being a thirteen-year-old
who still attended middle school.
 
While they giggled and arm-wrestled and teased each other, Amanda sat on
a stool at the counter, allowing herself to be either ignored or heckled by
Jake’s two ruddy teammates.

“What’s up, Third Wheel?” the redheaded one would
ask, holding his hand up for a jeering high five.
 
Amanda did her best to ignore them, especially as they went
into their routine of lamenting and wondering where Megan’s “hot friends” were.
 
Like the rest of Merit, they couldn’t
understand why a pretty girl would continue to stick with the average best
friend she’d chosen on a whim in fifth grade.

“Five more minutes, Mandy, please? You
can’t
leave without me!” Megan would
plead whenever Amanda flashed a look that said,
Get me out of here
.
 
“Five more minutes, I promise.”

Though five minutes always became fifteen or twenty,
Amanda could never bring herself to leave.
 
Megan needed her moral support.
 
Her crushes on boys never lasted more than two weeks, but
her obsession with Jake was on its
third
month, so Amanda knew it was important.
 
And as a friend, it was her job to weather the storm of insults from
Jake’s teammates and just be there for Megan.
 
That included sticking around till the boys left for
practice, listening to Megan’s stories during their walk home, and helping her
analyze all the cute things that Jake had said and done.
 
One day when a boy liked
her
, Amanda would need Megan for the
same thing.
 
That was just how
friendship worked.

So as the high school boys taunted her, Amanda would
flip through a People Magazine and politely decline Gail’s pep talks.
 
Running to an adult for sympathy would
just make her look like a dork – though she couldn’t help liking Gail
when one day, she taunted the two boys right back.
 
Since they’d dubbed Amanda “Third Wheel,” Gail dubbed them “Training
Wheels” – the two sidekicks who would get left behind once Jake grew out
of them.

The nickname proved prophetic by the next year at MHS.
 
Jake and Megan became a couple and the
Training Wheels were cut from the varsity football team.
 
Amanda remained Megan’s best friend and
stayed up on the phone with her past 12AM every night, listening to all the
stories and romantic details of her first relationship.
 

“I can’t wait till
you
have a real boyfriend!” Megan would gush.
 

“If or when that happens,” Amanda always said.
 
Her five-week “relationship” with
Jake’s quiet cousin, Phil, was supposed to be her chance.
 
But the set-up was mismatched from the
start – forced for the sole purpose of double dates – and Phil was
always too mesmerized by Megan to say a single word anyway.

“You
will
find a boy one day, Mandy,” Megan promised.
 
“And when you do, we’ll have so much fun together.”

She was right
about that
, Amanda realized as she chomped down on a doughnut, sitting at
the same counter she’d always sat at in middle school.
 
I
did find a boy.
 
And she had a lot
of fun with him.

~

Upon waking up the next morning, Amanda went straight
for her laptop.
 
It was just part
of the routine, though this time, it was with a little more urgency.
 
By bedtime last night, she still hadn’t
received an email back from Liam Brody’s imposter.
 
As fake as she knew it was, she was still eagerly waiting to
see what kind of response the troll had conjured up.
 
Like the long threads of comments between arguing HDUers,
his emails were like a form of entertainment to her.
 
It was sadly what she had to wake up for.

She scanned her full inbox for the exchange.
 
Got
it
.
 
Amanda bit back her
curling lips.
 
She found her own
excitement embarrassing.
 
Apparently her life was so deprived of variety that an email from a
heckling stranger was enough to provide a buzz.
 
But any break from monotony was welcome, and at least this
one would make for a good story to tell.
 
My first celebrity encounter
,
Amanda snorted.
 
After all, it was
unlikely that liambrody85 would ever confess to being a fake, so she
could
always hold onto the
zero-point-five percent chance that she was conversing with an actual
celebrity, albeit one that she loathed.
 
She would never know for sure that it was or wasn’t real.