Top 8 (4 page)

Bonjour, Lisse!
WHAT'S WITH THE PICTURE OF YOU AND DAVE ALMOST-KISSING AS YOUR PROFILE PICTURE? WHY ARE YOU GUYS ALMOST-KISSING? THIS IS NOT COOL, MADISON! I MEAN IT!!!

pizzadude
Dude, what are you doing? I can't hear anything out of my right ear, Lisa's been yelling for so long. She's super pissed. And stop writing me those weird flirty comments. We're buds, but that's it, okay Madison?

Shy Time
How could you tell everyone about my nose job — I mean, sailing accident?? Your wrote a BULLETIN, Mad! And a BLOG! And posted pics! This is like the meanest thing anyone has ever done to me!! Delete it, okay?

Brian (not Ed) McMahon
Madison, would you please stop sending out bulletins about my “raging” parties and posting pics? My dad's checking my Friendverse now, and he's starting to ask some very uncomfortable questions.

Kittson
Well. I don't think that kind of language — in someone's comments section — is really appropriate for a member of the prom committee. And I really don't appreciate the sentiment. Your tenure as a member of the committee is now under consideration. How's that for my “supa lame decision making skillz?”

Justin
If you want to break up, fine. You didn't have to tell everyone in a blog how glad you are to be done with me. I get it, okay? It's over. — Justin

Vote4Connor!
Wow Mad, that sounds great. Let's pencil in hooking up when you're back, okay?;)

JimmynLiz
Okay, Mad, we've been friends for a long time. So what's up with writing about the TOTAL MISTAKE I made at camp last summer that you swore you'd never tell anyone about? Apparently, that didn't include BLOGGING about it. Thanx a lot, Mad. Really.

JimmynLiz
And that was Jimmy. Go to hell.

I blinked. I didn't understand.

I just…didn't understand.

Had I somehow logged in to the wrong profile?

I turned my computer off and waited a few seconds. I could feel sweat beginning to form on my neck, and I had a feeling in my stomach like I'd swallowed a bowling ball. I restarted my computer, hoping that I'd somehow imagined the profile that seemed to have my (misspelled) name on it, and that turning my computer off and on —
really, the extent of my computer maintenance skills — would fix it.

I logged back onto Friendverse and groaned. The profile was still there. And it appeared to be real, not a hallucination brought on by some rare Ecuadorian brain fever.

But how could this be happening? I never would have written those things, and I knew how to spell my own last name.

Plus, I hadn't been online in two weeks. TWO!

I stared at the screen, my eyes burning. I hadn't been online…but someone had.

Someone who had been pretending to be me.

But who would have done this?

I looked at the spelling mistakes, the terrible music choices, and my friends' angry comments. It had been someone who clearly was out to hurt me — and from the looks of it, someone who'd been pretty successful.

Maybe someone had meant it as a joke? But if that was the case, clearly nobody had gotten it. Which was actually bothering me a little bit. I mean, didn't my friends know me at all? Wouldn't they have known that I never would have listened to Yanni, let alone
buddied
him?

My eyes kept jumping back to Justin's comments about breaking up, my status as “Single,” and the blog
entry. But I didn't want to be single! I wanted to be not broken up with my boyfriend!

“Oh my God,” I moaned, still trying to take in the carnage in front of me.

The profile picture was especially bad. I had never seen it before, but it must have been taken at Brian's last party — I recognized the overturned couches that signaled a McMahon party in full swing. My eyes were half-closed, and I was grinning stupidly at the camera while simultaneously looking like I was about to sneeze.

It was the WORST picture of myself that I'd ever seen. And I'd certainly seen some bad ones, especially after Lisa went through her photography stage and was always trying to take “candids,” all the while yelling, “I'm not here! Just ignore me! And cheat left. And look unhappy. No, frown.
Frown
. Good!”

This picture was worse than that whole series. Scrolling down so I wouldn't have to look at it, I tried to click on my friends' profiles to see the comments that had been made. But I kept being routed to a screen that told me these profiles were private and I couldn't access them.
Which meant I'd been defriended
.

It looked like I was still friends with Ruth, Schuyler, and Lisa (thankfully), and Connor Atkins (unfortunately). But Ruth's was the only profile I was still Top 8-ed in. That's when it hit me how grave this was. My friends and I took our Top 8s seriously. It had been a big
deal when I'd moved Justin to my number one spot, and Lisa and Schuyler hadn't spoken for a week over the fact that Schuyler once had ranked Ruth ahead of Lisa. And the day Lisa had moved Dave to her number one spot was pretty much a major turning point in their relationship.

I tried to access Justin's page again. He had a new profile picture, which was adorable, even though he seemed to be looking a little too far to the left. Next to the picture were the horrible words:
This profile is private. To access this user's profile, you must be one of their friends.

But I
was
one of his friends! I was his
girl
friend! Well, I had been. I was about to message him to try and explain — my phone was still charging — when my iChat dinged with an invitation from Schuyler. And then she was on my screen, with her arms crossed, glaring at me.

“Shy!” I said. “Omg, I'm glad you're online. Something really strange happened! I logged on to Friendverse, and —”

“You're back?” she interrupted me crisply.

“Yes,” I said, “Just now. But I don't —”

“Meet us at Stubbs in twenty minutes,” she said, referring to the local coffee chain, and our regular hangout. Schuyler's face was beginning to get blotchy, the way it always did when she was upset and didn't want to
show it. We were always telling her to just go ahead and get mad, because we could all tell she was anyway, and at least that way she wouldn't blotch. But apparently, she hadn't taken this advice.