Watch Me Disappear

Messenger in another. I’m only allowed to have an IM account to chat with Jeff. He convinced our parents to allow it as a compromise when they forbid Facebook. Most of my attention is on a game of Solitaire. My parents hate it when I play Solitaire or Snood, so every time the floor creaks and I think one of them is entering the room to check on my progress, I close the game, which means I am not experiencing too many wins.
    Around nine thirty, my mom comes to the door and tells me to wrap things up. My parents go to bed around ten, which means I have to go to bed around ten. The only response I’ve gotten so far from Jeff is his away message. I try to crank out a couple of pages of my essay because summer is half over and I still have three books to go. Also anything I can get done will serve as proof to my parents that I have not been using the computer for shady purposes. I am just about to call it quits when Jeff finally replies.
    “What’s up, sis?” he writes.
    “If you tell mom and dad, I’ll never talk to you again,” I respond. Okay, maybe I am being overly dramatic, but I need to know that he is on my side.
    “I’m proud of you, you little rebel,” he writes.
    “Lizzie!” my mother calls from upstairs. “I told you to shut that thing off!” What timing she has. At least I have some reassurance that my secret is safe with my brother.
    “A few more sentences, mom!” I shout back.
    “Mom’s calling. I have to go,” I tell Jeff.
    “OK, but how’d you do it? I gotta know,” he asks.
    “At the neighbors’ house. I was babysitting,” I write quickly.
    “No more sentences! Now!” mom yells. “Do not make me come down there!”
    Believe me, I do not want her to come downstairs. “I’ll tell you more later. TTFN,” I write and shut down the computer.
     
    *          *          *
     
    I am obsessed with Facebook. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. It drives me nuts that I can’t get on at my house. I obsess for hours about stuff I can add to my profile. It’s torture. Overprotective parents really know how to make life hell.
    The good part of my obsession is that I am getting into excellent shape by walking to the library. It is almost three miles from our house, with several hills thrown in for good measure. I don’t have to walk both ways. I walk there and then go to Gram’s after, and my mom picks me up on her way back from her errands. For her part, she’s delighted that I am interested in “getting exercise” and is already offering to take me to the outlets for new school clothes because she is sure my old ones will be “hanging off me” by the fall. “No more big sweatshirts for you,” she keeps saying. She isn’t thrilled about having to see my grandmother so frequently, but she knows it is her daughter-in-law duty.
    The worst part about walking to the library is the catcalls and other taunts from people driving by. Apparently it is unusual to be a pedestrian around this town, and people in cars get endless entertainment out of seeing someone walking. Creepy old guys whistle, and fellow teenagers jeer about my lack of wheels. But when I’m walking, I’m on a mission. I need to go see how my online life is shaping up.
    So far I have a budding friendship with fellow Wilson High newbie Missy Howston. She’s one of the ones who friended me back when I first set the account up, and we have a lot in common. Both of us have moved around a lot because of our dads’ jobs, both of us are applying to prestigious, selective colleges, and both of us have thus far found high school to be a cold, unwelcoming place. While I’m into the arts and humanities, Missy is interested in sciences, but we both are good students with hefty loads of AP classes, so I can forgive her for being more interested in molecules than sonnets. So far I’ve kept my growing friendship with Missy limited to conversations via Facebook. She suggested IM, but how would I explain to my parents who I was talking to all the time? I never leave the house without at least one of my parents except to go to the library, so I’d have to come up with some kind of fantastic lie to explain my new friend. Besides, we’ll see each other face to face in a few weeks when school starts.
    Most people from Wilson High have accepted my friend requests but then they just let me languish in their long lists of friends. Not many have bothered to reject me, which is nice—I mean, no one likes to get