Secrets

4,707 words - teen speculative fiction

 

Sophia Robertson: Don't get mad at Brittany. You deserve what's coming. 
"Oh," I say out loud, because what else am I going to say after getting a text like that from someone with my exact same name?
I look around the school hallway, wondering if someone is playing a joke on me.
I check the number for the text, wondering how my phone even knew this girl's name in the first place.
It's my phone number.
My name. My number. But I didn't send it.
I hurry down the hall to Brittany's locker, shoving the phone in my pocket, deciding not to make a big deal out of it. I'll figure it out on my own. I pull out a pack of gum and fold a piece into my mouth. Peppermint. It helps me think.
When Brittany sees me, she takes two steps forward and slaps me. Right in front of her locker, right in front of everyone, making the whole hallway gasp. I'm still holding out a pack of gum, offering her a stick. When she slams her locker closed, it almost slaps me too.
"You are an evil person, Sophia Robertson!" she says, her face so close all I can see are her eyes and teeth. "How dare you text the whole school and tell them those horrible things about me! I never even looked at that awful secret blog, but for the record, anything anyone ever said about you on there is completely true!"
People start whispering.
"Hey Sophia, can you test out this app that I-" Harold comes around the corner and stops, his phone out in front of him. "Oh. Uh. Never mind." He backs away.
Brittany grabs my pack of gum, throws it on the floor, and marches down the hall, perched on stilettos. My phone buzzes in my pocket, and since I don't have anything else to do, now that one of my best friends clearly doesn't want to be late to class gossiping with me, and one is home sick, I pull it out and read the text.
It's also from me.
Sophia Robertson: Like I said, don't get mad at her. She's just getting revenge. 
I frown, close out the text, and look through all my other apps, thinking someone might have borrowed my phone and downloaded a text-delay app. It takes a while to get through all ten pages of apps, plus folders. I don't even remember why I downloaded most of these.
I don't find anything suspicious. Then again, maybe my phone can send delayed texts all on its own. Honestly, phones are getting so advanced these days it's hard to keep track of what is every-day life and what's sci-fi. That's why I keep Harold around.
I look up, and he's still standing there, phone up, like someone hit pause on him.
"Hey," I say.
"Oh." He un-pauses. "Hey." He kneels down and collects my gum, then stands and holds it out to me.
"Keep it," I say. "Hey, do you know if an iPhone can send a text, like, time-delayed?"
"Not unless you jailbreak it, or download an app. Do you want to me to do that for you? Who are you trying to text?"
"No, it's fine. I was just wondering." I'm sure Harold could figure out what's going on, but I don't really want him going through all my texts. I deleted the ones from Brittany that said not so great things about him, but I don't trust a simple delete to keep something safe from Harold.
"Oh, okay. Cool. Well, if you have a minute sometime, could you try out this new app I'm working on? It's actually kind of like a text delay, but-"
"Yeah. Yeah, sure. But I'm going to be late to class."
"Oh, right." He looked around. "Is Melanie with Brittany?"
"What?" I was looking at my phone again. "No, she's home sick."
"Sick? Oh, man. Does she need anything?"
"I don't think so. And you know how she is. She won't eat anything she didn't cook herself."
"Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Well, I'll see you later, Sophia."
I text my own number back while I walk to class. It has to be a prank. Maybe it's someone like Harold, but meaner, who can disguise a phone number and make it look like my own phone number. Is that a thing? I should have asked Harold.
Me: Why did I deserve it?
The message sends. So I put the phone back in my pocket, feeling smug, and take off my stilettos at the classroom door. I sit down at my desk barefoot.
Brittany doesn't look at me all through Bio.
Five minutes into class, my phone vibrates. I wiggle it out of my pocket without the teacher seeing, and check it.
Sophia Robertson: Why did I deserve it?
The message bounced back to my phone. Dang it.



After school, I book it to Melanie's house.
Her mom smiles and lets me in, and I take their stairs two at a time to her room.
She's all bundled up in blankets watching a baking show on her tv.
"Hey," she says when she sees me, and turns down the volume. She pats the bed next to her.
I opt for her desk chair. It's big and leather and swivels around.
"So you're sick?" I ask.
She glances at her door, making sure it's closed.
It's not. I sigh and go shut it.
"I take that as a no," I say.
"I got another death threat." She points her chin at her desk.
I find the folded piece of paper among her stacks of mystery baking books.
Roses are red, violets are purple
This boy is lonely
You could be my girl though
I let out a snort of laughter. "This is a love poem!" I ball it up and chuck the paper at her. "Probably from Harold. He was asking about you today."
She ducks and frowns.
"Well, do you know who it's from?"
She shakes her head. "Otherwise I'd send in you or Brittany to do some recon."
I roll my eyes. "It's from Harold. And he doesn't want you dead."
"Have you seen the Honest Secrets blog today?" Mel asks.
"I don't like reading that thing. It's just rumors anyway."
"Well..."
"What?" I stand up to get my phone out of my skinny-jeans pocke and open a web browser on it, pulling up the website.
The Truth about Melanie Lambert
"No." This blog has never touched us before. I thought I was safe. I thought being friends with Brittany made me safe. No one would risk her ruining their life by posting something about one of her friends.
I don't want to read this, but I can't stop reading it.
Melanie seems like a well-adjusted girl. But did you know? Her father was murdered when she was five. And she's been the most paranoid person alive since.
"Oh, Melanie," I say. "I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, well."
"Has Brittany seen this? She'll kill whoever's writing this!"
"Where is Brittany anyway?" Mel asks.
I let out my breath and flop back in the desk chair, pushing myself around in a circle with my feet. "Yeah, about that... She slapped me this morning. I haven't heard from her since."
"What?"
"Yeah. And then there's this." I toss the phone onto her bed and she picks it up.
"Uh, you texted yourself. You think you deserved it?"
I shake my head. "I think someone is hacking my phone or something."
Mel perks right up.
"I didn't send that," I say. "At least, not the first one. I tried to text the number, but it just bounced back to my phone."
"Oooo." Mel's eyes get all shiny. "Someone's staked you out as their target." She turns the phone over in her hands and pops off the phone case to examine it better.
"Maybe. But it's probably just a prank or something. Nothing serious. They probably told Brittany some lie, started a rumor or something, and then hacked my phone."
Mel sets the phone down and gives me a look. "Sophia, you've got to think here. Who could want you dead? What could their motivation be?"
"No one wants me dead, Mel."
"Don't be so quick to dismiss it. This could be really serious."
"It's a prank. You've just been waiting for someone to try and kill me so you can track them down, but no one wants me dead."
"Hmm." She picks the phone up again and eyes it. Then she gets up and fetches a tiny screwdriver from her desk and proceeds to dismantle the back of my phone.
"Hey!"
They could have planted a bug inside it. You said yourself the phone has been compromised."
"Normal people don't use words like compromised."
"Shh!" She examines the phone piece by piece, demolishing it further.
"I hope you know how to put that back together," I say.
She cuts her gaze at me and then returns her attention to the phone. Finally she says, "Okay, it's clean. Unless it's some super advanced technology that I don't yet understand."
"Great. Can I have my phone back, please?"
She reassembles it in a way that makes me realize she must regularly disassemble her own phone. As soon as she clicks it back together and turns it on, it vibrates.
As she looks at the screen, her mouth makes a small O shape.
"Is it another one?"
She shuts down the phone.
"Hey, I wanted to read that."
"They could be tracking your location."
"Oh my gosh, Mel. Just give me the phone. It's not like they wouldn't think to look here for me anyway."
"You're right." She throws off the blankets, turns off the tv with a flick of the remote and slides off her bed. "We need to get out of here. My mom isn't safe if we stay here."
I close my eyes and massage my forehead. Then I hold up the nearest mystery novel. "This, Mel, isn't real. What happened to your dad, it was just an accident-"
"Oh, speaking of books, I need to go to the library," Mel says. "There are a few more books on hold for me."
"Great." I toss the book back on her desk. "I'll drive."
She shakes her head. "They'll be looking for you're car. We'll take my mom's. It's the least conspicuous."
I snatch my phone away from her.
"Don't turn it on!" she says. But I already have.
I pull up the text.
Sophia Robertson: Cafe on 32nd and Heart Ave 1 hr
"You can't go!" Mel says, trying to grab the phone back. "They'll be waiting for you. Probably kidnap you."
"It's a public place. What are they going to do?"
"Drug your food."
"And haul me out unconscious?"
"They'll put sunglasses on you. Pretend you're drunk. Walk you out between two of them. And then you'll wake up handcuffed to a radiator."
"Let's go to the library."
After Mel has dropped off a backpack full of paperbacks, and loaded her backpack full of new ones, we sit in her mom's car and debate.
"I'm going," I say. "It's probably the prankster. "He just wants to see my face and get a laugh."
"Then why not do that at school?"
I shrug. "How about we just pull into the parking lot."
"The parking lot for a shop a block away," Mel says.
"Fine whatever. A block away. And we'll just see who goes in and out."
"Surveillance," Mel says, warming to the idea. "I guess that'd be fine. They're probably expecting you to walk right into their trap. People always think girls are easy targets."
I buckle up as she puts the car in reverse and pulls out.
"I wish Brittany was here for backup," Mel says.



We park at the curb next to a little tea shop. Mel reaches over me to open the glove box and pull out binoculars.
We're fifteen minutes early, so we sit and wait.
Mel stays riveted on the cafe, but I get bored and start playing solitaire on my phone.
"Hey!" Mel says. "It's Brittany!"
I whip my head up. Sure enough, there she is.
I grab the binoculars and end up jerking Mel's head into mine since the strap is around her neck.
By the time I get them to my eyes, Brittany is already inside.
"Was she with anyone?" I ask as I unbuckle.
"Wait!" Mel grabs my arm. "You can't charge in there! What if she's bait? What if they're holding her hostage?"
"Or what if she's just pranking us, and we'll go inside and have a good laugh? Was there anyone with her?"
Mel shakes her head. She's peering through the binoculars again, her hand still gripped around my forearm.
I try to peel her fingers off.
"Let me go in first," she says, unbuckling and dropping the binoculars in the back seat. "I'll scope it out and text you what I see."
"Okay. Fine," I say.
She approaches the cafe slow and casual, way too casual. She could be whistling and she wouldn't look any more furtive.
I wait until she slips inside and then get out of the car and follow. I stand outside the cafe and pretend to be checking my phone and waiting for someone because I feel stupid just standing there doing nothing.
Finally I get a text.
Melanie: Approach the subject with caution.
I roll my eyes and pull open the door.
My phone vibrates again.
Melanie: STOP
I glance around awkwardly, right smack in the doorway, then decide to slip inside anyway. Looking around, I spot Brittany at the far end of the cafe. She's alone.
Melanie: Abort! Abort!
I look around for Mel. She's in the corner of the cafe, the very corner, with her phone out.  When she see's me she makes big eyes at me like I should be reading her mind.
When I step toward her she shakes her head, her eyes still boring into me. So I stop.
Melanie: We need to get out of here!
Me: What's up?
Melanie: Tell you later. Get out while you can!
I frown, and look between the two of them.
Me: I'm talking to her.
I ignore my phone when it buzzes again.
When Mel sees that I'm determined, she slinks along the back wall and to the restroom, ducking out of sight.
I order a latte, take it, and look around, trying to pretend I didn't get a cryptic message sending me here, but happened upon this place of my own accord. There's a huge clock on the wall opposite the counter. It's exactly 5:55. Things like that make me feel like the universe is in order. It's a good omen.
Walking up to Brittany's table, I pull out a chair.
"Hey!" I say.
She jumps and slams her laptop shut. "Oh, hey." She looks around. "I didn't think you'd be here."
I shrug. "Mel and I decided to stop for coffee." Then I wonder if I should have left Mel out of this. She probably won't emerge from the bathroom until I text her the coast is clear.
Brittany is looking at her nails now, eyebrows up, not talking.
"Hey, about this morning," I say.
"Oh." She looks up and faces me, settling back in her chair. "Let's hear it then."
"What?"
"Your apology. I'm waiting. Not that it will change anything, but it's the least you could do."
"Oh, uh... About that actually. I know you might not believe this, but what ever happened, I didn't have anything to do with it."
She makes a noise in the back of her throat, stands and packs up her laptop.
"No, wait!" I say, reaching for her to keep her from leaving. "Please, just tell me what this is about!"
She jerks her laptop bag away from me and steps back.
"Stay away from me, or I swear I'll ruin you too." With that, she marches out of the cafe.
I close my eyes for a moment, and then look at my coffee. It's too late in the day to be drinking it anyway. I push it away and pull out my phone to text Mel.
But I already have a couple texts. One from Mel, but I don't read it, because there's another text from my alternate self.
Sophia Robertson: Brittany is right. You had everything to do with it.
I look around fast. Whoever sent the text has to be here. They have to have overheard the conversation me and Brittany just had. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stands up.
I grab my bag and run to the bathroom.
"Mel!" I bang on the only locked stall. "Mel! Come out, she's gone! I got another text!"
"Excuse me?" The stall door opens to reveal a large African-American woman.
"Oh!" I jump back. "Sorry. I thought you were someone else."
"Clearly." She eyes me up and down, disapproving.
"Yeah, sorry." I run for the exit, texting Mel as I go.
Me: Where are you??
I get back to Mel's car to find her sitting in the driver's seat with the binoculars. I climb in and slam the door.
"Where'd you go?" I ask.
"I climbed out the bathroom window."
I close my eyes pinch the bridge of my nose to try and stave off the headache I can feel coming on. "You know you look like paranoid with those, right?"
She lowers the binoculars and doesn't look at me.
"Sorry," I say. "I didn't mean it. I just- Ugh."
"Well," Mel says at last. "At least we know what she's up to now."
"We do?"
Mel nods, still not looking at me, and pulls out her phone. She opens up her pictures and passes it to me. She took a bunch of shots of Brittany's laptop screen.
I stare.
"I think she's shutting it down. Deleting the website," Mel says.
I flip to the next picture. It can't be true. It is true. It's on the admin page for the school gossip blog. The one that posts all that awful stuff about everyone. I swallow.
"No way."
Mel looks out her window and doesn't answer.
"But, all those posts... I thought..."
Mel nods.
I close out the phone and sit. "We have to make sure. We can't assume. Maybe she was just hacking the blog, not writing it."
Mel doesn't answer.
"I know what we need," I say. "We need Harold."



He picks up on the first ring. "Hey, Sophia! You ready to try out that new app I put together?"
"Yeah, sure, Harold. Look, can you come over to Mel's house?"
"Mel's house?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Yeah, sure. Be there in, like, just five minutes."
He shows up in four and a half. And his cologne proceeds him into the room.
I cough when he walks in.
"Whoa. Cologne much?" I ask.
He swallows. "Sorry. The bottle spilled."
"I didn't even know you wore cologne," I say.
I keep coughing and wave the air in front of my face as Mel pushes her laptop at Harold. He plops down on the floor next to her, then scoots back when she tries to stifle a cough.
"So," he says. "What's the laptop for?"
"We need you to hack a website."
"Oh! Okay!" He flexes his fingers and poises them over the keyboard. "What website? And what am I looking for?"
"We need to know who the author of that blog is," Mel says. "You know, the one that writes all that awful stuff about people at school?"
Harold gives her a blank look.
"They like know all this personal stuff about people and post it online for everyone to read. Like how I sleep with a teddy bear, which is actually true. But I don't keep a knife hidden inside it."
Harold blinks at her.
"The knife is actually under my mattress, so-"
"It's called Honest Secrets," I say.
Harold is already typing. After a minute, he glances at Mel.
"You find it?" she asks.
"Uh, yeah." He swallows.
I can tell he's reading the most recent post. Mel's name must have caught his attention.
"So, you find out who wrote it?" Mal asks.
"Uh..." He clicks and types. "Almost. Hey, I was just wondering, did you get that note I left you?"
I let out a laugh, and turn it into a cough, pounding on my chest to emphasize the point. "I'll go get some water," I say, and take off.
I wait a good ten minutes, downing a glass of juice from Mel's fridge and let out all the laughs that are piling up in my chest, before going back into her room. I wish I could have stayed and seen the conversation I missed, because when I come back in, Harold's face is bright red. Mel is sitting on her twirly desk chair, and Harold is studiously typing.
"You find anything yet?" I ask, like I have no clue what's going on.
Mel shoots me an accusing look, probably for abandoning her.
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think so." Harold turns the screen towards us. It's black and covered in white type. He points to a line.
"Oh," I say, very seriously. "Yes. I see."
"You do?" Harold asks.
"No. I have no clue what we're looking at."
"It's an IP address," Harold says. "It can show us what computer the posts came from."
"So, what computer did they come from?" I ask.
"A laptop," he says. "The posts usually come from a cafe downtown. But sometimes they come from this address." He pulls up google map and types in a home address. When it shows up, I glance at Mel. Her mouth is an O again.
I sigh. "Brittany's."
"Oh," says Harold. "I thought she lived right around there. Does she have a sister or something? I could be off a few houses."
"No," I say.
Melanie pulls out her phone, opens the pictures, and hands it to him.
Harold doesn't say anything. Finally he hands the phone back.
"Is that why she slapped you?" he asks me.
I frown. "I have no idea." I pull out my phone too, figuring if anyone can figure this out, Harold can, and pass it to him with the texts pulled up. It doesn't really matter at this point if he finds the mean texts about him from Brittany.
Harold reads the texts that are supposedly from me and his eyes get big. He grins. "Yes! Yes, I knew it would work!"
He whips out his own phone.
"Wait, you sent these?" I ask.
"No, Sophia," he says, grinning. "You did." He turns the screen of his phone toward us. It's opened to a texting app. "I've been working on this app. It can sort of time travel," he says. "Well, the texts it sends can time travel. Awesome, right? It can send texts, like back in time, kind of. Well, not kind of. I think it actually can. I've been trying it out, and I think it works!" The words are bursting out of him like he has been waiting to tell us this for weeks.
"So," I say, my brain trying to process. "It's like the opposite of time-delaying texts?"
"Exactly! It's like sending them before now, instead of after now."
"Wow, that's confusing," Mel says.
I look at my phone and back at Harold's. "So," I say. "When I got these texts, I had sent them to myself from the future? So, like, right now, I could send them back in time?"
Harold nods.
"What happens if I don't send them at all?"
"Well, obviously you do," Harold says, looking at my phone, "because obviously you did. So," Harold says. "You want to try it out?"
"Uh... Is this for real?"
Harold nods. "I swear!"
Mel and I look at each other.
"Try it," Mel says. "If it works, then, you know, at least you'll know no one is trying to murder you."
I let out my breath and think back to when I received texts from myself while I Harold takes my phone and downloads the app onto it from his own laptop.
When he hands it back, I open it up.
"It's just like a regular texting app. You can specify the recipient, and the time you want it delivered."
I pull up my phone and scroll through the texts from myself. "This is so weird," I say as I copy and paste text and the time into the app. "You sure you're not pranking me?"
Harold shakes his head.
"How will I even know is this worked?" I ask.
"I know!" Mel stands up like the revelation is too much. "Brittany said you texted the whole school a bunch of nasty things about her. You don't know what those texts said, but someone does. You need to type of a text, and send it to everyone, and then go borrow someone's phone and read the text, and see when they got it, and if it's the same!"
"Yes!" says Harold. "Yes, yes! Do it!"
"What would I write? I know Brittany said a bunch of mean stuff about a lot of other people, but I don't really want to say mean things about her."
"Just tell the truth," Melanie says. "People deserve to know who's writing that blog for one thing.
So I start to type.

The Truth about Brittany Tukell
Everyone in this school deserves to know that Brittany is the author of the Honest Secrets blog. I have photos to prove it. You already know that she has ruined many people's lives with her blog, but you should also know why she did it. Brittany was my best friend. She is funny and smart and has great fashion sense. And she is afraid. She has always been the most popular girl in school, and she has always been afraid of losing that. She bases her self worth on what others think of her, and she is determined to keep her own secrets locked up. So while I think it's important to learn the truth, it's more important to learn the reasons behind it. Brittany wrote the blog not out of anger or malice, but out of fear. Don't perpetrate what she's done. You can be better than that. We all can. Even Brittany. If she's willing, I for one vote we give her a second chance. A chance to not be afraid anymore. A chance to share her own secrets with all of us.

Melanie read it over when I was done. "Good," she said. "Very good."
So I hit send.
Tomorrow, at school, we'd know the truth.
After Harold left, Mel asked, "Sophia, do you really think I'm paranoid?"
"Oh, Mel." I don't know what to say.
She sighs. "Yeah, I guess I am sometimes. I just don't want what happened to my dad to happen to anyone else, you know?"
"Yeah, I know," I say. "Honestly, sometimes it drives me nuts, how you're always thinking like a crime investigator, but at the same time, I know that if anything ever happened to me, you'd be there probably before I even knew I was in trouble. You're loyal, Mel. That's a really good thing for a friend to be."
She nods, but doesn't look at me. "So, do you think Harold really just wanted to give me a poem? Not, like, stalk me or anything?"
I laugh. "Uh, yeah. He definitely likes you, and not in a creepy murder-ish way."
She lets out her breath. "Well, that's good to hear."
"Ooo, Mel, do you like him?"
"Maybe..." She ducks her head. "At least Brittany didn't say anything about that on her awful blog."
"Speaking of which," I say. "I assume I'm her next victim. If that past-texting thing really does work, she obviously didn't take my advice and share her own secrets. Guess we'll have to wait and see what secrets she reveals about me. I do have a few of them."

(photo courtesy of Katie Tegtmeyer)