I opened the browser and it spun around for what seemed like forever until it latched on to a page. The bar wavered and then disappeared again. I had a feeling staying in touch wasn’t going to be easy here. Then again, nothing had been easy so far.
Still, it at least allowed me to check my Twitter and Facebook accounts. There wasn’t anything too interesting there. I was still new to the whole Twitter thing so I didn’t have many followers but occasionally someone would “tweet” me and say something nice about the show. Today someone had said they really liked the concept of the show and asked where we were going next. I replied back and told him he’d have to wait and see. Dex and I had decided it was probably best if we never gave anyone straight answers – keep people in suspense, something Dex did very well.
It was nice that I never got any nasty comments on my Twitter (so far). I think people reserved that for actual famous people and stuff like that since Twitter accounts weren’t anonymous; well, not really. You were still held accountable, plus it was easy to block people on Twitter. One click and you didn’t need to look at them anymore.
The blog, of course, was another story. Every single nasty comment was left by someone anonymous who didn’t provide a name or an email address. I suppose there was some way I could try and figure out who they were by finding out their IP address but that involved doing something in the back end of the blog and Dex would have to do that himself. I knew if I asked him to look into it, he’d respond with a flat–out no and then chide me for caring what other people thought.
I couldn’t help it though. Every time I thought about checking the blog out of some strange torturous compulsion, I felt so nervous I was almost sick about it. I hated not knowing when these comments were going to come and what they were going to be about. They went straight to my email, too, which didn’t help. Even if I avoided looking at the blog, I still had to check my emails at some point, and that’s where they were, waiting for me.
Like this time. It’s not like I got a lot of emails from people but sometimes it was from my cousin Jonas in Sweden, sometimes it was a concert announcement, sometimes it was catching up with my friend Gemma who lived down in Eugene. To be honest, I didn’t get enough email to warrant being an obsessive checker but there I was, checking anyway. It seemed I got comments more than anything else.
Case in point, as the browser slowly logged me into my email account, I could see four messages from the blog comments. Three of them had names assigned to them, which usually meant they were benign or spam. I always checked those last to raise my spirits. The final message was by Anonymous.
That sick feeling returned and my heart started to pound loudly in my chest. It was a different kind of fear than the one I was experiencing on the island. It was almost more upsetting in a way, which was really ridiculous. It was just words, silly stupid words from people I didn’t know. It shouldn’t have been as terrifying as camping on a ghostly leper island, yet it was.
I took a deep breath and clicked the name. I closed my eyes as the internet was found among the spotty reception and waited. On the plus side, my fear of the island was subsiding.
I opened them slowly and looked down. The comment was short and read: “I can tell from looking at your face that you’ve never accomplished anything in your life. It’s sad that this probably is the high point. Thank god you’re too fat to have an ego.”
Ouch. Major fucking ouch.
I felt tears pricking hotly at the nerves behind my eyes. It wasn’t so much the fat thing; I was kind of used to that by now and it was such the typical cheap shot to take on a female who had a little meat on her bones. It was the other thing. It hit a little too close to home, to be honest. This actually was the most I had accomplished; at least it felt that way. And they were right. That really was sad.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I looked up and saw Dex storming towards me like a gruff freight train, the pebbles kicking up behind him. I must have totally been in my own little world to not have heard him coming.
He stopped in front of me, spied the phone, and yanked it out of my hands.
“Hey!” I yelled at him.
He looked at the phone and read over the email with disgust. “Another comment? Nice. Way to play the fat card again, you bitch.”
He stuck my phone in his pocket, shaking his head at me. “I gave you a simple task, read the bloody books and work on the fucking script and instead you’re back to checking the blog again. Do you like to torture yourself?”
If I wasn’t close to crying before, I definitely was now. Those hot prickles came faster. But I couldn’t cry in front of him and not over that. So I channeled the tears into anger and gave him my most potent glare.
“I can check whatever the fuck I want to check, especially when it’s on my own phone.”
“You’re technically on the clock right now.”
“Oh, whatever, Dex, since when is it any of your business? And why do you care so much? I don’t believe you have that much concern for my well–being.”
“It is my business. You know I have to keep you in check here and that’s hard to do when you keep getting sucked into this shit.”
“You don’t think much of me, do you?”
He sighed loudly and rolled his eyes to the heavens. He plopped down beside me on the log, leaned forward with his elbows propped up on his knees and folded his hands into a steeple.
“I’m going to say this only once, kiddo,” he said slowly, his voice bordering on fatherly and fed up. “You know I think the world of you.”
Actually, that was news to me. He could see the skepticism on my face.
“I do. All those things I said last night about...you, I meant them all.”