Page 96

“I’m just as surprised as you are.”

Dale walked inside, the little bell announcing his entry like it was happy to see him. It was the only one. I narrowed my eyes at Kamala, who was wearing a small smile. Maybe the bellwasn’tthe only one.

“I was just leaving,” I said, swiping my purse off the table and heading for the door.

“Please don’t leave. Can we talk? I took the videos down,” Dale said, as if that solved everything. “Even though they collectively had, like, ten million views.”

“Excuse me for ruining your viral masterpiece.”

“They kind of were. I don’t get it.”

I just wanted to crawl inside my shell and leave, but I wasn’t willing to swallow my feelings this time. That hadn’t served me well in the past. “You were making fun of me for the world to see and you expect me to what…be grateful that a ton of people saw you make fun of me? How do you not get that?”

“Making fun of you? How? When? We thought what you did was awesome. Funny, even. We weren’t mocking you at all. We were immortalizing you. Praising you.”

“Immortalizingme?” I asked, anger still burning in my chest. “If you thought what you were doing was so noble, Dale, you would’ve asked my permission.”

He raised his hands in surrender. “Fair enough. But can we be real? If you weren’t so surprised by your discovery of the video, if you were just watching it objectively, would you really be feeling all this? Wouldn’t you think it was just a good, entertaining video?”

“But that’s the point,” Kamala chimed in. “Shewassurprised by it. She thought you were her friends, but what you did made it seem like you were using her for fame.”

“I was hurt,” I admitted, because I was.

Dale’s eyes shot to the floor before they met mine. “That wasn’t the intention. It really wasn’t. Seriously, we never meant to hurt you.Asherwould never want to hurt you. This dumb TikTok thing was all me. Be mad at me, not him.”

“Don’t worry, I’m mad at both of you.”

“He’s pretty torn up about this,” Dale said. “Is there something else I can do? Do you want me to record a video telling everyone I’m an idiot? I will.”

“As tempting as that sounds, no, I don’t.”

“What, then?” he asked. “What will help?”

“Nothing, Dale. Tell Asher it’s over.”

“I think you’re making a mistake.”

“Good thing I don’t care what you think,” I assured him.

He nodded, resigned, and left.

“Do you think Asher sent him?” I asked when Dale was gone.

“I don’t know,” Kamala replied.

“Why didn’t he just come and face me himself?”

“You would want him to do that?”

“Better than trying to shift the blame to his friend.” Is that what he was doing? He thought Dale could march in here and say it was all his fault and I’d be fine? “He knew I hated being online. I hardly put myself out there on myownpage.”

“True,” Kamala said. “Do you think Dale is still going to make Asher humiliate himself at his party tomorrow night for getting catfished?”

“That’s tomorrow night?”

Kamala nodded.

“If he does, Asher would probably be in on it. For the views.”