Page 13 of Anxious Hearts

Chapter Thirteen

The next day, Juliana was waiting for Kelly in the Medical Registrars’ lounge.

This was, strictly, a breach of protocol; only doctors were allowed in there.

But Juliana was clearly oblivious to the dirty looks of the registrars milling around before their shifts began, her eyes locked on the phone cradled in her hand and her thumb moving up and down so rhythmically that Kelly was momentarily entranced.

Juliana seemed to sense her presence. She stopped scrolling, looked up and smiled maniacally.

Oh, no.

She stood up and fixed her crack addict–wide eyes on Kelly’s face. ‘The socials have gone mad for you!’

‘What? What socials?’

Juliana threw her arms out and spun in a full circle. ‘All the socials!’ she cried.

The other doctors death-stared Kelly, as though this was her fault.

‘Come outside,’ Kelly said.

Juliana followed her into the corridor like an adoring groupie. ‘We have to strike while you’re still trending.’

‘Strike what?’

Juliana paused. Tilted her head slightly. ‘Well, I don’t know exactly. It’s an expression. Anyway, what I mean is we need to get you on social media immediately.’

Kelly shook her head. ‘Out of the question.’

Juliana continued as though Kelly hadn’t spoken. ‘We’ll start with Facebook and Instagram, but I reckon you could also be huge on TikTok.’

Kelly shook her head again but seemed to have run out of words to object. She had thought ‘out of the question’ was definitive enough.

‘I get it,’ Juliana said. ‘You’re thinking, why the fuck would I want to be on Facebook?

My parents are on Facebook. But that’s the whole point, Kelly.

All those Boomers with too much money and nothing else to do have turned Zuckerberg’s innovation into an online nursing home.

Mind you, Zuckerberg himself must be about forty by now. Can you imagine it?’

‘What?’

‘Being forty. I mean, shoot me now.’

‘What are we talking about?’

‘You being on Facebook. Grandparents do a lot of child rearing these days, given they own all the property and us poor schmucks have to slave away just to get enough of a deposit to live in some shithole an hour and half from the city. They’re a key target market for you.’

Kelly was tired of this nonsense. She raised a hand to stop Juliana from speaking. ‘Okay, that’s enough. We’re done here. I guarantee you I won’t be wasting time with social media in the last two weeks before my exam.’

Juliana raised her hands in defeat. ‘All right, all right. I get it.’

‘Thank you, Juliana. I’m sure you’ve got good intentions, but I’m really not the right person for all this.’

Juliana smiled, which made Kelly nervous. She suspected – very deeply, given the remaining glint in Juliana’s eyes – that the communications adviser did not get it. Not one little bit.

Juliana took hold of Kelly’s hand. ‘I’m here for you, Kelly, and I won’t let anything bad happen.’

‘With what?’

‘With your social media.’

Kelly gritted her teeth. ‘I just told you – I’m not doing social media.’

Juliana let go of Kelly’s hand so she could return to her phone screen, flicking and tapping with expert precision. Seconds later, and with a satisfied little grunt, Juliana held her phone up in front of Kelly. ‘Well, somebody’s going to have to break the bad news to your ten thousand followers.’

Kelly’s jaw and stomach dropped in unison. On the screen was her Instagram account: her photo, her bio, her doctor emoji; none of which she had set up.

The sinking feeling in her stomach began to stir and liquefy into a hot, burning pool of rage. She turned her searing eyes on Juliana. ‘What the fuck did you do?’

***

‘You didn’t answer any of my DMs!’

Kelly paused at the threshold of Finn’s apartment. She’d just let herself in with her own key. ‘What are you talking about?’

Finn stood up from his couch. He was wearing lightweight track pants and a T-shirt that snuggled around his biceps.

He was also smiling like the village idiot.

‘My direct messages. First, you start an Instagram account without even telling me and then you completely ignore me when I send you semi-abusive messages about your betrayal of trust.’

Kelly’s throat closed over so she could barely breathe. Before she could stop herself, she burst into tears, right there at the entrance to the apartment with her bag still on her shoulder and the door held ajar with her arm.

‘Whoa, whoa, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’ Finn rushed to her, took her hand away from the door and slid her bag off her shoulder before wrapping her up in a hug that was both firm and gentle at the same time.

Kelly dropped her head onto his chest and sobbed. ‘I’m okay,’ she blubbered.

‘Clearly.’

She chuckled despite herself. Her tears and snot were soaking into Finn’s shirt but she didn’t move. She couldn’t yet. ‘I’ve just had a really rough day.’

Kelly felt Finn’s shoulders relax. He rubbed her back gently. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Did you lose a special patient?’

Kelly had lost patients often enough that she had long ago developed a defensive layer that allowed her to distance her own emotions from their pain and the pain of their families.

But every now and again, a special one broke down that defence: the little girl who told Kelly she knew magic was real because she saw the sparkles around her when her mum stroked her hair as she lay in the hospital bed; or the eight-year-old boy who asked Kelly to keep an eye on his mum and dad after he died because they weren’t as organised as him and would need help when he was gone.

Finn’s question helped Kelly to refocus. No precious children had died today, taking their hopes and dreams and futures to the grave with them.

She took a deep breath and drew her head back from Finn’s stained T-shirt.

‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ she croaked.

She swallowed hard and wiped her tears away.

‘It’s just that I thought it was all going to end when the article came out.

But now they want me on social media and I have to give up four study hours to appear in the appeal. ’

‘The Care for our Kids Appeal?’

She nodded.

‘But you’ll have done your exam.’

‘The written, yes. But I still have to study for the clinical.’

‘I get it,’ he said. ‘You’re already stressed enough about these exams. You don’t need that extra pressure.’

Kelly wiped her nose on her sleeve. She knew Finn wouldn’t mock her problems as superficial. Wouldn’t tell her to get some real issues. ‘Exactly!’ she said. ‘And Juliana wants to turn me into a fucking influencer!’

Now Finn bit his lip, trying to hide a grin.

Kelly felt a smile forming on her own lips, a sudden lightness in her chest. ‘It’s not funny!’

Finn sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth. ‘It’s a little bit funny.’

‘It’s fucking absurd.’

‘That’s what makes it funny, Kel. You’re the only 28-year-old on the planet who doesn’t use or care about social media. There are kids in remote African villages with a more definable digital footprint than you.’

‘Don’t ever say “digital footprint” in my presence again.’

‘Okay, but yours is more of a digital bigfoot print.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Kelly, you’ve been on Instagram for less than two days and you already have twenty-five thousand followers.’

‘Don’t exaggerate. I have ten thousand followers. Juliana showed me this morning.’

Finn grabbed his phone from the coffee table, unlocked it and showed the screen to Kelly. Next to her profile picture, the stats read: 0 posts, 25K followers, 10 following.

This was even worse than she’d imagined. Being impersonated on social media felt like a gross violation of her privacy. Her carefully cultivated and fiercely guarded privacy.

‘I’m scared, Finn. Who are all these people?’

Finn shrugged. ‘I guess they read the article about you and it struck a chord with them. Have you had many other DMs?’

Kelly felt like a brand-new student standing before her first-ever cadaver, scalpel in hand. If I cut this body open, what will I find inside? Now, again, she was faced with the unknown, only this time, she wasn’t excited at the prospect of discovery. She was terrified.

‘How do I know if people have sent me DMs?’

‘It’s in your notifications.’

Kelly stared blankly at Finn.

‘Do you have Instagram on your phone?’

‘I don’t know. Does it come with the phone?’

Finn flicked his fingers towards his palm in a ‘gimme’ gesture. ‘Here, I’ll log in for you. What’s your password?’

Kelly remembered a text message Juliana had sent her earlier.

She’d been between patients and had barely glanced at the notification on her watch, still furious at the communications adviser for starting Facebook and Instagram accounts without her permission.

She found Juliana’s message, which contained her account logins and a kissy face emoji …

a kissy face, for fuck’s sake. Did that woman have no capacity to read the room?

She handed her phone to Finn. ‘I need to take a shower.’

He grinned. ‘Do you want me to post that from your account?’

‘Why not? Nobody else thinks impersonating me is a big deal.’

Finn stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as though he was concentrating hard and began tapping the phone. ‘Okay, let’s make it sexy but not too suggestive. How about: “Gotta hit the showers after a long day at work. Washing off the hospital grime with a bucket of disinfectant. LMFAO.”’

Kelly raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s your idea of sexy? No wonder you’re single.’

‘What? Cleanliness is sexy, too, you know.’

‘Post anything on my account and I’ll kick your FAO.’

***

When Kelly emerged from the bathroom, Finn was sitting at his dining table, bent over her phone, mouth agape, eyes transfixed on the screen.

Kelly rested both her palms on the opposite side of the table to Finn and leaned down to try to catch his eye. ‘How’s dinner coming along?’