Page 15 of For Your Own Good

“They don’t know that.”

She smiled. He smiled back.

“Thanks,” he said. “I was starting to think I was a loser.”

“That’s okay. I’m a nerd.”

And she was. Courtney was one of the most popular “nerds” in school.

The nicknames stuck, even to this day. So did their friendship.

ZACH PULLS INTOthe driveway at home and stops. The car idles. All he can think about is going back up to that grey room to readBleak House. Sounds like a recipe for a suicide attempt and a bad TV movie.

Nope. Not today. The local library would be better than sitting in his room.

He drives off, imagining the scene in his mind. The library has big, comfortable chairs, the perfect place to relax and get some serious reading done. Uninterrupted reading. The only downside is he’s not allowed to bring in food or drinks. A snack would make it perfect, but then when is anything ever perfect?

His mind is rambling now, like he’s trying to sell himself on spending the afternoon on the extra assignment from Crutcher. It works until it doesn’t.

When he stops at a red light, he texts Lucas.

Where are you?

Home, Lucas says.Why?

Got any weed?

Is that a real question?

On my way, Zach says.

Plenty of time to read later tonight. It’s not like his parents allow him to have a social life, at least not during the week. Nine o’clock curfew, Sunday through Thursday, no exceptions unless it’s a school function. No amount of arguing will change his father’s mind. Or his mother’s, for that matter. She can be even worse.

Not as bad as Courtney’s mother, though. At least there’s that.

10

MONDAY EVENING, WHENTeddy is home alone, he spends hours on social media. His user name is Natasha, she is seventeen years old, and her picture was swiped from a girl in Sweden. Natasha is an online friend of Zach’s, as well as many others at Belmont, because who doesn’t want to be friends with a pretty young girl?

Everybody does, boys and girls alike. And old perverted men.

Teddy has blocked dozens of them over the years. He’s also gone through several profiles, including Larissa, Molly, Yasmine, and Kellie. One of the problems with pretending to be a teenager is that eventually they have to grow up. As they do, he reinvents himself.

When he first got the idea of creating a fake profile, he didn’t know if he should. An older man pretending to be a high school student? If he got caught, the headline alone would destroy him.

For a long time, he resisted, telling himself how stupid it would be. Borderline self-destructive, and Teddy is anything but that.

One day, he did it anyway. The curiosity had become stronger than the fear.

Admittedly, his first attempt was horrible. He didn’t know anything about creating a profile or what to say in it, nor did he know what music, movies, or bands a seventeen-year-old girl would like.

The second profile was a little better, but the third was when he really hit his stride.

Teddy scrolls through the day’s messages—many of which are posted during school hours—and he tries to keep up with the conversations.

Not that he enjoys them. He couldn’t care less about video games, sports, weekend plans, marijuana, alcohol, and the opposite sex. But social media is the only way to keep track of what his students are doing.

Yes, he knows who has hooked up with whom, which guy likes which girl, and who hates whom. It’s not very interesting, though occasionally it’s helpful.