Page 116 of What Happened to Lucy Vale

@ktcakes888:only 20?

We’d noticed the accounts popping up soon after Rachel Vale’s book hit the bestseller list.I am Lucy Vale, read the bios. All of them featured the same profile picture: a graphic of a single flame burning against a dark background.I am Lucy Vale.One account posted a picture of the Las Vegas strip. Another, a mountain overlook. A third, the Chicago River. Faster and faster they thickened online as more and more people changed their profile pictures to match, changed their bios to read,I am Lucy Vale.

We didn’t know whether Lucy Vale was really behind it or whether her story had simply fractured, germinating new voices, new stories, new victims who were now coming forward under her name, new survivors. Either way it felt like a gathering storm, like a pressure massing from all corners of the internet, like Lucy Vale’s story was about to explode from a thousand different directions.

@spinn_doctor:It’s not her

@spinn_doctor:someone’s trolling us

@courtlandia:I’d say more than one someone

@courtlandia:#IamLucyVale was a trending hashtag last week

@lululemonaide:I don’t think it’s about us

@lululemonaide:not everything is about us

@nononycky:speak for yourself

@lululemonaide:I’m serious

@lululemonaide:people just identify with Lucy

@stopandfriske:I think she started it

@stopandfriske:she’s out there somewhere, living her best life

@stopandfriske:laughing at us

@badprincess:Good

@badprincess:I hope she is

@lululemonaide:me too

@courtlandia:co-sign on that

We dawdled awkwardly around the server for a few days. We sent pictures of our dorm rooms or our employee badges. We made plans to hang out over break that we knew would never materialize. We joked about a party at the Faraday House—empty again after a fast rotation of tenants had cycled through after Rachel Vale moved away.

We asked whether anyone had listened to Skyler’s new podcast. Whether it was true that Reese Cox was no longer speaking to her parents and had gone goth, or whether she was just playing for her TikTok followers. We wanted to know whether Sofia Young was out of rehab yet or whether anybody had seen Charlotte Anderson’s baby. We asked about Akash and how he was enjoying the University of Michigan. We missed Akash. We hadn’t talked to him in years.

@spinn_doctor:the Kash machine? He’s killing it

@spinn_doctor:his girlfriend’s premed, and a smokeshow

@courtlandia:tell him I said hey

@courtlandia:and that I still need some lumber. it’s an inside joke

@spinn_doctor:wow, you still play Catan?

@courtlandia:just tell him

@lululemonaide:do you think that Akash might want to join our book club?

@spinn_doctor:doubt it

@spinn_doctor:he’s moved on.