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Her mom was on the floor doing her yoga in front of the TV. She didn’t even open her eyes, and Sarah knew she needed to be quiet when her mom was in that zone.
“Hold on,” she whispered and hurried into her bedroom. After explaining about her mom’s yoga, she addressed his comments. “It didn’t really bother me. I know I can trust Angel. It’s her I don’t trust, and then I can’t help but wonder if any of those other bitches on the cheer squad who still flirt with him shamelessly will be trying anything sneaky this weekend. I just don’t want to go back to that high school bullshit with all the hearsay.”
“So don’t listen to any of it. I mean, hell, how would you even know unless you went searching for it? Just don’t.”
“I don’t,” she explained. “But Valerie always seems to come across these things.”
She left out that she knew why. Valerie would search for things on Alex and would inadvertently run into things about Angel. Sarah knew it would be as easy as telling her cousin to not tell her about any of the stuff she read about stupid Dana and her photos, but deep inside, Sarah didn’t want to let her guard down. So while she herself wouldn’t be doing any digging, if Valerie found anything, she did want to know about it.
To her surprise, Sydney changed the subject abruptly. “So is that Leonardo guy who commented on so many of your photos on Facebook today Leo?”
“What?” Sarah asked, confused. Aside from her brother, she didn’t know or remember having any Facebook friends named Leonardo. “No, Leonardo doesn’t have a Facebook.”
“Ortiz, right?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” she said, sitting down and firing up the laptop. “He commented on my pictures? He told me he didn’t really do social media.”
“Well, his profile seems pretty new—just a handful of friends and almost no photos. I wasn’t sure if it was him because the photos he does have are of stuff like football team logos, cars, and some faraway lake photos, nothing of him up close, so I couldn’t be sure. Only reason I noticed is because he commented on a couple that I’m tagged in, so I got the notification.”
Sarah logged into her account. Sure enough, she had a bunch of notifications and a friend request from Leonardo Ortiz. She accepted it without giving it a thought then went on to check out all his comments. There were a lot. “Hmm, he must’ve just started it. I sort of teased him about being old school for not having one.”
Sydney was quiet for a moment as she continued to punch keys on her laptop. She got to the first of his comments just under a photo of her running through the finish line of a relay she ran last year and won from behind.
His comment was “Superstar! Love it! So proud!”
For many of her profile pictures of her alone or close ups he’d only commented with one word: “Beautiful.”
Then there were the ones of her and Sydney from high school way back when she was still attending Flagstaff. In one of them, she and Sydney were standing on the sideline at one of their track meets and Syd had his arm around her. The caption read, “Sydney. My Rock.” Leo’s comment was “Need to meet this guy.”
He noticeably didn’t comment on any of the photos with her and Angel, including her profile photo where she was leaning her head on Angel’s chest and he was kissing her forehead. Photos of her and Angel constituted the majority of her Facebook photos, but she also had many of her and Valerie, her mom, and Angel’s family.
There was another photo of her and Sydney also from way back before she’d moved out to California. They were sitting on the limb of the giant oak tree in his backyard, waving down at Sydney’s mom, who took the photo from below. The caption read, “My favorite brother,” with a winky face after it. It was a photo Sarah had posted years ago along with the silly caption. The winky face was obviously because Sydney was the only person who came close to a brother to her. Leonardo’s comment on that photo was “Um, no.”
After clicking on a few more similar comments or hearts that he posted on her solo photos, she saw the one comment he did make on a photo of her and Angel. It was one taken over a year ago. They took a selfy lying on his parents’ sofa. She remembered Angel holding the phone up as she held the sheet to her chest, obviously not wearing much underneath. Neither was he, but it was tasteful, and they both looked so happy. It was a rare weekend they’d had the house to themselves, and the caption read, “Playing house on this beautiful rainy day.”
Leo’s comment was “I’m with your mom on this one. I don’t think you should either.”
Confused, Sarah thought about that for a moment. Her mom? She clicked on the previous comments, and to her horror, she saw the comment her mom had made almost a year ago as well.
“Sarah Lynn that better not be my sofa! I really don’t think you should be posting photos like this. I do hope you’re still on birth control.”
It had several likes including a few “LOL” comments. Valerie had even shared the post with her comment: “Why parents shouldn’t be allowed to Facebook.” Sarah felt her face flush. She couldn’t believe she’d missed that.
Sydney finally spoke up again. “Lynni?”
Even though she still held the phone to her ear, she’d almost forgotten Sydney was still on the other end.
“Yeah,” she said, shaking her still warm face and feeling silly not to mention rude. She’d gotten so caught up on Leonardo’s comments that she’d completely paid no mind to Sydney all that time. “I’m here. I’m sorry. I was just going through the comments on my Facebook.”
