“Thank you, for everything you’ve done for Harun and for me,” I said, pulling away. “Thanks for being my friend, in real life. I’ll never forget you and this strange little town but . . . I don’t belong here. I have to go.” I gave her one last smile and then I left.
CHAPTER 43
I left Springdorp behind me forty minutes ago and passed that sign that I’d seen almost a week ago. But the second I drove past it, they started . . .
All at once, with this fervent intensity that made my head spin, things around me started buzzing and beeping. The noise disorientated me at first. I hadn’t heard it in days and it took me a second to realize what it was. I looked at the seat next to me, my phone was plugged into the car charger and it was alive! Shaking and buzzing so much that it started to move sideways across the seat, like a crab. The onslaught of messages awakened it like Sleeping Beauty.
I pulled my car to the side of the road and grabbed the phone. I wasn’t able to do anything with it for five minutes, while I waited for the notifications to slow down and finally stop. I glanced over at Harun in the backseat; he was sitting straight up now, his ear standing to attention. He looked agitated, cocking his head from side to side in nervous curiosity at the noise that was coming from the palm of my hand.
And then alarms started going off. Google reminders that I’d missed started shouting at me. I heard a deep growl behind me, followed by a bark and then Harun started scratching at the window, wanting out. I didn’t blame him. I wanted out too. This felt like an invasion of my space. The car felt like it was heating up and the oxygen was getting sucked out with every notification that came through. I pushed the door open and climbed out, opening the door for Harun as I went. When my phone finally stopped beeping and buzzing and things settled down, I opened my Facebook page. I gasped. I had thousands of notifications there. Thousands of people had posted on my wall . . .
I scrolled fast and furious, not reading them even.
Then I went to Instagram and all my followers seemed to have returned, and more. I had about a hundred thousand more followers than I’d had before.
WhatsApp . . . it was lit up like a Christmas tree. Especially from Kyle. There were so many missed calls and WhatsApp messages from him I didn’t know where to start and where to look and what to do, and for the first time in my life, I felt overwhelmed by it all. I felt lost in this massive web of messages and likes and shares. Like I was an insect trapped in a great big spider’s internet web. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe and then I saw it.
Kyle:I can see you’re online now.
Kyle:Where are you?
And then my phone rang. It was him. I looked over at Harun and it seemed like he shook his head. I turned my back on him to take the call. I had to take this call . . .Didn’t I?I’m sure Kyle was worried about me, even though he’d broken up with me. We’d been together for two years, of course he was concerned about me. My hands were shaking, my throat tight and dry and the sun was flaming down on me. Nerves had gripped me in some kind of nauseating, dizzying way as I raised the phone to my ear tentatively. I didn’t even have a chance to say hello.
“Where have you been?” Kyle’s words were fast and frantic.
“Uh . . . I’ve been . . . um, away.”
“Oh my God! Do you have any idea what’s been going on since your disappearance?”
“No.”
“You’re going to love it.” Now he sounded excited.
I was confused. Where was the “Are you alright, Frankie?”, “I’ve been worried about you, Frankie”?
“Since you’ve been gone Find Frankie is trending. I mean fucking trending like a mo fo. It’s literally the hottest hashtag around. You’ve gotten two hundred thousand new followers and so have I. It’s blowing the eff up. Genius! This was genius!”
“What’s genius?” I asked.
“Going away like this! Everyone wants to know why you left and where you are. It’s like a social media mystery and everyone’s weighing in. And I totally get why you didn’t tell me where you were, you needed this to be genuine and authentic and—”
“WAIT!” I shouted into the phone. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your plan to create all this mystery; you know what amazing content I’ve been generating over this?”
“That’s not why I went away, Kyle,” I spat into the phone.
But he didn’t seem to be listening. He was rattling on and on about it all like this was exciting to him.
“Kyle! Kyle!” I tried to interrupt him, but he was like a steam train. “KYLE!” I shouted again.
“What?” he asked, as if he was angry and irritated that I’d silenced him. And then he sighed. “You’re upset about the whole Paige thing, right?”
“Um . . . Yes!” This seemed like a stupid question.
“It’s over between us,” he said quickly. “I mean, when Find Frankie started trending and everyone was asking where you were, I realized what a mistake breaking up with you was, so I ended it with her so we can—”
“WAIT!” I cut him off again. “You broke up with her because I was trending?”
