Page 75 of The Matchmaker
She confirms she has, and I hang up, opening my phone to see a whole host of notifications that I missed when she first rang. At the top of them is a text with a link to a video app.
The clip takes a few seconds to load, the spinning circle taunting and teasing, and then suddenly I appear, soaked to the skin and gesturing wildly at someone I know to be Callum even though he remains just out of shot. I climb back into the bed, horrified and yet unable to drag my eyes away. I look like…I don’t even know what I look like, but it’s not good. It is verynotgood.
It’s a gross invasion of privacy that someone would not only film this but put it online. And the fact that it was Noah…I suddenly understand Gemma’s terse tone on the phone, and though I’m obviously furious with him, I know she’ll take it seriously and I don’t envy whatever punishment that kid is about to receive.
The video stops halfway through my feverish plea and loops back, starting over, and I know I should just put the phone down. I know I shouldn’t do what I’m about to do next. It’s the number one rule of the internet and yet I can’t help myself. I can’t stop.
I read the comments.
There are hundreds of them, maybe even thousands. Crude jokes about my body, laughing emojis,get a rooms. My heart beats rapidly until I feel like I’m going to throw up, but my thumb keeps scrolling, my eyes keep reading, and, after a while, the laughing emojis start to blur into one and I read the actual words between all the spam.
The ones that…aren’t so bad.
this sounds cute I wanna go
Glenmill destroyed our neighborhood. I, for one, applaud this young woman for standing up to them.
And on and on and on. People tagging their friends and their friends responding. People sharing the link to our website.
I dare you to come with me @LisaHigg92!!! We were just talking about something like this!!
I drop the phone onto the bed and reach for my laptop. It takes a minute to turn on and another minute to connect to the Wi-Fi, but when it does, I log on to my email and see…well, emails. My festival inbox doesn’t really get emails. But now I have three pages of them. All of them booking requests.
Requests because the booking system on our website has crashed.
I jump as my phone rings again, the Laketon Hotel’s number flashing up, but I ignore it as a car door slams outside.
The reporter.
I scramble off the bed, throwing on the first clothes I find before running back down the stairs, where Michelle is waiting as promised. I careen to a halt at the front door and give her my most professional smile.
“Would you like to come in?”
* * *
An hour later, after I’ve told our story, the reporter goes off in her car, and I cycle into the village. I had to turn my phone off since I was getting so many calls and when I arrive at Gemma’s house, it’s to find her standing in the doorway, waiting for me.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad at him in my life, but I take full responsibility for—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupt, propping my bike against the wall. “Really.”
“It’s not okay. I can’t even begin to imagine what—”
I slip past her into the house, pulling off my jacket as I glance around. “Noah?”
“Noah!” Gemma’s shout is a lot more forceful than mine was and, a second later, I hear the floorboard creak above me.
“I’ve already told him he’ll be running errands for you and Maeve every weekend for the rest of his life,” Gemma tells me, as he appears on the upstairs landing.
Noah creeps down the stairs, stopping halfway as if I’m going to attack him. “I’m sorry, Katie.”
And he sounds it. It might be because of the raft of punishments he’s about to receive, but by the miserable tone of his voice, I can tell he knows he did the wrong thing.
“I’ll never do it again,” he continues.
“Because you’re never allowed on the internet again,” Gemma mutters.
“Apology accepted,” I tell him. “But what you did was bad, Noah. You shouldn’t film people without their permission, even if you think they won’t mind. Things like that can’t be undone.”
