But the only thing I could picture whenever I closed my eyes and dreamt of updating my blog was all the hateful people online, poised over their keyboards, waiting to tear me apart. Even though so many people were supportive and lovely to me, it only took one nasty comment to send me back into a dark spiral. I’d never felt so paralysed before, so unable to write. Normally words flowed out of my fingers like water, but everything I wrote seemed stilted and wrong. I put it all down in a journal instead, but it just didn’t feel the same.
I’d tried to describe these feelings to Miss Mills. In that spiral, the people online become clowns in thick makeup—and when they smile their teeth are razor-sharp. They’re like monsters, but instead of lurking in the dark they’re right there for everyone to see. They’re all my worst fears rolled into one. They’re a million nightmares. They make me want to pack up all my things and move in with a remote tribe in the Amazon rainforest who think aeroplanes are evil spirits sent from the gods. Elliot told me about them. I bet they’ve never heard of Girl Online or Noah Flynn. I bet they don’t know about Facebook. Or Twitter. Or viral videos that just don’t ever seem to disappear.
Even if I lived only in Brighton, England, it would be OK. Most of my school has forgotten about my “scandal,” the same way they’ve forgotten the name of last year’s X Factor winner. My dad says that today’s news is tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper. And he’s right—the novelty of finding out about my blog, and even about Noah and me, has now worn thinner than the knees of my favourite jeans. But I don’t live in a remote jungle or really even in Brighton, England. Instead, I am a citizen of Planet Internet, and right now it’s the worst place in the entire world to be me—because, on the Internet, I worry that no one will ever forget.
At least one good thing has come from the Internet, though. Pegasus Girl and I swapped email addresses after she supported me, and she’s gone from being Girl Online ’s most faithful reader to one of my best friends—even though we haven’t met in real life yet. After listening to me moan for the millionth time about wishing Girl Online still existed, she told me that I could change my blog settings so that only people I gave a password to could read what I wrote. Now she, Elliot, and Miss Mills are the only people who read my ramblings, but it’s much better than nothing.
I can see Miss Mills through the warped glass in her classroom door, her light brown hair tumbling forward as she leans over her marking. I knock on the door frame and she looks up at me, smiling.
“Afternoon, Penny. Are you all done for the year, then?”
I nod. “Just finished my history exam.”
“That’s great! Come on in.”
She waits until I’ve sat down in one of the hard plastic chairs. All around the room are my fellow students’ photography projects, mounted on black foam board and ready for the summer exhibition. Against Miss Mills’s wishes, I specifically asked not to put my work on display. I completed all the assignments but couldn’t face showing my photographs to anyone else. Most of my class also put their portfolios online, but I stopped uploading mine after Christmas. I’m terrified someone will find it and use it to make fun of me. Instead, I’ve been compiling a paper portfolio and handing it in to Miss Mills each week. The physical act of creativity has been very therapeutic.
She pulls out my portfolio and hands it back to me. “Great job, as always, Penny,” she says with a smile. “This is our last meeting for a while, isn’t it? I wanted to talk to you about your last blog. You know, it does get better.”
I shrug. Getting through each day seems to be just about all I can handle.
As if she’s reading my thoughts, Miss Mills continues. “I think you can do far more than simply survive each day. You can thrive, Penny. You’ve been through a lot this past school year. I’m glad you’ve decided to continue with your A levels—especially in photography—but I don’t think you should let your choices worry you too much. You’re allowed to not know what you want to do yet.”
I want to believe her, but it’s hard. It feels like everyone has their lives all figured out, except me. It’s not something Elliot can relate to. He knows he wants to study fashion design and he dreams of one day having his own label. I just found out that Kira wants to be a vet so she’s taking biology and maths to make sure she can get into a good university. Amara is some kind of physics genius and has always wanted to be a scientist, so she is set. All I like to do is take pictures and write blog posts that I can only publish in secret to a select group of my closest friends. I don’t think there’s a career in that.
I know there’s an ocean of possibility out there, but I’m stuck on the shore, not prepared to dive in. “Didn’t you always want to be a teacher?” I ask.
She laughs. “Not really. I kind of . . . fell into it. I wanted to be an archaeologist! Until I realized that archaeology isn’t about Indiana Jones–style adventuring and too often involves categorizing tiny fragments of bone for hours on end. I spent a lot of time feeling lost.”
“That’s how I feel,” I say. “Lost in my own life. And I don’t know how to use a compass. Is there GPS for your life?”
Miss Mills laughs. “No matter what those other adults might tell you, I’ll let you in on a little secret: you don’t have to know now. You’re only sixteen. Go ahead and enjoy yourself! Live your life. Turn that internal compass of yours upside down and backwards and in circles so it doesn’t know which way is up. Like I said, I fell into teaching completely by accident, but now I wouldn’t want to do any other job.” She leans towards me and smiles. “So, are you looking forward to the concert tonight? It’s all anyone in my other classes could talk about. Isn’t Noah supporting The Sketch?”