Brooklyn sat down at the computer at her desk while Ben dragged her armchair across the room, setting it down next to the desk chair. He began spitting out directions as he sank into the chair and put his feet on up the desk. He was surprised to see that she already had the sign-up page for Facebook on the screen.
“Those better not smell,” she commented, pointing at his feet.
“I have socks on,” he answered casually. Ben discreetly tried to check his feet for any unpleasant odor. Remembering that his feet had been trapped inside his shoes all day, he slowly removed them from the desk trying to avoid attention. Brooklyn glanced over at him with a big smirk across her face.
“Thank you.”
“Okay, see on the top in the middle where it says ‘Log In’? Don’t go there. Look at the bottom right-hand side where it says . . .”
Brooklyn had already clicked where it said “Sign Up.”
“Yeah, there.”
She began to answer a series of questions under the registration. “Umm, I can’t remember what my new birthday is.”
“Just put in like 1/1/1910 or something dumb like that. My dad would probably want us to lie anyway.” Brooklyn typed a random date, said she lived in Juno, Alaska and left the school blank. They found a cartoon picture on the Internet that had dark hair and blue eyes and downloaded it as Brooklyn’s default picture.
“Great, this entire thing is a lie . . . looks nothing like my…”
“When were you going to tell me?” he interrupted.
“Tell you what?”
“That you have a Facebook profile already.”
Brooklyn looked at Ben. “No . . . maybe . . . but that doesn’t matter now,” she replied, fidgeting in her chair.
“Every kid has a Facebook account. But, you’re actually thinking about looking at it.”
“No, I’m not, I can’t do that,” she snapped. Ben was staring right through her. It felt so obvious that she was concealing her true intentions. The thought of checking her Facebook account had occurred to her several times since she had gotten her new computer. “Forget it, okay? I know that I can’t sign in . . . I’m not stupid, you know. The stupid thing shows the most recent log-in date and someone somewhere who’s really good with computers could find where I logged in from.”
“But, if we looked at your page from my account, then…”
“No,” she said abruptly. “It’s not my page that I want to see,” she swallowed hard. “I…it’s, like, my only connection to them and there’s no way that I would be able to look just once.” “I know, but if you could see what your old friends are doing, then you wouldn’t feel like you’re so far away. We could look from my account. There must be someone that you want to…” his voice trailed off.
There was a long pause. “Kind of…my best friend.”
“I won’t tell anyone if you want to look.”
“No, I can’t.” Ben helped her connect to his profile and Gabe’s profile. All of a sudden, Brooklyn clicked on the sign-out button and stood up abruptly, pointing to her chair. “Well, come on . . . are you going to help me or not?”
Without another word, Ben leaned over and logged in under his account with both guilt and regret. Twenty minutes ago, his father had trusted him to assist Brooklyn, and helping her spy on her friends in California was not what his father had intended him to do. Yet, there was something about Brooklyn that made helping her worth the risk. There she was, a foot away from him, and he could almost feel her body shaking with fear as she swiftly directed the mouse across the screen, followed by her fingers rapidly moving across the keys typing the name “Sasha Matthews” as fast as possible.
The search brought up 487 profiles under the name Sasha Matthews. She clicked on the Advanced Search button and narrowed the search by specifying the search criteria, followed by filling in the state, city, and age-range categories. The advanced search returned only four names.
Brooklyn scrolled down. The Sasha she was looking for was third on the list. Ben wasn’t sure if it was the smell of Brooklyn’s shampoo or the lotion that she used after her shower, but he was suddenly enamored of this stranger living in his house. He held his hand out, toward her back; all he could think to do was embrace her and tell her it would be okay.
Brooklyn turned around. “What?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. All of a sudden his mouth became dry and he was confused about what to say to her. He could not remember the last time that he had felt this awkward around a girl his age. “Nothing. Did you find her yet, or what?” he asked, anxious to see a little part of Brooklyn’s past.
She nodded quickly, confirming that she had found her profile. The cursor hovered over Sasha’s profile picture, with her jumping on a trampoline. It was the same picture that was on the profile the last time she had seen it. Brooklyn smiled, remembering how many hours Sasha had spent outside after she had gotten the trampoline, a gift from her parents after months of begging.
Brooklyn’s palms were beginning to sweat, her nerves taking over her body. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she whispered.
“It’s up to you. If you’re not ready and you change your mind later…“
It was too late. She had clicked on Sasha’s picture, revealing the full profile. Ben leaned in a little closer, his face now inches from hers.
“Good thing her profile isn’t private. Then we might not be able to stalk her.”
Her status read “Missing Amber.” Brooklyn’s eyes started watering again. Her chest began to feel heavy. “I miss you, too,” she whispered.
“What’s your real last name?” “Cole,” she whispered. It was too hard to say aloud.
Other than the new public messages Sasha received, her profile had not changed at all. Brooklyn and Ben read through the public messages, many of them offering support or asking if there was anything they could do to help. “What do you think that’s about?” she asked, wondering if it was about her.
“Uh, maybe she’s sad because you’re gone, so…”
“Maybe,” she interrupted. “But . . . what do you think people think, I mean about where I am and what happened? Do you think that she knows I had to leave because of my family? What if she thinks that I wanted to leave? I didn’t want to leave.”
Ben shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, I know you didn’t, but my dad didn’t say anything about what they told people. You never asked?”
“I don’t know . . . I guess it was just a shock or something.”
Brooklyn clicked on Sasha’s pictures. There were 127 pictures in her profile, and they scrolled through all of the pictures one by one. There were many pictures of Brooklyn and Sasha together: at the beach, at school, around the pool, at an amusement park. And there were pictures Sasha and Brooklyn with their friends doing even more things together. Brooklyn was clearly happy as she went through the pictures, telling Ben stories as they went through the photos.
“That’s a good one. I want to see a close-up,” said Ben, pointing to a picture of Brooklyn and Sasha eating ice cream cones with the biggest smiles on their faces. Brooklyn clicked on the picture and comments popped up below the photo. The first comments were from friends of theirs saying how cute the snapshot was. The last comment was from her former classmate.
This picture is only a few weeks old.
I can’t believe she’s really gone.
Let’s make a pact visit her every year on her birthday.
“What?” asked Brooklyn, stunned. “How can they visit me? Do they know where I am?”
“No. I mean, that’s impossible. My dad said that nobody knows, except for us.”
“Then how are they going to visit me?”
Brooklyn clicked on another picture. Under picture caption it said, “Remembering Amber.” Brooklyn had a blank expression on her face. Ben wasn’t sure what to say. There it was, clear as day, a picture of Amber and a poem about never fo
rgetting those who have died.
“They think I’m dead!” Brooklyn shouted.
“Are you sure?” asked Ben, knowing it had to be the truth, but unsure of how to respond with the sensitivity required for the situation.
“Yes, I’m sure! Look at this!” Brooklyn pointed to more comments on Sasha’s page referring to Amber passing away.
“Let’s ask my dad, then.”
“No!” shouted Brooklyn. “You can’t! If he finds out what we did, he won’t trust me and I won’t be able to look anymore.”
“Uh . . . I . . . maybe I was wrong. Maybe looking isn’t such a good idea.”
“But it’s all I have,” said Brooklyn, her blue eyes sad and lonely. She clicked on one of Sasha’s headshots so it pulled up a larger view. Then, she clicked the print button.
“Oh, uh, what are you doing?” Ben asked.
“Please don’t say anything. I’ll hide it, I promise.”
“It’s official. My dad is going to kill me,” said Ben.
“It’s fine. Nobody’s even going to know,” she said, trying to reassure him.
There was a chime; it was an instant message from Sara, asking Ben why he hadn’t called her yet. Ben read the message and rolled his eyes as more messages from her began to appear asking him what he was doing and why he wasn’t responding.
“Do you want me to leave?” asked Brooklyn.
Ben stood up and signed out of his account. Sara’s timing couldn’t have been worse—just as he was about to take Brooklyn into his arms to comfort her. “Are you okay, Ben?” Her beautiful blue eyes were staring into his. All of a sudden Ben felt the fog begin to clear and shook his head.
“It’s fine, all of it. I won’t say anything. We’ll finish another time. Just promise me you won’t look without me.”
“Thanks for being here with me,” said Brooklyn with a smile as she reached over to hug him.
“No problem,” he said nervously. He began to feel guilty about even thinking about Brooklyn as somebody he would like to have as a girlfriend when he was supposed to be looking out for her like a brother.
“Uh . . . thanks for sharing all of that with me. I know it’s not easy being here. So, whatever I can do to help. You know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Hide that picture, and, if you get caught, I was never here.”
Brooklyn spent the next two hours chatting with Blair on her Facebook instant messenger. Gabe was logged on from his computer down the hall and was messaging Brooklyn as well. She received several friend requests while she was online with Blair and Gabe because he had sent out a note to his friends to add Brooklyn. She accepted all of their requests and couldn’t believe how fast this was all happening. Ben signed on and also messaged her, letting her know he had also told his friends whom she’d met earlier that day, and to look out for them adding her.
Just when she was done with the computer for the night, Brooklyn received a friend request from Sara. She considered ignoring it for a moment before finally accepting the request. It was beneficial not to make waves. After adding Sara’s clones and then all of Ben’s friends, she finally decided to call it a night. She was exhausted and her fingers hurt from all the typing.
She said goodnight to Blair and then walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she was done, she opened the medicine cabinet and took out two sleeping pills. She stuck her head under the faucet to drink water and wash the pills down. Brooklyn folded up the printed picture of Sasha and put it in the middle of one of the books on her bookshelf. After climbing into bed, Brooklyn grabbed her bear and snuggled in.
She tried to dissect everything that happened earlier that day. Overall, it had been a pretty good start. Everyone except Sara had been friendly. Blair was extremely nice, and Brooklyn was excited to get to know her better. She felt a bit unsettled about having to lie to people about who she was and where she came from. But she hoped that would become easier as the days went by.
After all, she would never be going back to her old life. She was really thankful to have Ben. So far, he had proven to be a great ally, except when it came to his reputation. She was content with her living situation and surprised herself by thinking about the Thompsons as her own family. She desperately wanted the warmth and comfort of her real family and was hoping that it could exist with the Thompsons. There really was no choice for her, she could never go back. Would her life with the Thompsons feel like a real family is things were stable, and normal and fun? Should she feel guilty about wanting to be treated like a daughter by these replacements?
But then she started thinking about Sasha and her living relatives, and she started crying. They all thought that she was dead, and it was upsetting to think that they were grieving her loss. There was nothing that Brooklyn could do about it, even though she wanted to somehow pass along a secret message that she was okay. But it was too risky, and if she got caught, there was no way to know what the consequences might be. She could be sent to live somewhere else—or worse, she might be kicked out of the witness protection program, which would make her an easy target for the people who murdered her family. She knew that her life absolutely depended on following the witness protection program guidelines and instructions.
Brooklyn remembered her promise to Greg and Rachel that she would never go back to any part of her old life. And deep down she knew that she had to keep that promise, except for the occasional times when she would allow herself to look up their profiles under Ben’s account...After all, she thought, there was no way that those murderers could ever track her down just because she looked up some Facebook profiles. It seemed like a harmless way to maintain a slight connection to her previous life, although it was an effort to convince herself that it was not really breaking the promise she had made.