Page 11 of You Started It

“You want me to be your own personal Uber?”

“Look at it this way. Picking me up means having to drive by your boy Ben’s house, every morning. It’ll keep him thinking you and I are together. That’s what you want, right?”

I don’t know what I want. All of this has happened so quickly. I haven’t even had time to process the fact that Ben has moved on with Olivia Chen.

“Okay, fine. If I drive you to and from school until your bike is fixed, we’re square.”

Axel laughs. “Not even one corner of the square are we.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’ll discuss it later. But first,” he says, stepping closer so we’re nose to nose. “Would you please get your car off Betty White?”

CHAPTER FOUR

The house is dark when I pull into the driveway. My heart continues to race above its regular rhythm, and it feels as if my intestines are twisting into themselves. This night was an epic disaster. This is why having a plan is so important.

The front door is unlocked. Jazz music streams inside from the back deck along with laughter from Eli and Eric. I guess they’ve returned from their clambake date. I lock the door and kick off my shoes before tiptoeing up to my room. I don’t want to interrupt, but mostly I don’t want to be on the receiving end of another lecture.

I’ve had enough of people talking at me for the day. There’s only so much one person can take.

I plop down on my bed and open Instagram, typing Olivia’s name into the search bar. There’s nothing quite like the high of looking someone up and finding their profile set to public. Her feed is perfectly curated. Each photo uses the same dreamy filter. There’s a healthy mix of nature and food photos—to balance out how shallow she is, no doubt. Speaking of, the obligatory bikini shots that show off her even proportions and perfect skin are also present. So, she’s attractive. So what? I am too. I don’t need to post pictures of myself in a tiny bikini to prove it.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I remind myself. The path to living a life free of internalized misogyny is a bit morechallenging when the broken-hearted version of you feels justified in hating the girl who stole your boyfriend.

Stick to the facts. Follower count: 1,579. Makes my seventeen followers look pathetic. She definitely goes hard on hashtags and the very millennial phrase “Nevertheless, she persisted,” which she’s used for a photo of her posing in front of a butterfly mural, laughing with friends on a boat, and drinking an iced coffee amid fall foliage. Gee. Talk about persistence in the eye of the storm.

I scroll back up to the top and see a link in place of her bio.

vsco.co/livvychen

I click on it and it sends to me to a separate photo-sharing site. God. How many photos does one person need to post of themselves online? I continue to scroll (and roll my eyes), trying to figure out what about this person drew Ben to her, and that’s when I see it: a picture from July 28 of the two of them. He has his arm over her shoulders. There’s no caption, just one hashtag: #bolivia

Bolivia?

Like the country in South America or…wait. Ben + Olivia = Bolivia.

I think I’m going to be sick.

I bolt out of bed and pace around my room as anger pulses through my veins. In all the calls and texts we exchanged throughout the summer, Ben never once mentioned Olivia or gave me any indication that something had shifted between us. Okay, the distance made our calls sometimes a little awkward, but we’d eventually find our groove. However, our calls did get shorter as time went on. July 28 would have been about four weeks into his job, enough time for him to meet and get to know Olivia on a “deeper level.” I stop in my tracks, my racing heart causing a burning in my chest.Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

This isn’t a matter of our relationship just fizzling out. Nor is it about Ben wanting to branch out. It should have been obvious byhow quickly he coupled up with Olivia, but this photo cements it. Ben betrayed me.

And I’m sorry, #bolivia?

Before I know it, I’m back in bed typing the lettersA-X-E-Linto my Instagram search bar, trying to find curly top. I left immediately after backing off his curb and releasing his precious Betty White from underneath my car. Driving him to and from school will definitely make Ben believe something is going on between us, but I’m not sure what Axel and I are going to talk about on these rides. We seemingly have nothing in common. And what if he suggests we eat lunch together? All I know is, I wasn’t in the headspace to discuss (or agree) to anything else in that moment.

Someone like Axel definitely has his Insta set to public. He should be easy enough to find, but as I scroll through the multiple profiles with the same name, I’m proven wrong, once again. Just as I’m about to give up on finding “my” Axel, a profile picture of a guy on his bike with the username AX catches my eye. I click on the name and, lo and behold, there he is, wild curls and a smirk that rivals King Tut’s.

Yikes. Pretty much every third picture is of him and Betty White. If his bike was so important, why did he just leave it on his front lawn? At night? If I didn’t run over it, someone else may have stolen it.

Look at this guy. He’s shirtless in half his posts. Dancing in the other half. I didn’t realize I’d agreed to fake-date Baryshnikov (or someone my generation actually knows).

Axel has a few reels of himself dancing, and while I know nothing about dancing, I can’t deny this kid knows how to move. It’s a bit hypnotic watching his body flow in one continuous motion, his hips gyrating way more freely than most guys my age. Okay, so he has a nice body. But I’m not that easily impressed by a six-pack.I zoom in. Correction: eight-pack.Brains.Brains turn me on. Not slick dance moves.

(Even if the tingles pulsing through my body beg to differ.)

I boldly hit Follow so I can message him. We need to sort things out. We need to talk. We need—AX requested to follow you. That was fast. My finger hovers over the Accept button. If I do this, it’s like I’m agreeing to keep up with this charade, and I’m not sure if that’s what I want to do, but also, I kind of feel like I have no other choice. I accept his request. Almost instantly, a DM from “AX” comes through.

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