Page 4 of What Happened to Lucy Vale
But both leads were false, and soon explained by the news that Sofia Young’s parents were getting a divorce.
@bassicrhythm:Sofia Young’s dad just moved out
@bassicrhythm:that’s why the moving van was there. He’s renting a place in Lincoln
@bassicrhythm:It’s pretty fucked up
@frenchkissesry:I don’t understand Sofia’s mom
@frenchkissesry:How do you not know that you’re a lesbian for 40 years?
@ktcakes888:waitWhat????
@badprincess:What
@badprincess:is that why her parents are getting separated?
@badprincess:Because Sofia’s mom is a lesbian??
@highasakyle:I don’t get why Mr. Young has a problem with that ...
@highasakyle:... now he and his wife both like to bang other women
@nononycky:maybe Mrs. Young likes them to be of legal drinking age
@goodnightsky:wtf you guys this is so fucked up
@bassicrhythm:it really is
@highasakyle:My cousin took a class with Mr. Young
@highasakyle:He said the guy grooms a new girl every semester
@goodnightsky:no, I mean what you said
@nononycky:he teaches poetry. Enough said
@goodnightsky:this whole conversation is beyond fucked up
@ktcakes888:poor Sofia. I feel so bad for her
@badprincess:@goodnightsky is right. We shouldn’t be talking about this.
@badprincess:Especially behind Sofia’s back
@goodnightsky:Or in front of my face
That’s how we found out that Sofia Young was on Discord with us.
It was high-key awkward.
The problem with Discord was also the great thing about it: since our server was invite-only, we were lazy about tracking usernames. On Discord, usernames were like Instagram filters, slight alterations in tone and aesthetic that varied with our moods. Before we accidentally told Sofia her dad was a serial cheater with a taste for teenagers, for example, most of us just assumed @goodnightsky was Skyler Matthews because her old username was @goodskyelf, and @goodnightsky joined only a couple of weeks after Skyler said she was going to change it.
Ironically, we always figured it was safer to avoid our real names. We’d all heard horror stories about the time Harper Rowe was catfished by her friend Reese Steeler-Cox pretending to be theirotherfriend Charlotte Anderson. “Charlotte” baited Harper into talking shitabout Reese and got Harper permanently iced out of the in crowd. Poor Harper started middle school as one of the Echelon girls and ended it as a musical theater geek, all because of a friend’s Discord server and her misplaced trust in a username.
Then there was the rumor that Ryan Hawthorne’s creepy older stepbrother, Luke, had used Ryan’s name to make it onto a private Discord for the Woodward cheerleaders and solicit topless photos of at least three of the girls. Although, there was controversy about whether it was actually Ryan Hawthorne’s creepy stepbrother pretending to be Ryan Hawthorne who did it, or Ryan Hawthorne pretending to be his creepy stepbrother pretending to be Ryan Hawthorne. Either way, it made for crazy drama our freshman year and nearly got Ryan Hawthorne suspended from the swim team just before state championships, which would have been tragic.
Besides, our real names came with trip wires of social expectation. We couldn’t use our real names and interact honestly. That’s the other thing about Discord: we were all friends on the server, but we wereonlyfriends there.
