Read Watch Me Disappear for Free Online Page B

made several drafts. One was sarcastic and self-deprecating, and when I reread it, I knew if I posted it, I’d just seem like an elitist snob. One was sincere to the point of sappy. Obviously I couldn’t share that one. I did write one I was very fond of, but it had a serious flaw: Most of what I wrote in it was not true. It was all revisions of actual fact. For instance, in one item I wrote that I once went diving off of cliffs in Hawaii. Actually, my family took a vacation to Hawaii when we lived in California, and we went to these beautiful pools fed by waterfalls where you could go diving, but I just stood there, on the cliff, for like an hour, trying to work up the nerve to jump. In the end, I just walked back down and watched my dad and brother. It was all stuff like that—how I wished things were, instead of the truth. That one I just filed away in my journal.
    Like all Facebook fads, “25 Random Things About Me” quickly faded as a hot topic, and I never managed to post one, which is okay with me in the end. I’m not interested in Facebook to share my life; I’m interested in everyone else.
     
     

Chapter 4
     
     
    “Music in the Park” is what everyone was talking about on Facebook the other day. I have gleaned that it’s some kind of week-long festival with music and food and other entertainment in City Park. Thursday night is a high school battle of the bands. Mrs. Morgan filled my mother in on the event, even suggesting that I go with Maura and her friends to meet more people. Clearly she didn’t run that one by Maura first. My mother badgered me to go, to get out there and have fun “like all the other kids.” It does sound like it could be fun, if you have friends to go with, which obviously I do not. Or so I thought. Then, this afternoon, I got a message from Missy asking me if I want to meet her to go hear the bands. She suggested I have my parents drop me off at her house, which is near the park, so we can walk over together.
    Hang out with someone I met online? It doesn’t seem like a great idea. Missy hasn’t posted any photos yet; maybe “Missy” is really some sexual predator, just like my parents always warn me about. Besides, I still don’t know how I will explain to my parents how I met her. In the message, she included her cell phone number. I scribbled it down in my notebook—if only my parents allowed me a cell phone, I would have called her on the spot—and logged off the computer. All afternoon I have been contemplating the situation.
    I can’t ask for a ride. I can’t have Missy pick me up at my house. I can’t drive myself. I can’t think of a single way to make it happen. Unless I beg Maura for a ride. How would that go? I’d have to explain to her why my parents don’t know about Facebook or Missy. I’d probably have to apologize for using her computer. And still I can’t really picture her agreeing. Well, at least calling Missy will reassure me that she isn’t some sex fiend posing as a teenage girl. I’ll hear her voice and talk to her and maybe we’ll make a plan.
     
    *          *          *
     
    I dial the number Missy gave me and after a couple of rings it goes to voice mail. I guess everyone screens calls from numbers they don’t recognize. Makes sense. I leave a message, and a minute later she calls back.
    “Wow! It’s so cool to finally talk to you,” she says. “We should have exchanged numbers weeks ago.”
    It’s true. For almost a month I’ve been walking my butt off to carry out a choppy Email correspondence with her, and all I ever needed to do was pass along my number. It’s absurd. Then again, the eternal problem: How would I have explained to my parents this newfound friend? Even at that very moment, if my mother came in and asked who was on the phone, what would I say?
    “So listen,” I say. “My parents are kind of strict.” I pause, trying to figure out how to explain my predicament.
    “Look, if you don’t