Kat was staring at her screen, paralysed, as the noise around her continued to grow. He felt a stab of panic that she might have figured it out, that she would point the finger at him and this would all come crashing down on his head.
It was only when she finally moved to log in to her website that he wilted with relief.
They had won.
Kat’s whole body seemed to vibrate and her skin felt white hot. The images were doctored, fakes designed to mess with her head. Still, seeing herself like that, everybody seeing her like that, made her body feel as if it might disintegrate, and she would let it so that everybody would stop looking.
Behind her, Buttercliff heaved himself up from the desk and began walking towards the nearest PC. There was only one thing she could do to stop it. If the trolls were willing to do this, there was no way she could beat them.
Kat took a final look at the website she had built herself: her name in custom pixel art for the banner, animated sprites of Backwash characters dancing underneath, the developer diaries and blog posts, random videos and memes she had shared. It was supposed to be a sanctuary for her personality, her true self squeezed into a glass bottle and entrusted to the departing tide.
She wanted to scream, stand tall in front of them all and demand to know who had done this. Instead, she opened her website options and navigated to the delete menu.
Here, at the end, was nothing but defeat.
Are you sure? it asked.
There was no other choice. She pressed the button.
Luke refreshed the tab. Her website was gone.
‘Fucking yes, mate!’ he hissed.
Across the room, Kat had closed her MacBook and pressed her forehead into the edge of the desk. The adrenaline that had surged through Wesley moments before was quickly ebbing, his triumph eaten away by a growing nausea.
Buttercliff was leaning into a screen, demanding to be shown what had caused the commotion, but the girls there refused to relent.
‘I’ll show you, sir!’ shouted one of the boys.
Looking back, Wesley saw Kat grip the edge of her desk as if trying to tear chunks of it loose. Her whole body shook, too violently to be caused only by tears.
Melodrama, Wesley told himself. TrumourPixel had warned them about this; girls like her always played the victim, even when they got exactly what they deserved.
Luke and Justin were already collecting their things. Ten minutes remained of the period but there was no obligation to stay. Buttercliff wouldn’t stop them. They had their victory, and now they were fleeing the scene of the crime.
‘Where you guys heading now?’ asked Wesley.
‘We’ll report this to Tru and catch you later,’ said Luke, shouldering his bag. ‘Drop us a message when you’re finished at your new job or whatever.’
‘We could—’
They turned their backs on him and left, as if Wesley had ceased to exist.
At the back of the room, Kat’s convulsions had turned violent, her breathing sharpened into high-pitched rasps. Other people in the room could no longer pretend they didn’t notice, tearing their eyes away from the photograph preserved on their screens to watch the real thing.
‘Live demonstration!’ crowed one of the boys.
Buttercliff saw what was on their screen and gasped, fumbling for the mouse to close it.
Finally, Kat’s head jerked up, and she stared at her hands gripping the desk, like she didn’t recognise them. Her knuckles had bleached so white it was almost as if Wesley could see right through them.
A lump caught in his throat, and he made to stand up. It was different, seeing a victim in real life and not inside a computer screen. Before he could move, Kat swept everything off the desk into her bag and stood up sharply enough for her chair to clatter over.
‘Who is responsible for this?’ shouted Buttercliff.
Kat ignored him, everyone, and rushed for the door. As she passed Wesley, something about her changed that sent goosebumps skittering across his skin. The light from the windows seemed to consume her entirely, shining through her body as if it was made of glass. By the time he had blinked, trying to blot the illusion, she was out of the door and out of sight.
The room fell quiet around him. Buttercliff glanced around in bewilderment, and then returned to his seat at the front of the class to resume his game. Everybody at a computer closed the website, the email, and returned to whatever they had been doing before as if nothing had happened at all.
The world spun around Kat’s head as she fell to her knees in the toilets. Every atom in her body seemed to be in open rebellion, trying to shake loose its bonds. The smell of bleach scorched her nose, stinging eyes already raw with tears. The contents of her bag had spilled across the grimy tiles.
‘Stop crying,’ she whispered, forcing herself back onto her feet.
Before she could catch sight of herself in the mirror above the sinks she clenched her eyes shut. For a bizarre moment back in the classroom she had thought herself to be disappearing.
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