That Scandalous Year

7. An Awful Thing

MARIE

The room was packed.

Marie expected it to be dominated by testosterone, and it was. But she was still surprised by the turnout of girls in there.

No less than Miss Valero introduced their guest speaker, Benjamin. An alumnus of the school. They had history way back when he was some sort of a Math wizard, and she was a coach of what they called the Math Circle. He went to NSU after. At work, he developed an automation software and just got promoted to Principal Software Engineer in one of those big IT companies in the country.

"Uh... I'm not a good public speaker, so forgive me in advance," the guest began with a nervous smile.

The giggles from the female part of the crowd were, Marie thought, exaggerating and cringe-worthy.

Benjamin wore a light grey buttoned short-sleeved polo shirt, dark skinny jeans, and black Converse shoes. He looked casually smart for the morning and ready to hop into a live-band bar for the evening.

He projected his slides on the white screen and clicked the presenter. "Anyway, here it goes..."

It was exactly what Marie needed to distract her mind from the events of the week. The words he said were music to her ears. The technical jargon spiced up her appetite for more knowledge.

Around her, the girls were only focused on one thing. She won't deny it either, the guy had the looks. But he was in his late twenties. And married. Marie almost wanted to say something or roll her eyes at her batchmates. But she remembered, she didn't mean anything to anybody there anymore.

She quickly slipped out of the door once the talk was over. She wanted to stay and personally ask Benjamin more about programming, but she didn't want to appear as an overeager enthusiast who knew one thing or two about designing a website. That kind of information may lead people closer to identifying her as Little Miss Nobody.

She almost got caught last year.

After that scandal involving their teachers, the school administration and some of the students were pumped to find out who was behind the blog that publicized it. Erika once told Marie that the principal invited over some handpicked students and interviewed them, suspecting they were Little Miss Nobody.

Since then, Marie had been extra careful in covering her tracks. Sometimes, she'd intentionally screw up her grammar or let errors remain in the posts. She'd also experiment in the manner of her writing to avoid consistency. If someone were to profile her, they'd have a difficult time.

Her tactics must have worked, for she was still in that school.

LMN was her Frankenstein. She was both proud and ashamed of it. Though blogging gave her a kind of satisfaction that filled up a hole inside her, she won't deny that LMN was, at times, an awful thing.

She tried to shut it down several times already. But on its good days, keeping up with Little Miss Nobody was exhilarating. It was, to use her favorite word, dopaminergic. As the keeper of secrets and the one who had the power to know things and how to expose them, it was like playing god. It was addicting. So, it stayed.

But, Marie observed, her blog's online traffic usually peaked when she posted blind items and gossip. When she spoke her mind as Little Miss Nobody, which was what she intended for it to be in the first place, no one paid attention. She guessed that no one liked to know what were her two cents on an issue. No one wanted to read her express her mind.

In the aftermath of the teachers-gate, for instance. She posted a lengthy feminist defense argument that their school had double standards in the handling of that scandal. Marie wrote about why it was unfair that they also had to fire their former Most Favorite Teacher when she was just involved in an unfortunate happenstance. Marie put so much effort into it. She carefully chose the right words, so she wouldn't sound like herself. But the post only gained five reactions and one unrelated comment.