She's Such A Nerd

20: Social Ladder

"Hey," I hear Jake say. "Get up. It's already ten."

"No," I grumble.

Mark grunts. "I think you mean it's only ten."

I laugh, still half asleep, and roll onto my back. Mark and I had fallen asleep on the floor while Jake had the luxury of sleeping on the couch last night. I'm pretty sure I have an imprint on my cheek from the controller. Jake stands between Mark and I, looking down at us with his arms crossed disapprovingly. I make a face and stretch my arms out to him. He sighs before giving in, leaning down to help me up. What I didn't expect was for him to pick me up entirely, but I don't have a problem with this either. He carries me to the kitchen and sets me down on one of the stools at the counter.

"Thank you," I say before yawning.

Before he can say anything, Mark yells out, "My turn, Jakey-poo!" I burst out laughing, almost falling off the seat in the process.

Jake laughs before yelling back, "Not happening, dude!"

Once I calm down, I turn to Maria, who stands there laughing with us. "What's for breakfast?"

"I'm making waffles."

Mark walks into the room. "What about waffles?"

"You're going to watch us eat them." Jake laughs at the look of horror on Mark's face.

"You two are so mean," Maria says despite the smile on her face. "Emaline, why don't you go change?"

I look down at my pajamas then back at her. "Why?" I question. She gives me a look and I surrender. "Fine. I'll be back down in a few minutes."

I run up the stairs and change quickly. As I head out of my room, my laptop makes a sound. Curious, I walk back into the room and sit down at my desk. I find that I hadn't logged off of Facebook last night and it was still sitting open. I gawk at the amount of notifications I have. Looking through them, I see most of them are pictures I'm tagged in. Pictures from the party. Some were of me standing at the end of the end of the rose petal path, a surprised look on my face, or of me blowing out the candles on my cake. Others were from the party. There was even a video of all my classmates singing along to a song as everyone danced around.

I move to the comments. Some of them are of people tagging me, wishing me a happy birthday. There were a couple that caught my attention.

Are her and Jake together? If not, they should be. They'd be cute together.

I didn't know she lived at such a nice place. Cool party, tho!

I blushed at the first comment. As for the second, it's not like I've gone out of my way to hide the fact that my parents had money. Until Jake and Mark came around, nobody really knew where I lived as far as I know.

I continue scrolling through the comments. Some aren't so nice.

She only threw a party to get attention.

She's a nobody. I wouldn't be caught dead at her party.

Who is she, anyways? I've never seen her before.

She's such a nerd.

I frown at some of the comments, looking at who posted them. I recognize the guy who asked who I was. I'd been in the same math class as him two years in a row. I can't believe people would be so mean. I haven't even said anything to some of these people. They don't know me. How could they say things like that?

Jake chooses this moment to knock on my door. I quickly log off, not wanting to drag him into it. He's going to see it at some point. I'd rather him think that I know nothing of it.