Internet Friends

Chapter One

Remember when your mother told you to 'just be yourself' your first day of kindergarten? That advice remained valid... right up until middle school. After that you either made it to the top of the popularity ladder, or got shoved to the bottom where you were virtually dead meat. Or, you were one of those rare cases where you were in the middle, where they either didn't care about you, or you were friends with people higher up this metaphorical ladder but you yourself were not.

Abbey Phillips was such a case. She had a few popular friends, but she was stuck in the middle of this metaphorical ladder we keep talking about. Which was fine by her; she was happy watching her dorky T.V. shows with her dog, reading fanfictions and then proceeding to bawl her eyes out over said fictional characters. Nobody knew about the last part, except maybe her dog and her plant, both which she'd sworn to secrecy.

It was Friday. She was home alone, save for her loyal dog Trailer who currently took up half her bed. The other half she currently occupied, along with her laptop, iPhone, charger, a bowl of popcorn and two Sprite soda cans. Her bedroom walls were painted green, but only one wall remained untouched. The two side walls were decorated neatly with animal posters and Doctor Who/Sherlock posters and whatever else she chose. The wall closest to her bed was plastered with various drawings and pictures she'd created or taken herself.

Friday afternoon = Supernatural marathon. She grabbed her bowl of popcorn and curled up, gazing intently at the laptop screen as she clicked on 'Resume Watching'. The red Netflix loading screen popped up as she took a handful of popcorn and placed it in her mouth. When it stopped loading, she watched as her two favorite fictional characters ever started to move on screen. She had started re-watching the entire series only a day ago, and she was at the 12th episode of the first season.

She made it thirty minutes in, undisturbed, when her Iphone started to vibrate. She glared at it menacingly but it persisted stubbornly. Reluctantly, she picked up her phone and answered the call, her eyes still focused on her laptop screen.

'I'm not going to Kelsie's party, Bree. Sorry." she said, not bothering to check who had called her. The only people who would call her at this time was Brianna and her mom, and her mom usually called the home phone.

"What? No, neither am I. I don't like Kelsie that much, didn't I tell you?" answered her friend. "Okay, then why are you calling?" inquired Abbey, popping open a Sprite can and sipping it. "What, can't I call a friend just to talk?" Abbey snorted.

"Okay, okay. So, you like to vlog or whatever right?" Abbey sighed. "I blog, Bree. Not vlog." Only her friend would confuse video blogging with blogging. "Yeah yeah whatever. Okay, I found this website, right? I think you'd like it. I like it, at least." Abbey frowned. Whatever Bree liked Abbey tended to hate. And since her friend had just confused blogging with vlogging, she doubted it was a blogging site at all. "Fine, what's it called?"

"Tumblr." Abbey raised her eyebrows. That was a blogging site. She'd avoided it because her favorite bloggers had moved to Tumblr. She'd considered it taboo, as stupid as that sounded, but maybe... maybe it was different.

She paused the Netflix video and opened a new tab. She typed in the tumblr URL into the searchbar, and was greeted by various pictures on a blue backdrop. She signed up for it in a couple of seconds, talking to Bree while she did.

Abbey slowly started following people who seemed to post or reblog interesting things. She herself reblogged many of her interests, including the many fandoms she was involved with, and whatever pretty pictures she happened to come by. Abbey had found her people.

Over the next few weeks Abbey steadily gained followers, and had a healthy 100 or so by the end of the month (100 followers in a little over three weeks was amazing for her.)