Double Life

Chapter 3: Jake

"I, um...gotta go."

That was all Jake managed to choke out as he ran out of the faculty closet. Alice made a last attempt to grab him by his hair and demand an explanation, but he was simply too fast for her.

Alice sighed as she herself exited the faculty closet and got to class, tardy and irritated knowing that now there'd be even more rumors flying around about her.

---

Later that evening, after the rest of his school day was filled with whispers and rumors and the occasional thumbs-up, and basketball practice was full of guys asking "Why her?", Jake found himself staring at his computer screen, in the account settings for his Fandom-power.net account. There was a clear "Delete" button highlighted on the screen staring him in the face, and yet he couldn't drive himself to click it.

She's only one person, Jake tried to convince himself. Compared to the hundreds of readers you have, she's not worth it.

Another argument weighed in on the other side of Jake's head: Yes, but Alice has control over your real life. This is just a silly hobby; it's not worth risking your whole reputation.

A silly hobby. Jake wasn't sure about that, to be honest. People online seemed to really like his writing; a few had suggested changing the names and trying to get it published as original fiction, but that would require telling his parents about what he was doing, which...no.

Jake decided he wasn't going to delete his account. He began typing up another chapter of Band's Recovery into his word processor, hoping this time he would actually managed to get something down. His readers were going to get cranky if he didn't update soon. 

He scrolled over to iTunes and plugged his earbuds into his laptop, placing his mixture of rock and roll and rap (including a few Mega Adolescent songs) on shuffle to help him block out all distractions and write.

It was going pretty well for a while. That was, until right in the middle of a fairly intense scene Jake found his music suddenly cut off with a loud ding! coming from a background tab.

Fandom-power.net: You have 1 new message!

Ugh. Probably a fan getting on his back about writing. How was he ever supposed to get anything done when people wouldn't leave him alone?!

When Jake actually scrolled over to the message, he saw it was written by someone with the screenname of "ChocoLattemon", which seemed familiar to him for some reason. The user icon was a sketch of a sad, long-haired girl on a black background with glowing white angel wings. Cliche, but doodled well.

ChocoLattemon: It's Alice. From school. We need to talk. P.S: If you ignore this it'll only be worse.

Jake sighed in frustration. He did not need this right now. Out of curiosity (really to see if he could get any dirt on her), he clicked on Alice's screenname, which led him to her profile.

ChocoLattemon

Gender: Female

Age: 19

Online now!

This user's account details are private. In order to see more, send them a buddy request!

So she kept her stuff private. And she lied about her age, probably to get into the smut stories. That was something he could use against her.

Deciding to go with the abrasive tone at first, Jake typed his message back to Alice, smirking at himself at his clever use of irony to turn the situation around on her.