The Silhouette of a Spider

Chapter 7

Michelle Jones was not too open about her private life on the internet, but her whole Instagram account gave Quentin all the information he needed about her.

First of all, MJ wasn't like the other girls. You know, the girls who did make-up, dressed pretty, went shopping, the whole ordeal of a teenage girl you see in movies like Mean Girls for example. MJ was some sort of a tomboy, which meant that MJ 'acted like a boy'. She dressed up in baggy clothes, had no fashion sense, wore no make-up at all, had her messy hair either free or in a lazy ponytail, and all together she seemed to get along better with boys than other girls her age. It seemed like that maybe she actually didn't have a crush on Peter, but were just really good friends with him, and just wanted to do everything with him, as friends. But Quentin wasn't going to take that risk.

MJ liked horror movies, and everything else related to horror. A lot of her posts on Tumblr (a hell site Quentin never wanted to visit again) were somehow related to something dark, like real life murders and conspiracy theories. She knew a lot about history, as long as it was related to something horrifying, like natural disasters, massacres, crimes ... all kinds of fun stuff. Her not-so-secret account just screamed 'edgy'.

She only showed her face on Instagram. A few selfies were there and there, going up from 300 likes even over 1000 likes. One selfie was helpful to Quentin - It was a picture of MJ with a cap on, looking away from the camera, and behind her there was a skate park located in this very city. Quentin had never went there before, but a quick search gave him the location. It was far away, but Quentin didn't care about that.

After figuring out the location of that park, he waited and stalked MJ's social medias until finally a post came up on Twitter, saying something along the lines of 'Gonna try a new trick with my skateboard tomorrow. Should I film it and make a compilation of all the fails? lol'

Stalking someone was so much easier nowadays when you had the internet making everything easy. In one night, Quentin had managed to find MJ's social medias, the places she visited, and the place where she would be tomorrow. Maybe next time MJ will be more careful about what she posts on the internet.

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So, Quentin Beck followed MJ after school in the same way he always followed Peter. She went to a different direction, walked for a long while - long enough to make Quentin's feet ache a little -, before stopping at a store, ordering a slushie and a candy bar, then stepping out and continuing her way. She seemed to like walking more than taking a bus ride which would have made this trip pass much faster, but Quentin couldn't complain. Next time he would know MJ's daily route and he could just wait for her somewhere, inside his parked car.

MJ's next stop was her home, he assumed, where she went to drop her stuff, change clothes, eat a snack most likely, then head out with a skateboard. Following someone who was on a skateboard was much harder, and Quentin started to regret for following her on foot.

But then, finally, she stopped at the skate park and started ... doing whatever skaters do. Just going around in circles, doing a few tricks, falling down a couple of times but always getting back up. Quentin didn't see the hype in skateboarding, but he understood why people liked it. For a while, he wanted to just go and join them, just so he would have something to do. But he held himself back, knowing an adult trying to skateboard with some teens would look weird. Besides, MJ knew him. So Quentin kept his distance, watching, and hoping that his phone battery wouldn't die.

Hours passed. MJ was most of the time on her own, then sometimes she took a break and talked to the boys who were there at the park, then skateboarded again. Quentin spend the first two hours at the edge of the park, looking in and pretending he was waiting for the bus, but then he had went to the other side of the road and entered a cafe. He ordered a coffee, sat by the window and kept his eyes locked on the other side of the street, watching MJ. When the sun was starting to set, MJ started heading home, Quentin following right after her.