Anonymous

10

Bonnibel's fingers ran over the cold screen of her dormant phone as she stretched out on the couch. Her friends hadn't texted her all night, and it was New Year's Eve. She'd assume that she'd get a text from one of them, right? Even just a simple one, wishing her a happy New Year. In fact, she hadn't seen them for most of the Christmas holidays, aside from their meetup in town for last minute shopping on Christmas Eve.

It was kind of...upsetting? Thinking about how her friends were probably together, either at a party or merely hanging out at one of their houses wasn't a good thing. It wasn't nice to think about how she'd been either forgotten about or cast out of plans. She knew she could be kind of socially awkward at times, but it would've been lovely if they'd asked her.

She glanced down at her phone again, just in case another text had come through and she didn't notice. Nope, nothing. Just her lock screen staring back at her, unchanged.

Sighing, Bonnibel reached over to the coffee table and switched the television off. The screen turned black and she smiled in satisfaction, picking up her laptop. She planned on scrolling through Facebook and laughing at ridiculous posts about how her classmates back home had celebrated the New Year. Maybe she'd talk to Bubba, if he was still awake.

She opened up her browser and clicked on the Facebook icon in her bookmarks. If she was being honest, she didn't check social media very often. It usually only came down to boredom, which would be expected, considering she was spending New Year's alone.

It was nice to look at statuses from old classmates, and she sent Bubba a message in the hopes of a reply – maybe he'd be good company – but it was past 1AM back at home, so she doubted she'd get a response.

She noted that she had a few friend requests and clicked on the tab to look at them. Marshall, Keila, and Lady and her group had added her. She accepted them all and frowned at the 'people you may know' that came up soon afterwards. She sent a friend request to the first two people on the list – Elle and Phoebe – and then blinked in surprise when it suggested Marceline.

She clicked on the other girl's name and wasn't surprised when her page was completely unrestricted. Naturally, Marceline would leave all of her information out there for anyone to look at. Out of mere curiosity, Bonnibel clicked down on the 'about' section, scrolling past her hometown and school, pausing only for a moment when she noted something else.

According to Marceline's Facebook page, she was in a relationship with a boy named Ash.

She squinted at the boy's profile picture, but didn't bother clicking on his profile. He looked like a delinquent, the kind of guy who would drop out of school to pursue a career in smoking marijuana and soaking up government benefits.

(Why wasn't she surprised that he was Marceline's boyfriend?)

She clicked the 'back' button and then proceeded to scroll down Marceline's profile. She didn't post much – it was mostly just music videos that Keila had forwarded on her page, or photographs she'd been tagged in – and it wasn't long before Bonnie was a few years deep. How the hell had that happened?

She quickly scrolled to the top again, finding nothing interesting aside from the other girl's birthday, which was apparently on October 31st, and the fact that she was seventeen, unlike most people in their grade. Bonnibel wasn't seventeen until May.

She frowned at Marceline's profile picture. It was a selfie, but she wasn't smiling, and naturally she was in the darkest clothes possible. Bonnie clicked through a few others, but still no smiles. Even in the ones with her apparent boyfriend.

Bonnibel clicked through a few more, blinking in confusion at a particular image. It was from 2014 on Marceline's birthday, with the caption 'she made me put this as my profile pic'. The picture was of her and Keila, Marceline's arms wrapped around her best friend and she was actually smiling. It wasn't just a smile, like how most people forced happy faces in their pictures, it was actually genuine, the other girl's green eyes lit up with happiness. Everyone deserved to be happy and have that moment captured, even if it was in a forgotten profile picture from a little over a year ago.