Finding Mr. Brightside

After the whales are gone, we settle into a did-that-just-happen? window of time. Juliette is completely free of thought. I can tell because she’s really looking at me, not through me or around me, trying to find the answer to something without having to ask me for it. In this moment, in these surroundings, I’m more than enough for her, and I don’t even have to convince her no one’s looking as I lean in close.

“It feels like home out here,” I say, a millimeter farther from her face than I’d like to be. She smiles at me with her eyes before my lips press against hers.

31

ABRAM

JULIETTE AND I are in our couch bed underneath the same fourteen blankets, pillows propped, my arm wrapped around her. I really wish she wouldn’t insist on making this happen, especially after we’ve just eaten so much sweet-and-sour kitty from the Chinese takeout place. The act just seems hasty, at least by her methodical standards—like something she might regret for the rest of her senior year.

I can’t deny that a very large part of me wants her to go through with it, nor can I emerge from my rice coma long enough to stop her from polishing up my dashboard with a wad of napkins. Now she’s stretching her wrists, cracking her neck back and forth, preparing to take action regardless of what anyone else thinks. Her face is getting paler, her breathing more ragged, and she looks like I do right before I release food back into the universe involuntarily.

“You don’t have to do this,” I tell her.

“I know.”

Juliette

I’M NERVOUS, half-tempted to pray for the best—does God accept sarcastic texts from people he’s never heard from? Never mind, it’s just that I haven’t done this in so long. Is it really so impossible to show Abram he exists to me, in a meaningful way, by cheapening our relationship on Facebook? Yes. Posting imagery that proves we hang out together in our spare time is the ultimate sacrifice, right up there with the awkward sex we won’t be having tonight.

I log in to my account and wince at the Jerseylicious profile picture staring back: me, sophomore year, wearing too much bronzer and a noticeably fatter face.

“Hey, you look hot in that pic,” Abram says. I’ll delete it later, after I complete what I came here to do: upload a picture of Abram and me from earlier today. Sans whales, unfortunately, because Abram was right—as far as whale-watching goes, you have to be there. Case in point, my best snapshot looks like I threw my gray cable-knit scarf into the ocean trying to pass it off as a whale, which isn’t above me. Glad I didn’t, though, because otherwise said scarf wouldn’t be keeping my neck toasty right now.

It should be noted what I’m about to post isn’t just any pic. It’s an f’ing selfie! A few minutes ago, Abram and I held a competition over who could think of the best name for a couple’s selfie. His: couplet, twosie, double-header. Mine: cheesie, stankjob, lamepeg. He deserved to win. Unfortunately, he didn’t—I disqualified him.

If I look too closely at the pixels, like I am now, I can barely recognize myself as the wavy-haired, semi-ta

ABRAM

THAT’S A PRETTY GOOD-LOOKING COUPLET, if I do say so myself. Juliette’s all worried about the inherent selfie-ness of the image, but my long arm got us a pretty sweet angle, and you can’t even tell. Now she’s trying to maneuver the thumbnail around the upload box so that the image displays as little of her body as possible. She calls it “being considerate of others,” but I call it a “thirty percent loss of a nice, tight body.” I agree to disagree; she doesn’t.

Click.

The picture goes live.

She turns to me, placing her fingers to her lips. “What have I done?”

I sit up and try to kiss her frown upside down through her fingers. I’m not successful.

Juliette

I STARE AT OUR POSTED PICTURE, willing someone to Like us. No one does, which is what I get for not being likable. Social media is all about reciprocity—I’ll Like your newborn baby with the misshapen head if you Like this depressing picture I just sca

It’s been at least ten seconds and the picture is already plummeting down people’s newsfeeds. I’ll give it thirty more seconds before I gladly pay Facebook ten dollars to promote it back up to the top. I tag Abram, hoping to bottom-feed a few Likes from his four-digit Friend count, and then check my e-mail to see if my dad’s written me back. I never finished my apology e-mail to him; got us a family subscription to Lumosity, the u

Huge relief to see his name back in my inbox where it belongs; his e-mail says the book is flowing and his brain is suddenly feeling much more flexible, even without the neuroscientific training he’s now moderately addicted to. I’m proud of you, Dad, I type in response. Am I allowed to say this as his child? Have I ever cared about such boundaries? Send. Facebook no longer seems Like-or-Death.

But I still want to check our Like count one more time … click. Seven people have Liked it, including Heidi, who also commented: If only I’d been there in the background photo-bombing you!!

Oh, Heidi. Maybe I’ll finally go to that Britney Spears concert she’s been trying to drag me to for ten years—a trashy night on the town, just the two of us, would mean a lot to her. As I’m promising her this, via text, the last person on earth I’d expect to Like a picture of Abram and me pops up beside Heidi’s name.

I was secretly hoping she’d Like us together.

32

ABRAM

I’M NOT SURPRISED my mom Liked our picture. She’s a Facebook person. As well as a great person who doesn’t sweat the small stuff and would never be like, Appreciate the olive branch, but I think I’m going to hang on to my self-alienating thoughts of being wronged by you, thanks. That’s why she’ll always have love for my dad, keep his picture around the house, wear a red mummy dress for him every once in a while. I used to worry that this was stopping her from moving on, but I realized, after playing te

Juliette moves the cursor over my mom’s name and clicks the Add Friend button. Glad I stayed awake long enough to watch this day getting even better. She looks over at me, blushes, then jokingly checks my pulse to cover up her friendliness shame.

“I won’t be offended when she doesn’t accept.”

“No need to not be offended,” I say, struggling to be coherent. Doesn’t matter, because Mom accepts a few seconds later, and it’s the only time in my life I’ve wondered what we’d all do without Facebook. Because Facebook, at least in terms of my mom and Juliette right now, is a place to start.

Juliette

WATCH OUT, our picture is going viral. Fifty-plus people have Liked us so far, and I can’t stop watching the numbers climb like I’m accomplishing something, even when a scary-looking woman with a pixie haircut and visible biceps veins tries to ruin my Facebook buzz with her comment: Oh, my god, SO CUTE TOGETHER. When are you two coming over to my house for di