“Steff?”
She bunches her lips together and cocks her head. “‘What’s up?’ Seriously? What’s up with you? Is there, oh, any chance you’d like to share something massively huge and crazy with me?”
I freeze, my smile vanishing. I cannot get myself to say anything. Something very bad is about to happen; I can tell.
Suddenly, Steffi flails her hands about wildly, and she begins talking with such a shocking level of delight that I can hardly follow what she’s saying. “Did it occur to you to tell me that you’d become a viral-video sensation? That you’re plastered all over the Internet, getting all schmexy time with the one and only Esben Baylor? Ohmigod, could he be any freakin’ hotter? How was the kiss? What the hell was that? Oh wait! Is he there right now? Am I interrupting anything?” She claps her hands together and leans in to the camera, pretending to peer around my room.
I can’t process this. “I’m a what?” I ask flatly.
“You’re a viral-video sensation! All over Facebook and Twitter and BuzzFeed! Upworthy!” She’s screaming and laughing, and I feel as though I might pass out.
“No. No, no, no.” I start shaking my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Hold on.” She starts clacking furiously on her keyboard and messages me a link.
Hesitantly, I move my mouse and click.
Oh hell, no.
I don’t know what this BuzzFeed thing is, but even I can tell that the site is huge, with links to stories about celebrities I know nothing about and lots of headlines and exclamation points. And smack at the top of the page is a video with the headline, “180 Seconds: Interactions between Strangers That Will Make You Melt.”
I clap a hand over my face in horror and scream in protest. “Nooooo!”
“Watch it! Watch it!” Steffi demands with delight.
I glance at the chat window and roll my eyes at the way Steffi is bouncing around idiotically.
“Have you seriously not seen this?” She is obviously in disbelief. “If I were you, I’d be throwing this around all over the place!”
Of course she would. She’s gorgeous and confident and loves nothing more than to be the center of attention. I shake my head and hit the “Play” button, peeking out between my fingers. Music begins, and I barely make out the words that scroll by in what’s presumably some kind of introduction. Then a video of Esben seated in an all-too-familiar chair begins to play, and the camera pans to an older man in the chair opposite him.
“This cannot be happening,” I whisper.
“Jump to the end! It gets better!” Steffi squeals.
“I bet it does not get better,” I say angrily, but I drop my hand from my face and click to a later spot in the video.
Esben is smiling and nodding at a middle-aged woman dressed in business attire as she gets up from the chair and leaves. The screen goes black, and more text appears: Sometimes, the unexpected happens. Sometimes, someone makes you break your own rules. And suddenly, there I am on-screen. I watch the moment that I first see Esben.
“Nooooo!” I yell out again. “Oh God!” I hit the “Stop” button. “I am not watching this! Steffi, what am I going to do? Why is this online?”
“Do you really not know who Esben Baylor is?” she hollers, while looking way too happy.
“He’s . . . he’s just some guy in my psych class.” I pause as I process what she’s said. “Wait, how do you know his name?”
“Seriously? Honey, I know you aren’t an online social butterfly, but really? Esben Baylor!” She flops back in her chair, clearly exasperated with me but still smiling. “This is what you get for being so out of it.”
“No, I really do not know who he is,” I say impatiently. Now is not the time to scold me for my failure to be on top of Internet trends. “So, who is he? And why do you know about him?”
“I assumed that even you would know who Esben is. I mean, hello? He posts tons of stuff online. Twitter, Facebook, he’s got a live blog . . .” She waves a hand around. “He’s all over the place. And plenty of other sites pick up his posts. Esben ‘Hottie’ Baylor does videos, pictures, starts hashtag trends. Stuff like that. Bios of interesting people he meets, things that help people, posts that raise awareness of issues. All really touching, feel-good stuff. And now you’re in one of his videos! God, I’m so jealous I could lose my mind, but I’m also totally excited for you! This is the best thing ever!”
“Okay. Okay, it’s fine. This will be fine.” I try to calm myself down. Maybe this isn’t so bad. Maybe it won’t be a problem. It’s just a dumb video.
“He’s got a huge following.” Her beaming smile is beginning to really irritate me. “Like, massive.”
I prop my elbow on the table and drop my head into my hand. “Awesome.”
“What are you so upset about? You made out with Esben Baylor! The only thing to worry about is all the girls who are going to hate you for this.”
“Again, awesome.” I close the browser window.
“It is awesome,” she insists, but her voice is gentler now. “Allison, this is all very cool. You needed a little spice, don’t you think? Something to mix things up?”
“No, I did not.” I pout. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“You didn’t even watch the whole video. Your scene is amaz—”
I stop her. “I don’t want to watch it. I don’t want to talk about this again, okay?”
“But everyone else is talking about it! People love it, and—”
“Steff, please!” I beg. “Everyone will forget about it soon enough. This is not going to be a big deal, okay? I won’t let it. I don’t need this right now.”
“Well . . . all right.” Her disappointment is palpable. “You just looked so . . . different in the video. So . . . so . . .”
I sigh. “So what?”
“Open. Real. Emotional.” She casts an undeniably sweet energy. “Vulnerable and so connected.”
“I wasn’t any of those things.” This is a lie, but I’m going to hold to it.
“And in case you didn’t notice, Esben is gorgeous. Like, supergorgeous. Hot. Breathtakingly handsome. And he goddamn flung himself at you! I have never seen anything more romantic in my life, and neither has the rest of the Internet. He’s a heartbreaker, for sure.”
“He is not!” I shout defiantly.
“He is.” She is calm now. “And more than that, Allison? Esben is as perfect as anyone gets. That boy has heart like I’ve never seen.”
“How nice for him. I don’t care.”
She glares at me, and I look away when she says, “You were glowing.”
“I was absolutely not glowing!”
“Honey, who cares if you were? You looked beautiful. And passionate.”
“Seriously, stop it. It was nothing.” I’m so over talking about this mess, and I can’t stay in this conversation any longer—even with Steffi. “I love you, but I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you soon.” Without giving her a chance to say anything else, I end the video call.