51. you're so dramatic

                                    

                                              
The voice came hazily through a fractured dream about trudging through the curves of a hedge maze sprouted from the turf of the football field back at Chanler High, clinging to the bottoms of my shoes like quicksand while Blane Harding stoically marched behind me like some sort of seventies slasher, complete with the helmet in lieu of a mask before the hedge maze somehow transformed into metal bleachers and I kept trying to upload the picture of him with Thea to my Instagram but my fingers were misspelling every word or tapping the wrong icons. 
I swore it was his voice shouting out to me, perhaps overlooking the fact that Blane seemed to think that my name was actually Iris in my half-asleep state, before I felt a jolt accompany an echoing bang from across the room, and I jerked awake. 
Blinking blearily, my duvet tangled around my shoulders and tousled hair stuck to the overnight lip mask I put on the night before, I lifted myself somewhat off my stomach to glance over to the foot of the bed, where my older sister, Adele, was rearing her foot to give my boxspring another kick. 
"Stop," I moaned, dropping my head on my hand and rubbing my eyes. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at college or something?" 
I plopped back down onto my mattress, smushing my face into the creases of my pillowcase as I became vaguely aware that this might not have been the most welcoming greeting to extend to the sister I hadn't seen in over a month but, after tossing and turning most of the night—when I wasn't tiptoeing across my carpeted bedroom floor to peer through the blinds down at the streets beneath our apartment, searching for a slow moving car with LED headlights circling the block—I didn't feel like hiding my irritation from her for waking me up early on a Saturday morning. 
I closed my eyes again, feeling a hand out for the edge of my blanket to bring it over my head because, of course she turned the overhead lights on, not like it really mattered since I could see sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the blinds but still. It's just such an aggravating way to wake someone up. 
"It's homecoming, dork," she replied, and, despite attempting to fall back asleep, I rolled my pupils against my eyelids. "The time college students are supposed to come home, it's all about us."
"That was last night, genius," I muttered into my pillow. 
"Yeah, and I was there, cretin, with my friends. I drove up last night, but don't think—" I felt her hand clench around the fabric of my duvet before she wrenched it back, the whoosh of her tossing it over the corner of the bed cold against my exposed skin as I hoisted myself on my elbow, about ask her what her problem was when her phone was thrust in my face and I realized what it could've been—"you can avoid this by asking about me. What is this, Ivy?" 
I sighed. "It's a picture I took last night at the game. That's Bridgette's boyfriend." 
"So, let me just get this straight. You see Bridgette's boyfriend kissing another girl, you take a picture of it, then you post it on your Instagram account? The same Instagram account that is supposed to be private, if I remember the deal you made with mom correctly. Yet, this picture is being shared all across the platform." She retracted the phone from me before I could see the number of likes or comments the post had, something to define what it meant to be shared all across Instagram, and when I reached for my own phone on the nightstand, she seized the opportunity to grab one of my pillows and thwack the back of my head. "Have you lost your mind?!" 
"Ow! Stop. Why are you always so aggressive? Besides, it's just a photo." 
"No, it's not just a photo, Ivy. Look at it. It's going viral." I unplugged my phone from the charger twisted around my ankles, bracing my other hand against the pillow my sister had armed herself with before she brandished it against me again, still blinking the sleep from my eyes as I realized that there were a lot of notifications on my lockscreen.