“So you think I should have cameras follow me around all day? Some sort of warped teen pregnancy documentary?”
“I wasn’t thinking of it quite like that, no. I meant that you could verbally and metaphorically walk them through your day.” She paused, her thumb drawing tiny circles along her palm as she considered. “But maybe what you’re suggesting is a much better idea. Maybe if people see the real you, your life, you’ll be more humanized. Less of a publicity object and more of a normal teenage girl going through a very abnormal experience.”
“Nice idea in theory, Mom. But seriously, think about how the media tears people apart, scatters their shreds across the tabloids. I can’t trust a reporter to do me any favors. I was just a prop to KBC. They all have their own motives and their own angles, and the bigger the scandal, the better for them because that’s what their viewers want, right? They’d turn my life into a total joke. Any dignity I have left—and that’s assuming I have any left at all—goes straight out the window.”
“Maybe we don’t have the typical reporter film you then.”
“Meaning . . . ?”
“Jesse.”
“Jesse?”
“Yes, Jesse. You told me that he helps out with a film crew, right? And he had that camera glued to his hand on your birthday. Why not have him record some of the day to day? You at school, you at home, pull some other interviews together, and then we could talk about submitting it somewhere. If it feels right, that is, after we’ve all looked it over. At the very least it’ll give you practice talking on camera. You can trust him to show the real Mina. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.”
“I don’t know.” Sweat was already prickling along the back of my neck just at the thought of it. I wasn’t sure what made me most nervous: the idea of Jesse observing my life so closely, observing me so closely, or the idea of sending the final project out to the public. Things had been different since my birthday—cooler and more polite. We were still friends, of course. He drove me to school and sat with me and Hannah at lunch. Jesse had promised me—had promised Iris—his support, and he wasn’t the type to break his word. But after that kiss . . .
“I have to think about it,” I said, not meeting her eyes.
“Of course. But I think having Jesse film you couldn’t hurt, even if we don’t end up sending it out or posting it anywhere. It might be good to have this period of your life recorded. It’s a special time, Mina. Strange and terrible at times, yes . . . but definitely still special.”
Jesse didn’t waste any time leaping full speed ahead into my mother’s grand plan.
I spent the next week and a half living on the opposite side of Jesse’s camera, trying my best to pretend that he wasn’t there and that there wasn’t a tiny machine recording every movement, every expression, every word. I was used to seeing the camera in his hand—it was more unusual to see him without his second set of eyes—but I wasn’t used to the lens being focused so exclusively on me.
Our classmates weren’t fazed by Jesse filming me, probably because he was either A, invisible to them, or B, already the weird kid who always had a camera in front of his face. Whichever reason, the camera definitely didn’t curtail any of their typical behaviors. If anything, the pre-Christmas hype had made some of them even more determined to harass me. Kyle and his crew fell to their knees and hailed me whenever we crossed paths in the hallway, and I was getting more notes jammed in my locker, more balls of paper wadded up and thrown at me during class or in the cafeteria. I’d stopped reading the messages altogether after catching Jesse recording over my shoulder, making a point of throwing them away unopened. I had always suspected that some of my classmates thought I was a bit of an outsider, maybe, a grade snob who didn’t dare to step outside of her little social circle. But I’d never realized how outside I’d really been. How detached I was from all but a measly little handful of companions. It’s funny, really, the kind of pseudo-safety a few qualified close connections can give you. Nate, Izzy, Hannah. They’d been my guardians, and I’d never once stopped to think about who I’d be without them. But now I knew. Now I had no delusions.
There were, thankfully, some people who cruised right past me in the hallway, too—as if I was anyone, or maybe even as if I was no one at all. Kids who’d either gotten sick of the hype or had never really cared in the first place. They cared about Christmas, exams, college applications, their own best friend and relationship dramas. Their own lives.
Sadly, though, those indifferent classmates were still in the minority.
Jesse met me at my house each weekday morning, but instead of just waiting outside for me to hop into his truck, he’d come in first, take random footage of me getting ready for the day, reading over the latest Virgin Mina web posts, talking with my mom and Gracie at the breakfast table about nothing and everything—what kind of pizza we’d have for dinner that night, or how my mom had woken up one day to find BURN IN HELL written in bright red spray-painted capital letters on our porch.
We’d had it painted over that same day—the same day that we also, not so incidentally, ordered the installation of a new state-of-the-art home security and surveillance system—but I still saw the words every time I stepped up to our front door. They couldn’t be painted over in my memory. I couldn’t stop thinking about the stranger who had prowled across our lawn the night before, wondering who and why—and what he or she might do next. Maybe this had just been a warning, like Elliot S’s cryptic call. A preview for something much bigger than a few nasty words. I hadn’t watched the footage, but I already knew how petrified my face would look on playback. I was completely vulnerable—my entire family was vulnerable. We were never safe, not even in our own home. But other than a few slips on mornings like that one, I kept a straight face. I pretended to be brave.
Jesse shadowed me over the weekend, too, when he wasn’t working at Frankie’s or schlepping around for his uncle. Me wrapping presents on my mom’s bed, pretending not to cry as It’s a Wonderful Life played in the background. Me watching birthing videos in our living room, my substitute for actual group instruction because I refused to go to any public classes, no matter how enthusiastic my mom and Hannah had both been about filling in for the “daddy” role. Jesse never offered, but I think we both more than understood that his role in all this was already suspicious enough. And after that birthday kiss, I had a feeling that playing mommy and daddy together, even for a ninety-minute class, would topple our fragile balance.
I had a hard time, though, believing that this was the kind of real-life drama strangers would want to watch—that there was something compelling to be gleaned from my morning bowl of cinnamon and brown sugar oatmeal. But I didn’t want to challenge Jesse’s vision for the project. And as much as I refused to admit it, out loud and just barely to myself, I didn’t want to say anything that would make Jesse stop. I didn’t want to say anything that would mean us spending less time together. Because despite what I’d said—and how I knew things had to be—it was hard to imagine starting and ending my day without him.
• • •
“Are you coming to church with us, Jesse?” Gracie asked, looking around behind her to make sure my mom was nowhere around. Satisfied that there was no imminent risk, she reached into the tin of freshly baked cutout sugar cookies we’d be giving to our pastor’s family later that night, swallowing a sparkly blue snowman in two massive bites.