Follow Me Back Read online

  He switched over to the notifications tab and rolled his eyes in disgust as he read the first one:

  Eric Thorn Lover @EricLuv982

  I LOVE UUUUUUUUUUUU ERIC PLS FOLLOW ME I’M CRYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  She loved him? He’d wager good money that she barely listened to his music. Who had time, with all those pictures of him in his underpants to tweet about? But she loved him. Sure. If she only knew what he really thought.

  It was so tempting to tell them. He could just imagine how that tweet would read:

  @EricLuv982 You don’t love me. You don’t even know me.

  Yes, he thought. How amazing would it feel to get it all off his chest? But why restrict it to that one when there were millions of others just like her?

  Eric punched at his keypad, embellishing as he went:

  Attention fans. You don’t love me. You don’t even know me. I’ll never, ever love you back. So put down the phone, go outside, and get a life

  Not bad for 140 characters. He could go on, of course, but he’d reached the maximum length.

  Eric wondered what would happen if he sent it. What would all the fangirls do? Would #EricThornObsessed grind to a screeching halt? He closed his eyes and pictured it, his lips forming a crooked grin.

  Pure fantasy, of course. There’d be hell to pay if his finger slipped and hit the Tweet button. His publicists would rake him over the coals—and that would be the least of his problems.

  Eric shifted his weight uneasily against the cold, hard surface of the toilet seat. He couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t antagonize the fans. He only needed one of them to flip out and come after him with a butcher knife. How many were hovering on the brink, just waiting for one wrong move to push them over the edge?

  He tipped back his head and ran his hand up and down his throat, rough with stubble. Did Dorian see it coming? Eric wondered. Or did that girl surprise him from behind?

  No, he could never tell his followers what he really thought of them. Way too dangerous. In fact, he should probably tweet the opposite right then, just to be on the safe side—something to soothe the raging disappointment for all the ones he just passed over.

  He hastily wrote a new message and hit Tweet.

  • • •

  Tessa clicked the bedroom door closed behind Dr. Regan’s retreating form. She dove across her bed to grab the cell phone on her nightstand. The Twitter notifications had been going off like fireworks for the past ten minutes, and Tessa had watched helplessly out of the corner of her eye, waiting for her therapy session to end so she could read them.

  She looked eagerly at the screen and saw the cause of the commotion: a new tweet from Eric Thorn.

  “No!” she exclaimed as she read it. A follow spree? Now? He never did those anymore. He barely even tweeted these days. People said he must be too busy with his hectic promo schedule, but Tessa didn’t buy it. It only took a moment to send a tweet. Something else had changed with him lately, although she seemed to be the only one who thought so. She saw it all over his face in the underwear campaign he just shot. He’d tried for his usual smoldering stare, gazing straight into the camera as he lounged around a bowling alley in nothing but his boxer briefs. But in his eyes she saw only a mixture of anger and sadness—and fear.

  Projecting. Just projecting. Dr. Regan probably knew what she was talking about. Tessa hadn’t felt totally convinced during the therapy session, but she saw now that it must be true. He wasn’t avoiding Twitter on purpose, out of some deep-seated inner turmoil. He was just busy, like everyone said. He just did a follow spree after all.

  And she had missed it.

  Tessa read the time stamp on Eric’s tweet with a stab of disappointment. Eleven minutes ago now—a lifetime in the Twitter game. No doubt the fans he followed had all replied within the first thirty seconds.

  She couldn’t believe her bad luck. Here she was, cooped up twenty-four-seven in this self-imposed prison cell of a bedroom with nothing to do but look at her phone…and he chose the one hour she had therapy to do a follow spree. It would probably be days, if not weeks, before he had time to tweet again.

  With a groan, she began composing a halfhearted reply:

  @EricThorn FOLLOW ME! I LOVE YOU! I’m so upset I missed this! Grrrr :(

  Her finger hovered over the Tweet button, when another notification flashed onto her screen:

  New tweet from Eric Thorn (@EricThorn)

  Follow spree complete. Don’t be upset if I missed you. I love each and every one of you more than you could ever know.

  She couldn’t help but smile as she read the words, soothing her disappointment like a…like a healing balm on a nasty burn after falling asleep in the sun…

  Tessa chuckled softly to herself. She really was obsessed with him, wasn’t she? That whole metaphor came from his latest single, of course. He called it “Aloe Vera.”

  Come on and soothe this sunburn.

  Baby, take away my pain.

  The light, it lured me under

  On a perfect, sunny day.

  He’d supposedly written it while vacationing in Cozumel at some fabulous beach resort. And he made the same self-deprecating joke about it, over and over, on all the late-night talk shows afterward: Yes, Jimmy. I wrote a love song to my skin-care regimen. I’m working on another one about my aftershave now. Not that I’m obsessed with my looks or anything…

  Tessa had felt a bit worried about him when she first heard the song. He could joke all he wanted, but she knew that song wasn’t really about a day at the beach. It was about getting burned.

  She flicked on a bedside lamp. If only better lighting could chase away the gloomy thoughts. Obviously, she was reading way too much into things. There was nothing wrong with Eric Thorn’s mental state. This tweet just now didn’t come from someone dealing with depression and anxiety. No, those words came from a guy who was sensitive. Thoughtful. Someone who really cared about his fans’ feelings. Most celebrities wouldn’t have bothered.

  She could just picture him typing it out and then watching his phone light up with the replies. All those words of love pouring back at him. No doubt he wore that crooked grin of his plastered on his face as he basked in the adoration. He deserved it too. Every word.

  Tessa wondered where he was right now. Maybe lounging in the backseat of a limo with cushy leather seats. Was he watching his phone, right at that moment? Her cheeks flushed at the thought. She abandoned the tweet she’d been composing and hastily wrote out a new one:

  @EricThorn You sweetie pie. SMILE IF YOU SEE THIS! #EricThornObsessed

  With that, Tessa flicked over to her music app and slipped in her earphones, unwilling to let her mental image die. She closed her eyes with satisfaction at the sound of Eric’s voice singing the catchy opening hook to “Aloe Vera.”

  Come on and soothe this sunburn.

  Baby, take away my pain…

  She could almost see him now—looking at his phone when her reply came up. The grin on his face growing a shade brighter as he read it.

  • • •

  Eric scowled down at the tweet he’d just sent. Did they actually buy it when he put on his sugary-sweet I-love-my-fans act? Apparently so, by the looks of his notifications tab, lighting up with thousands of new replies.

  His scowl grew a shade deeper as he watched them rolling in.

  Maybe he should write a song about it, he thought bitterly. A nice, sappy ballad about how much he loved his fans. Call it…“Snowflakes.” Yeah, that was good. “Special Snowflakes.”

  I watch the snowflakes falling,

  Too many for me to see.

  But I know each one is beautiful,

  Special and unique.

  God, that was awful. The label would probably love it though. They could release it in time for Christmas, and the fans would eat it up with a spoon. Well, assuming anyone actually listened to his music anymore…and had the mental capacity to understand a simple metaphor.

  He snorted. Who
was he kidding? Anyway, a song like that would only serve to spur their obsession further. Just like this tweet of his. He ran his eyes over it again with a trace of regret.

  I love each and every one of you…

  Why had he just sent that? It would only egg them on.

  But he had to do it. It was a matter of survival at this point. No telling what kind of homicidal tendencies they might be harboring out there. He had to keep leading them on, telling them what they wanted to hear—even if it meant lying through his teeth.

  4

  OLD HABITS

  The sound of Eric’s voice faded in Tessa’s ears as the song came to an end. With a sigh, she lifted her finger to hit Replay.

  She’d developed a habit lately of listening to the same song three or four times in a row—so different from the way she used to consume music in the past. Before this summer, her playlists always contained hundreds of songs by different artists, all set to random shuffle. It was only since returning home from New Orleans that she’d fallen into this new pattern, listening and re-listening, over and over. It put her in a kind of trance. She could let her mind drift free from any thoughts of her own life and picture Eric Thorn singing the familiar words for her ears alone.

  Now she lay with her head at the foot of the bed, gazing up at her concert poster. She imagined herself pressed against the railing at the edge of a stage, watching the whole show live. Someday, she vowed. Someday, somehow, she would find a way to attend an Eric Thorn concert for real…

  Tessa closed her eyes and hummed along with his clear, smooth tenor voice. She remained completely still except for the gentle rhythm of her heels against the mattress. Her tank top hitched up to expose her bare midriff, and she didn’t bother to fix it. She didn’t hear the scrape of the bedroom door behind her or the soft footsteps creeping toward the bed. She had no inkling of any other presence in the room until a shadow fell over her shoulder and a hand from out of nowhere grasped her on the knee.

  Tessa’s eyes flew open. Her head snapped up so hard that she bit her tongue. Her daydream of Eric vanished, replaced by the sound of her own pulse pounding in her ears. She yanked out her headphones with a gasp.

  Scott, her boyfriend since sophomore year of high school, loomed above her.

  “Hey, hot stuff. Whatcha doing?”

  Tessa stared at him blankly. His hand rested heavily on her leg, and his eyes were glued to the exposed portion of her stomach. Tessa jerked her disheveled tank top back in place.

  Scott, she told herself, forcing a deep breath. Just Scott.

  It didn’t help that he’d changed his appearance lately—no longer the baby-faced teenager that she’d first grown to know and love. He’d cut off his mop of curly, brown hair, opting instead for a close-cropped buzz cut, and he kept his jawline shadowed with a fringe of dark stubble. Tessa knew he was going for a more mature look in honor of high school graduation, but she wasn’t sure she liked the change. His face looked more masculine but also more unfamiliar. She couldn’t help but find the stranger who stood before her vaguely sinister.

  Scott smirked, completely oblivious to her discomfort. His eyes wandered down the length of her legs. “Busy, huh? Don’t tell me I missed visiting hours again.”

  “You scared me!” Tessa tucked her feet beneath her. She clenched a fist and pressed it to her chest. “Do you have any idea what that does to me?”

  “Sorry. I knocked. I wasn’t sure you were in here.”

  She frowned at him. Not in here? Was that supposed to be a joke? And how many times did she have to tell him not to sneak up on her? Every time he did it, she had nightmares for days.

  “Just listening to music,” she said. With her hands still trembling, she flicked the music app closed. She didn’t want him to see whose song she’d been playing.

  He nodded, his gaze now moving restlessly around the cramped room. He sounded distracted as he spoke. “Honestly, Tess. I don’t know how you stay cooped up in here all day. I would lose my friggin’ mind.”

  Tessa’s mouth fell open. Had he really said that to her? Was he even trying to understand what she was going through? No wonder she spent all her time fantasizing about a celebrity. Eric Thorn didn’t even know she existed, and yet he showed more consideration for her feelings than the guy who supposedly loved her.

  Wow, Scott, she wanted to say. And the award for world’s most insensitive boyfriend goes to…

  But she swallowed the words. She shouldn’t snap at Scott. At least he still came to see her. She couldn’t afford to alienate him—one of three people in the universe that she trusted inside her bedroom door. Aside from her mother and her therapist, Scott was the only person Tessa had spoken to since June.

  She knew it couldn’t be much fun for him either, having a girlfriend with severe agoraphobia. His life kept moving forward the whole time she remained locked up in her room. He was about to enter his freshman year of college, with a whole new set of friends that Tessa would probably never meet. She knew some of them would be female. Some of them would be cute. He could easily leave her behind for greener pastures, but so far he’d remained by her side throughout the whole ordeal. She needed to remember that.

  He grinned at her and kicked off his shoes. Tessa forced herself to smile in return as he came to sit beside her on the bed. She set her phone back on the nightstand, facedown—any new notifications for @TessaHeartsEric safely out of her boyfriend’s line of sight. Then she rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped an arm around his waist.

  Scott gave her shoulders a friendly squeeze. “Seriously, Tess. It’s got to be a hundred degrees in here. Let me crack a window or something—”

  “No!” She felt his weight shift beside her, and she grabbed his wrist. “Don’t,” she stammered. “Don’t open anything. I like it this way.”

  He turned toward the double window on the wall beside her bookcase. Tessa used to keep it flung wide open all summer long to let in the cool cross breeze. Even in the wintertime, she rarely closed the blinds. The window overlooked a sprawl of undeveloped scrubland, with a few massive sycamore trees scattered along the dusty gravel lane. The next house down the road looked like a mere speck from her window. It would probably have taken a telescope to catch sight of any neighbors.

  Her boyfriend pursed his lips at the ugly horizontal slats, shut tight to block out the late-summer sunshine. They both knew that Tessa hadn’t opened the window in weeks. Scott ran a hand across his forehead to wipe away the beading sweat, but he let the subject drop. “Whatever, babe. So what are you up to today? Anything exciting?”

  “Not really.” Tessa let go of his wrist and drew in her legs, hugging her knees. “Eat. Sleep. Therapy exercises. Maybe listen to some music.”

  “That’s it? All day?”

  “I might do some writing later.”

  His eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch. “Really? What are you writing?”

  Tessa scrunched her nose, mentally smacking herself on the forehead. She hadn’t confided in him about her account on the story-sharing website. She couldn’t tell her boyfriend how she spent her days dreaming up fanfics about Eric Thorn. “Nothing,” she said. “I just meant that I write in my thought journal. You know, therapy stuff.”

  “Can I read it?”

  She shook her head sharply, and Scott pulled away. He got up off the bed and jammed his feet back into his well-worn canvas sneakers.

  Was he leaving? Already? “I’m sorry, Scott! It’s like asking to read my diary. I only show it to my therapist.”

  “Is it even helping, Tessa? All this therapy?”

  “Of course it is! Dr. Regan is really happy with my progress.” Tessa scrambled onto her knees and crawled after him toward the edge of the bed. She cast about for something she could say to undo the damage—any kind of encouraging detail from her therapy session, even if it meant she had to stretch the truth a tad. “She thinks I might be ready to leave the house. Soon.”

  “Really? That’s awesome.” Scott
sat back down beside her, and Tessa touched his arm to anchor him in place.

  “I know. I’m excited.” She smiled at him softly. “I can’t wait till I can go visit you at your dorm. Then we can be alone. We won’t have to worry about my mom walking in on us all the time.”

  Scott inched a little closer, matching her smile with a playful look of his own. “Your mom’s not here right now.”

  “She’ll be home any sec.”

  Now that was a bald-faced lie. Her mother wasn’t due back from work for hours. Why did she just do that? Why did she feel this flicker of anxiety whenever Scott even suggested the possibility of physical contact?

  Scott must’ve known she was lying, but he didn’t press the issue. Instead, he turned his face away and slipped his phone out of his pocket. “I gotta get going soon anyway,” he muttered, distracted by a text message.

  “What? Why? You just got here. Scott, please just give me a little more time…”

  Tessa’s voice trailed off. He didn’t seem to be listening in any case. His full attention was directed at his phone. It pinged with another incoming text, and the corners of his mouth quivered as he read it. “Gimme a sec, babe,” he said without looking up.

  Tessa gazed longingly at her own phone out of the corner of her eye. If he could check his messages, why shouldn’t she? Was she missing anything important? Probably another follow spree, knowing her luck.

  She didn’t dare look. Not in front of Scott. Her time with him was way more important than Twitter anyway. This was real life. Her boyfriend. There had to be some way to salvage this pathetic excuse for a visit. “Scott, don’t go yet,” she said. “What time is it? Did you eat breakfast yet? We have some leftover sausage in the fridge if you want—”