With a Lack of Wanderlust

Before long after falling asleep, I was disturbed to consciousness once again as Harry abruptly shook me awake. I’d guessed it had been about an hour, if not less, and he was still sitting beside me on his darned computer. He continued to disrupt my sleep with his screeching voice that filled my eardrums every second.

“Louis, Louis wake up, it’s important!” There was an obvious sense of urgency in his voice. But I pulled the covers over my face and groaned regardless, the tired feelings taking over not only my body but my thinking process as well. “Louis, come on!” He jerked my shoulder to turn me toward him.

“Whaaaaat?” I sat up and glared at him. My eyes refused to open more than a millimeter, anyway, “Why can’t I just sleep peacefully?”

Harry ignored my complaining and tugged on my shirt, motioning toward the computer screen, “Look at this, holy shit. Holy balls.”

I turned to the bedside table and grabbed my glasses. This better have been good, or he was going to experience a rude awakening the next morning involving screaming and baking pans. The computer was placed on my knees as I turned forward. Harry bounced up and down and pointed to the screen.

A girl named Valerie had tweeted him in response to his picture and she hadn’t been very kind. Although many fans were able and often took advantage of their ability to send hate, this one was different. It was more personal; like she’d known the girl in the photograph her entire life.

“Is that…” I trailed off, not wanting to verbalize it, as if that would make it true.

We turned to each other in anxiety as Harry replied, “I think so…”

“Fuck!” I stood suddenly and bit my thumbnail, trying to comprehend exactly what was going on. In any case, this wasn’t good. First of all, my girlfriend was already getting hate. And second of all, someone who had hurt her to great lengths could potentially be a fan of mine. This was not good at all.

I paced the floor for a moment before sitting back down again. Harry had his computer now and was just sitting, staring at the screen. I shook my head, my thoughts jumbling together, and spoke again, “Look at her profile.”

He did as he was told and read what he saw out loud, his voice reaching a higher octave than usual as he mocked her, “Valerwee; Los fucking Angeles; Aw, look you actually give a fuck to read my bio. I probably won't give a fuck about yours though. Hi, I'm Val, love me, hate me, still an obsession. Go away.”

“What kind of bio was that.” I said flatly and Harry burst into laughter.
“I don’t know, but it sure sounds like the Valerie we’ve been told about. Should I reply to her?” I nodded and he stretched out his arms, clearing his throat before typing slower than usual, “What of it, bitch?”

“No!” I was laughing as well now as he turned the laptop toward me and it turned out that that was exactly what he was going to send her, “You can’t just say that. You have to be subtle about it.”

“Well, what exactly do I say to ’LOL, how on earth did that cunt ass bitch end up with him?’ without sounding angry?”

I rolled my eyes and took the computer from him, “What gives you the right to call her that?” I spoke as I typed and pressed send without any confirmation from Harry. Giving him a victorious grin, I felt like what was said was perfect, “That way we can see if it’s really her.”

“Well, okay,” Harry sighed, “But I think we could find out from her other tweets, yeah? It said she had like 12,000. She must have tweeted when everything happened, or even when they were friends.”

I couldn’t deny that the idea was smart and no opposition escaped my mouth when he clicked back onto Valerie’s profile from the homepages. Harry began scrolling quickly, but something caught my eyes from the start, “Wait wait,” I grabbed his arm to stop him, “Scroll back up, I saw something.”

As he did, I knew he saw exactly what I had been seeing. He sucked in his breath and clicked on the specific tweet, seeing who it had been in reply to. The post read ‘Did you pay him to be your boyfriend in money or blowjobs?’ My eyebrow lifted, I shook my head. As it was in reply to someone with the username IsabelleSanchez, we could put two and two together to conclude that what we were seeing was in fact the girl who had jumped our friend.

“My name is Isabelle and I like cats and dancing C colon.” Harry read. I took the laptop from him and sure enough, smiling back at me was a picture of the same Isabelle I’d seen only hours before. However, I was relieved to see that the last time she had posted anything was about a month ago.

“That’s a smiley face, you idiot.”

“What do we do?” He ignored my correction, “Should I follow her?”

“No, that will make it easier for the fans to find her, and I’m not sure I want to see what they have to say.” I closed the computer and laid down again, staring at the ceiling, “There’s not much we can do.”

--

I was a bit distracted going to Isabelle’s that night. I didn’t know what I should do about Valerie, or if there was anything I could even do. As threatening as it seemed to me, in the scheme of things it was very miniscule. If I could keep Isabelle away from her, nothing would happen. So long as Isabelle was in Britain, and Valerie was in the states we had nothing to worry about. Right?

“Isabelleeee,” I called up to the balcony once I’d reached my usual spot outside her house. There was no sound in response, except the chirp of the crickets. After a few more moments of silence, I picked up a pebble beneath my feet and threw it, waiting for it’s ‘ping’ against the glass.

There still was no answer, and after everything that I’d found that day, I began to get worried. There was no choice but to find her with the normal approach, so I headed toward the front door. Only after a single knock, her brother answered.

Although he smiled at me, I stepped back. My wrist began throbbing in remembrance, reminding me that I still had to ask Isabelle to snap it back for me. Clearing my throat, only a few words slowly formed, “Is Isabelle home?”

“Yeah, sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to overreact.” He stepped to the side, “She’s up in our room. It’s the last one on the left.”

I was slightly confused, but I nodded to him and entered the house with a smile, “It’s okay, you were just protecting her. I would’ve done the same thing.” With that, I was headed up the stairs and hurried to the shut door at the end of the hall. “Isabelle?” I knocked lightly, even more worried now. Either she was hurt, or I had unknowingly done something wrong.

“Sorry,” Her voice was strained and unsteady. As Isabelle opened the door, I noticed that her expression matched the emotion in her voice. Suddenly, she burst into tears upon seeing my face and fell into me. I pulled her into a tight hug.

“What happened?” I asked tentatively.

She sobbed into my shoulder and took sharp breaths, attempting to speak. “She’s here,” she managed to say.