Miss Perfection Personified

2. | Have Your Cake

2. | HAVE YOUR CAKE

I'D ACCIDENTALLY lit the whole world on fire.

At least, that's what it felt like.

I hadn't anticipated my anonymous blog post to get so many likes. The first few post shares had felt like a quiet triumph, the next twenty a little overwhelming and by the time I'd hit a thousand shares, I knew I was royally fucked.

I spent the weekend in a quiet frenzy as Kitty sent me texts like 'did you see the post?' and 'i bet her dad's cooking up a storm with his lawyers right about now'. The only time I replied back was when, having ignored messages sent to me for most of the weekend, Kitty had asked me what no one else suspected (yet): 'was this you, elliott???'

I'd replied, somewhat shamelessly, 'Of course not! Not ethical journalism. Totally against my principles.'

Thinking that perhaps I'd over-explained myself, I added, 'Starbucks run, Sunday evening?'

Kitty replied: 'um sure but i wanna talk more about this.'

Kitty and I'd known each other since year six. Of course she would've sussed it out sooner or later. She was the only one who knew my writing style, the hallmark of Elliott Cross. I wrote for the Journalism society now and again but Jane Mulligan, the future dictator that she was born to be, had managed to weasel her way to being the regular spokesperson of our weekly school newspaper while I was saddled with the position of Editor-in-Chief.

And hardly anybody, apart from our poky little society, read our school newspapers anyway. We might care about our society, but nobody else did. As far as Grand Ridge was concerned, a society for journalism didn't exist and the school newspapers just appeared out of nowhere, freshly printed and stacked together atop every teacher's desk, every Monday morning, remaining virtually untouched until the cleaning ladies came in to clear away any rubbish at the end of the day.

Nobody else would've guessed.

I must've looked even more suspicious to Kitty, showing up to Starbucks on Sunday evening wearing my day-old hoodie and stress creasing the lines on my forehead. Even more suspicious was when we walked up to the barista and I absent-mindedly ordered a cappuccino instead of my regular choice of a cookie crumble frappuccino.

I guess my dad really was right about the coffee thing.

Kitty stared at me for a brief second as we sat down right by the window.

"Oh God, it was you, wasn't it?" she burst out.

"What? I - shhhh!"  I looked around, as if Anastasia Montgomery might jump out at me with a defamation lawsuit. I looked back at Kitty again and she was shaking her head.

"You've really done it this time," she muttered, crossing her arms together. "D'you realise how much trouble you could get into? And I don't mean, like, just getting your head stuck down the boys' toilets. But that's going to happen too, probably. Oh God." She buried her face in her hands.

I clamped down on the wave of panic surging through my body and reached out to take Kitty's hand.

"It won't get to that," I said as gently as I could. "Hey, look, nobody knows. If they did, I'd be getting cancelled on twitter right about now, wouldn't I?"

"That's not funny," Kitty sniffed, raising her head to scowl at me.

"I know, I'm sorry." I still let out a chuckle. Squeezing her palm, I continued, "I'm being serious though. If people had worked it out by now, I wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation with you, right? And nobody's going to find out. I'm literally invisible. And that comes in handy more often than you think."