A Crowded Place

Chapter 15: Gossip blog

Come to my dorm. Now.

That was the text Alana had sent me just seconds ago. Something was wrong. The urgency of that text had me worried. Changing into my sneakers, I shut the door and walked briskly towards Alana's dorm.

Her door flew open before I could even knock.

'Liv, there you are,' She let out a relieved. 'There's something I have to show you.'

She sounded tense and nervous.

'Is something wrong?' I inquired.
'Look,' She navigated through her laptop, stopping at a website. 'I found a gossip blog.'

I drew a sharp breath. A what? 'Gossip blog? Who has the time and effort for that, especially at Yale?' I shook my head, incredulous. Alana's lips were pursed into a thin line, her face a look of concern. I bent down for a better look at the blog on her laptop. There was a description under the heading: 'Yale Gossip'.

You want controversy? You want all the drama and the tea? You've come to the right place! Welcome to Yale Gossip, the infamous, go-to gossip blog where we scrutinize all of Yale's students, faculty and alumni. You ready for this?

'How did you find this page?' I asked, stunned.
'An unidentified email address sent it to me. I'm guessing all the freshmen received it.' Alana replied, her eyes betraying her concern and disbelief. I whipped out my phone, and sure enough, under the 55 messages that I hadn't yet read, there was the email. 'Oh my goodness,' I breathed, clicking onto the blog on my phone. There it was.

'There's more,' Alana continued. 'The Jacob guy you were talking about? He's on the blog too.'
No. No way. I scrambled to see the post about him. I read it aloud.

'Then there's the hottest guy on campus (or so many girls say): Jacob Dalton. All the ladies swoon over him, and some even make a special effort to see him at the music center, where it is rumoured that he has his own dorm. That's the only explanation for him being there 24/7, right? Being the 'hot sophomore' isn't easy, especially when their love life is kept in the shadows. Some say he's never had a girlfriend. But the theory that he is homosexual has now been disproven; his roommate says that recently he's been gushing about a girl - a freshman. Good for her; she'll get to be serenaded by his oh-so-wonderful saxophone playing on their date, and get to enjoy his witty sense of humor. Who might this lucky lady be?'

We were silent for a minute, my heart pounding and Alana staring intently into my face, I tried not to betray any sign of emotion.

'Well,' I gulped, 'That's...interesting.'

'Liv, are you thinking what I'm thinking?' Alana asked, her voice soft and soothing.

No. There was no way, absolutely no way Jacob liked me. It must have been some other girl in the year. I tried to convince myself that it could not be true, but the puzzle pieces began to settle into place and it led me to believe otherwise. The way he talked to me, his ocean blue eyes flaring with a calm intensity. How he persuaded me to hear his saxophone performance, and now that I thought about it, what I believed to be us 'goofing off' probably meant more than that.

'I-I don't know. Do you think I'm the one he likes?' I answered, my voice shaking.

'Hey, it's fine,' Alana came to my side, rubbing my back, and we sat on her bed. 'It's a possibility. But the way you talked about him last time, it sounded like you really hated him.'

Did I hate Jacob? I wasn't so sure now. I remembered how he always made me flustered talking to him, how he had sent butterflies into my stomach outside the practise room the day before. Could I have been trying to mask my— affection— for him by saying that I hated him? But he was so cocky, so stuck-up. Surely he wasn't trying to flirt with me?

'Alana, I thought I did too. But now I'm not so sure...' I trailed off. Don't cry. Don't cry. But I felt horrible. I felt horrible because it felt like I was cheating on Aaron. I felt horrible for feeling this way towards Jacob. My terrible luck had somehow gotten me involved in this mess. 'Do you think Jacob knows about this blog?'

'I'm not sure,' Alana shrugged, 'But the most important thing is that you stay away from the limelight as much as possible. You don't want to be the center of negative attention for dating Jacob.' She raised an eyebrow at me.

'Stop!' I giggled, playfully slapping Alana on the shoulder. 'You know there's nothing between me and him.'

But we both knew that was not the case. Not anymore.