Pacify Her | Paige Bueckers

seventeen | troll

KK brought Ava back to the lounge today, but this time for simple leisure reasons. Ava wasn't summoned by anybody today. She sat in a spin chair as she watched Paige and KK argue about a mozzarella stick, before Paige pretended to throw it, eating it when KK turned her head in the direction that Paige forged a throw in.

"Fuck you," KK jokingly said as Ice watched on also, diagonal from Ava. Coincidentally, Paige, KK and Ice's phones pinged, but not Ava's. "Must be coach," KK figured, based on the simple fact that Ava's phone did not ping also. Paige excelled at reading, writing, english, and things of that nature. She could write a paragraph in thirty seconds and read one in ten. She scanned her screen to look at the text, her blue eyes gleaming. Her face told it all, whatever Paige had seen was displeasing.

"Ava," She looked up, "what's your Twitter?"

Ava furrowed both brows, "I don't have a Twitter" she confirmed. "Only instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok." Paige nodded, seeming content.

"Well I figured this wasn't you because they're actively making posts," Paige began, flipping her phone for her friends to see. "And you're right here, clearly not on your phone. Sarah just sent this to the team groupchat." Ava leaned over to read what Paige had been looking at. An account, pretending to be her, with seven thousand followers, posted a series of forged texts. These messages were between the poser and allegedly Paige and Azzi—separately. Of course, these messages weren't really from Paige and Azzi or even Ava

While Ava had garnered some attention, being seen around KK, Paige and even Azzi, she was not on the same fame level as the players. Fans recognized that Ava had some kind of relationship with the Husky women, but they didn't really understand where she came from. There was a lot of speculation early on, but by Paige and Azzi, and eventually KK, posting TikTok videos with Ava, fans understood that she wasn't the villain after all.

Somebody under the name of (Avaelizabethhh_) on Twitter had began claiming really nasty things about Azzi and Paige, not on a sexual level but on a moral one. The posing Ava alleged that Paige locked Ava in a dog cage before, posting fake messages that "proved it." She then also said that Azzi "put a hit on her" the last time she spoke up.

"Whoever that is knows Ava personally," Ice concluded. How would they know that Ava spoke up about anything? That UConn anonymous post was never publicly outed as Ava. The team had learned about Ava's shenanigans, but figured that if Paige and Azzi were okay with her, then it was all good.

"There's only two other people that could possibly know that information that aren't in this room," Ava shrugged, "Bria and Azzi. And, well, while I don't know Azzi as much as I thought I did, I don't think she would do something like that."

"She wouldn't," Paige confirmed, "is Bria that white girl you post on your story sometimes?"

"Yeah," Ava made clear, "she kind of looks like your former teammate, Nika." Paige nodded to confirm that they had the same person.

"Well, why would she do that?" KK asked, "isn't she your best friend?" Ava shrugged.

"You're my best friend," Ava tilted her head, slightly. A small smile escaped KK's lips as Paige and Ice dramatically awed in the background.

"She and I were close" Ava made her friends aware. "She occasionally made little jokes about me replacing her with y'all, but she never seemed serious about it. Even if she were, we still see each other—just not as often. I don't think she'd do this."

"Well," Paige sighed, "it's only one way to find out."

"One?!" KK asked, "cause I could think about a good three right now, though one involves beating the stuffing out the girl." Ava facepalmed at the remark.

Paige shook her head and rolled her eyes before speaking again. "Anyway," she looked Ava's way, "you guys are close enough for you to be able to like, have a gossip session, right?" Ava nodded.

"Perfect!" Paige clasped her hands together. "So just call her and be like 'girl, tell me why somebody made a fake Twitter.' See what she says."

"Hm," KK began, "I don't know. Maybe Ava should visit her in person while one of us spam like the fake account's posts. Then Ava can confirm whether notifications did or did not appear on Bria's phone."

Ice turned toward Ava, poking her bottom lip out. "Well," she began to Ava, "what do you think?"

"Uh," Ava began, "Paige's idea seems less faulty and less complicated" she admitted. "Because even if Bria is behind the Paige, I'm sure she has her notifications muted or something in the case that someone on campus does catch her. She thinks about little things like that."

"I'll just call her," Ava exhaled, dialing up her friend. Paige, Ice and KK stared attentively as they waited. "Can y'all like, not look at me like that?" Ava asked, prompting laughter. But she was dead serious.

"Bro," Ava started with fake enthusiasm as soon as Bria picked up the FaceTime call. "Everybody is texting me about some fake account on Twitter pretending to be me." Right away, Bria began laughing like something was funny. Paige folded her arms as Ice bore a "I knew it" look on her face and KK scratched her head, wondering what the hell was so hysterical about this situation.

"Oh my gosh," Bria said between laughs, "I didn't think that shit was gonna blow up." Ava hadn't imagined that Bria would do such thing, but once she understood that she did, Ava was upset. It dawned on her that what Bria did was actually shitty.

"Why would you do that without asking me?" Ava asked, not worried about whatever script she was supposed to follow. She felt genuine hurt at the fact that somebody she was starting to consider to be a sister, intentionally started drama surrounding her name. "Like, you couldn't make an account under your name and do that? If you wanted to so badly? Why hide behind me? Especially when you see that I've had a rocky relationship with these people in real life and something like this could potentially undo all the progress I've made with them.

Bria sucked her teeth, "it's not that serious," she insisted. "Just tell them it's a troll page."

"Oh they know alright," Ava chuckled, moving her phone around so that Paige, KK, and Ice were visible. Bria immediately hung up, with no further commentary. For Ava, she assumed that her friendship with Bria was over—regardless of if Bria would want to remain friends or not.

"I got that on record," Paige made everybody aware, "I'll speak to the media coordinator about it. Don't stress it Ava, I'm sorry that happened to you."

"I'm sorry that lies are being spread about you," Ava shook her head. "I swear I had nothing to do with it."

"Nah, I know," Paige assured Ava. "As a D-I athlete, I'm used to reading all sorts of things about myself on the internet. Doesn't phase me. I'll just let people know you were hacked and keep it pushing."