What If

A Young Reader...

Avid_Rdr updated Reversed

The young woman screeched as she grabbed her phone.  She flopped back onto her pillows and sighed contentedly. 

Yaaaaasssss an update!

She'd waited two whole days to find out what happened with Jimin and his lady love.  She giggled as she slid open the notification and went directly to the new chapter.  Her eyes slowly scanned each line, skipping over the misspellings she knew would be corrected later. 

The young woman's usually noisy room fell silent as she read.  With each paragraph, she slowly sat up further, finally ending in a hunched over position, cross legged.  Her head finally shot up and she finally took that breath she'd forgotten to take. 

Throwing her phone to the end of her bed she huffed.  "What is this?!  How could you end the chapter at that spot?!  AUTHORNIIIIIIM!"  The young woman pumped her fist into the air and shook it at the ceiling.  She grinned and scrambled to her phone, picking it back up and going back through the chapter. 

"Stop thinking bad about yourself Park Jimin!  You're the most beautiful creature on the planet!"

"I SWEAR MY FEELS!"

"Update soon!  Fighting!"

She hit the "vote" button and tossed her phone to the side.   She was happy.  Reading was her life.  Reading fanfics was her oxygen.  She had a lot of fics in her library, a few dozen on her BTS Recommended Reading List, and even fewer authors that she really loved.  But Avid_Rdr was her top favorite.  She always waited for her updates, checking her phone every day just in case Wattpad decided to be a jerk and not send out notifications.   She was happiest when she was reading and interacting with her favorite author and fellow readers.  It was always sunny in Wattpadville. 

Well, mostly sunny. 

There was that time that her favorite author did that one thing to one of her favorite characters...

The reader shuddered and focused on something happy so she wouldn't start crying again.  Nope!  There'd been enough tears she'd over the course of some ten chapters or something. 

"That was just too much, Authornim," she hissed under her breath with narrowed eyes at absolutely nothing in particular.  Hitting shuffle on her Kpop playlist on her phone, she jumped out of bed, determined to make today a good day.  She'd force it to be good if need be. 

In stark contrast to her happy little Internet life, this reader's real life was dismal.  Her daily life was stressful.  She was dealing with school, a part time job, parental pressure to ace all her classes, even the ones she was naturally horrible in. 

Societies pressures for her to be a certain size, a certain standard, weighed heavily on her.  Any time ARMY Selca Day popped up, her self-esteem would drop to an all time new low.  She walked over to her long mirror in the corner and stared at her reflection. Her shoulders slumped and she began to overly criticize her appearance and make mental note of just how much it was lacking. 

As if the galaxy was playing a joke on her, BTS's "21st Century Girl" came over the small Bluetooth speaker on her dresser.  When the line, "Baby, you're beautiful!" came along, her shoulders perked up a little and she nodded to herself.  "Yes, you are.  Thank you, Yoongi, for reminding me." 

A firm knock on her door snapped her to attention as her father stepped into her room, not waiting for her to say she was decent or not.  Thankfully she was but that didn't really matter now. 

"Hey, Daddy," she said with a forced smile.

"Hey," he sighed heavily.  "Look, here's the deal.  Wait, can you turn that music off?  Is that even considered music?"  He grimaced and frowned as the young woman scrambled to shut off the loud "Not Today."

Her father sighed in relief as the room fell silent.  "Ok, again, here's the deal.  Your mother and I have been talking.  Your grades aren't high enough.  So until you pull them up, I'm going to be taking your phone.  After the next round of testing, we'll re-evaluate and consider reinstating your privileges."  He held his hand out, a tired look on his face. 

The girl frowned.  Tears burned her eyes.  She'd worked so hard.  She'd studied till her brain hurt.  She'd asked the teacher for extra tutoring help and had avoided going out with what few friends she had, all in an effort to make her parents be proud of her for once.  But to take away her one outlet where no one expected anything of her was almost too much.  Her phone was her escape from her harsh reality.  If that was taken away, what then? 

"Daddy, please, don't-"

"Pass it over.  Don't make this harder than it is.  You think I don't know?  I know you're under pressure.  I know you're stressed.  I know all of this.  But I also know you spend entirely too much time on your phone.  And really, who can study with that kind of noise blaring through the room?"  He shook his outstretched hand in impatience.  "Also give me the passcode." 

She felt tears run down her cheeks as she gripped her phone tightly.  She looked down at it and saw some new notifications had come through.  Avid_Rdr had responded to her comments.  Her heart broke as she thought about how she'd not be able to see the replies, much less even reply to them.  She saw the leader line and she wilted a bit. 

Avid_Rdr replied to your comment. "Hey! I'm glad you're enjoying this.  How's life?  ❤️"

"Hand it over.  Don't make me have to take it from you," sighed her father, rubbing his tired eyes. 

The girl glared at the ground as she not so gently laid the phone in her father's palm.

"No reason to get a bad attitude.  We warned you this would happen.  You have no one to blame but yourself.  Look, we love you.  We want you to succeed so we're just trying to help you.  Don't be made at us forever, ok?"  He smiled slightly and she felt more incensed at his smile. 

Her father got her passcode after that and then he quickly left.  The young reader collapsed onto her bed, tears steaming down her face. 

Essentially cut off from the outside world, she laid on her bed and cried.