2. Viral

[LIZZY]

If it weren’t for the loud banging at my door, I could’ve slept past noon.

But of course, my happiness wasn’t a delicious piece of cake everyone could digest.

Hissing at the annoying sound of a fist against my poor wooden door, I forced myself to sit up, only to realize I slept off on the couch itself.

Great. Just what I needed. Note the sarcasm.

With another unwilling groan, I pushed myself off the couch and winced. My feet were soaked with some kind of liquid.

I cringed.

Please don’t tell me I peed in my sleep. I wasn’t even that drunk. Was I?

But I had to make sure what it was, right? There was no way out of it.

God. This was so embarrassing, even when no one was watching.

A sigh of relief escaped, however, after I finally dared to cut down my gaze. It was just water. I might have knocked the glass over during sleep.

Some more noisy thudding.

"Who set their fucking panties on fire?" Grumbling, I stomped across the living room, trying to see through the blurred vision and fucking surprised when I didn’t trip over my heels placed haphazardly on the way.

My head buzzed with the morning grogginess when I wrenched the door open and practically spat on the person on the receiving end. “WHAT?”

The expression on Daniel’s face was something akin to a confused dog. But because I was in the bitch mode, instead of letting him speak when he tried to open his mouth, I cut him off real quick. “I thought you didn’t want me to come. What the hell, Daniel?”

Fixing me with a glare, Daniel curled his upper lip.

I thought he would say something next. Try to fucking explain why he was beating my door so damn early in the morning. But no. Not Daniel. He simply decided he had enough of my tantrums and pushed past me straight inside the room.

“Lock the door!” he commanded in a hurried voice and practically speed-walked over to the window facing the back alley.

When I stood there, confused, and probably working on another curse word, he glanced over his shoulder and pinched his eyebrows. “What part of lock the door you didn’t understand?” He turned his gaze back to the window, trying to be watchful as he attempted to take a peek outside.

I felt my stomach narrow with a knot.

Wait. He was acting weird.

Shutting the door and making sure it was perfectly locked, I made my way over to him. “What’s wrong?”

Before answering my question, he drew the curtain back into place, grabbed my upper arm and lugged me to the middle of the room.

“We’ve been trying to get in touch with you since the morning. Why aren’t you answering the phone?” he asked with a frown.

His question caught me off guard a little. But I forced myself to focus on what he was saying. I didn’t realize it earlier, but his arrival alone should have been a cosmic sign. Something was not right.

“I—” I tried to recall where my phone was. My gaze flicked to where I had fallen asleep the previous night. And then a certain memory of putting it on the charger darted through my mind.

“Of course,” I murmured to myself, before looking back up at him. “It’s in my room. On charger. But why is that important?” I asked, growing impatient every second. “Is everything OK? Is Joey OK?” He complained about stomach ache last night. Suddenly, the knot in the pit of my stomach wrung badly.

“Joey is fine!” He sighed, massaging his forehead with his thumb and index finger as if he had grown a terrible headache all of a sudden. Appearing stressed. On edge.

“Daniel, what is going on? I—you’re making me nervous.”

“See it for yourself.” He strode into my room and returned with my phone. Placing it in my hand. “I can’t really explain it.”

His words fired another wave of queasiness down my chest. While I clenched the phone in my grasp, my hands were shaking.

Something was definitely wrong.

“Why don’t you just tell me?” I asked him, my voice faint yet desperate as I stared at my reflection on the black screen of the phone.

“Just see it already!” he was growing frustrated.

Drawing a deep breath, I closed my eyes and curled my fingers firmly around the phone. Why was this suddenly so hard? Why was he not revealing anything? Why the suspense?

While all those questions scurried through my head, I switched on the phone. The screen illuminated with the wallpaper of one of the water channels in Venice. It was a random picture that changed every time I unlocked the phone. But for some reason, the timing of its appearance right now felt like a bad omen.

A chill ran down my spine, and my knees wobbled.

With another in-depth breath, I propelled myself to move past the obnoxious feeling and typed in the four-digit pin. The lock disappeared, giving access to the home page and all the other applications installed. I swiped the screen down, my thumb hovering over fifteen missed calls from Daniel alone. My heart putter-pattered. Nerves shot throughout my body.

This feeling was even worse than that one time a black car drove past me before coming to a halt a decent distance away. I almost expected him to step out. Almost. Thankfully, a couple in their mid-sixties shoved the door open and walked into a flower shop on the other side of the road. The feeling of him finally catching up to me stayed longer than a week with me. It followed me like my own shadow. I couldn’t shake off the dread and anxiousness haunting my chest. I couldn’t.

“Check out the link I sent you!” Daniel helped, pulling me back to reality.

I did what he said. I tapped on the link he sent me in messages. It took me to a video on a popular social media site. I frowned.

What the hell?

It was nothing I expected.

It was Joey in the video. Flaying his tiny arms as he tried to reach for the plastic shovel I held in my hand, out of his reach. It was a good day; I remembered.

Two days before his fifth birthday, Daniel had brought us to the beach. I had no intention of going, but Laura and Joey had insisted. Especially Joey. The boy made a tremendous fuss to persuade his parents to invite me as well. Of course, Laura was the one to give in first. She couldn’t stand the sight of her little boy crying his heart out. It hurt too much. She told me that day on our way to the beach.

The memory almost brought a smile to my face when the camera turned to a woman screaming. His kid had gotten into the water but didn’t return. He was only six years old. The people were gathered around her as she explained and begged someone to help.

Despite my better judgment, I watched myself dashing into the water. For a while, no one could spot me as well. They all muttered something to each other. Panicked voices rose in the background. The woman’s cries only grew more vociferous and harder. A few more men prepared themselves to follow me. Daniel seemed one of them. But then they all stopped before a loud cheer broke out. I surfaced out of the water with that kid in my arms. As I reached the shore, the woman rushed towards me, almost knocking both of us over, and tugged her son into a tight hug.

I had saved a kid.

But what was the big deal about it?

“You came here all the way to show me this?” I couldn’t help and deadpan. Stared at him, hoping to get a plausible answer.

However, instead of saying anything, his scowl only grew severe, his dark eyes on me harder. He was staring at me as if I said he was about to be bald in the next two years. What’s with all the glares?

But then, the reason unfolded on me like a fucking lightning bolt.

“Shit!”

Someone had uploaded the video online. Someone had exposed my whereabouts. Someone…

“Shit shit shit!” I panicked, and the phone almost slipped out of my grasp. But Daniel saved it just in time. He saved me just before my knees could drop to the floor.

“It only gets worse,” he mumbled next to me, helping me to the couch and entering the kitchen.

He returned with a glass of water.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked him, but it only came out as a whisper. A whisper that trembled pathetically. Something heavy and cold claimed my chest, wriggling all over the place like an earthworm, painting everything with sticky terror.

“The views,” he said, taking a seat on the table, facing me and helping me hold the glass of water. “They’ve crossed millions overnight!”

Another shock bolted down my bones, making me breathless.

“Are you saying…?”

This can’t be true. This can’t be true.

“You’re viral, Lizzy. You’ve gone fucking viral!”