Jenn's Big Blow Up

Four hours of research, fifty-six takes, fourteen useless hashtags.

And Jennifer Wilcher’s latest movietok gets twenty freaking views.

She doesn’t get it. She’s studied the algorithms. She maintains a consistent posting schedule. She interacts with all her followers. Movies are her brand, but she shares other things too. Pictures of heart-foamed lattes; reels of her sweet Labrador Joey barking at himself in the mirror; her recommended reads. Yesterday, in the spirit of Pi Day, she ranked the best math movies of all time—A Beautiful Mind, Hidden Figures, October Sky—along with a picture of the ginormous cake her best friend Tasha created (double-decker chocolate with cream cheese icing, bordered with pi). The result: twenty views, six likes, and two comments.

It’s the same shit on Instagram, Snapchat, even freaking Facebook. No matter the content, the only people who like Jenn's posts or watch her vids (read: give two shits) are her family, her close friends, and @morethanteninches (some internet rando Jenn should block, but hey… guy likes all her posts!). So much time, so much effort. And the result? Twenty. Freaking. Views.

There are things not even a Cookie Dough Blizzard can heal.

After a long-ass day at school and one lone additional view on her video, Jenn drives to the beach. The water’s ice cold; the March wind, too much. But Jenn likes coming here, alone with her thoughts, before she sets off to another futile evening of homework and posting pictures only a handful of people will like. She takes what might be her best picture yet: the ocean a backdrop, a defunct lighthouse in the distance, a series of palmetto trees, a red cap dangling from a frond. 

That’s an odd place for a hat.

She rustles the base of the tree and throws rocks at it until the hat falls. When she picks it up, the hat’s ice cold.

Further up the beach, she spies a boy with flaxen hair, maybe ten-years-old, sobbing into his knees. She pads toward him and asks, “Um, hey. Are you okay?” 

The boy startles and scrambles to his feet. He looks familiar, but Jenn can’t place him. His eyes widen at the red cap in her hand. He snatches it and sprints away.

“Wait!” Jenn calls after him, but he is fast. She tries to track his footprints in the sand, but they end at the lighthouse. She looks out toward the ocean, three-sixties the empty beach. Nothing. Like she imagined the whole thing.

That wasn’t weird. At all.  

The next evening, Jenn’s tweaking the caption for a top-ten antiheroes video when Nine Inch Nails blasts through the walls of her bedroom, making it extremely difficult to concentrate. Pacey. Jenn’s fourteen-year-old sister. Trying to take the edge off another day of freshman hell. 

Jenn raps on her door several times. Pacey flings the door open with an explosive, “What?!” Her eyes are puffy; there’s a streak of blue mascara on the side of her cheek. The sleeves of her hoodie are pushed to where wrist meets hand. Jenn's stomach drops. She knows better than to ask what happened or if she’s cutting again, and Pacey will slam the door in Jenn's face if she sees an ounce of pity in her eyes, so Jenn goes with, “You up for some Peacemaker?” Jenn's more of a Marvel girl; Pacey craves the dark DC universe stuff, but anything Suicide Squad’s common ground. And a naked John Cena? They’ve rewatched the series ten times just to see that beautiful white ass.  

Pacey's rage deflates. “Fuck yeah.”

They curl up on the couch, a fresh bag of Doritos between them; the hospital scene minutes in when the doorbell chimes, several times, loud and insistent. 

Jenn sighs. “I’ll get it.” 

She wipes cheese dust on her shorts and opens the door to a gorgeous siren of a creature, dressed in shimmery, scaled leggings; a matching emerald sports bra; broad red hat. Her hair’s as golden and silky as it is on the big screen. 

Orla Merrow. TikTok star-turned-model-turned-actress from Ireland. She’s starred in a few of Jenn’s favorite superhero franchises as well as several Sundance-winning films.

But what is she doing on Jenn’s front porch? In March. In Folly Beach, South Carolina.

“HI!” Jenn exclaims in the cringiest voice.

Orla’s grin could warm the planet. “Hi!”

For an Oscar-winning awkward moment they stand there until Orla says, “Sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Jennifer Wilcher.”

“Me!” Like a total weirdo, she raises her hand, then lowers it. “That’s me. But just Jenn.”

“Well, just Jenn.” She extends a pearl white hand with a flawless red manicure. “I’m Orla Merrow.” 

Jenn gapes at her hand before shaking it. “What are you doing here?”

“Technically I’m on holiday. But…” Oral ceremoniously sweeps her gaze around Jenn’s porch before putting a finger to her lips. “I’m also filming the new season of Outer Banks. And after you helped my cousin yesterday, I couldn’t not thank you.”

The boy who looked familiar. Dillan Merrow. His picture’s appeared several times on Orla’s Instagram. But how exactly did Jenn help him? And how did Orla know to come here?

As if reading her mind, Orla clarifies, “You rescued his hat. It’s very important to him.” Orla explains about how the hat’s been in her family for generations; easily finding Jenn thanks to locals who saw her there. “So here I am. And I want to thank you by granting you a wish.”

Jenn’s eyebrows narrow. “You’re granting me a wish? Like a genie?”

She scoffs. “I’m hardly a genie.” The gleaming smile returns. “Go ahead. Wish for something. That one thing you desire shall be yours.”

Jenn makes a face. “Seriously?”

Orla nods.

Screw it. She’ll play. What’s Jenn got to lose?

“I want my posts to go viral.”

Orla’s smile fades. Her pencil-thin eyebrows fuse. “You wish to have your posts go viral.”

Jenn knows what a ridiculous ask this is. Why wouldn’t she ask for a college ride? For her sister to not be mad at the world twenty-four seven. A new car. A million dollars. World peace. 

But like this would actually happen. “Yep. TikTok. Insta. All of them.”

More eyebrow fusing. “There’s more to life than social media.”

Duh. It’s not like she doesn’t have an excess of goodness in her life. Her parents work long hours, but at least they aren’t total cringe. Her older brother Dawson (yes, her parents were (read: still are) obsessed with Dawson’s Creek), as busy as he is with school and soccer and his internship, texts her daily. Pacey and Jenn get along (mostly; okay sometimes. Pacey’s just weird about her bathroom routine). Jenn has a best friend who bakes GBBO-worthy cupcakes and the best yellow Lab in the world. 

But it’d be nice to post something and have people like it. (read: have people like her)

“You asked what I wish for. And that’s what I want.”

Orla shrugs. “As you wish.” 

Jenn’s attention is thwarted by thunderous footsteps ascending the stairs. Pacey’s no longer on the couch; the baseline of Tool hammers through the ceiling. 

So much for a Peacemaker intervention.

When Jenn turns back to Orla, she’s gone. Like Jenn imagined the whole thing.

Jenn considers the red hat, Orla’s standard mermaid attire, the offer of a wish.

She shakes her head. Nah.

Back in her room, she replays the antihero video, considers tweaking it for the twentieth time before giving a mental screw it and posting it.

Within seconds, her phone chimes with her I am Groot ringtone. There’s another. And another. Jenn opens TikTok and gasps. Her phone falls out of her hand, tumbling to the hardwood floor.

Her video already has two hundred and twelve views. 

When she retrieves her phone, the view count’s over a thousand; comment-count shy of three hundred. Over four hundred have already shared her video.

What the hell?

I am Groot keeps screeching so she silences her phone. Sits ramrod on her Avengers comforter. Considers Orla and her ridiculous wish and…

It’s a fluke. It has to be. There’s no. Freaking. Way.

She snaps a quick selfie, uploads to Instagram. Adds a simple caption: test pic. Once posted, she goes to the bathroom. When she returns and checks her phone, she’s got tons of notifications. Her boring, zero filter selfie already has 752 likes. 

Jenn’s smile could launch a rocket into orbit. Giddy, she records videos and takes pictures of anything and everything. Her comments and likes and shares are in the ten-thousands. People she’s never met comment on her kick-ass collection of Einstein bobbleheads and her impeccable taste in movies. She has so many new followers. Jenn Wilcher—nobody from Nowheresville, South Carolina—just blew up. 

For shits and giggles, she posts a picture of her left thumb. Immediately it has hundreds of likes. Jenn stares at it. Laughs out loud. This is absolutely insane. 

It’s then she notices the picture in the background, one from a beach outing three years ago before Dawson left for college. Jenn, Pacey, and Dawson playing frisbee with Joey. He’s mid-air; the three of them laughing and smiling, and the camera caught it. 

Pacey loathes this picture because she’s too fat; her hair’s frizzy; her smile’s gross. She was eleven. Jeez. 

The post of her left thumb has three thousand likes. The picture’s just in the background.

Still, dread knots Jenn’s stomach like she ate ten cases of Doritos.

In the next few days, everything Jenn posts gets hundreds of thousands of views. She tries to respond to comments, interact with her new followers, but there’s not enough time in the day. At school, people she’s never met wave and fist bump her in the halls. Her antihero post gets over two million views. One afternoon, she arrives home to a front porch overloaded with packages from Unlimited Movies and BooksRUs. Jenn tears open boxes filled with movies to watch and books to review. A long flat one contains a cardboard cutout of John Cena. Jenn gifts it to Pacey and gets a smirk. Jenn counts that as a win.

After Jenn reposted her Pi Day vid and tags Tasha, Tasha’s suddenly cake famous, retweeted by local bakeries, various #caketok curators, even Great British Bake-Off extraordinaire Paul Hollywood. Two states away, Dawson’s feeling Jenn's fame, adding new followers daily as older pics of him get shared by Jenn’s many (read: 852K) followers.

People like Jenn. She’s famous. And by proxy, her friends and family are famous too. 

Slight downside? If she doesn’t post something every couple hours, her followers think she’s dead. Homework is abandoned for videos. She skips school to catch up on comments and posting, but there are always more followers. Always more comments. Always new content.

She falls asleep during class. Her grades tank. She’s so busy trying to maintain her online presence, she shoves everything else inside a Deal With Later box: concerned emails from her teachers; texts from Tasha, begging for help with her online orders. Jenn doesn’t have time to help Tasha. She barely has time to sleep.

And then the trolls descend like Outriders, unleashed to do Thanos’s evil bidding. 

Comment upon awful comment. Especially on that photo Jenn worried about. Someone enlarged it and tagged her, Pacey, and Dawson. Jenn reports it, but there are already hundreds of awful body-shaming comments, particularly directed toward Pacey. 

Ever hear of Weight Watchers? Another boring beach pic: two kids and two dogs. And the worst one: I’ve been blinded by the fugly. Why don’t you just kill yourself?

Jenn needs to focus on something else, anything else.

She hides her phone in her pillow and opens her Calculus text. It feels good to lose her mind in something non-social media related, but after fifteen minutes, her focus skitters, her hands itchy for something other than her mechanical pencil. She retrieves her phone. There's a flood of notifications, more texts from Tasha. And ten missed FaceTime calls from Dawson.

Dawson doesn’t call. He texts. Something is seriously wrong.

His face, raw and wrecked, barely fills the screen before he exclaims, “What the fuck, Jenn.” He scrubs at a day-old beard. Her stomach bottoms out as he relays what happened. Someone unearthed a picture from FaceBook, from his middle school days, Dawson and a bunch of his old douchebros, dressed for Halloween in sombreros and ponchos and sugar skull makeup.

Dawson’s near tears. He hiccups out a “My coach doesn’t know if he can keep me on the team. My internship let me go. My girlfriend broke up with me. I can’t walk across campus without someone throwing me shade, or worse, throwing something at me.”

The guilt swallows Jenn whole, but how is this on her? “Well, maybe you shouldn't have worn a costume that was culturally insensitive.” 

“It was eight years ago!” 

When Jenn doesn’t respond, makes no move to apologize, Dawson snaps, “You know what? Forget it.” He ends the call without saying goodbye. Jenn sinks onto her bed. It’s not her fault someone unearthed that picture. Dawson and his friends were in the wrong. And it's like her mother always says: The internet is forever. But she still wishes she could fix this.

A text from an unknown number pops onto her screen, accompanied by a picture. The minute Jenn clicks on it, her stomach hollows. The picture’s of Joey, in a dingy basement. Underneath, a ransom note. And a loaded warning not to tell anyone or Joey will be dead by sunrise. 

The pit in her stomach grows ten times bigger. How did they get her dog?

Maybe it’s a hoax. Maybe Joey’s in his bed or by the door, waiting for someone to let him out. Jenn checks the whole house. Then the yard. His favorite toy, a squeaky rubber chicken, lies on the ground near his favorite shade spot, its head chopped off. Like a warning.

She searches her neighborhood until it’s dark, her throat clogging with tears. Where will she get ransom money? And her poor sweet dog, in danger because Jenn’s the biggest idiot on the planet and wished for all her posts to go viral. If she hadn’t done that, no one would know her; Dawson wouldn’t be in the mess he’s in. Her dog wouldn’t have been kidnapped.

As if her turbulent mood wills it to happen, it starts raining. 

She burrows in her windbreaker and runs home. By the time she reaches her front porch, it’s full on sheeting, lightning crackling the night sky. Jenn kicks off her sneakers and peels off her socks, wondering if today can get any worse. 

Inside, the quiet of the house is unsettling. Her parents are working, but Jenn doesn't hear Pacey’s wall-shattering music. Her room had been atypically quiet when Jenn passed by earlier.

Like she’s in a horror movie, Jenn tiptoes upstairs and creeps toward Pacey's door. 

Quiet. Too quiet. And the door, of course, is locked.

Her stomach hollows as she considers all the fat-shaming comments on pictures Pacey’s tagged in. Trolls, telling Pacey to kill herself. She envisions Pacey’s body-image issues resurfacing. Weekly therapy. Pacey nicking her arms in solitude.

Jenn can’t lose her too.

She bangs on the door. Yells Pacey’s name. Throws herself against the door so many times, her left side throbs. Pacey, headphones on, swings the door open and rubs sleep from her eyes. Jenn blindsides her with a hug, relieved and crying. Pacey pushes Jenn away with a “What? Is? Wrong with you?”

“So much,” Jenn chokes out a sob. “But I’m going to fix this.” She heaves out a sigh. “I’m going to fix everything.”

According to her Instagram livestream, Orla’s at a private party in downtown Charleston. Jenn drives there, and after a tearful pleading to bouncers, she’s allowed in. Orla double-takes Jenn’s bedraggled appearance and frowns.

“Girl, you don’t look so good.”

Jenn pulls up Joey’s picture. Sobs as she explains the ransom text. The trolls. Everything. “Take it away. Whatever you did, I don’t want it. I don’t want my posts to go viral. Not anymore.”

Orla’s lips flatten into a thin line. “More to life than social media?”

Jenn nods. So much more.

“You sure about this?”

One hundred percent. Jenn doesn’t know if this will bring Joey back. Or fix what happened with Dawson. But hopefully nothing else bad will happen.

Orla takes Jenn’s phone, pulls up her most recent video, and deletes it.

Later, Jenn sets all her accounts to private. Blocks any followers she doesn’t know in real life. She returns all the packages. Jenn tells her family about Joey. Posters are hung around town. The next few weeks, Jenn throws herself into school and gets her averages back to As and Bs. She and Pacey rewatch Peacemaker, then binge Harley Quinn and Daredevil. Dawson scores a new internship. Jenn found out through her parents. Dawson still refuses to answer her calls.

As April ebbs into May, the temptation to share every thought, every picture, every moment, recedes like high tide. But there’s still no sign of Joey. Jenn hasn’t talked to Tasha. She’s left a gazillion apology texts and voicemails. But nothing in return. 

Jenn deserves this. She ruined friendships. Sacrificed relationships. She lost her dog. So Jenn does what she should’ve done a long time ago. Focus on the people who comment on her posts; who like her content. Who like her.

One afternoon, she’s sharing a TikTok account with Pacey, one dedicated to John Cena’s ass, when there’s an insistent scratch at the front door, followed by a familiar, high-pitched bark.

Jenn tears down the stairs. Through the front windows she spies a beautiful blur of pale champagne and so much cuteness.

She can’t open the door fast enough.