At the end of the summer, Justin was unprepared to set foot in the high school. It was so much bigger than the middle school campus had been.
He hadn't gotten his growth spurt yet. He was going to get trampled by the crowds in the halls.
To his dismay, he didn't know anyone in his first three classes. Thankfully, Roger from robotics club was in his English class. English teachers liked making people pair up to discuss the books and it was better to do it with someone you knew.
He didn't have any classes with Emily at all and wasn't sure why he was so intensely disappointed by that. However, they did have the same Spanish teacher. He had noticed her leaving the classroom as he was about to go in during passing period.
As the school year went on, he lived for the moments he saw her exiting Spanish class. Sometimes he would see her sitting at the choir kids table in the cafeteria too, laughing and displaying that bright smile. Whenever she posted on InstaFace, he would give the picture a like.
He wasn't sure when exactly it happened but Emily started interesting him even more than computers. She hadn't talked to him since signing his yearbook in middle school so he didn't dare approach her.
When Justin wasn't secretly watching Emily, he was working on his bettering his coding skills. The high school didn't have a robotics club so he spent a lot of time in the library on the computer looking things up and reading books about computers during his breaks. By the end of his first year of high school, he had become fairly proficient at hacking.
Over the summer, he discovered how to track the sites Emily's email address was affiliated with and found her blog on Blogr, a popular blogging site. The strange thing was that her name wasn't linked to it, just a username: a_special_discontinued_grape_juice.
Unlike the bright and happy personal photos on InstaFace, this blog's entries seemed more like a diary of random thoughts that could belong to anyone, mixed with reposting other people's thoughts and pictures.
'Ate six slices of pizza today and now I want to die'
'Math is sucking out my soul, save me!'
'My cat fell asleep on my sister's face and she choked on the fluff lol'
Justin thoroughly enjoyed these tiny insights into her life. As he got further in, his brow furrowed in concern. The posts were getting darker.
'Mom and Dad are fighting again, ugh'
'Anybody want to trade families?'
'$5 to any father who isn't a total jerk'
What was going on at home? She always seemed so bright and happy at school. Every time he saw her, she was smiling.
He didn't know much about her family aside from what he saw on InstaFace. She had an eleven-year-old sister named Lillian and a seven-year-old brother named Jax. Most of her pictures didn't include her dad, just her mom and siblings.
Justin took about five minutes to create his own Blogr account, RoboCat, before commenting on the most recent post. 'Are you okay?'
The response was instant. Emily was online. 'Just having a bad day. Thanks RoboCat xx'
Her reply was so generic that it didn't make him feel any better. 'Emily, what is going on with you?' he wondered desperately.
He kept worrying until he actually saw Emily a few days later. His mom had dragged him to the grocery store because he 'needed to get out of the house' and he was powerless to resist.
She was with her sister in the pet aisle, trying to pick out cat treats. Justin quickly gave his mom the slip and hide behind the aisle divider to peek at them.
Emily looked like her usual bright self in a hot pink flowered dress but she seemed tired. Lillian did too. Were their parents fighting again?
He wanted to do something but couldn't out himself. What would he even say? 'Hey, I know I haven't spoken to you in a year but I'm sorry for what you're going through'? That would be super weird.
"Justin! What are you doing? I'm about to check out," his mom called and he scampered away before the Carter sisters could spot him.
He had to do something to cheer her up but what? The idea came to him when she posted something on Blogr about a sappy romantic novel she read where the boy left surprises in the girl's locker. School started in a few weeks. He could wait that long.
On the second day of school, he caught Emily at her locker. It was pretty close to the boys' bathroom. If he excused himself in the middle of class, he could leave his gift without anyone seeing him.
The bag of gummy candies in his backpack suddenly seemed very heavy. What if she didn't like it? He knew she liked the candies from her blog but what if she thought it was super weird?
Justin shook away those thoughts and focused on his task of cracking the combination lock. It was actually pretty easy. He just had to listen for the clicks as he turned it.
Within a few minutes, the lock was open and the gummies were left on top of her math textbook with a note saying 'have a nice day' and a smiley face. Innocent enough. He shut the locker and hurried back to class.
Later that day, she updated her Blogr. 'Craziest thing happened today. Someone—probably a guy based on the handwriting—left my favorite candy in my locker!'
A flood of replies from her followers came in. 'OMG so cute!' 'You have a secret admirer! So jealous' 'Ugh why can't things like this happen to me? You're so lucky'
Emily responded to these comments with equal enthusiasm so Justin leaned back in his chair, satisfied. Mission accomplished.