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Deb walked through the school hall with her bag after the last bell, heading for the door to go. She'd barely been able to pay attention to her schoolwork all day– not that she was a stellar student on a normal day, but that was beside the point– because she was too focused on what was up with Alice, who hadn't been keeping in touch since she'd left for that amusement park trip with her dad. She wouldn't answer any of her texts and hadn't been active on any social media at all since she'd last seen her, actually, and she had really been starting to worry. If something had happened to her at that old wreck of a park, Deb guessed it would take a while for word to get out. She'd wanted to go check it out to see if the park staff knew anything, but her aunt hadn't let her, telling her she didn't trust the place and didn't want her getting hurt there. Needless to say, that hadn't exactly put her mind at ease. So all she could do was wait and try to keep her mind off of it, not that anything would really help. She almost thought it was hopeless when she stepped out of the door and her eyes settled on a familiar girl in a pink sweater some twenty feet away, standing alone by an outer wall of the school with her eyes glued to her phone.
"Ally, hey!" She called, picking up the pace toward her. "Thank fuck you're okay, how was the day with your d–"
"Don't talk to me," Alice cut her off, glaring at her before turning her eyes back to her phone.
"Huh?"
"Don't act like you don't know," she held eye contact for slightly longer, a mix of several emotions on her face. None of them were positive. "We're through."
Her heart dropped. "What? Alice, please, just tell me what I did, I'm sorry, I'll do whatever I can to make up for it, okay?" Alice just held an icy look. "Babe, please talk to me, I don't–"
"It's Ziggs, Deb, you're cheating on me with Ziggs and you think I'm too dumb to notice," she sighed, tugging on her hair in tired exasperation. She looked like she was choking back tears, focusing more on her phone to keep herself from crying. Deb wished she could comfort her, but she knew anything she tried to do to help would only make her more upset. "Now, go away, I don't want to see you anymore. You've already done your damage."
"No, no, Alice, I'm not dating them, I promise, they're just my friend." She fiddled with a button on her flannel as she tried to figure out what had given Alice that impression. "I know I used to have a crush on them and all, but that's long gone, and that's all it ever was. Ziggy and I'd never work out as a couple, and even if we would, I wouldn't get into one when I'm already with you." She hoped she still was, at least. "I'd never cheat on you, Ally. You're the best girlfriend I've ever had."
Alice blinked in surprise, almost about to forgive her, before her face fell again and she turned back to her phone, avoiding eye contact. "Well, save the speech for someone who'll fall for it, actions speak louder than words."
"What 'actions'? What did I do? Please tell me what happened, I don't want to lose you over this," she brushed Alice's hair out of her face, trying to make eye contact. She hadn't felt this nervous talking to her since she'd first asked her out, she wasn't used to feeling like this when Alice was around.
"This! These!" She shoved her phone into her face, showing her a picture she'd posted the night of the party. "Drinking with them, smoking with them, all of it!" At a closer inspection, she realized it wasn't a post she'd remembered making. It showed her and Ziggs too close for comfort, blowing smoke into each other's mouths. She felt sick just looking at it. "I wasn't born yesterday, I know what you've been doing while I'm gone!"
"That never happened, babe," she assured, pulling up the real posts from the night. She was smoking, yeah, and she might have been having just a little too much fun, but only one picture had Ziggs in it, and it was pretty clear they weren't together, much less doing anything Alice's pictures would show. On top of that, Alice's account still wasn't active on Deb's end. "Where did that come from?"
"They're on your account, Deb, now leave me alone, I don't want to hear any more of it," she bit back a sob, trying to push her away. "And don't call me 'babe', you don't get to do that anymore."
"Alice, look, this is the real post," she showed her the picture on her phone, just her having some fun with friends she was decidedly not dating.
"Well, that's not what's on my phone," she said slowly, comparing them side by side. The captions were the same, each the type of dumb shit she would put in a caption when she was high, but the pictures on Alice's screen told a different story. "Well, how am I supposed to know you're not just covering it up and expecting me to buy it?" She asked after a moment, unable to come up with any other explanations. "I still don't believe you."
Deb sighed and bit her lip as she tried to figure out how she could prove the Ziggs pictures were fake. "Uh, hey, Sof, c'mere," she waved her over from the door, making brief eye contact with Alice to tell her to wait just a second. "Give me your phone for a minute."
"Why?"
"To check something, just give it," she nodded toward Alice, holding out her hand for Sof to hand it over. "What, you don't even have a passcode or anything?"
"I've got nothing to hide," she crossed her arms with a chuckle.
"Being in nine group chats with Danny might be something to hide," Deb offered, looking up with a smirk.
"Knowing Danny at all might be something to hide, but how'd you know that was him? His name in my phone is–"
"—'Burgundy Clown', but with most of the word 'burgundy' censored out," Deb finished, nodding slowly as she scrolled around to find instagram. Who else would that be? "Doesn't that say enough?"
"You got me there," Sof shrugged as she leant back on the wall. "But hey, I like keeping him around, who else am I gonna make fun of?"
"Okay, well, here is my legal permission to make fun of me."
"Nah, I'll stick to Danny, it's not as fun when you want me to do it. Or when it's legal. So what do you want here, again?"
"Oh, uh, something's up with either Alice's phone or mine, different pictures show up on her feed," she tapped Alice's phone case, glancing back at her to check if she was still upset before turning back to Sof. "Pictures of things I'm pretty sure never happened, it's freaking me out. I need to see yours to know which one's real."
"The fuck?"
"Weird, I know, but it's true, and I don't know what's up, but I don't like it." She found her account and checked the posts - everything was just like it'd been on her phone, the real pictures she (at least vaguely) remembered taking. "Ally, hon, something's wrong with yours, Sof's matches mine."
"Really?" Alice mumbled, looking her phone over for any differences. "I guess it was weird that that woman just found it perfectly intact, maybe she..." she trailed off as she turned the phone back on to look through it. "I'm guessing you didn't send these texts, either?"
"Uh, depends, I sent a few asking if you were okay and if you were having fun with your dad, and then I got worried when you stopped responding so I asked if you were okay a few more times, and–"
"Well, that's not what happened on my end," she scrolled through the text history, about to show her the screen before Deb shook her head, not wanting to see whatever Alice's phone wanted her to think she said.
"It wasn't me, this is what I really sent you," she showed her the texts from her end, and Alice breathed a sigh of relief.
"Good, I thought you hated me," she forced out a nervous laugh. "That, ah, that didn't really help matters much."
"So, are we still together, babe? Because I can go get Ziggy if you want to talk to them, but–"
"We're fine, we're still together," Alice confirmed, tugging on the hem of her sweater. "If you'd still like to be, anyway. I'm sorry I got so upset, I guess I overreacted, huh?"
"No, no, I don't blame you." Deb leaned in to kiss her cheek and slipped a hand around her waist, glad she could still call Alice her girlfriend. "I'd probably have felt the same if I thought you'd posted pictures getting with Grace Chastity or someone."
"God, I think even I'd be upset if you saw that," Alice admitted, trying to make her still-tense laugh sound genuine.
"So it's your whole phone, huh? Not just one app?" Sof asked, leaning against the wall. "Can I check it out? I won't go through it or anything, Al, I'll just take a look and see if I can tell what's up, what do you say?"
"Okay, go ahead, I guess," Alice hesitantly nodded, handing her the phone.
She looked it over, checking for any subtle signs, stopping when she slipped the case off and noticed the purple slime sticking the phone and case together, stretching out like melted cheese when she pulled them apart. "What the fuck?"
"Oh," Alice paled, grabbing for the phone. "It's from Watcher World, this stuff was all over the place." She blinked and her breath caught in her throat when she drew her conclusion. "I think they gave me a fake phone after my real one broke."
"Why'd they give you a fake phone?" Sof asked.
Deb leaned her head on her shoulder, trying to help her calm down while keeping the conversation. "And why would they try to get you to think I was cheating on you?"
"You weren't trying to make me upset, they were," she bit down on her lip, trying to look at her phone while avoiding contact with the purple goo. "They wanted me to hurt my dad, and they wanted him to hurt me. Whatever they were doing made me think you were hooking up with Ziggs at your party, and if my dad would have let me go instead of taking me to the park, it wouldn't have happened." She looked down at the ground for a minute, trying to force the words out of her mouth. "I– I almost killed him," she confessed, tugging at her hair. "I shot at him, I could have murdered my dad over nothing!"
"Oh, god, then don't touch any more of that shit," Deb carefully slipped the phone out of her hand, popping the case back on to contain the slime. Keeping the slime safely away from herself, she slipped her other hand into Alice's and gently pulled her closer to comfort her. "That goes for you, too, Sof, I don't know what it could do. Ally, any reason they'd let you leave with their bugged phone?"
"To watch me, maybe, keep an eye on me and my dad," she thought out loud, looking back down at the phone every few seconds. "They kept saying they were watching, they're always watching, it was so creepy," she breathed, letting the phone slip out of her fingers and drop to the ground. "They're still watching me!"
"Alice, can I break it?" Deb held her hands, looking down at the phone while making sure the slime hadn't leaked onto Alice's skin when she wasn't paying attention. "Or would that make it worse? It's not your real phone, remember, you won't lose anything to ditch it."
"I don't see how it could hurt," Alice nodded, backing away to give her the go-ahead.
"You stay back too, Sof, I'm not taking my chances." She checked the area around her, making sure nobody was close enough to get hurt. The coast was clear, so she pushed the heel of her boot into the phone, listening for the crack. When she was sure it was broken, she kicked it out of the way and cleaned any trace of purple off her shoe, getting Alice and Sof as far from it as she could. As far as she knew, they were safe.
What Deb didn't know was that it was much too late to keep Alice from touching the purple slime, and that Blinky was always watching.
Always.