I woke up the next morning in my own flat. A good sign, I thought. In my own bed. A great sign. I was still wearing my shoes. Not quite so good, but still okay. I even had my phone and my laptop bag with me. Everything was fine.

I remembered, vaguely, speaking to Savannah on the phone the night before when I got back to my flat: I couldn’t remember the access code for my front door and she was good at things like that, so I’d called her and she’d helped me get in. Good old Savannah.

It was the weekend so we didn ‘t have to be in work, but I thought I’d better call her anyway to check that I hadn’t done anything stupid. I picked up my phone from beside my bed and scrolled to the last calls list to redial her number. But, oddly, Savannah’s number wasn’t the last number I’d dialled – Karen’s was. As was the second to last call. And the third. And the fourth. This was very weird – I didn’t remember phoning Karen, but in fact all the last calls I’d made the previous night were to her. I hadn’t called Savannah at all. What the hell? I was sure I’d spoken to her.

It was at that point that I suddenly started to remember things. Oh God – Karen was at the pub, too. I’d phoned her up and invited her to join us because there was something important I needed to tell her. I was going to sort things out.
Oh Jesus. What the hell had I said?

And even if Karen was at the pub that still didn ‘t explain how I’d spoken to Savannah when I’d only dialled Karen’s number.

Unless.

Oh God.

No, it can’t be.

With fear in my heart and panic in my fingers, I dialled Savannah’s number. An American voice answered.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey. I’m not sure I want to know the answer to this question but why do you have Savannah’s phone? And why did she have yours when I phoned last night?’

‘Why don’t you ask her yourself? She’s right here, making a cup of tea.’

OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.

16.1

As it turned out, the whole sorting things out with Karen and Savannah like a grown-up thing hadn’t gone entirely to plan. Apparently Karen had arrived at the pub to find me with my hand on Savannah’s leg, flirting wildly. Quite reasonably, a loud argument had ensued and, in an act of sisterly solidarity, Savannah had taken Karen to one side to calm her down and have a chat. Evidently I’d been quite happy for this to carry on and had headed home, oblivious to the damage I’d done.

With Karen incredibly and understandably upset, Savannah had offered to let her sleep on her couch, but not before they spent half the night comparing notes on what a complete and utter bastard I was – including things I’d told each of them about the other, and places I said I’d been, and where I’d actually been. And now the two of them were having breakfast. This was my worst nightmare.
Savannah came to the phone.

‘ Well, I guess that probably solves the question of us getting back together, and what I should do about Karen.’ Keep it light, I thought.

‘Yeah – I think that pretty much nails it, ‘ she replied, with characteristic understatement.

*Click *

16.2

Over the next few days I thought about Karen a lot. She wasn ‘t answering my calls and her face had disappeared from the contacts list on my instant message software. In a way I was glad that, no matter how badly I’d handled things, at least things were definitely over now. I didn’t have to make the decision on what to do – it had been made for me. But I still wondered whether Karen was okay; what she was thinking, what she was doing.
I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.
16.3
‘HAHAHAHAHAHA!’

The uncontrollable laughter on the other end of the phone belonged to Sam. Seven days had passed since the incident with Karen and Savannah, and I was trying to forget about all my troubles by deep-cleaning my flat.

‘ What? What now ?’

‘Nothing. Just reading Karen’s blog.’

‘Karen’s what ?’

‘Her blog. Her blog about you. It’s really good.’

‘Please tell me you’re joking.’

‘You haven’t seen it? Brilliant … go to …’

‘You had better be kidding me. She wouldn’t set up a blog about me, she ’s not even talking to me.’

‘Oh, but she is.’

Click. Click.

Oh Jesus.

And there it was. An entire website dedicated to me – created by Karen and full of details of our relationship, stories about how much of a crap boyfriend I had been in every single way. How her friends had always hated me. How I was a worthless ‘douchebag’ (her favourite word). But it was worse than that. Much worse.

She ‘d been recruiting.

Not satisfied with telling her own stories about me, Karen had gone to the effort of tracking down everyone she knew I’d fallen out with in my entire life and encouraged them to add comments to the blog. Ex-girlfriends I’d mentioned casually while we were together, including a girl I’d dated for a couple of weeks before she’d got so clingy my brother took to calling her ‘mental Kate’ (how can you track someone down using only that information? It was like CSI: London ). She’d even got in touch with a guy who had written some reviews for a magazine I co-founded years ago and that had folded after three issues over some pretty dramatic ‘artistic differences’. He still held me responsible and would occasionally post some malicious nonsense about me on his own blog. But now there they all were, almost everyone I’d ever fallen out with, united at last in their hatred for me. It was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen in my life. This was more than a Google bomb – this was full-blown character genocide.

Sam couldn’t stop laughing – the bastard.

‘This is without doubt my new favourite site. I’ve bookmarked it, and be assured I’m sending the link to everyone we know.’

The utter bastard.

I laughed about it, too, of course; it’s all I could do. But the truth was it was deeply embarrassing – and hurtful. Which was exactly the point, of course: I’d spent ten years of my life using the Internet for self-publicity and now she was using it against me – embarrassing me like I’d embarrassed her by using my ego and vanity against me.

Now when anyone searched for my name online, among all the stuff I wanted people to see – the Wikipedia page saying that I’d been described as a ‘latter-day Jonathan Swift’ by the Christian Scientists; five years of Friday Thing archives; the books and articles I’d written – there’d be this extra little nugget. This blog telling the world how I’d broken the heart of a girl who had been nothing but nice to me, just because I wanted to have it all.

Chapter Seventeen: ‘Taking stock’…