"Are you kidding me here? What is it with you, Gem?" I said, suddenly feeling drained of all my energy. "Do you get off on this sort of thing? How does it work, huh? You find some sucker on the Internet, come on to them, then when they fall for all your crap, then what? You get bored? Is that it? You get bored and then move on to the next one?"

Fickle paused.

"Yeah, something like that," she said, and for the first time in our conversation, she actually had the grace to sound slightly sheepish.

"You're a head case," I said, not caring what I said to her anymore.

"Yeah, maybe I am," Fickle said. "Clue was in the name, though, Immy. Fickle? Er, hello? So I'm fickle-what can I do?"

"You can go fuck yourself," I said, pressing the Cancel button on my phone and sliding back down under the duvet, pulled the covers high over my head, and then just sobbed and sobbed until there were no more tears left to cry.

Chapter Eighteen.

I didn't hear much from Fickle after that. It was as if the last month had never happened; like I'd never known her, or that it had all been a dream. I'd gone from feeling like the happiest girl in the world to one who couldn't face the world ever again in just a few short days. She sent me a few texts, spaced out over the days, and even had the grace to send me an e-mail, trying to explain herself, trying to justify what she'd done, but by that point I was past caring. She'd made it bluntly clear in her texts and e-mails that whatever we'd "shared" had just been a bit of fun and now she'd moved on, but that she "hoped we could still be friends".

Priceless, huh?

I pretty much just shut myself away in my room all week, telling Mum and Dad I was ill. And I was ill; my heart was well and truly broken, but more than that, I felt sick to my stomach over how stupid I'd been and I just couldn't face them. I couldn't hide my pain, my hurt, my anger-and the last thing I needed was to get the third degree from them about what was up with me. I felt eaten up with grief-that was the only word I could use to describe it-grief at losing her, almost like she'd died. I missed her dreadfully, crying myself to sleep with the realisation that I'd probably never speak to her ever again.

I couldn't face college either, and I sure as hell couldn't face Emily or Beth. The truth was, I felt like a complete idiot. I felt so stupid and annoyed with myself for letting my feelings run away with me over a girl whom, as it turned out, I never knew at all. Everyone had been right all along; everyone had said it was dumb to get carried away with the attention Fickle had been heaping on me. Maybe they hadn't said it, but they'd all thought it. I could tell.

I spent my time lying in bed, almost in a daze, numb with hurt, only leaving my room once I knew everyone had left for school or work. Then I'd go to the kitchen with the intention of making myself something to eat, but just the smell and sight of food made me want to throw up. I sat in the lounge looking at the walls or paced the house, trying to shake thoughts of Fickle from my head. I left my phone off all day and couldn't bring myself to go anywhere near the computer, almost as if Fickle was physically inside it. I didn't want to risk seeing her name anywhere on my screen; not on any message board, not on MSN, and certainly not on Skype. Quite simply, I just went to ground to lick my wounds and try and heal myself the only way I knew how.

Finally, nearly a week after I'd last spoken to Fickle, I woke up and didn't feel like I wanted to cry anymore. My pain and grief had turned to silent fury, literally overnight, it seemed, and I didn't want to feel like shit anymore, didn't want to waste another second of my life hurting over Fickle and what she'd done to me. I missed being human; missed talking to Mum and Dad, missed being at college, missed Beth and Emily, and missed chatting to Joey, Twiggy, and all the other friends I'd made on the message board. They were the ones that mattered now; they were my real friends.

I switched on my phone for the first time in ages and listened guiltily as it beeped with loads of texts and voicemail alerts. There were some from Beth and Emily, just saying hi and asking me where I'd been, with a few from Twiggy too, asking me if I'd be on MSN and stuff like that. Most were from Joey, though, telling me she was worried about me and begging me to let her know I was okay. There were none from Fickle, but then I hadn't really expected any more from her.

Instinctively, I dialled Joey's number, listening to it ring as I pulled a brush through my hair and peered at myself in the mirror. It wasn't pretty.

"Imms?" Joey's voice sounded at the end of the phone.

"Hey Joe." I looked at myself in the mirror.

"Oh thank God," Joey breathed out. "I've been worried sick about you, after everything that's happened."

"Yeah, I went a bit crazy for a while, Joe." I tried to make my voice sound light. "But I'm okay now, I think."

"Everyone's been asking about you on the message board," Joey went on. "Twiggy's been worrying herself silly as well."

"I'm sorry I didn't get in touch," I said truthfully. "I just didn't wanna know anyone for a while, you know?"

"Yeah, I understand," Joey said. "I'm just glad you're...you know...okay."

"I'll live." I laughed. "Mind you, I wasn't so sure about that a few days ago, but that was then."

"Good on you, kiddo," Joey said, with more sincerity in her voice than I think I've ever heard.

She paused.

"So you spoke to Fickle, then?" she asked, kinda tentatively.

"Yeah. On Saturday. Exactly a week after we first met and she's telling me it's over. How about that?" I laughed, but the laugh was laden with irony.

"I don't know what to say, Imms," Joey said. "I'm so sorry."

"Better to know now, I guess," I said, "than later, when I was in deeper than I already was."

"I could wring the little cow's neck, I really could," Joey said savagely. "What she did to you was just downright brutal. I tell you what, Imms, if I ever see her name on any message board anywhere, I'll kill her. I mean it."

"You can't kill someone over the Internet." I laughed. "But I appreciate the offer anyway."

"I had to tell you, Imms," Joey said. "I couldn't let her do it to you."

"I'm glad you told me," I said honestly. "Imagine how awful we'd both have felt further down the line? Like I said, best to nip it in the bud early."

I felt my voice wobble at those words, and cleared my throat quickly, hoping that Joey hadn't noticed.

"Did she tell you why she did it?" Joey asked.

I thought for a second.

"No, not really," I replied. "She just said that me and her was just a bit of fun and that it was never going to go anywhere, and that she couldn't help but flirt with other girls. It was in her nature to do it, she said."

"For crap's sake..." Joey gasped.

"I know," I said. "I just wish she'd made that clear from the start. That it was a game, you know?"

My voice threatened to crack again.

"Silly little girl playing with people's emotions," Joey said bitterly. "What a selfish idiot she is."

"She told me she loved me, Joey," I said simply. "That's not a game, is it?"

"It's not, Imms," Joey said gently. "That's just darned cruel."

"I really liked her-loved her, I think-Joey," I said, still looking at myself in the mirror, watching my face crumple slightly.

"I know, kiddo, I know," Joey said. "But you have to find some positives in amongst all the negatives, if you can."

"Like what?" I said. I found it impossible at that moment to think there was anything positive about the whole sorry mess.

"Well, it allowed you to be true to yourself," Joey said. "It confirmed what you'd suspected for a while-that you like girls."

"You're right." I nodded to myself in the mirror. "And I s'pose it got me out of a dead-end relationship with Matt."

"See? Another positive. You might still be with him now if you hadn't met Fickle."

I thought about that for a second. Joey was right; Fickle might not have been the cause of my deciding to finish with Matt, but she'd sure been the catalyst.

"I guess she gave me the guts to finally get round to doing something about it," I said. "He's seeing my mate, Beth, now. Did I tell you?"

Joey laughed.

"You didn't, no. And you don't sound down about it, so I'm guessing you're cool with it?"

"Oh, totally!" I said, laughing as well. "If anything, it's a relief to know he's with someone who wants to be with him, 'cos by all accounts, Beth's crazy about him."

"See? Another positive!" Joey giggled. "And let's face it, kiddo, he's probably getting a helluva lot more action in the sack with her than he was with you. No offence, like."

I laughed out loud.

"None taken, you cheeky bugger!"

I looked at my reflection and saw that I was actually smiling, seeing life in my eyes for the first time in days. Joey was good for me, I decided. She was saying everything I needed to hear, and I figured in that moment that I needed Joey in my life, probably more than I'd ever needed anyone before, and I needed her to keep telling me the things I wanted to hear. Maybe that way Fickle would eventually fade from my memory.

"Wanna Skype later?" Joey's voice jolted me back to reality. "I'll wear a silly hat, make you laugh?"

"Sure," I said. "It'll be nice to see a friendly face after hiding myself away in my room for nearly a week!"

"I'm glad you're doing better," Joey said. "I missed seeing you around. I only had Twiggy for company last night, and she's lovely and all, but, well, you know!" She laughed.

"Argh, Twiggy!" I sighed. "I s'pose I'll have to face her at some point as well."

"You don't have to face anyone you don't want to," Joey said kindly. "But she's been worried about you too. Just send her a text, tell her you're alive?"

"I will," I said. "And Joey, thanks. Thanks for listening and not judging. I'm sorry if I was rude to you last week when you told me about Fickle."

"Ah, pff!" Joey laughed. "It's water under the bridge now, Imms."

She hesitated.

"Not everyone's like Fickle, you know," she said. "Not everyone you meet online is a total shit. Don't let what happened with her cloud your opinions of others 'cos there are some great people out there-people who care about you. Just 'cos we're a face that talks to you through a computer screen doesn't mean we don't care, okay?"

I nodded to my reflection. "Thanks, Joey."

"No problem, kiddo," Joey said. "Speak to you later."

And with that, she was gone. I sat down on my bed and thought about everything Joey had just said to me, and finally felt a pinprick of something that resembled optimism.

A hot shower and my first proper food in days made me feel 100 percent better. Mum and Dad had come back from work, and Sophie was lurking somewhere in her bedroom, on the pretext of doing homework, which meant she was probably either texting, Tweeting, or on Facebook.

I smiled as Mum came into the lounge just as I was finishing off my second bacon sandwich. She ruffled my hair as she sat down next to me and looked across to me.

"You feeling better, my love?" she said, picking up a magazine and flicking through it.

"I am, yeah." I nodded, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "Some sort of nasty bug got me, but I think it's gone now." I smiled at her.

"That's all it was?" Mum cocked her head and gave me a look that only mothers can give you. "Nothing else?"

"Nothing else, Mum." I nodded. "I'm much better now. I'll go back to college tomorrow, I think."

I picked up my phone, not wanting to talk any more about it with Mum. I sent Twiggy a text, just telling her I was okay and that I'd be on MSN later if she fancied a chat. I started deleting some messages from my in-box and saw some of Fickle's texts to me from the week before, and felt my heart momentarily drop. Without another thought, I pressed Select and deleted them all before going to my contacts box and deleting her name as well.

Perhaps I was finally beginning to get rid of the bug, once and for all.

Chapter Nineteen.

As the weeks passed, I managed to clear myself of every trace of Fickle that had ever existed in my life. I removed her from my MSN buddy list, deleted every fake e-mail she'd ever sent me with all its fake words within, removed her from Skype, and deleted all the photos she'd sent me of herself.

It was only after I'd done that, that I felt, I dunno, sort of cleansed, like I was starting over again.

I still missed Fickle like crazy, but Joey's words to me from before kept swimming into my head, about how Fickle had at least given me the courage to stop denying to myself that I was gay and to start believing in myself more. I took Joey's words on board and got used to being, well, me, and stopped beating myself up about being gay, telling myself that, for the first time ever, I could live my life the way I wanted to live it, not the way I thought people expected me to. I figured by being true to myself, at least everything I'd shared with Fickle, and all the shit afterwards, wouldn't have been for nothing.

I finally started to feel happy once more, happy with who I was, something I'd not ever really experienced before. I'd come out to Beth too, in an extremely frank and funny conversation one day over a few beers in the pub, the beer having loosened my tongue and my anxieties, and it had been another huge weight off my shoulders. Of course, I'd been vague with Emily when she'd asked me questions about Fickle, just telling her that things hadn't turned out as I'd hoped and that my experience with Fickle had been just that-an experience.

"There's plenty more girls out there, Ems," I'd said to her. "And I plan on having fun finding them!"

To my relief, both Beth and Emily were totally cool about me being gay, and to my complete amusement, took it upon themselves to embrace it as enthusiastically as I had, and I began to think that I'd finally turned a corner. In fact, their enthusiasm towards my new life extended way beyond the call of duty, which is how we found ourselves, one Friday night around three weeks after Fickle had dumped me, sitting in a gay bar called the Porter in town, chatting over drinks while Emily and Beth eyed up potential new girlfriends for me.

"It's buzzing in here, isn't it?" Beth had to shout to be heard over the sound of the music. "Who knew this place even existed?"

"Not the sort of place you'd normally come to." I laughed. "Nor me, for that matter!"

I looked round the room, thinking that even six weeks ago I would never have dared come to a gay bar. Times were changing for me.

"What about her?" Emily leant over and nodded towards a girl standing at the bar.

I looked at her. She looked to be in her early twenties, shortish hair, cool clothes. She looked nice, and I watched as she gazed around the room, kinda hoping she'd look over my way.

"She looks cute," I half shouted back to Emily, dissolving into a fit of giggles with her as we watched another girl come join the girl at the bar and put her arm around her waist.