Editing Emma: Online you can choose who you want to be. If only real life were so easy...

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

Copyright © Chloe Seager 2017

Chloe Seager asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008220983

Version: 2018-04-03

CHLOE SEAGER grew up in East London with her mum and much-loved cat, Katie. She studied English Literature and Drama at the University of East Anglia, where she sadly realised she couldn’t act, but did rediscover her love of children’s books. Children’s Literature was one of her favourite modules, and it made her wonder why grown-ups ever stopped reading them. She now works with them full time as a YA/Children’s literary agent, and lives back in East London with her boyfriend and pet fish. Editing Emma is her first book.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

About the Author

My Dingy Internet Cave Tuesday, 2 September i.e. Day 45 of Despair

Wednesday, 3 September i.e. Day 46 of Despair

Thursday, 4 September i.e. Day 47 of Despair

Friday, 5 September i.e. Day 48 of Despair

Saturday, 6 September i.e. Day 1 of Recovery

Editing Emma (The Secret Blog of A Nearly Proper Person)

Sunday, 7 September

Monday, 8 September

Tuesday, 9 September

Wednesday, 10 September

Thursday, 11 September

Friday, 12 September

Saturday, 13 September

Sunday, 14 September

Monday, 15 September

Tuesday, 16 September

Wednesday, 17 September

Thursday, 18 September

Friday, 19 September

Saturday, 20 September

Sunday, 21 September

Monday, 22 September

Tuesday, 23 September

Wednesday, 24 September

Thursday, 25 September

Friday, 26 September

Saturday, 27 September

Sunday 28th September

Monday, 29 September

Tuesday, 30 September

Wednesday, 1 October

Thursday, 2 October

Friday 3rd October

Saturday, 4 October

Sunday, 5 October

Monday 6th October

Tuesday, 7 October

Wednesday, 8 October

Thursday 9th October

Friday, 10 October

Saturday, 11 October

Sunday, 12 October

Monday, 13 October

Tuesday, 14 October

Wednesday, 15 October

Thursday, 16 October

Friday, 17 October

Saturday, 18 October

Sunday, 19 October

Monday, 20 October

Tuesday, 21 October

Wednesday, 22 October

Thursday, 23 October

Friday, 24 October

Saturday, 25 October

Sunday, 26 October

Editing Emma

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

My Dingy Internet Cave Tuesday, 2 September i.e. Day 45 of Despair

posted by MissH 15.03

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

3 mins

Huh… That’s funny. Because I thought he was in a relationship with me.

posted by MissH 16.05

My phone rings. And rings. And rings. It’s Steph. Then Faith. Then Gracie. I know they mean well (except Gracie, who will be not-so-secretly enjoying this) but I really don’t want to speak to anyone. Maybe ever again. I will limit human contact to only when it’s strictly necessary, i.e. my mum when I need food. Maybe she’d even consider getting a little hatch put in my bedroom door.

posted by MissH 17.14

Staring at the status as it gets more and more comments and likes, becoming more and more real as I become more and more discarnate.

I guess that explains why he hasn’t spoken to me all summer, then. How could he do this? Am I not even worth a proper break-up? Was I that unimportant, that he can just act like I never existed? I wasn’t even made Facebook official. I didn’t even have the dignity of him ending our relationship in person or online before starting a new one. I have been left in the shadows, invisible and unacknowledged.

Has he been meeting up with her all this time? All this time I’ve been sending out deranged, thinly veiled tweets that are OBVIOUSLY about him? Or posting photos that say, ‘LOOK AT ME IN THIS REVEALING OUTFIT HAVING SO MUCH FUN. I’M COMPLETELY FINE WHO NEEDS YOU LALALA’, when really Steph had put me to bed by 7 pm sobbing in my heels. Through all of that, he’s been starting another relationship? For how long? I did see her on a group shot on that day out to Hyde Park, but I thought she knew one of his friends, or something.

posted by MissH 19.36

This is what the inside of my brain looks like:

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

Leon Naylor is in a relationship with Anna McDonnell.

posted by MissH 21.05

It almost feels better, now that I know for certain. (Almost. But not quite.) He really has been ignoring me. As if all the other evidence wasn’t enough:

He started to ‘miss’ my calls, and didn’t call me back.

Even when I got Steph to phone him from her mum’s number, and he answered, I convinced myself it was probably a coincidence. Maybe the twenty or so times I called him, he really had been in the shower.

He stopped replying to my texts.

I was so sure they’d been accidentally swallowed into an abyss by O2. (Who I did ring, frantically, several times.)

He detagged ALL pictures of us.

I still can’t believe I was kidding myself about that one. I thought maybe it was a weird error, or his friends did it as a joke. But really, it seems like quite an extreme length to go to, to break up with someone… Surely just telling them is easier?

posted by MissH 23.37

The Forgotten Photos

Can’t sleep so I made a list of my favourite pictures of us, that he so coldly detagged. Because we did have a relationship, it did exist and I am not hallucinating. I am not hallucinating.

4) Us doing our best smize. (November.) We put it up for people to vote on and I won, 82 per cent. It was raining A LOT and my eye make-up was running down my face in a way which Leon said was ‘haunting’ and gave me an unfair advantage. He demanded a rematch. 3) Us lying on the school field. (March.) Our faces are red and puffy because a football had just hit me in the face (thanks Steph). After laughing for about a zillion years, Leon stood in front of the goal and let a football whack him in the face, too. 2) Us in Gracie’s garden the night he asked me to ‘go out’ with him. (June.) Gracie did a barbecue (or her parents did after she caused a smog). The sun was going down and we were lazing in the back garden, choking from leftover fumes and laughing. I can’t remember ever feeling so happy. (Apart from maybe when I won that magazine competition for designing my own red carpet outfit. They made the dress and sent it to me, and put a picture of me on the back page. It’s pretty sad that these are the best moments I can pick out in my life – in one I was eleven, and one has been completely ruined.) 1) Us at the end of term, before summer break. (July.) We are TOGETHER in this one. (I am not hallucinating.) We have been together for two weeks. We are lurking outside the Sixth Form Centre, peering in the windows and scoping it out for next year. I remember being excited by the new beanbag chairs, and Leon saying, ‘Good luck getting out of those when I sit on you.’ We laughed. I threatened to protect myself from suffocation by stabbing him with a snooker cue. We kissed. And now I’m in this place, and I’m not sure how I got here.

Wednesday, 3 September i.e. Day 46 of Despair

posted by MissH 11.30

Sitting in the living room, steaming my stye with a bowl of boiling water. My hair has not been brushed for three days or washed for six, unless you count dry shampoo. There is a dark stain on my pyjamas from where I was too eager with a tub of chocolate mousse. According to all the TV shows that ever cast glamorous twenty-five-year-old women to represent me, this is NOT how my teenage life is supposed to look.

It also seems a little unfair that I get dumped, and grow a big, red, painful lump on my eye from the stress of it. Still, maybe it’s an important life lesson to learn. Give someone your undying love, they give you a stye.

posted by MissH 11.32

Not even dumped. Avoided. I had to work out for myself that I was dumped.

posted by MissH 13.03

I can’t seem to get off Anna’s profile. There are lots of pictures of her doing sports (I think she is the Hockey Captain). Should I have paid more attention in Games instead of using the time to chase Gracie around with my stick? And she has… wait for it… a baking blog. It’s called, I kid you not: Scrumptiously, Anna. There are lots of videos of her whisking cake mixture whilst looking, quite seriously, into the camera. Should I have paid more attention in FT?

I want to say she’s not, but she’s indisputably pretty. I have named her Apple in my head to make her less threatening.

posted by MissH 17.48

Still, she might be pretty, but there’s something really bland about people who always have the same expression in photos. Boring face. Boring face. Boring face. Boring face. I mean, yes, we all have our standard poses (I am a fan of the tongue-poke), but seriously… PHOTO after PHOTO of that insipid smile. She may as well just have one photo. The only way you can tell it’s even a different night is because she’s changed her cardigan.

posted by MissH 18.56

APPLE AND EMMA: THE PRO/CON LIST

NB: evidence gathered only from photos (not totally solid) and self-reflection (notoriously difficult)

APPLE

CONS: She can’t quite smile properly. This may or may not mean something very significant about her personality.

PROS: She’s all nice and pretty and wins sports tournaments and things for the school. She has a baking blog and makes cakes for her friends.

EMMA

CONS: I have been told my smile is ‘demonic’. I can’t do ANY form of sports (though I have been told watching me fall over provided ‘light comic relief’ on Sports Day. Should this go in the Con or Pro list?).

PROS: I’m not not nice. I’m not not pretty, when I bother to brush my hair. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of rubbish TV shows. I have a blog, too, though it’s mainly dedicated to self-pity, and it never results in cake.

Looking at it this way, I think I know who I’d choose, too.

posted by MissH 21.14

God, look at me. I have now, officially, wasted the entire day staring into the vacant eyes of my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Still, as Jennifer Lawrence once said, ‘You try being twenty-two, having a period and staying away from Google! I once Googled “Jennifer Lawrence Ugly”.’ If J-Law isn’t strong enough to resist the self-destructive charms of the internet, then what hope do I have?

posted by MissH 23.58

Going to sleep, stroking the plaster under my pillow.

The plaster under my pillow

It is, obviously, Leon’s. One night, Mum went out and in a very thoughtless act of selfishness she left ingredients in the fridge, but failed to put them together into a shepherd’s pie. So, I was VERY hungry and wondering what I was supposed to do with this pile of meat and vegetables, and I Snapchatted Leon a picture of me holding a peeler, looking confused. He sent back a picture of himself holding up his hand, with a message that I remember very clearly because I screen-shot it and had it as my background for a month,

‘PUT THE PEELER DOWN. I’ll be there in 5. I quite like your fingers and I’d hate to lose one to a pie.’

(Message to Steph ten seconds later: ‘He likes my fingers! He likes my FINGERS!’)

I stood around dithering, hopping from one foot to the other and shaking my arms above my head. I kept trying to position myself in ways that felt natural, but I seemed to have forgotten how to stand. Then there was a knock that vibrated through the house. My heart pounded like it was Jack Nicholson at the door holding an axe, and I slowly edged towards it. When I let him in I was so nervous I couldn’t even look at him. I turned round, and he collapsed in a fit of laughter.

‘Thanks for the warning,’ he spluttered, pointing at my shoulders.

I completely forgot I was wearing my pyjamas that say, ‘I Fart. What’s Your Superpower?’ on the back.

‘What? Oh… Steph bought them for me as a joke!!’ I turned to face him, dying a little inside.

‘So you don’t fart?’ he asked.

‘I… No,’ I said, carefully walking backwards into the kitchen.

‘What? Never?’

‘No. Never.’

‘I’m going to have to call you out on that one, Emma, because that’s a physical impossibility. The average person produces half a litre of farts every day.’

‘…Well…I don’t.’

‘If you hold them in they come out in your sleep. Maybe that’s why Steph got you the pyjamas. You think you never fart but actually by night you are Explosive Emma.’

‘You seem to be worryingly full of gas knowledge.’

‘You seem to be worryingly full of gas.’

‘Are you going to help, or did you just come to insult me?’

‘Pass me the knife.’ He smiled.

As he began chopping, I remember feeling very solemn, like it was some kind of pivotal moment in our relationship that I should honour. Leon was in my kitchen. Chopping a carrot. He passed me the little pieces of vegetable and I took them very delicately, like he was handing me a baby.

‘You’d better not start calling me Explosive Emma.’

‘Already changing it in my Contacts,’ he said, reaching for his phone.

I threw a potato at his head.

‘It works in reference to your violent nature, too.’

‘I hate you.’

‘Do you?’ he asked, looking straight at me. I suddenly felt like I was made of glass and all my insides were on show. My stomach started backflipping, as he moved imperceptibly towards me…

‘Bollocks,’ he said, breaking eye contact.

It took me a second to register he’d cut his finger.

‘The irony,’ he said sheepishly, as I ran to get a wet cloth and started dabbing at him.

‘Haha, yes, irony, yes.’

Touching Leon, touching Leon, touching Leon.

‘Thanks, Emma.’

‘No problem.’

I would gladly clean up your blood by licking it off the counter.

‘Can I have a plaster?’

‘Sure.’

Take all the plasters. Take everything. That fruit bowl. That pile of Vogue magazines. My shoes. My vital organs.

So… yes. That is the story of the plaster. I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever found anything so satisfying as putting on that plaster. Before he left he put it in the bin and took another one, and I took it out of the bin, wrapped it in cling film and put it under my pillow. Yes. Fine. I admit it. I’M NOT PROUD OF IT, OK. As long as I remember that this is freakish behaviour, it’s definitely sort of OK. And luckily I have Steph to remind me. (‘THROW IT AWAY NOW YOU COMPLETE WEIRDO’ I believe were her exact words.)

I put the sacred pie in the fridge, ate some toast and went to bed. The pie didn’t last very long because Mum ate it the next day. She didn’t understand why I was so upset, though.

Thursday, 4 September i.e. Day 47 of Despair

posted by MissH 12.03

Only just got up and already wish I hadn’t. Not a single Snapchat or WhatsApp. You’d think someone might have bothered. I mean, I’m not speaking to anyone, but you’d think they might have tried a bit harder.

posted by MissH 14.59

A picture of them has been uploaded. A PICTURE OF THEM HAS BEEN UPLOADED. They’re at London Zoo, in front of the squirrel monkey exhibit. Anna is standing half smiling and Leon is crouching down pretending to be one of the animals. He looks like he’s having so much fun.

Are they there now? Are they there now having fun whilst I’m here sitting looking at them having fun and feeling as if I’ll never have fun again???

I can’t believe they went to London Zoo. On a date. A date to London Zoo like a real couple. A real couple in a real, Facebook official relationship. UGH. It’s like celebrities who have a verified tick on Twitter. It just makes them more valid as a human being, somehow.

posted by MissH 15.30

Mum came back from a meeting with a new client and started babbling at me from the hallway. It did actually feel nice to hear someone talking in the real world, even if it was about mood lighting and sinks without plugs.

‘Anyway, I told her I don’t care how nice they look, a sink without a plug is insane. I refuse to be that kind of designer…’

She came in, looked at me, and sighed.

‘Lovely, is that how you greet me now?’ I demanded.

‘I’m sick of you, quite frankly, Emma. Look, I know you’re upset,’ she blathered on, ‘but it doesn’t mean you can lounge around here being moody, not cleaning up after yourself.’

One time I forgot to clear up my breakfast tray, and now I will never hear the end of it. And if she chooses to refer to my heartbreak in such diminishing terms i.e. ‘being moody,’ then I will obviously choose not to answer her.

She stood in the doorway, scanning me with judging eyes.

‘You’re not the only one who’s ever been upset in a relationship, you know. What about me? The Poison Penns? The entire world?’

(Who are the Poison Penns?)

‘I know you’ve been upset, Mum.’

I wanted to add, ‘because you make poor decisions,’ but I didn’t.

‘Get up and get on with it,’ she said, walking off before I could get another word in.

I hate it when she does that!!

Of course, I could get up and get on with it, but I’m too comfortable. Why can’t a girl have a few months where she lies in her own filth and literally doesn’t move unless it’s to urinate? I’m hardly going to start taking life advice from her.

Reasons I will not be taking life advice from my mother:

1) She’s seeing a man who takes off his clothes in front of other women for a living. Bit of a red flag when you’re already a possessive person. Which she pretends not to be, but she is. 2) She knew that about him when she chose to go out with him. It’s not like she met him, liked him and then found out. It was listed on his online dating profile. 3) He’s about ten years younger than her. Absolutely fine, in theory, if only she didn’t keep going out with younger men and then moaning when they want different things. ‘Mum,’ I said once, ‘you know there’s a solution, and match.com have made it really easy for you. See that little bar? Where you put your age range in? You just need to shift it along a bit.’ Then she threw something at me. 4) I’m her own daughter, and I don’t even know if she’s still seeing him. Who knows what’s happening with her love life? Does she even know? They’re on and off like Ross and Rachel, but weirder and in no way romantic.

posted by MissH 22.31