Jeff Bridges

Philly knows the name. Of course she does. In Piki Hollow, there’s only like 150 kids in her grade.

That means she’s been with the same group of people for most of her life. Jeff Bridges being one of them.

Reaching back into the depths of her mind, she can’t recall him having a crush on her. He is a shy kid.

Not shy in the sense that Philly is shy. She is terrified of saying the wrong thing or making a fool of herself. He always came off the kind of shy and awkward that truly couldn’t relate to anyone. That no one would give a second glance.

He is…nice. Philly sometimes talks to him when they are paired for assignments or projects together. They share a couple classes normally since they’re both in honor classes.

Even though she has known him for so long, she can’t really come up with anything about his personality.

Immediately she types in his name, hoping to find his Instagram profile. Sadly nothing related to him comes up.

It just can’t be easy.

He has to have some kind of social media. He’s a teenager in 2025 for god’s sake.

Then something itches at the back of her mind. The only club that he is in that Philly knows of is the yearbook club. Jeff’s in the yearbook club. Bingo!

The yearbook club has an Insta page that always posts the process of making the yearbook. They tag the people that show up in the photos.

Finding that account is pretty easy. It’s public which saves her a step.

Photos of different classmates pop up. The yearbook club is pretty small, but there are a couple dedicated students. Jeff is featured only twice.

He doesn’t appear to like the camera. Maybe he doesn’t have an Instagram.

In the one picture, he is at the computer, the camera angles to his side, so it includes both his side profile and the computer screen. On the computer is him setting up the Superlatives page.

To Philly’s surprise, she’s on the screen. For most likely to succeed.

His eyes are intent, like he is so focused, he doesn’t notice the phone taking the picture.

She’s beginning to see why Rina thought he might be a bit creepy.

Going to the icon in the corner for the tagged accounts, there are two. One of them is Bessie, Philly’s good friend. She must be the one taking the picture.

Then the other one is _underBr1dges. _

It makes sense why it didn’t come up when she put in his name.

Tapping on the account, the posts showing up immediately again shocks her system. His account is public.

There is only two posts. One about the yearbook and another at Winter Formal.

The winter formal one is just an overview of the room. The gym is decorated nicely, a couple tables in view with people talking to one another.

In further inspection, she recognizes herself in the picture. Her sparkly teal dress immediately draws her eye. Her face is in clear view. She’s laughing at something Bessie said.

“That’s not weird at all,” Philly mutters to no one but herself.

She sends basically the message that she sent to Rina to Jeff, except she inserts ‘classmate’ where she had ‘childhood friends.’

Being someone else, the anonymity, is kinda of freeing. There’s no expectations. She could write anything and he wouldn’t know if that was in character for her or not.

While she loves her life, she has to admit that people always seem to think they know her by just knowing one part of her.

She’s studious. That’s all that most people see.

Before she knows it, her phone pings. Jeff is a fast answerer.

_It’s weird to talk about a dead person. _

Now that he says that, she has to agree with him. But it doesn’t help her current situation.

_I know but it’s all that everyone’s talking about anyway. May as well get an accurate picture of who she was._

She hoped his coldness to her own self wouldn’t put Jeff off. Maybe she should have worded that better.

It’s in her nature to be a bit self deprecating, but it sounds really bad when everyone thinks she’s dead.

The dots appear and disappear twice before text comes through._ I barely speak to her. I don’t know what you want me to say._

That is a good point. Why ask him of all people? She decides to go go around his question and ask some of her own, _How about how you saw her? What kind of person was she?_

It takes a few long minutes before he replies. It surprises her a bit with what he wrote.

_She was really kind no matter what people say. Like she always made me feel like I wasn’t a total nerd. In this school, that was pretty rare. _

While she wasn’t sure what she expected anymore, she didn’t really understand the ‘no matter what people say’ part.

_What do you think people say about Philippa?_

His answer is immediate. Like he knew her next question._ Her friends are kinda mean. By association, it would be easy to say that Philippa was mean. But she wasn’t. _

His reassurance doesn’t make the pit in her stomach lessen. She was associated with mean people?

She can’t even think about who he could be referring to.

_Who were her friends?_

Just like his last answer, this one came swiftly.

_Bessie and Alli. _

Philly’s heart drops.