“What were you doing moving my computer to the living room anyway? Don’t you trust me? Do you think I’m online with perverts having Internet orgies or something?”

“It’s not just me; your friends are concerned about this too.”

I nodded. It was all clear now. “Lexi. Lexi’s the concerned one and now suddenly I’m in some sort of Dr. Phil intervention, is that it?”

“She’s just as concerned as I am about how you spend your time online. This just isn’t something I can ignore anymore. You spend hours upon hours playing your games.”

I gnashed my teeth together to keep from screaming. “I don’t play them, I program them.”

“It doesn’t matter, Ser,” she said, standing her ground.

“There’s a big difference.”

“Not to me.”

No, I don’t suppose there was.

“Lexi tells me how you can’t concentrate, you’re dragging ass, and your eyes are all bloodshot. You’ve been having trouble in school. What am I supposed to think?”

“I haven’t been having trouble at school. I’m making all As. The only trouble I have is with Dick—Mr. Click, and that’s just because he hates me.”

I searched Mom’s expression, never having seen her quite so determined or urgent. I was too tired to fight it, so I just sighed. It was one of those ridiculously long parental sighs of thorough disgust and disappointment. It was odd not to be on the receiving end of it.

“I don’t suppose having just lost my best friend justifies any of this?”

“We both know this has been going on a lot longer than that. Maybe it’s a good thing that you don’t have a computer to hide behind anymore,” she said.

I bit my tongue before I called her out on her own secret life. The last thing I needed was some paranoid parental crusade over something so stupid. Judging from the evidence at my feet, I wasn’t dealing with a rational person. And here I thought I was the one who wasn’t handling it well. Thanks, Mom, way to trump me on Sudden-Kori-Death-Syndrome.

It was ludicrous. Some sort of bizarre self-help book intervention: pretend you are crazier than the crazy person to knock her straight! Frightening, but it was working. I felt sane again, too damn sane to continue with this.

“Just so you know, it wasn’t what you’re thinking.”

“No? Don’t lie to me, Serena. That guy—the one at the Mini Mart. You met him online, didn’t you?”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I know all about these Web sites and chat rooms, all of it. You know which ones I mean. The ones like My Spacebook.”

I choked, stifling a laugh with my hand. My Spacebook? I couldn’t make that shit up.