The Pearfect Storm, Chapter 5: Internet Footprint (Patreon)

Chapter 5 of my 7th stuck story, The Pearfect Storm.

CHAPTER 5: INTERNET FOOTPRINT

Joe spent the blackout and most of her phone battery searching for Julie.

She wasn’t 100% certain Julie was gay but she was convinced there was a flirtatious vibe to their brief encounter not the fire escape, she had to find her, she had to know for certain because her heart hadn’t stopped racing since she closed the window.

Swiping furiously through her lesbian dating apps, she tried to think of other places to look, maybe geo tagged social media posts? Online reviews of their neighborhood shops?

BBW message boards? Various fat hashtags? Fatsion? So many lovely fat women in the world but none of them were Julie.

She scrolled through unrelated live hurricane and blackout posts in the hopes that maybe Julie was posting right now.

One of the posts she saw was someone asking an ice cream shop in the city if they needed help eating all the ice cream before it melted.

Joe mind immediately went to feeding Julie an entire ice cream shop’s worth of ice cream. Lost in her daydream she almost missed the ice cream shop’s reply.

It was a link to an old post from two years ago during a summer blackout and the ice cream shop giving away all their ice cream before it melts. Smiling customer after smiling customer, and there was Julie!

Joe leapt to her feet.

The photo was a few years old, her hair was different, she was slightly thinner, but it was her. The comment below the photo, “hey that’s me! No thanks necessary, just happy to help!” the pear icon.

It was Julie!

Joe clicked the username, “shorfaproutha” she couldn’t decipher it, but there it was decoded in her bio, “short fat and proud of that.”

Joe was excitedly pacing around the room now. Her hands were shaking. Now what? Does she like a few posts? Does she follow her? Does she message her?

Her phone battery was in the red, she plugged it into her half dead laptop to stay afloat.

The worry that she’d come on too strong was overridden by the pot and the adrenaline rush of a successful internet sleuthing.

She liked Julie’s most recent post about being the trick or treat house with the full size candy bars.

She followed her.

She messaged her.

Joe felt dizzy. She immediately put her phone down.

Joe leapt up and down in the dark, “I found her I found her I found her!”