Bonnibel's fingers ran over the cold screen of her dormant phone as she stretched out on the couch. Her friends hadn't texted her all night, and it was New Year's Eve. She'd assume that she'd get a text from one of them, right? Even just a simple one, wishing her a happy New Year. In fact, she hadn't seen them for most of the Christmas holidays, aside from their meetup in town for last minute shopping on Christmas Eve.

It was kind of…upsetting? Thinking about how her friends were probably together, either at a party or merely hanging out at one of their houses wasn't a good thing. It wasn't nice to think about how she'd been either forgotten about or cast out of plans. She knew she could be kind of socially awkward at times, but it would've been lovely if they'd asked her.

She glanced down at her phone again, just in case another text had come through and she didn't notice. Nope, nothing. Just her lock screen staring back at her, unchanged.

Sighing, Bonnibel reached over to the coffee table and switched the television off. The screen turned black and she smiled in satisfaction, picking up her laptop. She planned on scrolling through Facebook and laughing at ridiculous posts about how her classmates back home had celebrated the New Year. Maybe she'd talk to Bubba, if he was still awake.

She opened up her browser and clicked on the Facebook icon in her bookmarks. If she was being honest, she didn't check social media very often. It usually only came down to boredom, which would be expected, considering she was spending New Year's alone.

It was nice to look at statuses from old classmates, and she sent Bubba a message in the hopes of a reply – maybe he'd be good company – but it was past 1AM back at home, so she doubted she'd get a response.

She noted that she had a few friend requests and clicked on the tab to look at them. Marshall, Keila, and Lady and her group had added her. She accepted them all and frowned at the 'people you may know' that came up soon afterwards. She sent a friend request to the first two people on the list – Elle and Phoebe – and then blinked in surprise when it suggested Marceline.

She clicked on the other girl's name and wasn't surprised when her page was completely unrestricted. Naturally, Marceline would leave all of her information out there for anyone to look at. Out of mere curiosity, Bonnibel clicked down on the 'about' section, scrolling past her hometown and school, pausing only for a moment when she noted something else.

According to Marceline's Facebook page, she was in a relationship with a boy named Ash.

She squinted at the boy's profile picture, but didn't bother clicking on his profile. He looked like a delinquent, the kind of guy who would drop out of school to pursue a career in smoking marijuana and soaking up government benefits.

(Why wasn't she surprised that he was Marceline's boyfriend?)

She clicked the 'back' button and then proceeded to scroll down Marceline's profile. She didn't post much – it was mostly just music videos that Keila had forwarded on her page, or photographs she'd been tagged in – and it wasn't long before Bonnie was a few years deep. How the hell had that happened?

She quickly scrolled to the top again, finding nothing interesting aside from the other girl's birthday, which was apparently on October 31st, and the fact that she was seventeen, unlike most people in their grade. Bonnibel wasn't seventeen until May.

She frowned at Marceline's profile picture. It was a selfie, but she wasn't smiling, and naturally she was in the darkest clothes possible. Bonnie clicked through a few others, but still no smiles. Even in the ones with her apparent boyfriend.

Bonnibel clicked through a few more, blinking in confusion at a particular image. It was from 2014 on Marceline's birthday, with the caption 'she made me put this as my profile pic'. The picture was of her and Keila, Marceline's arms wrapped around her best friend and she was actually smiling. It wasn't just a smile, like how most people forced happy faces in their pictures, it was actually genuine, the other girl's green eyes lit up with happiness. Everyone deserved to be happy and have that moment captured, even if it was in a forgotten profile picture from a little over a year ago.

Quickly, she shook her head and clicked off. She didn't like Marceline, so she shouldn't be virtually stalking her. That would be weird. Even if virtual stalking was socially acceptable, Marceline's profile wasn't the one she should be scrolling down.

She left her Facebook open for a few moments in the hopes of a response from Bubba, but she didn't get one. It wasn't a surprise. Considering it was twenty past one in the morning and all. Even for New Year's, most people went to sleep by then.

(At least, she did.)

Looking back to her phone, she hoped that she'd had a message from someone. With Peter out and Bubba asleep, it'd be nice not to spend New Year's Eve in complete solitude. But, there was still nothing. It was kind of sad, but she tried not to let that bother her. It wasn't like she hadn't spent a holiday alone before.

Instead of waiting for a message from her friends, she decided to take matters into her own hands. Of course, she wasn't planning on inviting herself to whatever gathering her friends were having. Virtual communication was enough.

Bonnie (8:23PM): Hey! I don't know if you'll get this considering that it's New Year's Eve and you're probably out partying with friends and/or drunk, but I hope you have a nice night. :)

She locked her phone and stretched out on the couch, hoisting her laptop back onto her stomach. If her real friends weren't calling her, maybe it'd be a good idea to see some fictional ones.

Besides, an Orphan Black rewatch in her onesie sounded just fine.

Marceline's face sunk into a frown as her eyes rested on Keila. Her best friend was drunk, naturally, and talking to a boy that she'd never seen before. That seemed like the typical party routine, as of late. Keila would drink a little too much of the available orange punch – which actually turned out to be screwdriver – and then talk to a random attractive person while Marceline hung around and watched. It was becoming tiresome, the same routine over and over again. That was kind of odd, too; Marceline hated change, and yet she wanted it?

Maybe she was a little drunk, as well.

Her gaze lifted from Keila and onto the excitable blond boy that hung around with the prissy princess and her band of nerds. She was surprised when she'd seen that group walk through the door, as parties like this had never seemed like their kind of thing, but they were fun to watch. The blond boy was clearly a little tipsy, even though he'd only had one cup of punch, and he was amusing enough that even his girlfriend was laughing at him.

Marceline tensed when an arm wrapped around her waist.

"Hey, babe," She rolled her eyes when Ash spoke, "Why don't we get out of here, yeah? I'll drive."

"You're drunk." She turned to him with a scowl. Marceline always had to be in a good mood when dealing with Ash, except that was the problem. Good moods didn't happen to her that often. "Drunk driving is kind of illegal. Actually, you being drunk right now is kind of illegal. You're not twenty-one."

"Might as well be," He replied, "Only got six months to go. So, let's leave."

"I'm not going to let you drive while you're drunk. Most importantly, I'm not getting in a car with you while you're drunk." Marceline shifted out of his grip to emphasise that. "I don't particularly want to die."

He grabbed onto her arm, squeezing on a particularly sore spot. "You're coming with me. I took you back because you promised you'd-"

"Fuck off, Ash," Marceline yanked her arm from his grip, "I have to stay here. I need to drive Keila home later."

"You're ditching your boyfriend for that slut?" He glowered down at her and she tried to ignore it. Arguing with him wasn't worth it. She tried to convince herself that he wouldn't say that sober. "You're supposed to prioritise me."

"You're being a drunken asshole." Marceline spun on her heels and looked over to Keila. "Don't say things like that about my best friend, okay? She's-"

Marceline stopped herself before she said something she'd regret. She was good at that.

Unfortunately, Ash noticed her little slip-up. "She's what? Better than me?"

"She's my best friend. I've known her since second grade. I can't just ditch her." Marceline reworded what she'd been thinking. "I promised her I'd give her a ride and I have to keep an eye on her. You know how she gets when she's drunk."

"That's her own fault," Ash snapped back, "If the stupid bitch gets herself drunk, she's her own responsibility. Not yours."

Marceline scowled as his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her back for a kiss. "Ash, seriously. Let go of me."

He laughed and attached his lips to her collarbone. "Come on, Marce, lighten up."

"How about you sober up?" Marceline shoved him off and stalked away before he could say anything else. She really wasn't in the mood for dealing with her jerky boyfriend right now. It was barely even 9PM.

Sometimes she could hardly remember why she was with Ash in the first place. It wasn't like he was nice to her. He didn't look after her when she was sick or buy her presents. But he did agree with her when it came down to the morons at her school, and he'd never ratted her out for a prank before. Besides, he wasn't as bad when he was sober.

She managed to get out of his sight before he came after her and distracted herself by playing on her phone. She was kind of surprised to see that she had a text; all of her friends were at this party, and nobody else texted her, unless her dad wanted something.

She beamed when she saw the name on the screen. Mystery book saviour.

Apparently not all of her friends were at the party after all.

Mystery book saviour (8:23PM): Hey! I don't know if you'll get this considering that it's New Year's Eve and you're probably out partying with friends or drunk, but I hope you have a nice night. :)

It was refreshing to get texts like that. Nobody sent her anything unless they had some sort of motive behind it or incentive, but her anonymous friend was just…really sweet.

Of course, she knew that if her friend found out who she was, they'd probably go running for the hills. Marceline didn't exactly have a reputation for going around giving out free hugs and candy; her reputation was more along the lines of beats people up. Not that she actually did that, but whatever.

Anonymity was awesome.

Marceline (8:47PM): not drunk, but I am at a party

Marceline (8:47PM): what're you doing

Making conversation seemed like the best idea. Better than hanging around with a drunken Ash, anyway. Even when he was sober, Ash could never think of a conversational topic that wasn't about himself.

Marceline added his narcissism to the list of reasons why he was an asshole.

Mystery book saviour (8:48PM): Nothing at all. My friends aren't doing anything as far as I know, so I'm rewatching Orphan Black. How's your party?

Marceline looked up from her phone and scanned over the room she was in. Nothing interesting was happening aside from a game of spin the bottle, something she didn't want to participate in at all. She automatically kept away from things like that. She didn't want to magically end up with an STI through a game of seven minutes in heaven.

She was surprised she hadn't caught one just by being in the same room as these people.

Marceline (8:50PM): it's lame

Marceline (8:50PM): which season of orphan black are you watching

Talking about television shows seemed marginally better than talking about the party, in Marceline's opinion. Maybe her and her unidentified friend would bond over a mutual love for a show.

(Because seriously, Marceline watched too many shows.)

Mystery book saviour (8:52PM): The third one. Alison's drug business is really taking off.

Marceline pushed past some wannabee frat-boy and made her way upstairs in the hopes of finding somewhere quiet to sit and text her friend. Loud, irritatingly tinny pop music really wasn't her thing.

She found an empty bedroom – presumably a guest room of some sort – and flopped down on the bed, bringing her phone up to her torso to respond.

Marceline (8:55PM): season three was god's gift

Marceline (8:55PM): alison hendrix's drug business was my favourite part

Marceline (8:55PM): that and when helena pretended to be alison and actually did it better than cosima

Marceline started to wonder if she was coming on a little too strong, but it wasn't every day that she made an anonymous friend over text messaging. And for the first time, she wasn't mad at Keila for writing her number down in a library book as a prank.

Mystery book saviour (8:57PM): I loved that! Who's your favourite clone? Mine's Cosima, for obvious reasons. Her pretending to be Alison was hilarious! Don't forget Helena calling Donnie 'baby ox'.

Marceline (8:58PM): alison is probably my favourite

Marceline (8:58PM): and why is cosima the 'obvious' one for you? are you into lady lovin' as well, huh? (if you're a lady yourself) ;)

Hopefully they'd take that as a joke. Marceline was all too aware about how her sarcasm didn't translate well over the internet. Multiple past experiences proved how much there needed to be a separate font for sarcasm, just to make things extra clear.

Mystery book saviour (9:00PM): Haha, no, Cosima's a scientist and so am I. That's why she's the obvious one. Not that there's anything wrong with being a lesbian, obviously I'm fully supportive of that and I think that her and Delphine are really cute together. And Shay, for that matter.

Mystery book saviour (9:00PM): Although, I do prefer Cophine. Delphine is probably my favourite character out of all of them. She's so cool.

Marceline frowned down at the screen. That first message had seemed a little too defensive to her. The rambling tone of it had given it away.

Marceline (9:01PM): you sure about that?

Mystery book saviour (9:01PM): Positive.

That reply came through before Marceline had the chance to lock her phone or switch apps. Although, being bisexual, Marceline liked to annoy straight girls, and mystery book saviour seemed like the perfect candidate for her teasing.

Marceline (9:03PM): as a lesbian…supporter

Mystery book saviour (9:04PM): Shut up. ;)

Marceline actually smiled at her friend's response. She never really did that – not unless Keila sent her an unexpectedly funny picture in their conversation – so it was refreshing. It was weird how you could make friends with someone over technology.

Actually, Marceline thought that it was better to meet someone through a screen than in real life. Automatic judgement wasn't really a thing online.

Mystery book saviour (9:08PM): I didn't mean that...come back. Please?

Marceline (9:08PM): ugh, fine, since you asked so nicely

(Hopefully that sarcasm would translate as well as the last batch had.)

Mystery book saviour (9:09PM): You make it sound like talking to me is a chore. I'll have you know that I'm wonderfully bubbly in really life.

Marceline (9:09PM): sounds traumatic

Mystery book saviour (9:10PM): I'm a joy to be around, thank you very much. Cosima Niehaus much appreciates my presence right now.

Marceline (9:11PM): yeah? why don't you go marry her then?

Yes, Marceline knew how childish and dorky that last response was. It was intended. She was anonymous, and that was the whole point. It was okay to be herself when the other person didn't know.

Mystery book saviour (9:12PM): Right, so I've deduced that I'm talking to a five year old. How did you get a phone, sweetie? I think you should give that back to your parents now. Playtime is over, go and take a nap.

And there she goes again, cracking another smile at something sent over text. Two smiles in the span of eight minutes? Her friend must be some sort of miracle worker. Or a witch.

She was going to go with witch.

Marceline (9:13PM): hahaha you're soooooo funny

Mystery book saviour (9:13PM): Thanks, honey. I pride myself on my child-friendly comedic abilities.

Marceline (9:14PM): I'm probably older than you so shush. I bet you're like 12

Mystery book saviour (9:14PM): Sixteen, actually. Much older than your five years.

Marceline concocted yet another childish response in the space of two seconds. She was on some sort of roll tonight.

Marceline (9:15PM): hah I'm seventeen

Marceline (9:15PM): respect your elders, mystery book saviour

Mystery book saviour (9:16PM): You're hardly my elder. For all I know, you turned seventeen yesterday. Either that or you're a liar.

Marceline smiled again. Her friend had a point, actually.

(Not that she was about to admit that.)

Marceline (9:16PM): for all you know, I'm turning eighteen tomorrow

Mystery book saviour (9:17PM): Well, are you?

Marceline (9:17PM): ….no.

Mystery book saviour (9:18PM): Thought as much.

An anonymous friend was great. An anonymous friend who was good with dry banter and sarcasm? Even better. Considering that when she was first contacted by this person – this girl – she'd planned on ignoring any other advances, this was a positive sign.

Marceline decided she'd keep this girl around.

There was no harm in making another friend, was there?