Giggles, candy and gossip. The three pillars of a girly seventh grade sleepover. This was one of them, at my house, with ‘good friends’ … or so I thought.

They say seventh grade is the worst year. (‘They’ being every girl who’s ever been in middle school.) They’re not wrong.

“Millie, should we do it?” I asked my friend excitedly.

Millie smiled mischievously. “The prank call!”

Earlier, Millie had shown me a demo-video from a friend of hers of an elaborate prank call plan. She now showed the group – Zara, Anne, Lana and I. After watching, we wondered out loud: who should we call? Ruby!

Ruby was one of our friends. It was unspoken knowledge that she didn’t turn up to hangouts where Zara was since their friendship was turning terribly sour. 

We subconsciously loved revenge.

Now comes my second worst mistake. What would we be pranking Ruby into thinking she was purchasing over the phone?

“Lululemon!” I proposed, to more giggles and gasps; it was all she wore.

Millie furiously typed a convincing message into Google Translate. The audio would be played over the phone, telling Ruby that she’d earned a free giveaway worth hundreds of dollars from Lululemon for being a loyal customer. She would just have to say yes to accept.

It was vicious of me to pry on one of Ruby’s biggest obsessions, and on the fact that she was … generally susceptible to such ploys. She’d been struggling at school and therefore in her relationship with her parents.

Millie’s phone was set up with the fake Lululemon audio message. My phone: *6 to hide caller ID. Call.

It rang. Ruby didn’t pick up. We groaned but kept calling again and again, desperate to execute our plan, giddy on candy and visions of future glory.

Then, jump scare. “Ruby is typing…”: a Snapchat notification on my phone, which we were calling from.

In a frenzy of adrenaline, we converged into a single mind and tapped the yellow notification. Ruby asked, “Are you doing anything at the sleepover?”

Now comes my worst mistake: We sent a harmless lie in response. Ruby then informed ‘me,’ unaware that there were four more girls texting on my behalf, that she was getting a bunch of calls from an unknown number.

We jumped at our chance. “Pick up!” We texted.

She worried, what if someone was scamming her? What if someone got all her personal info? Don’t be ridiculous, we told her, just pick up the call. Simultaneously, we kept calling from the same device as “Unknown Caller ID.”

On the millionth time, she picked up! Millie played the audio message. Say yes to accept! She stayed silent and hung up.

“No!” We were desperate now. We called, made the offer, and she hung up again.

We kept calling until I got an iMessage on my phone, of course. Lucky me:

“Hi I’m texting on my iPad rn my mom took away my phone bc she was sick of me saying can I pls answer it, I answered it, and it was lululemon saying I could get 25 free items,” Ruby wrote.

Immediately followed by: “Now I can’t say yes or no bc my mom took away my phone.”

Oh my gosh. Her punishment was my fault! My friends and I frantically spammed in reply that it was a prank, apologizing profusely. She responded with terse forgiveness. 

Later, my friends and I confessed the whole ruse in a larger group chat. Ruby was upset that her phone had been taken. The only reason she’d trusted the call was because my Snapchat persona said that her gaggle of frenemies had nothing to do with it. She trusted me because I’m the ‘nice friend,’ I never lie.

Over the course of the next year, several awkward conversations and her talking behind my back dwindled our friendship. About a year later, she was completely snubbing me at all times.

Maybe Ruby was the one who treated me badly, ending our friendship, but I can’t help wondering. Did I play a part?

Her relationship with her parents had already been tense. She was struggling in school, which upset her father. Her mother took her shopping at stores like Lululemon for attempted emotional support, worsening the tensions with her father. She loved her phone, which connected her to a world outside her home, but her parents took it away frequently. I was the reason it happened again. 

Instead of offering her understanding and help, inviting her over to my house for a peaceful study session like my father had suggested, I made it all worse.

Even if my friends were involved, all the texting happened on my behalf: my phone and Snapchat. Was I a doormat as my friends all seized control of my digital persona? Or, was I just as evil as the rest of them towards Ruby?

She trusted three things: Lululemon, Snapchat and me. I’d broken that trust.