Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
I shut and lock the door behind her, trying to quell the rapid beating of my heart.
Maybe I should take those little edibles my friend Quinn’s been trying to convince me to try, but the good girl inside of me that only very recently moved out from beneath Eden and Sergio’s roof worries. Because they would kill me.
I wonder if the edibles would help calm me down. I don’t have to smoke weed. Just a little sour watermelon chewy…
I walk over to my computer, propped in my powder room right outside the bathroom with a bright round ring light behind it. For privacy reasons, on camera, no one knows I’m near the bathroom. Lily Lue pops up on the screen.
“Hi!” I say brightly, waving at the camera. She can only see me from the chin down.
“Hey,” she says, grinning at me. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it’s actually you and you’re granting me an interview. You have no idea how much this means to me. It was like one of my bucket list things just to meet you, never mind interview you.”
I squirm uncomfortably under her praise and adoration. I’m just me, nothing special, and I don’t know why people get all weird about meeting me. Some days, I wish I wasn’t so popular. Other days, it’s the only thing that keeps me going.
Timeo would’ve been proud of me. He would’ve cheered me on, given me those damn edibles, then taken me to spend some of that money I have stashed away in my account. Maybe he even would’ve known what to do with it.
“…and then when I met Myers Moe, I was like, this is the best job ever,” she croons, name-dropping like it’s a competitive sport.
“It is,” I say, but I’m not so sure.
“Was there ever a job you wanted to do but didn’t?” Lulu asks, tipping her head to the side in that way that only she can. It’s sort of her signature move, so her blonde curls bounce adorably. “Just off the record,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “I’m not recording yet.”
I stifle a snort. As if I’m that naïve. Naïveté is a luxury I can’t afford anymore.
“I wanted to be a writer once,” I say with a smile. “Still do, really.”
“Oh my God, that would be amazing. You should write your story.” She nods excitedly. “You would kill it, seriously slay, girlfriend.”
Maybe. Maybe not. I shrug. “Maybe someday.”
Someday, I’ll write my book.
Someday, I’ll tell Eden and Sergio everything.
Someday, I’ll see Timeo again.
“Now for the interview,” Lulu says. “When you confessed in a recent video that there was a man you once loved, the internet blew up. Everyone knows you lived this sheltered, almost idyllic existence—”
“It was not idyllic,” I say, wondering to myself if I’ve really given that impression. “Not at all.”
“Right, right,” Lulu says, waving at me again. “But the whole Amish thing.”
“I…was not Amish,” I say, shaking my head and trying to stay friendly. Attacking her on camera would be absolutely disastrous for my career.
“But it’s like being Amish.”
I shrug. People say that all the time. “Yeah, and I suppose I sort of focus on that sometimes, don’t I?” I say with a charming smile, even though sadly she doesn’t get to see that. “In many ways, I miss the simplicity of it all. Being disconnected from the constant need to perform and respond.”
“Yes, yes! And then you dropped the bomb and told us you were once in love.” She sighs dramatically. “And the whole world sighed collectively.”
It was hardly the whole world, and I’m not sure what those supposed sighs held, but —
My phone buzzes. It can only be Eden or Sergio, the only two who can still text me during Do Not Disturb.
I’ll get it after the interview.
I swallow and focus back on the camera.
“Can you tell us a bit more about your love? What he was like, how you knew him?”
I bite my lip. I thought I was prepared for this question, but now that the time has come to tell a perfect stranger about Timeo, it feels like defiling something sacred and special.
“He was my brother-in-law’s brother,” I say. Dammit with that stupid past tense again. “Is, I mean.”
“Your brother-in-law’s brother,” she says, as if trying to puzzle out a complicated math equation. “Okay, right, I get that. Yup.”
“We met when I was only a kid,” I say, fully aware of the fact that Sergio would still call me a kid even though I’m twenty-two years old. But I’m not a kid anymore. One could argue that what I suffered stripped me of my childhood long before I hit the legal age of adulthood.
“Ohhh,” she says suggestively. “You were underage?”
I shake my head. “No, no, it was nothing like that. We never—”
“You can tell me,” she says, giving me those wide eyes that christened her Lulu Doe Eyes. “You can trust me.”