LOTTIE

"See, here's what I don't get about mean people," Daphne begins, pouring us two generous glasses of rosé. I don't typically drink, but the gentle rose gold color of these bottles was chanting my name. "How?"

"How what?" I ask, sitting atop a kitchen counter. The marble is cool underneath me, even through the fabric of my pants.

"How do they do it? How do they stomach being like that to other people?"

I chuckle. "That's the whole point. No one knows. They're probably frustrated with something and take it out on you because they view you as an easy target. Chances are they can't directly deal with what's upsetting them, so you're the next best thing to direct it towards."

She frowns. "Yeah. I guess. It makes me feel weird that people will just go out of their way to make others miserable on purpose."

"You're young. Fresh out of college. Surely you were dealing with mean people there—the mean girls, the people who refused to pull their weight in group projects, the frat bros . . ."

"I was a frat bro," Luca unhelpfully adds. "Best four years of my life."

"So you terrorized kids for four years, then became the socially acceptable version of it," I retort. He winks at me. "Can't let those glory days go, right?"

"You would've loved me in college. I was a total babe."

"You are a total babe," Daphne blurts out. We both look at her, finding her so red it's borderline concerning. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that." She clears her throat. "So, I've been friends with this girl since college, Paige; she's close friends with that ex-situationship I told you about."

"Your roommate?"

The rubor in her cheeks deepens, if it's even possible. "Amongst other things. So, she had this reputation for being mean and people were kind of scared of her, but she was actually really, really nice once she let you in. Most of it was to protect herself, I think. Then her brother died last year, right before he was about to start playing for the Islanders, and she got meaner. More closed off. Took her forever to bounce back. She's still not the same, but she's better."

Luca perks up. "I heard about that. They'd just signed him, right? What was his name again? Anthony?"

"Andrew. We knew him as Andy." Daphne's face falls. She's lucky she has that massive glass of wine to hide behind. "Point is, not all mean people are bad. Sometimes they're just going through something shitty."

"That's pretty much what I said," I mutter. My attention is already elsewhere, focused on my phone. Notifications swarm me, even more than usual, and I had to switch it to silent mode before the buzzing drove me out of my mind. "Sometimes they don't mean to be cruel, but they also don't mean to not be."

I try to tune out the conversation. It's not because I don't want to discuss Daphne's woes or hear about Luca's frat boy era; I'm just not good at conversations in general, especially those about grief.

Daphne doesn't pick up on it, but Luca does. He notices me mentally drifting away, seeking refuge on my phone by alternating between apps—without dedicating too much time to any of them before I crash out—but says nothing. To me, at least. He tries to change the subject, discussing brands of rosé, and Daphne follows his lead.

We fall into a comforting conversation, very low stakes, and I almost fool myself into thinking I haven't bitten off more than what I can chew.

I've only been away from Los Angeles for a few hours and the brief relaxation I felt after seeing the rental houses has evaporated. I came here for an escape, yet I'm still feeling so suffocated, so pressured into not doing or saying anything wrong.

Snapping at Leigh was unnecessary. She was getting on my nerves with her inflexibility and refusal to let me help her when she's been waiting for a lifeline, but it was no excuse to lose my temper. This is her town and her summer camp; I'm just an outsider trying to take over her business.

It's more than just that. I saw the fire burning in her eyes as she spoke, defending it and her work with claws out, and I think it's admirable to care so much about something you'd go to war for it. Like she said, it's something that matters.

That single comment got under my skin in a way she doesn't imagine.

Leigh doesn't know me. She has probably heard of me and my music, but she doesn't know what goes inside my head, and I don't expect her to. For all I know, she thinks I'm nothing but a vapid pop star who only thinks about sales and attention. I do care about those things (I like feeling appreciated. Sue me), but that's only one side of me.

I've spent years trying to prove to people I'm a serious musician. My sophomore album was entirely self-written and remains my most awarded one. I learned from the best, honored my craft, even switched genres so the public took me seriously.

It made me wonder why I did it—why I was so obsessed with being who I thought people wanted me to be. Having to constantly reinvent my sound just to please reviewers typing up spiteful reviews from their mom's basement is exhausting, so I stopped. I changed it whenever I wanted, for whatever reason I wanted.

To the greater music sphere, my music only felt like it mattered when I matured—when people realized I can write and my penmanship is stellar even when covered up by a catchy synth beat. It took me years to get here, and a single comment that tugged at my insecurities was nearly enough to make me second guess everything about my career and my talent.

This matters. I matter. Wanting to help people matters.

At the top of my notifications chain, there's a text I should reply to.

KAT
Thinking of you today ❤️

Saw you went away. Is everything okay? You hanging in there?

My sweet, darling Kat.

Though we're signed to the same label, we're not managed by the same agent, and I haven't seen her face to face in months. I wish I told her I was leaving Los Angeles, but it wasn't a conversation I wanted to have over the phone or with a screen standing between us.

It felt good to say it slipped my mind, when, in reality, it wasn't true. I've been wracked with guilt ever since, especially since she has done nothing wrong, and I can't keep relying on the good old "I'm just trying to protect my protegé" excuse.

"I think that girl was a bit mean, that's all I'm saying," Daphne concludes, dragging me back to the conversation. "You were just trying to help."

"It's no big deal," I say, gulping down what's left of my wine. It's sweet and slightly fizzy, bubbling down my throat. "I've heard worse. I don't want to impose, but I'd really like to check out that open mic night. It might help with the inspiration."

"You're not just here to work," Luca reminds me. "You do remember that the main reason we came all the way here was for you to take a break, right?"

"The main one, not the sole one."

A muscle in his jaw throbs. Besides being my main bodyguard, he's my closest friend along with Esme and Tilly, and he's the member of my team I spend the most time with. Conflict of interest be damned, we were bound to grow close.

It's a good thing he knows me so well. Sometimes. There are times when I wish he couldn't read me like an open book, even when I've sealed myself shut.

When he speaks again, his tone is gentler, but not patronizing. "You don't have to prove yourself to anyone. You know the value of your actions and your art. Even if a stranger you'll likely never see again thinks your motives don't matter, that says nothing about you. You don't do good deeds to show them off to the world, do you? It's never been the kind of person you are. You put your money where your mouth is."

"And nowadays, if you don't publicly state where your beliefs lie, you're complicit," Daphne adds. "I remember wondering why more celebrities aren't more vocal and use their platforms, but now I understand the risks. The bigger your platform is, the more dangerous people you can piss off. It's a double-edged sword."

"I need to keep myself safe," I explain, "but there are things I can't ignore or be neutral about, especially when human lives and rights are threatened."

Including mine. I know this too deeply. It mattered then, and I suffered in silence out of fear I'd be judged.

"This is not a life or death matter," Luca continues, "but it doesn't mean it's not important. It might matter more to Leigh than to you, but it's completely unfair to assume you're not being genuine about wanting to help her out. You've done this before. You've helped schools, you've helped fund music programs and scholarships. If she knew anything real about you, that conversation would have gone a lot differently; it's not your fault she jumped to conclusions and got defensive."

"So you agree? You think I should go for it?"

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "If you promise to take the whole weekend off, sure. Let's go to the beach, or something. Don't you feel the need to just . . . lie down and do nothing for hours?"

I do. The problem is that I can't allow myself to accept that I've earned it.

☀︎༄.° 

It's well past six in the morning when the sun rises.

When you're taking a break from the spotlight and the stress of your celebrity life (which you chose and continue to choose every day, mind you), you're expected to sleep in.

In my defense, I did try to get some sleep. Slightly buzzed from the wine, my new bed was chanting my name when I curled up under the cotton sheets, but my exhaustion evaporated in a matter of minutes.

My brain couldn't get used to the quiet.

It's ironic, to say the least, that one of the things I'd been craving the most and wouldn't find in LA is ultimately my undoing. Not even a white noise or rain sounds playlist helped lull me to sleep and I spent hours tossing and turning until the first morning light tiptoed through my blinds. I gave up then, tossed the covers aside, and decided to brew a cup of chai.

I sit on the back porch, staring out at the vast ocean stretching in front of me.

The sun and its early light glow faintly in the distance, the sky fading into a delicate mixture of lilac and blue—just like all the pretty houses. There are traces of pink, too, not a single cloud to be seen.

The waves crash against the cliffs, never violently enough to spook or worry me, and the seagulls have awakened, squawking around me.

They're marginally better than vultures.

I brought my notebook along, expecting the sunrise would fill me with divine inspiration and help me come up with exceptional metaphors about the dawn of a new day and reinvention, but no words come out.

I have the prettiest pastel palette in the sky, reflected on the water surface. I have the delicious smells of the ocean and the sand, along with the spicy twinge of my tea. The light breeze blows my hair away from my face, kisses the tip of my nose.

I have everything. I still want more. It's still not enough.

Although I can't blame anyone but myself, convinced I'm not trying hard enough, the victim complex gremlin who has rented a duplex in my brain insists on blaming Leigh for this.

To it, it's her fault I'm so unfocused and frustrated, obsessing over the fact that yet another person instantly assumed that I only care about stuff that either affects me directly, will make me look good, or is simply shallow and unimportant.

Your actions don't matter. Your words don't matter. Your voice doesn't matter.

You don't matter.

A stranger, that's all she is. A complete stranger who somehow clocked my biggest insecurity, tapped into it, and doesn't even care. She probably thinks I shrugged it right off and, if I was upset, I could just wipe my tears on dollar bills and swim in a champagne bath.

Unable to resist the doomscrolling gravitational pull, I reach out for my phone, public enemy number one when it comes to getting to and staying in the zone.

I want to know more about this summer camp and the open mic night, just so I know what I'll be getting myself into on Friday, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not the slightest bit curious about Leigh.

I'm a proud holder of grudges. I keep them in little jars, decorate them with dried flowers and glitter, and display them in my living room for everyone to see. Right next to all my Grammy awards.

How dare she? How dare she say those things to me, throw me into the eye of a self-deprecation hurricane, and then refuse to let me prove her wrong? What did I ever do to her to make her loathe my presence in Evermere—and my entire existence, it seems—this much?

Panic nearly overwhelms me as paranoia slowly approaches. Surely I must have done something terrible—a rude interaction, like refusing to stop for a selfie or an autograph, or maybe I or Luca shoved her aside by accident one time. Chloe mentioned she's a teacher, so she might also not live here outside of the summer months. Boston?

Maybe it was something I said—on social media, in an interview, maybe a speech on stage while playing a show or accepting an award. Maybe I've offended her somehow.

She was wearing a lesbian flag heart-shaped enamel pin on the photo from the flyer, so I know it's not a homophobic thing if she has me figured out.

I'm praying she's not a part of those speculative groups who dissect my personal life to an exhaustive level of detail and thinks I've disappointed her now that she's met me in person.

"Get a grip, you dumb bitch," I whisper, opening Instagram and looking her up. "You're not the center of everyone's universe."

Bingo.

Her account is public, too. She has a couple hundred followers, almost 800, and follows close to 200. She didn't strike me as caring too much about popularity, so the difference might not be due to some obsession with ratios.

Her profile picture features a side of her I haven't seen in person.

She's sporting a small, gentle smile, not showing her teeth, and her head is slightly tilted to the side, so part of her hair falls in front of her face. Luckily it's just a photo; otherwise I'd have to try to resist the urge to do something stupid like tucking it behind her ear.

Leigh Flores. 24. Pisces. Music teacher. Camp counselor. Amateur musician. Ice cream aficionado. Lives in Boston. Has a cat named Bambi.

Lesbian flag-colored hearts in her bio.

The blue button underneath it doesn't read Follow. It reads Follow Back.

There comes a moment in every young girl's life when she throws all caution to the wind, says fuck it, and goes for it. This is one of those moments.

I click the blue button.

☀︎༄.° 

lottie my beloved. get off your damn phone