ONE
SUMMER
Somewhere, an alarm is beeping, and it’s making me want to die. I groan, roll over, and bury my face into my pillow.
“Summer. Wake up.” A hand shakes my shoulder.
“Gimme five minutes,” I mumble, trying to suffocate myself with my pillowcase.
The alarm is turned off, but the hand keeps shaking me. “Babe, listen. Don’t panic, but you’re going viral.”
I jolt awake, immediately panicking.
I’m in my pink bedroom. Morning sunlight filters through my curtains. My social-media-manager-slash-best-friend Lulu Dey is perched on the end of my puffy quilt. She’s rocking a red lip and a Chanel minidress, even though the clock on my bedside table says it’s just turned eight a.m.
“What?” I croak at her, wiping dried drool off my cheek. My head is banging.
Lulu passes me a frappuccino, her thick black braid swinging. “Here,” she says soothingly. “Take this. It’ll help.”
“What do you mean I’m going viral?” I scoot back against my pillows and chug straight whipped cream. “One of my posts did well?”
Lulu bites her lip. “How much do you remember from Bryce’s party last night?” she asks carefully.
Right. I was at a party last night. Lots of other influencers. Lots of jelly shots. Lots of people forcing me to shoot viral dances with them.
Ugh.
The memories come back through a fog. It wasn’t a good party. The music was unbearably loud, shaking the walls, and the disco strobes were blinding. And everywhere I looked, other influencers were filming.
That’s the problem with influencer parties. You’re always being recorded, so you have to beonall the time. And last night I felt…off. I did my best, downing shots to pep myself up, trying to be nice and happy and bubbly, but it didn’t work.
I remember the rising feeling of overstimulation in my chest. I remember stumbling to the bathroom for a second of peace. And then…
“Oh,” I whisper. “Oh no.”
Lulu passes me my phone. As soon as I switch it on, I’m bombarded with message notifications.
OMFG
Girl, what happened last night??
Lmao you are so messy
I wince and open my Picturegram. The very first video that pops up is of me crying on the floor of the bathroom. My face is red. My chest is heaving. I’m snotty and disgusting. There’s a toilet in the background of the shot.
“What’s wrong, Summer?” a girl asks from behind the camera. I’m not sure who she is, but I can hear muffled laughter,like there’s a crowd of other influencers in the bathroom watching me.
“My lipstick!”drunk me cries out, lifting a golden tube. The lipstick has snapped off.
I gasp, and Lulu pats my back soothingly.
“Oh, babe,”the girl behind the camera coos.“It’s okay! I know it’ssosad, but you can totally get a new one.”
Drunk me looks up at the camera, my eyes shimmery with tears. Mascara is dripping down my cheeks. My bottom lip wobbles dramatically.
“But it was limited edition!”I wail, dissolving into tears. The video mercifully ends, and I’m left staring at a frozen shot of me sprawled out on the bathroom floor sobbing.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, scrolling down to the comments. They’re worse than I imagined.
