“Well, we have alotto catch up on then, babe.” She pulls out her tablet and starts to detail the long list of deals I’ve been offered. As she talks, I feel my heartbeat rising. I try to hum and nod at the right points, but my chest keeps getting tighter. The lights seem too bright. I fumble for the remote to dim the overheads and accidentally drop it.
“Icons Only has doubled their offer again—” Lulu stops. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I mumble. Whenever I breathe in, the air can’t seem to get past my mouth and into my lungs. “I just, um…feel like I’m dying a bit?”
She processes that. “Want a hug?”
I let her scoop me up into her arms. She puts her pointy chin on my shoulder. It takes me a couple minutes to convince my body that I am not in mortal danger. Eventually, my breaths level out. I stare at the pile of contracts like they’re an unexploded bomb.
“Do you think,” I say slowly, “that the fact my nervous system thinks it’s being chased by a leopard whenever I think of going back to influencing again is, like, a bad sign?”
“It doesn’t bode amazingly,” Lulu agrees, pulling back. “I’m sure you could get therapy and push past it. But, like…do you want to?”
“I…” My mouth is dry.
It’s wrong.My brain screams at me.Don’t do it. It’s all wrong.“I really don’t,” I realise. “I’m sorry.”
This job used to be all that I wanted. Now it feels like an impossible step backward. If I take those deals, those companies will want me to be a version of Summer that I’m not sure exists anymore. The thought of having to pretend all the time again feels suffocating.
I need to move. I hop up and cross to the racks of clothes lining the wall. Lulu watches as I trail my fingers over the finished pieces. “I know maybe in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that big of a deal that everyone online called me a massive hot mess,” I say. “It was just a viral moment, it’s passed, whatever. But, um, that’s also sort of the most painful thing anyone could ever call me? It’s hard enough to convince myself that I’m not oversensitive or dramatic, without literally thousands of people starting hashtags about it. I don’t really want to be the face of fashionable meltdowns, you know? I don’t want to do Sad Girl Glam. I want to move on now.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think…” I bite my lip. “Do you think if I started making clothes instead of modelling them, we could use my platform to promote them?”
“Yes,” she says bluntly.
I tug at a dress. It’s pink and knee-length, made of layers of translucent dreamy fabric, patterned with tiny red strawberries. “My clothes aren’t…too much?”
She snorts. “Yeah, for the beige bitches. But the pastel girly girls will eat it up with a spoon. There’s a niche there, for sure. Not one I know a lot about, but I can learn.”
“So you think it’ll work?”
“I don’t know. Changing directions is always a risk.”
I feel sick. “It might fail.”
“Yes.”
“People might hate the clothes. Or not be interested. It might…” My throat tightens. “It might be too hard for me.” I think back to my time in fashion school. The awful feeling of slipping behind no matter how hard I tried to keep up. If I started my own fashion line, I could so easily get in over my head. What if I can’t deliver?
“Maybe,” Lulu agrees mildly. “Maybe not.”
A knock on the studio door jolts me out of my anxiety spiral. “Come in,” I call, and Alec steps inside. His hair is ruffled, and there’s mud on his boots. Everything in me melts.
“Hello,” he says softly. I’m suddenly in his arms, like we’re both magnetised. He takes a deep breath, tucking back my hair.
Lulu pretends to wretch violently. “God, you two are disgusting. Please contain yourself, man, you light up like a Christmas tree whenever you lay eyes on her.”
“Hi, Lulu,” Alec says calmly. “Do you mind if I borrow Summer for a moment?”
“You can have her.” She stands and picks up her bag. “I’m going back to the lodge, Summer. You need to make a decision before we look at any of these contracts.”
I frown. “I’m sorry I’m not more decisive. You came all the way up here, I feel bad?—”
Lulu snorts. “Don’t. I met this masseur at the lodge called Andrew. His hands are bin lids. Anyway, I’m staying at least a week. Call me if you want to talk. Bye, Tall One.”
Alec nods at her.
