“Yes.”
The answer came gently this time.
It was still a lie.
Not a large one.
Just large enough to live in.
After we hung up, I ate half the grilled cheese and left the rest beneath the silver cover.
I washed my face again even though there was no makeup left.
Then I stood in front of the bathroom mirror.
Without the stage lights, my skin looked tired. There was a faint red mark where the microphone tape had rubbed myback and another at my waist from the rhinestone pants. Glitter remained near my hairline despite two attempts to remove it.
Famous people always looked tired.
Ellie had been right about that.
I did not know it yet.
On the counter beside me lay the laminated pass I wore backstage.
My photograph.
My name.
SAVANNAH BROOKS — ALL ACCESS.
All access.
I turned it over.
Then I walked into the bedroom, climbed beneath sheets I had not chosen in a city I would leave before breakfast, and listened to twenty-two thousand people disappear from my life at once.
Three
Annie
By seven forty-five the next morning, I had learned three important things.
First, egg yolk did not come out of pale blue linen as easily as optimism suggested.
Second, Rachel Donovan could sense bad decisions from three time zones away.
Third, when I booked a private scuba lesson, I had somehow failed to consider the part where I would have to put on a skintight wetsuit in front of the woman who had made me laugh hard enough to ruin a shirt.
Rachel had called twice before breakfast and texted once in all caps.
PLEASE CONFIRM YOU ARE RESTING.
I sat on a wooden bench outside Reef Rascal Dive Co. with a medical form balanced on my knee.
I had just confirmed that I had no heart condition, no respiratory problems, no recent surgery, and no history of panicking underwater.
The last question seemed unfair.
