She looks over her shoulder. “Call me Tabby. You should come over and grab some of my tomatoes. I’m serious. I live in West Raston, 612 Langland Street.” She spins on her sneaker with the grace of a dancer and the spirit of a goofball and turns into the next aisle.
“I will,” I say, and she disappears into the back.
The tension in my shoulders eases, and I walk a little lighter toward the check-out. This might not be as disastrous as I thought. Zeke has a sister, and she seems really kind.
I head out to my van with my groceries and put her address in my phone. There are a few email notifications, so I check them with a stutter in my chest. I open one from Mama’s executive assistant, Lisa.
Hi, I’m sending along a message from your mama. We keep getting calls fromCountry Beatasking where you are and what’s going on. They’re looking for a story, Nova, and frankly, us refusing to respond is going to be their story. Especially since Dru’s accident. I know you’re on some soul-searching mission, but we need to give them something. I think you should come home. Or at least tell someone where you are.
Lisa
I tap out of the email without bothering to answer. The magazine publishing something untrue about my disappearance would be better than revealing myself and testing how far this blackmailer will go to keep me away. I’m so close to being in the clear. I know this has something to do with the label merger and my hand in it. It has to. I just don’t understand why.
I’ve spent countless sleepless nights trying to figure out, why me? All I’ve come up with was when my vlog got trashed. Someone saw an opening. A weakness to exploit. It’s so frustrating not knowing why. I’ve mentally interrogated every one of the board members, but the only ones I know well are at Mama’s label, not the one she’s merging with.
I’ve come to dread email while simultaneously obsessed with it, so I deleted my business email from my phone. Messages like this still come in. Emails from Lisa or Dru and sometimes even my brother Caston, reminding me of the mess I left at home.
I’ve entirely ghosted my YouTube account since the world decided they hated me, and that’s the exact word Tabitha used about Zeke.
He’d asked me to meet him, and I stood him up. Ghosted him.
It took me a long time to drive away that day, but the sheer terror of what happened to Dru was a wake-up call. What I’d done clawed through me, leaving open wounds to fill with shame. I was in a very dark and vulnerable place.
The trolls were right about my privilege, and I spiralled hard after Zeke.
I got hate on every video I made from someone who disagreed or came looking for a fight on the internet, but that last video was hit hard. I realized once the threatening messages started coming in that it was organized. It wasn’t trolling on the internet. Someone knew how to use those trolls to their advantage. Someone out there was deliberately trying to take me down.
And it worked.
In the wake of my humiliation, the emails started coming in, telling me I needed to disappear, or all the rest of my shit decisions would come back to haunt me—and my choice to hook up with Zeke was just one of those bad decisions.
I took that threat seriously. I bought a van and took off.
Broken, angry, and lost.
I was looking for something reckless, and I found it in Zeke.
But reckless has a price.
And I’m now paying, big time.