Chapter 1
Izzy
“Today is the day I die,” I whispered under my breath, angling my phone correctly.
This isn’t exactly how I planned for the semester to start. The red dot is blinking in the corner of my screen and I can’t make my thumb stop it.
Stop recording. Turn around. Walk away. The voice in my head screams.
But I don’t do any of those things, instead I stay crouched in the dark of the equipment hallway with my phone held up to the gap in the door, while I film the golden boy of this entire university beating a man’s head against the concrete.
But that’s not how anyone would describe Sawyer Kane.
If you stopped a hundred people on this campus and said his name, you’d get a hundred versions of the same boy. The famous hockey player who had a charming smile, looked like he had been carved by God himself and was a perfect A student.
Everyone says he was so kind that he doesn’t even try to kill mosquitoes but here he is, his shoulder tensed as he rams his fist into the man’s skull with a sick wet sound while the man struggles and fails to dodge all punches.
“Fucking Asshole,” he growled, bringing his fist comes up again. “Keep her name out of your fucking mouth.” But this time, the man underneath him isn’t fighting back anymore.
The man slumps to the ground and within seconds, his head is surrounded by a pool of red. I bite down on the back of my hand to stop myself from screaming and vomiting. I’ve only ever seen this much blood once and I’m pretty sure I passed out.
I was still wondering what I should do with the one minute footage and how to get out of here without him knowing when my phone buzzes against my own ear, loud in the dark.
And Sawyer’s head snaps up. For one full second, before I run, the golden boy looks straight at the gap in the door and locks eyes on mine.
You may be wondering how I, the second most popular influencer girl on campus, was stuck in this situation, let me back up.
****
Six hours earlier I was lying on the floor of an apartment I no longer technically pay for, holding eleven dollars and a notice I’d peeled off my own door so many times the tape had given up.
FINAL NOTICE BEFORE FILING. Friday, 5 PM. Eight hundred forty dollars or it goes to the courts.
I don’t have eight hundred forty dollars. I have eleven, a swim scholarship that covers everything except the one thing I need, and a dead account that used to be a living one.
So I did what I always do when my real life gets unsurvivable: I went live, because on the streets of social media, I am what you call a baddie. Every week, my posts are either about unboxing a new hair, trying out new designs or going shopping in expensive boutiques.
“Good morning to everyone except my landlord,” I told the three hundred insomniacs from my bathroom floor, propped against the tub, full glam, looking like a girl who has never once cried about a utility bill. “No, I’m kidding. Good morning to him too. He’s just doing his job. His job is ruining my life, but you know. Hustle culture.”
The comments came almost immediately.
not the landlord lore at 6am 😭
girl what landlord situation? Spill
“I’m sorry but he’s not worth my time or being featured in my videos. The best I can do is story time,” I chuckled. “Lore implies it’s interesting. This is just…” I waved a hand. “Ambiance.”
There was one unspoken rule about the media space and I cracked it before my previous manager dumped my ass. People only judge what they know which is why I’ve been broke on camera for two months and not one of my ninety thousand people has the faintest idea, because I keep handing them the worst facts of my life dressed up as content and they keep clapping.
The live went on for about an hour while I prepared for the day, a day I had no plans for except for practice, which is supposed to be in the evening. The GRWM were always the highlight of my day and the videos that fetched me the most likes so I tried to milk them as much as I possibly could.
As soon as the live ended, reality welcomed me with open arms. I needed to find a way to get eight hundred forty by Friday or risk being exposed.
Being an influencer without a manager was already bad as it is so I couldn’t risk another catastrophic event.
So that’s where I was, full glam, empty account, ninety-one thousand friends and no one to call, when my phone buzzed with a notification that changed everything.
The morning’s live had a clip pulled from it. Some viewer had caught it, posted it, and tagged me. Two seconds into the video, by the far end of the frame, behind me in the bathroom mirror’s reflection through the open window was a boy in a grey hoodie, hands in his pockets, and head down.
To every normal eye, he was just a passer-by but because my fans were mostly those who fantasized about dating and getting married or getting laid by Korean men, this was hot gossip.
“What’s all the ruckus about? I mean you can’t even see his face…” I was saying, simultaneously zooming in the video when my eyes went to the numbers.
“HOLY SHIT!”
It had forty thousand views and the comments were crazy. Apparently they thought he was my boyfriend and I was hiding him from them so they all clamoured for me to do a live with him.
My best month, my whole sincere two months of me working my ass off, taking loans so I could afford to buy the dresses and wigs I used in my videos and not one ever cracked forty thousand, but a blurry stranger I didn’t know was in my building did it in an afternoon.
Instead of feeling sad about it, I decided to use the new found fame to my advantage.
All I had to do was find him, give the internet its mystery boy, feed the only fire I’ve had in two months and ride it straight past Friday.
So I went looking. I am very good, it turns out, at finding a boy from two blurry seconds. It took me until evening and it took me to the athletic complex, the back way, the equipment hallways nobody uses after the teams clear out, following the last place the trail went cold.
I had my phone up before I even heard it. Force of habit. The job is to capture even a clear shot of him to feed to my fans and the camera is always half a second ahead of me.
That’s how I ended up crouched in the dark, recording the most beloved boy on this campus do the thing that would end him, with the red dot blinking and my thumb refusing to stop it… and that’s when my phone buzzed against my ear, loud in the dark, and Sawyer Kane’s head snapped up.
For one full second, the golden boy looks straight at the gap in the door and locks eyes on me.
“Oh shit,” I cursed even as my legs moved on their own to get me to safety.
