Not my preferred way of spending a Sunday afternoon, but Sloane had heard through the grapevine that Emmy would be in attendance, and it seemed like too good an opportunity for carefully crafted scandal for us to pass it up.
Asher spent the entire event either loudly making snide remarks about any of the pieces I pretended to show an interest in or aggressively outbidding me, which culminated in him buying a ridiculously abstract canvas painting for far too much money (hilarious), as well as a too-loud argument between us in the foyer of the auction house that had all eyes on us (humiliating).
The @TrustFundTea post was up within minutes of me pulling my car door shut. It’s a carousel post withninephotos, with the final one being an unflattering zoom-in of me raising my paddle and Asher seated several rows behind, smirking as he raises his even higher.
The comments come in thick and fast:
@user198503:These two AGAIN? at this point it must be a humiliation kink because???
@hotboysummer:Why do I ship this?????
@Janet_13486:Ok, I DESPERATELY need to know the backstory here.
@TrustFundTea:@Janet_13486 You and me both, hun! If anyone has the tea, send it my way xo
I know that I shouldn’t be obsessing over this and all the gleeful commenters who are parasocially delighted by the public implosion of me and Asher, but I can’t stop scrolling.
Not when, a month later, I cause a scene at a glamorous dinner in honour of a designer who is about to retire after sixty years of groundbreaking collections and refuse to be seated next to Asher and @TrustFundTea posts no fewer thaneightstories about it in a row.
Not when I’m caught, a week or two after that, on video chucking a handbag at the closing elevator doors in Selfridges, with Asher smirking behind them as they clamp shut.
And not even when someone pretends to be a close friend and gives @TrustFundTea the alleged exclusive of what went down ten years ago at university. All lies, of course, but the commenters eat up every word.
Every outing, every event, every fleeting glance over the last few months turns into ‘content’. My name and his has become shorthand for ‘public meltdown’ online. Our faces are plastered across gossip accounts, headlines, memes, even a handful of TikTok edits set to a Taylor Swift bridge. Every time I open up Instagram and check @TrustFundTea, I feel a little worse. It’s mortifying and I don’t know why I haven’t just blocked the page yet, but it’s become like pressing on a bruise just to make sure it still hurts.
Spoiler: it does.
My father is furious, of course. He’s purpled-faced with righteous indignation, pacing and huffing over every new viral post over on @TrustFundTea. I can get a small sense of satisfaction from that at the very least. Although he hasn’t backtracked on his Vouvalis merger plans and my marriage to Asher yet, at least he’s feeling the pain of social humiliation from my actions just as much as I am.
Every time a new scandal drops, I get a call or text, summoning me to his office where he spends a good thirty minutes trying to yell and shame me back into submission.
I keep thinking that this is it. That this is going to be the scandal that slaps some sense into him and makes him pull the plug on this ridiculous scheme. But it never is.
We’re nearly three months into this, and he’s still not wavered. A growing part of me is starting to wonder if he ever will.
‘Remind me again where you’re going tonight?’ Sloane asks, snapping me out of a spiral of increasingly dour thoughts. ‘A film premiere, or a funeral?’
‘Ha, ha,’ I deadpan, glancing over at my phone propped against my dresser mirror. Sloane’s face takes up the entirety of my screen, and I can spy the countryside hurtling past her in a whirl of blurred greens in the train window behind her. She’s supposed to be here getting ready with me, but she booked a last-minute job in Scotland and is heading there now, leaving me here alone to spiral.
‘I might cancel,’ I say, brush in hand. My hair is dripping with gel, ready to be pulled back into my signature tight bun, but I can’t bring myself to finish the job. Every time I reachfor my brush, a wave of nausea hits me and I find something else to busy myself with.
‘It’s too late to bail,’ Sloane says, and she’s right. My car is due to arrive in fifteen minutes and Asher is probably on his way already. ‘And if you don’t show up, they’ll probably think you’re doing it specifically to avoid Asher, and that’ll only make them talk more. You’ll get another weirdo pretending to be your friend on @TrustFundTea, claiming that you were too heartbroken to show your face or something.’
‘Maybe they’ll forget I RSVP’d,’ I say weakly. I reach for my brush again, but that same horrible feeling rears its ugly head and instead I reapply my lipstick for the tenth time.
Sloane snorts. ‘You’re not that delusional.’
I let out an irritated sigh. I wish Iwasthat delusional, but alas.
Asher and I have done such a good job with our faux feud, that people have actually started placing bets on what events we’ll attend and act the fool at in the @TrustFundTea comment section. Tonight’s film premiere was a popular choice and, at the time, feeding into the chaos and rumours had seemed like a good idea. But that was before the reality of being the laughing stock of all my peers had really settled in.
The idea of showing up tonight and knowing that people will be watching me intently, waiting for me to provide the next round of gossip fodder, is enough to make me want to wipe off my make-up, wrap my hair in a scarf, and crawl into bed and forget I’m currently the biggest embarrassment on the social scene.
‘I know, I know.’ I grab my brush and start reluctantlyscraping my hair back. Ten minutes until my car arrives. ‘I’m just tired of this. At what point do we just throw in the towel and—’
‘And what?’ Sloane scoffs, brows arched in disbelief. ‘At what point do you just throw in the towel and get married to a man you barely know?’
‘No, not that,’ I say quickly, but the protest sounds weak even to my ears. ‘Maybe we need to recalibrate, because you were right. Maybe this was a stupid plan.’
