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“Having a good time?” my mother asked.
“Sure.” I glanced between them and nodded at my stepfather. “Hal.”
“Marie.” He looked me up and down in my jean shorts and red crop top. He was one of those modest types. Living with him had been a real joy.
“Well, this is a surprise.” Pamela adjusted the purse at her shoulder.
“It is.”
“How is your…work?” She hesitated on the word work. She’d been thrilled when I got a psychology degree. It was the most enthusiastic I’d seen her about much of anything. She’d wanted me to go on to become a psychiatrist like her. We could have been in business together. She’d honestly thought that was something I wanted after she neglected me my entire childhood. “You’re still doing that little blog thing, right?”
A spiteful part of myself wanted to tell her about the speaking engagements, the book, the Today show appearance that were all waiting in my inbox. All the things she’d wanted for herself. Things she’d never got. But I knew if I told her, then it would open a door for her to walk back into. And I was very careful not to engage with Pamela about more than I could handle in any one sitting.
“Good. It’s going good.”
Pamela nodded, glancing at Hal expectantly. I knew that look. She was done and ready to go back to enjoying her evening.
Hal cleared his throat. “Well, Marie, keep up the hard work. We’re proud of you.”
If only it didn’t ring so hollow.
“I’ll see you around.”
Pamela smiled softly, one reserved for patients and not family. Well, I’d only ever been a patient in her eyes. “Have fun, sweetheart.”
Then, they were gone. And I was all alone. Worse than I’d felt in years.
All this success. Everything I’d worked for. And my own mother couldn’t seem to carry on a conversation with me. We were both trained professionals, and we couldn’t bridge whatever this was. She was too willfully ignorant to how she’d treated me as a child, choosing to guilt me into getting over everything rather than feeling any form of repentance. And I just…couldn’t deal with her.
I swallowed down the resentment. Nothing I could do with it today.
I headed toward one of the last vendors in the line. They had funnel cakes, and a good dose of sugar felt like the way to fix this.
I almost reached the winding line when a group of girls stepped into my path. They were of the college variety—impossibly thin with middle parts and matching outfits.
“Hey, you’re Blaire, right?” the first girl asked. They were all blonde, tanned, toned, and nearly indistinguishable.
“Uh, yeah, I am,” I said with a smile.
I’d had a few people recognize me around town, but it didn’t happen very often.
“You were in that video,” a second girl said.
“With the lead singer of Cosmere.”
“We’re Campbell Soup girls,” the first one said vibrantly.
I blinked at that name. I’d heard it before, but I didn’t really get it. They were, like, his groupies? I wasn’t sure.
“That’s nice.”
“So, are y’all dating?” the second asked, pressing closer.
I tried to take another step away, but we’d drawn a crowd somehow. I’d not been paying attention, but more people had filled in around me. They’d heard Cosmere, Campbell, and dating, and suddenly, everyone wanted to know. I’d never felt like this in Lubbock.
The closest was that time I’d been in a mosh pit at Austin City Limits. I didn’t have a way to get out, and my claustrophobia kicked in so fast. I’d hardly been able to breathe or think or do anything. If it hadn’t been for one nice guy who had noticed my symptoms and gotten me out of there, I had no idea what I would have done.
“Uh, I don’t really want to comment on Campbell,” I said, my voice wavering.
Another group pushed in closer to the first. “Oh my God, it’s the ‘I See the Real You’ girl.”
“Because he hasn’t said that he’s dating anyone,” another girl said, anger in her voice.
One girl grabbed my arm as I tried to draw away from them. “Wait, is he here?”
“N-no,” I stammered out.
“Are you going to see him?”
There were questions everywhere. I was very alone in a sea of people that I didn’t know. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to have a panic attack. No amount of proper meditation from Pamela’s reserves had ever fixed the claustrophobia. The only thing that had ever helped was surrounding myself with friends who I could use as a buffer.
But my friends were gone. I’d sent them away so I could deal with my mother. Now, I was alone. There was a girl touching. People asking questions. Everyone closing in. Someone was recording. Oh fuck, I couldn’t have a breakdown. I couldn’t be seen like this. I needed to find a calm way out, or this would show up all over social media. I could see the headlines now—“Crazed Internet Star Flees Fans, Sobbing.”
