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Homewould be exponentially worse, approximately ten times to be exact.
Kyir’s album launch party had been last night—not even a big thing, maybe fifty people. He hosted it atGrown Folks’ Music, catered byPot Liquor, Heights through and through. Lots of familiar faces.
Lots of stares because inebriated, relaxed, celebratory Ky, on more than one occasion, had kissed the event photographer.
Me.
Obviously, there were pictures on the internet now, magnified by the increased attention of his new album being out, and his mini-doc with Nick premiering today.
Our “soft launch” had become quite a hard landing for me.
“I'm sorry,” Ky said, his apology breaking into my unfortunate reminiscence.
I frowned. “For what?”
“For not understanding how difficult this really is for you,” he explained, pressing his lips to my forehead. “For being sloppy last night. I should have known better.”
I shook my head. “You don't know what you don't know.”
“Nah, but Idoknow. You’re not me, so I shouldn’t be expecting you to just roll with whatever punches. For real.”
I wanted… to reassure him.
Even though I wasn't the one who even brought it up.
I wanted to soothe his realization of what I truly did feel. That as much as I knew my friends and loved ones didn't mean any harm when they pushed me to just be good with the way this was unfolding… it was kinda fucked up.
You're going to be fine; it's going to be okay.
Maybe they were right.
Actually… I was pretty sure theywere.
But that did not make the shit any less invalidating and dismissive.
Two things could be true at once. Things were going to be okayandmy concerns were perfectly reasonable. It didn't feel good when the people who cared about me wrote off my feelings, in their efforts to be comforting because they’d decided they knew best.
And it really shouldn't be up tometo managetheirfeelings when I wasn't in the wrong.
When the very concerns they dismissed wereexactlywhat fucking happened.
It had already started and the only thing they could offer was “I’m sorry this is happening” and sympathetic“damns”while I was being ripped to pieces on the internet.
Kyir’s rabid ass fans werequitevicious.
Chloe had actually got in Kyir’s ass about his behavior at the party when she showed up bright and early before our flight. Those pictures—and as such, our relationship—hitting the public sphere before the curated reveal that was happening today was all out of order.
Order that had been suggested for a reason.
“Thank you for acknowledging that,” I told him, instead of lying that it was okay, when it wasn't.
Not that I was actuallymad, I just wished it had happened differently.
But here we were.
Ideally, we’d already be ignoring our phones, more absorbed in each other than anything that was happening in the rest of the world. The premature album critiques, anybody who Kyir had fucked in the past ten years wanting the internet to know, the tweets and whatever else about the mini-doc.
Off our radar.
