chapter 12
And for the first time in a long time, I dreamed of my parents.
They were standing on the hill behind our old house, bathed in warm afternoon light. My mom looked exactly like she did in the picture I kept on my dresser. My dad wore the same old college hoodie he’d practically lived in.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, smiling.
The second I saw them, I broke.
I ran to them, stumbled, and practically crashed into my dad’s chest. His arms wrapped around me like they’d never been gone. My mom’s hand stroked my hair.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry. They used you. They took dirt from your grave. I didn’t know. I didn’t know how to stop it.”
“We know,” my mom said softly. “And we’re not mad. We’re just sad it hurt you so much.”
My dad rested his chin lightly on my head.
“We helped tilt things back,” he said. “But that’s not what matters. What matters is this: you can stop fighting ghosts now. You don’t have to prove anything to strangers who never cared about you as a person.”
My mom pulled back so she could look me in the eye.
“Live well,” she said. “That’s all we want. Leave the rest to whatever comes next. We’ll be okay.”
Their outlines grew lighter, like mist in sunlight.
“Wait,” I choked out. “Don’t go. Please.”
“We’re not really going anywhere,” my dad said. “Just a little farther out of sight. But we’ll still be watching. So you better make this new life a good one, you hear me?”
I nodded, tears blurring everything.
When I woke up, my cheeks were wet.
But my chest felt… light.
Weeks later, when I finally opened a camera again, it wasn’t to film a perfect makeup routine or a trendy skit.
It was to capture Logan’s grandma scolding a rooster for jumping the fence, hands on her hips, gray hair escaping her bun, accent thick and warm as she told him he was “too old to be causing trouble.”
I started a brand-new account and didn’t attach my name to it at first.
I filmed small things.
Steam rising from a mug of tea in the morning. The way the wind rippled through the grass on the hill behind the house. Logan fixing a broken fence board and pretending he wasn’t out of breath. Me leaving fresh flowers at my parents’ grave and sitting with them in silence for a while.
I talked quietly over some of the clips about burnout, about starting over, about learning to live for something other than numbers.
People found it.
At first, just a few.
“This feels like a breath of fresh air,” one comment said. “I don’t even care who you are. Please keep posting.”
So I did.
I visited other small towns. Helped at local farms. Showed the messy side of rural life alongside the pretty sunsets. I still edited, still planned, still cared about the work—but the purpose was different.
I didn’t post daily. I didn’t jump on every trend. I turned off my phone after uploading and went outside.
One afternoon, as I was editing a clip of the sunset reflecting off the river, a banner slid across the top of my screen.
Congratulations! Your channel just hit 1,000,000 followers.
I stared at it.
Then at the hill outside the window, where two headstones sat under a maple tree, half-hidden by tall grass.
I smiled.
In my first life, a million followers had been a curse that drove me to the edge.
In this one, they were just a number.
The real win was this: I was still here.
I was still breathing.
And for the first time, I wasn’t living for them.
I was living for me.