chapter 3
After I stopped posting, Leslie finally messaged me.
Not directly, of course.
She posted a long, shaky selfie video, eyes red like she’d been crying, soft background music playing.
“Hey guys,” she sniffled. “I just heard that Zep—uh, that a certain creator—deleted her account. I feel really guilty. She’s so talented. If my success pushed her off the internet, I’ll never forgive myself. If you’re watching this, I forgive you. Please come back. We can make things right.”
Her fans flooded the comments.
Leslie is literally an angel.
Even after being copied, she still blames herself.
Meanwhile that other girl rage-quit and ran away.
I didn’t reply. I didn’t even have the app anymore.
While they were busy praising her halo, I was sitting on a little tour boat in a lakeside town hours away, watching waves slap gently against the hull, the sun turning the water gold.
For a while I just let myself exist.
No cameras. No eyeliner. No lighting setup. Just air, sky, and the sound of water.
When the ride ended, I paid the boatman, stepped off the dock… and froze.
“Zeph?”
A tall guy in a faded baseball cap jogged toward me, squinting like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“Zephany Mills? Is that actually you?”
It took me a second to recognize him without braces and a bowl cut. Then it clicked.
“Logan?” I laughed. “Oh my God.”
Logan Reed. My shadow from age eight to fifteen. We grew up in the same tiny town in the Midwest, spent summers catching fireflies and playing video games on his grandmother’s old TV. Then we got older, went to different schools, different cities, and life did what life does—we drifted.
Now he sat across from me in a tiny café by the lake, pouring hot coffee into my mug like we hadn’t missed years.
“You live here?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Nah. I’m just on a job nearby. What about you?”
“I’m… taking a break,” I said carefully. “From everything.”
He studied my face for a second but didn’t push.