Donna drove me home to an empty apartment, Chloe either not back from work or off reviewing a restaurant.
I changed into yoga clothes and turned on my favorite YouTube instructor, working through some poses to try to clear my mind. I’d spent too much time in my head even as a kid, and after I’d gone viral, I’d practically lived there. Second-guessing every expression on my face in case a classmate snapped a picture of me and added it to their meme cache. Rethinking every word I spoke before it came out of my mouth. For the first time in my life, I’d been glad our school required uniforms so that I didn’t have to overthink which outfits would draw the least attention.
My anxiety had gotten so bad by my senior year that my parents had found me a therapist, Sara, and we’d spent a lot of time getting me out of my head. That meant being fully present in my body, and she’d encouraged me to look into yoga.
I’d kept up a near-daily practice ever since.
But right now, as I moved into some arm balance poses, I couldn’t concentrate, falling over twice as much as usual. My head wanted to go investigate Miles Crowe and didn’t care at all what my body was trying to do.
I gave up and sat instead, pulling my laptop closer so I could do a Google search of my old nemesis for the first time in eight years. That had been my favorite method of cyberstalking him until Therapist Sara had suggested I quit.
The first search result on YouTube was his hometown performance where I could enjoy my snotty sob face if I wanted to revisit hell, but I skipped it because no thanks.
Most of the top results were his Starstuck performances followed by a few videos from the string of hits he’d had after leaving the show. That had been in the early days of Starstuck, when winners went on to big careers after the show. It didn’t happen anymore.
On the third page of results, I found links to videos he’d released in the last few years, and the tone shift was clear even in the thumbnails. The bright colors and slick production values from his pop videos had given way to moodier lighting. A couple of them were even shot in black and white, and he didn’t look like he’d been dressed and styled by Cinna for the Capitol Games. Simple clothes, no elaborate sets.
I clicked on the first link. It had almost 500,000 views. A lot—until you compared it to his earlier videos with over a hundred million hits.
It was a song called “All I Want.” It was a far more stripped-down performance, the focus on his voice and the piano. The video alternated between scenes of him singing and clips of him with a pretty actor who had the fresh face of a girl-next-door type rather than a supermodel. They did couple-y things like walk on a beach, cuddle on a couch drinking coffee, and hug while leaning against his Mustang.
That car really did look good.
So did Miles.
He sang about wanting to see and be seen completely.
I let it play to the next one, a song called “Right Now,” the lyrics about stringing together perfect moments of happiness.
And then I kept letting them play until it was two hours later, my back sore from hunching over my laptop, and I’d gone through every song of his last three albums.
Chloe’s key rattled in the door, and I slammed the laptop shut on reflex as she stepped into the living room.
She paused, her hand still on the doorknob, and eyed me. “What are you—you know what? Never mind. I don’t even want to know.”
“I was doing some client research.”
“Uh huh. I’ve never done research that made me slam my laptop closed when someone else came in.”
I didn’t know why I didn’t want to cop to what I’d been doing. Maybe because it felt dangerously close to my fourteen-year-old self watching every interview and performance Miles ever did on repeat. I wasn’t sure what else to say until my stomach growled. “I’m hungry. You eat yet?”
“Yep. Swung by a new place in the business district for dinner. That’s why I’m late getting home.”
“And how’s it going to fare on The Kitchen Saint?”
“It’ll live to flambé another day. How did it go with Miles today?”
“Maybe...okay? Miles 2.0 is a definite upgrade.”
“That’s good.” She set her purse beside the sofa and curled