Chapter 8: Chapter 8

My head is pounding. It’s like there’s a tiny little guy with a hammer sitting between my temples, beating both sides of my skull.

I groan, realizing that my phone is vibrating on the pillow next to me. Pulling my own pillow over my head, I try to ignore it. My head is making it obvious I had a little too much to drink last night, and the last thing I want to do is talk to someone. All I want to do is go back to sleep and hopefully wake up without this excruciating headache.

My phone stops vibrating for not even a minute when it starts back up again. Another loud groan escapes me as I push the top half of my body and reach for it. Winnie’s picture pops up on the screen.

I slide to answer, trying to clear my dry throat. Maybe she needs me to meet a delivery driver or something for the house. “Hello,” I answer, realizing my voice sounds scratchier than normal.

“Emma!” Winnie excitedly says on the other side of the line. “I’ve been trying to call you all morning.”

“What time is it?” I ask, letting my cheek fall into my pillow.

“It’s almost one in the afternoon,” she answers. “Were you sleeping?”

“Maybe,” I tell her, not wanting to admit I’ve slept that long. In my defense, it was early this morning when I even made it to bed to begin with.

Winnie sighs nervously. “So you haven’t seen any of my texts? Or the ones in the group chat?”

I pull my phone away from my ear for a minute, tempted to look at them because of her nervous tone. “No,” I answer, pressing the phone to my cheek. “What’d I miss?”

“Well…two things. Do you want the good news or bad news first?”

“Good news,” I respond immediately, far too hungover to get the bad news first.

She laughs. “I thought you’d say bad news first.”

“I had a little too much to drink at that fancy club last night. It was a great time, but oh my god, I’m paying for it today.”

“I know,” Winnie tells me.

“You know?” I ask, wondering if I called her last night. I thought I remembered most of the night, but now that I think of it, after Preston dropped me off, I don’t really remember going to bed.

“You’ve gone viral,” Winnie explains, her voice a little cautious as if she doesn’t know if the good news she’s telling me is actually good news.

I shoot up in bed, my heart racing. “What do you mean I’ve gone viral?”

“I told Margo I loved the video you posted early this morning. I think a lot of people our age can really resonate with it.”

“What did I post?” I ask, my heart racing in panic. I tug the phone away from my ear and put Winnie on speaker, anxiously opening up my profile. My eyes widen at the number on top.

“Seventy thousand followers?” I scream, blinking to see if it’s my eyes playing tricks on me. I went to bed with maybe nine hundred followers—and that might even be guessing a high number.

“Your video got twenty million views overnight,” Winnie points out. “I think that number is only going to grow, Em.”

I groan, focusing on the tiny thumbnail of my face for my most recent video. “Win, before I watch this, how drunk do I seem? Do I make a complete fool of myself?”

My stomach turns at the amount of people who’ve already watched it. If Winnie tells me I make a fool of myself in this video, I might just permanently go into hiding here in the Hamptons. Everyone here is in large sun hats and oversized sunglasses. I could totally go incognito and pretend I never put my face on the internet—not that I think anyone here would recognize me from one silly viral video anyway. I’m just being dramatic and having to think of possible backup plans in case I watch this video of myself and am completely mortified.

“You don’t make a fool of yourself at all,” Winnie reassures me, her voice easing a little bit of my nerves with how confident she sounds. “You can definitely tell you’ve had something to drink—but it isn’t messy at all. It’s relatable. Margo and I spent an hour on the phone today just reading all of the comments. People want more, Em. You don’t have to watch the video with me on the phone, but I’ll be here if you need me. Before we do that, I still have the bad news…”

I close my eyes, completely forgetting that she thought my drunk video going viral was considered good news. “I don’t know if I want to know.”

“It isn’t terrible, I promise,” Winnie rushes to say.

“What is it?”

“Well…” Winnie sighs. “One of Archer’s friends needs a place to stay. He’s in the NFL, and he had some rabid fans find out where he was staying, and they don’t want it to get out of control. I thought it’d be fine if he stayed in the guesthouse. Archer’s assured me you won’t even know he’s there.”

I take a relieved breath. She and I might have to have a chat about what we consider good news and bad news. Because me complaining about my life being a mess to the internet and it going viral doesn’t really seem like good news to me, and having someone stay at a guesthouse that is fully furnished and at the corner of the lot doesn’t exactly seem like bad news.

Plus, there’s not much I could say even if it did bother me. Archer and Winnie are graciously letting me stay at their new place; if they want to help out another friend at the same time as me, that’s up to them.

“NFL?” I ask, knowing absolutely nothing about football but feeling fairly confident that those letters have something to do with the sport. “That’s fine. I don’t know how much I’ll be here this week anyway.”

Winnie laughs. “You mention that in the video. Or, to quote you exactly, ‘I may not know what I’m doing for the rest of my life, but this week, I’ll be living the life of luxury with an incredibly hot man as my tour guide.’”

“That’s an exact quote?” I squeak, regretting all the drinks I had last night—and that isn’t even including the fact I have a major headache from them.

“Yes. Watch it. I promise it isn’t as bad as you think! You were built for this. Lean into it.”

“If I watch this video and it’s embarrassing, I’m going to be so pissed at you for lying to me.”

“I’d never lie to you. I bet your password is still jellyfish1234—if I thought it was too embarrassing, I would’ve logged into your account and deleted it for you.”

“That’s what friends are for,” I tease, hoping she’s right.

“Love you, Em. I’ll talk to you later, but I’ll go ahead and tell Archer his friend is good to go to the guesthouse whenever. You shouldn’t even know he’s there.”

“Love you, Win.” I anxiously wait for her to hang up so I can witness what I posted with my own eyes and not trust Winnie to tell me whether it was bad or not.

My heart hammers in my chest as I click the video and turn my phone volume up to full blast. The video starts with me before I ever went to Pembroke Hills. The beginning is fine. All I do is talk about getting my life together and finding myself. It’s when the phone camera shakes for a minute and it’s me hours later from earlier this morning that makes my stomach turn from nerves.

“Hi again,” I begin, a wide smile on my face. “So you could say tonight turned out far different than I expected.” A small giggle escapes my chest. “I may not know what I’m doing for the rest of my life, but this week, I’ll be living the life of luxury with an incredibly hot man as my tour guide. Can you believe it?” I pause for a moment in the video, looking at something out of the camera view before focusing my attention back on the screen. “I don’t really believe it myself. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and find out that I imagined the whole scenario, but I know I didn’t. You know when you just have this feeling that you should say yes to something? That your gut is just screaming at you to take a chance? That’s what I did. I may not find myself this next week, but I’m allowing myself the chance to live a little. We’re told too many times in life not to make mistakes, to be too cautious, and I’m over it.”

A loud hiccup escapes my throat as I adjust my position in the video. So far, the video isn’t as bad as I feared, but it isn’t over yet, so I watch to make sure it doesn’t get worse. “I’m over being scared of making mistakes. I want to make all of the mistakes; that way, I don’t have any regrets. This week could turn into nothing. It probably will be nothing, but I’ll have fun and maybe discover a little about myself. And I think we could all use some time to figure out who we are and who we want to be. I’ll keep you posted on my adventures—and mistakes—this next week. I have a lot to learn, like is there really a difference in forks while eating?” I shrug, giving the camera a wide smile. “Now I need to go to bed before I say something embarrassing like I’m spending the week with the hottest—and grumpiest—man I’ve ever seen. You can discover yourself while someone else…discovers you, right?” Another giggle comes from my throat. “Kidding. Good night, fellow adventurers! I’ll be back tomorrow.” I blow the camera a kiss and end the video.

I stare at the still picture of me on my phone. I would be a lot happier with the viral video if I hadn’t made the last comment, but there’s nothing I can do about that. It could be worse—but could be better as well.

I bring my legs into my body and get comfortable, clicking on the comment section so I can see what people are saying. For the next twenty minutes, I comb through the thousands of comments that inspire me to keep being transparent. It feels validating to know there are so many people my age out there who feel stuck, and despite the hangover wreaking havoc on my body, I feel completely content for the first time in forever. Like I actually did something right.

I smile, reading a comment where a girl asks me to describe the hot guy I’ll be spending the week with.

I’m excited about today—and it feels good to finally be excited about something in my life.