In a city far, far away, Kieran Dillahunt was having trouble sleeping. Her best mate and manager Ziggy Yang’s fretting was not helping matters.

“They’re not going to wait forever. The publisher wants an answer on when your next manuscript will be ready. If we don’t hurry, there won’t be time to put out a round of ARCs before publication. The book tour--San Francisco would be perfect to kick off your next beauty book crawl, but we need time to put it all in place.”

Ziggy’s image on Kieran’s mobile screen was bouncing from all Ziggy’s pacing back and forth. She must have been on her third espresso since midnight.

Kieran bit down on a yawn, herself on her second can of Monster. It’s too late at night for all this.

“Zizza, you’ve gotta stop panicking all the time. I’ve been doing this forever. I can handle being a little behind schedule. I won’t screw up.”

“You’d better not. This could be amazing for you.” Ibiza was amazing. Dubai was amazing. San Francisco was just another day. But this was Ziggy, so hope sprang eternal. Enough hope for both of us.

“If you believe it, I believe it. I gotta go, I’ve got another video finishing up. Love you, Z.”

Ziggy sighed, her frantic nerves retreating in the face of Kieran’s diffidence. “Love you more, Kiki. Laterz.”

Kieran signed off FaceTime and threw her mobile onto the couch beside her. She was feeling stressed as all hell lately. She had just signed on to do a few party and convention appearances for a lot of money--more than enough to keep her in Louboutins and a Manhattan penthouse for a few years--but she hadn’t mentioned that her subscriber count had started to fall off.

′You’re just a shill like everybody else. I miss when you used to be real,′ one such subscriber had written before claiming to unfollow on every platform. She didn’t know if they had. It hardly mattered; they’d made their point, and they weren’t the first to make it.

Kieran tried to keep her stuff sincere. Yeah, there was that premature money grab for Maybelline, but she had liked that particular product (and only that one) and was willing to give it her seal of approval at the time. She’d silently and without notice removed the video a month later when their new foundation started to break out her usually imperturbable skin. Beyond that, she tried only to review and endorse products she really favored. The problem was that her standards had changed. Her life had changed. She was no longer a student scrounging around for pocket change trying to look her best for her classmates (Wellesley had a funny attitude toward dressing up for the approval of men; women on the other hand...).

She had more money than she could spend wisely, more comp samples than she could feasibly use, and an exhausting itinerary that tripled as soon as she blinked. The life Kieran led was no longer relatable, so how could she expect anybody to relate? She couldn’t. They didn’t. Humor was all she had to offer anyone, so she tried harder to be funny. But that was hard when you found your life more depressing all the time. Lonelier all the time. More and more meaningless by the day. Messages that guilted her for accomplishing the little she had so far were no help.

She flopped face forward onto her designer couch and sighed into its distressed denim upholstery. Gorgeous thing, utterly tacky and so her. She even loved the little recessed button details. Like a comfy pair of jeans made for sitting. She’d picked it up from some thrifty hole in the wall in Brooklyn that hadn’t been gentrified into oblivion.

Who am I, she asked herself. Who do I want to be? She couldn’t answer either question with any certainty. She couldn’t remember a time worse than now. All the money she could want short of dreaming of being Oprah and she’d never been so adrift. She didn’t have to ask what her working class folks at home would say about that; they let her know every week when she called to check in. Come home, they’d say. Live your life here, with us. She’d thought about it, she really had, more than she’d be admitting to anyone but her hair stylist, but the notoriety was here, the work was here; Kieran’s contacts were here. There wasn’t anything for her in London anymore. Her life was here and she wasn’t quite ready to give that up, whatever ‘that’ consisted of.

Get yourself together, girl. You’ve got a life a million girls would kill for. Learn to love it.

Kieran blew her freshly dyed hair out her eyes and rolled onto her side to tap the screen of her laptop and wake it from sleep mode. Just as she’d thought, her video was queued up and ready to go. She could tag it and describe it with her eyes closed and she challenged herself to do just that. This was the one part of her life she still loved, producing new videos. Not too easy, not too hard; nothing too complicated about that. When she posted a new video, she was just another YouTuber trying to keep her viewers happy. Before the first comments, that feelings of accomplishment was enough.

She yawned again and clicked POST. Then, she retreated to the kitchen for chamomile tea. She was going to need it to help her wind down following the day she’d had. Three hours of writing, an hour with her accountant, and hour and a half with her beta reader Sameen, and then an expensive half-hour phone call with her attorney to discuss endorsement contracts. That didn’t include the three hours she’d spent making an appearance at the opening of a new Ulta store in Midtown, cutting ribbon and taking pictures with tweens who loved her books. They all looked so young yet so grown up at the same time. Kieran was only thirty and she’d never felt more her age than when giving eleven-year-olds tips on covering laugh lines.

Kieran inhaled the soothing fragrance of chamomile and organic raw honey and tried not to feel like she was wasting her life. When didn’t she feel like this? I have a job a million girls would kill to have. If she quoted the Devil Wears Prada enough, it was bound to be right; that’s the way the story was written. She was going to convince herself of that if it killed her stone dead.

She spent the next thirty minutes catching up on Roller Girl by Vanessa North and smiling at her Kindle all daft, because it was so fucking cute, watching Joe and Tina make it work despite everything. She’d just gotten to the penultimate chapter when her laptop gave a notable beep. She had desktop notifications enabled for YouTube and that one meant somebody’d left a comment. Kieran bookmarked her progress in Roller Girl and braced herself. This was her least favorite part. Please don’t hate it. I tried so hard.

She crossed her fingers and opened the notification.

Her tight expression softened at once on seeing the name of the commenter. Her most loyal one. She grinned. Even at her most critical BumblebeeLovely was kind. Tonight, this morning, was no exception.

BumblebeeLovely I think this might be your best yet. Your eyes look amazing. I can never get my eye shadow to glow like that. You must be doing something right.

BBL always said things like that. Kieran used to think the commenter had a crush on her from how she complimented Kieran’s hair, her skin, her smile. But from the odd few times she’d run into her in the comment sections of other videos, she figured BBL was just like that.

Taken, too. Kieran had to remind herself of that. She’d, a little embarrassingly, taken it upon herself to see just what BBL was into and who. What? She’d been lonely and bored and her girlfriend of a seventeen months had just chucked her for someone older and richer. She was bound to be a little out of sorts. Going to BBL’s blog, and Facebook, and Twitter, and Tumblr, and Insta--look, Kieran had had a lot of time on her hands that night. Suffice it to say, BBL was prettier than her tiny profile pic indicated and she was with someone else. Tall, dark skin, genderfluid, stunning, and mad for BBL if the pictures were to be believed. Kieran hadn’t a hope of competing. She still didn’t, but she could enjoy these little interactions with someone who for ten years and counting thought Kieran’s best efforts were good enough.

Her fingers flew across the keys to reply. She never did, not to BBL, not since finding out her secret admirer was already well admired by another, but this was a special case. First come, first serve, right? Her better angels, better known as her oft-exercised conscience, sat quiet. She posted her reply.

BumblebeeLovely I think this might be your best yet. Your eyes look amazing. I can never get my eye shadow to glow like that. You must be doing something right.

---Dillahunting +BumblebeeLovely You’re always so sweet to me. I must have done something right to keep you as a fan. Thanks for all your comments over the years. They mean the world to me. You’re amazing, Lovely.

She almost typed up another reply. More about what was going on in her head and why BBL’s sweet response meant so much. Questions about what had BBL up late when she had work in the morning. (Her YT profile linked to her Twitter which linked to her work Twitter, which was the Bookstop Cafe in Tennessee. No, Kieran had never been, but she’d thought about it. Never more so than when she signed craft books on with love to the Lovely Jamie a few states over. She figured that was probably a coincidence.) More about whether BBL was as tired of getting older as Kieran was. The note was paragraphs long. A letter to a veritable stranger who happened to share her fascination with randomness and nail polish and s’mores for breakfast, and Kieran couldn’t shut up.

Nope, not doing this.She stopped her fingers before they could say anymore. Nobody wanted to hear how shit her life was. Not even her biggest fan.

Kieran deleted the second comment unsent. She’d be embarrassed she even thought of posting it in the morning.

Another notification floated up the screen to Kieran’s right.

BumblebeeLovely had liked her reply.

Great, didn’t sound as stupid as I feel. Kieran had been saying the wrong things to the wrong people for weeks yet. A consequence of a milestone birthday and a plateauing career, she guessed. And don’t even ask when last Kieran had had a date. It wasn’t for lack of asking or being asked. Nothing felt right anymore. Kieran felt wrong and thus, any relationship she started felt just as off-kilter.This is as close as I’ve gotten to a date in forever. Fuck me, that’s a joke. I’m a joke.

Frustrated, Kieran threw an arm over her eyes to block out her greyscale world. She knew every shade of colorless it had to offer. She’d grey-color-coordinated the condo herself. Naff denim couch (Hex color #10498f; blue sky over Ground Zero at 11 am) matched to just off stark white raised ceilings and plush rugs over dark wood floors (Hex #fffdd0, whipped cream over a double-scoop of rocky road, #8f4814). The walls were deep forest green, hex code #186218, supposed to be soothing. The designer she’d hired before she realized they couldn’t match grey and white with a book and an app as guide had said that. She should have known they didn’t know their arse from their elbow.

Therapists, have got to get myself one of those. Kieran was so tired for feeling like this. Hopeless. Lonely. Failing. When am I going to get this together? My life. I’m so lucky. So why am I so sad? She sniffed and swallowed down a tidal wave of emotion that had been threatening since she took a look at herself in her vanity mirror and realized she’d gone about her hair all wrong. Purple as sodding Barney the dinosaur. She’d been aiming for blue lagoon. She hoped her exasperation hadn’t come across in her video. Mistakes were just opportunities for inspiration. She’d probably stolen that from somebody, but she couldn’t remember who. Let it go, she told herself. Just let it go. At least she’d gotten to talk to her favorite follower tonight. That had to count for something. She thinks my eyes look amazing.

They were #9f5919 by the code, brown for the color-capable. Not a color most beloved. Not the most beautiful or striking, but they were her own, and her great-grandmother’s according to her dad, and she made them work. Compliments were the norm. Yet her chest still went tight, her heart seeming to grow behind her breastbone like someone had breathed lungfuls into it till it was fit to burst at the idea that BBL found them anything like amazing. Kieran could admit it to the silent skyline keeping her company her at this late-early hour: she had a crush.

That was the thought that carried her to sleep. Just a little blue thumbs-up. Just a forever-there, slip of a girl from Tennessee who she’d never said a word to until tonight. It really was a world gone mad.

Or maybe that was just Kieran.