Chapter 20: No

I looked at the phone in my hand for a long time.

Seventy million followers sat on that screen, with my name in the owner field.

It was everything I had wanted at twenty-three, and I could have kept it.

"No," I said.

Cecelia stared at me.

"Em, it's yours. I'm giving it to you. You can have it back, the way it should have been."

"I don't want the channel."

"Then sell it. Burn it. I don't care what you do, just take it."

"It was never the channel I wanted."

I took her hand, turned it palm up and put the phone in it.

"I wanted you to look at me. And you did look, a few times. You just didn't want what you saw to be in the picture."

Her face crumpled.

"I'll fix it. I'll do anything."

"You don't have to."

"Em."

"I'm not angry anymore, Cecelia. I'm just done."

She made a small sound and put her hand over her mouth.

I didn't hold her.

I walked down the corridor to the door, and Sunna was waiting there with my coat already open for me to put my arms in.

Cormac found me the next morning.

He was waiting outside the hotel where the crew had put me up.

He sat on a bench in the cold, in the same thin coat from the beach.

He had not shaved.

I stopped in front of him, and Sunna stopped one pace behind me.

"I won't take long," he said. "I know you don't owe me anything."

"No, I don't."

"Three sponsors have called. I've lost all of them. Hearthlight lost a million followers overnight, and I think I've lost my agent."

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