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  “Nah, I’m meeting people for brunch.” He stuffed his phone back in his pocket and looked over at her hesitantly. “Listen, Tessa. I actually came here today to ask you something. Are you serious about leaving the house soon?”

  “Yeah! Really, really soon.”

  “Perfect.” He nodded enthusiastically, and Tessa felt a tightness in her throat. What was he about to ask? Maybe she shouldn’t have sounded quite so optimistic…

  “Because there’s this thing I’m going to in a couple weeks. It’s a freshman rush event for Kappa Sigma. We’re supposed to bring a date. So I was kind of hoping, maybe—”

  She cut him off with a sharp intake of breath. “Scott, what are you talking about?”

  “I told you, I decided to rush a fraternity.”

  “You want me to go?”

  “Well, I told all those guys that I have a girlfriend. I don’t want them to think I just made you up or something.” His eyes left her face and drifted back down to her clingy tank top. “Anyway, I want to impress them. I was kind of hoping I could show you off.”

  Tessa stared back at him, speechless.

  “Come on, Tessa. I really need this. And you just said you’re basically ready.”

  “I said soon! Not two weeks from now!”

  “So by soon you meant more like two months? Two years?” His face darkened, and Tessa bent her arms protectively across her chest. She knew what she was in for next. Scott’s epic tantrums could put most toddlers to shame. He’d be red as an overripe tomato soon.

  “Scott, it’s not like I’m doing this on purpose,” she said, still hoping to nip it in the bud. “I have a disorder. You understand that, right?”

  “I know, I know. And I’ve been extremely patient about the whole thing. You can’t tell me I haven’t been patient, Tessa.” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. They both knew he was talking about more than leaving the house. There’d been nothing between them all summer beyond a few chaste pecks on the lips. “I just need you to put in an appearance, so they see you really exist. That’s it. Is that really so much to ask?”

  She shook her head. “Scott, I’m sorry. I wish I could.”

  He glowered, and the mattress bounced beneath him as he stood. “Isn’t that what a relationship is supposed to be about? I’m here for you. I’m sitting here sweating my ass off in this slow cooker of a bedroom—and you’re supposed to be there for me too! Right? Or is that not how this works?”

  “Scott, wait!” she called after him. “Don’t be like that. I’m trying. I’m making progress. Dr. Regan says—”

  “Whatever, Tessa.” He waved a hand to silence her. “Forget it. Forget the whole thing.”

  “Scott…”

  “I’ll see you later. I need to get some air.” He headed for the door.

  She lurched after him, but she stumbled. Her foot had fallen asleep from the hours of inactivity. “You’re coming back, right?”

  “Of course I’m coming back,” he snapped. “I always come back!”

  “Wait!” She reached out in his direction, hopping awkwardly. “Come here. Can I have a hug at least?”

  Instead, he pulled out his phone to check his messages as he paused in the threshold. Tessa felt a twinge of irritation mingled with relief. She knew he was ignoring her, but she might just prefer his neglect to the usual drawn-out fight.

  “Later,” he mumbled over his shoulder, typing a new text as he went. “I’ll see you later. I gotta go.”

  5

  BLANK SLATE

  Eric set down his phone next to the black marble sink and stood to towel off his hair. He could feel the tension gathering at the base of his skull as he thought through the jam-packed day that lay before him. First his workout—and some publicist had the bright idea to schedule him for a radio call-in while he finished up on the treadmill, just to add to the fun. Then he had to rush off to hair and makeup so he could spend the afternoon on location at a poultry farm, shooting an ad for chicken nuggets. Never mind that he was a strict vegetarian…and never mind that he was supposed to be a musician. His reps at the record label seemed perfectly content to set those facts aside. The day that stretched before him wouldn’t involve a single finger on a guitar string.

  His phone buzzed on the countertop with a new incoming text.

  Maury: You’re late, cowboy. Where are you?

  Eric closed his eyes. He couldn’t face it. He’d give anything to escape the nonstop grind that his life had become. Just for a day. Or not even a day. Just a few measly hours when he didn’t have to work.

  He picked up the phone and wrote back:

  Eric: New song idea! Christmas song. You’ll love it. I just need an hour to work it out.

  He paused, holding his breath as he waited for his manager’s reply. “Come on, Maury,” he whispered to the phone. “One hour. Come on.”

  The phone buzzed again.

  Maury: You got 30 minutes.

  Eric pumped his fist. Half an hour of freedom? He’d take it.

  Now the only question was how to use it. Songwriting could wait. Should he crawl back under the covers and grab a few more minutes of sleep?

  His phone lit up again, and Eric glanced anxiously at the screen. Not another text message, thank God. Just more Twitter notifications rolling in. He wondered if the #EricThornObsessed thing hit number one yet and picked the phone back up to check. Yup. There it was. He made a low growl in the back of his throat when he saw his name at the top of the trending list.

  Forget sleep. He needed to take action. He had half an hour to stop this thing in its tracks.

  Should he send another tweet? It couldn’t be anything too hateful. The goal wasn’t to make the fans angry—the goal was to turn them off. Make them all lose interest and find another victim for their drooly-tongue emojis.

  He needed #EricThornObsessed to generate some backlash. That was the key. He’d seen it happen to others in the past—guys who blew up too big, too fast. Invariably, they all ended up labeled the same way. Vain. Arrogant. Narcissistic. Self-absorbed. He’d seen guys swing overnight from international sex symbol to universal joke.

  Then the girls would unfollow in droves. No one wants to retweet a walking punch line. Honestly, it might be the best thing that could happen to him. Record sales would fall. Maybe his label would drop him.

  Eric felt a ray of hope. He could take a more subtle tack. Lay on the self-infatuation a touch too thick, and let them all have a good, long laugh at his expense. Hell, maybe he didn’t even need to do that much. The backlash might be brewing right that second for all he knew. Maybe the haters were already out there, tweeting by the thousands about what a douche he really was.

  He brought up the search bar and typed in a new hashtag:

  #EricThornIsADouche

  0 tweets

  OK, too complicated. Try again.

  #EricThornDouche

  0 tweets.

  “Dammit!” How could it be this hard?

  Eric took a deep breath and closed his eyes. OK. Think. Think like a hater.

  #EricThornSucks

  24 tweets

  “There we go!” A smile lit his face for the first time since he’d gotten out of bed that morning. Twenty-four tweets. Not much compared to the millions under #EricThornObsessed, but it was a start. He ran his eyes down the list.

  @EricThorn YOU ARE UGLY AND HAVE NO TALENT #ERICTHORNSUCKS

  OK, then. Not the most compelling argument. Next.

  Does anyone actually listen to Eric Thorn’s music? No? That’s what I thought #EricThornSucks

  Ouch. That one hit a little close to home.

  It wasn’t true, of course. Eric knew he had musical talent. He never would have gotten this far on looks alone. He’d pumped out one hit after another on his first two albums, and he knew those songs were good. They deserved to play on the radio.

  But lately he’d begun to wonder. Did it even matter? Would anyone notice if he put out a bunch of half-assed suckitude, ghostwritten b
y other songwriters? Or would he hit the Billboard Hot 100 with any piece of overproduced crap, just as long as he took off his clothes for the music video?

  Eric shot his phone a dirty look. It didn’t matter anyway, he told himself. Not if his career was over. Back to the task at hand: #EricThornSucks. Next tweet.

  @EricThorn I’VE HEARD WALRUS FARTS THAT SOUND BETTER THAN YOUR FUGLY ASS #ErICTHoRNSuCKS

  Eric couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that one. Walrus farts? That actually wasn’t half-bad. Maybe he should use it for his next album title—or better yet, his greatest hits. What would happen if he hit Reply and said so? How many thousands of retweets would it get?

  It was a tempting thought, but he couldn’t do it. The fans might find it amusing, but the record label wouldn’t. Anything coming from his Twitter account had to be squeaky clean.

  Maybe that was the key, come to think of it. Eric froze as a new idea hit him. Of course! How had he never thought of it before? The label would never even know…

  @EricThorn couldn’t use Twitter to jettison his own career, but someone else could.

  He began typing again with renewed energy.

  Create new account.

  Full name: Taylor

  Username: @EricThornSucks

  Password: %5L$Rsw

  His finger hung in the air, poised above the Create Account button, but he paused for a moment. Could any of it possibly be traced back to him? He’d used his middle name, Taylor—common enough not to raise any eyebrows. But what about that password? He’d automatically put in the same series of random characters that he used for his real account. Could that come back to bite him in the ass?

  Better safe than sorry. He didn’t need to worry about cybersecurity anyway. This was one social media account that no one would bother to hack.

  He filled out the form again.

  Full name: Taylor

  Username: @EricThornSucks

  Password: password

  His eyes slid down the new profile he’d created.

  TWEETS FOLLOWING FOLLOWERS

  0 0 0

  A blank slate. It felt like three hundred pounds lifted off his shoulders. He could tweet anything from here. Total freedom. He could tell his fans what he really thought of them in no uncertain terms. And he could lead them all to the conclusion that Eric Thorn wasn’t worth their wasted time.

  He just needed to get their attention first. Zero followers. That needed to change. What could he do to get noticed? He needed to make his debut tweet something good—something even more colorful than walrus farts. Something to illustrate the point that Eric Thorn was a vain, self-absorbed, pretty-boy douche canoe. And most importantly, something juicy enough to get retweeted fourteen million times.

  “Come on, Eric,” he muttered to himself. “Think.”

  Think vain. Think narcissistic.

  He looked up from his phone and met his own eyes in the bathroom mirror. An idea had sprung to mind, and he turned his head slowly from side to side as he considered how best to pull it off. Could he get away with it? Would it work? Maybe. Just maybe…

  With a well-practiced motion, he stripped his shirt over his head and switched his phone to selfie mode.

  Oh man, this was going to be fun.

  • • •

  Tessa sat on her bed and contemplated the cover of the spiral-bound notebook in her lap. She should probably open it to a clean page and make her daily entry. God knows she had enough thoughts whirling around her head to fill a page or two.

  Where to start? She should write about Scott, probably. Tessa grimaced, recalling the way her boyfriend had brought their visit to a halt. How could he be so dense? Even if she were ready to leave the house, he expected her to go to some overcrowded frat party? He wanted to… How had he put it exactly? He wanted to show her off.

  So, not just a party—a room full of strangers watching her. Great idea, Scott. Hey, maybe the week after that, she could go recite poetry in her underwear on America’s Got Talent.

  Tessa sniffed. What was wrong with him? She hadn’t told him the exact events that triggered her phobias, but he should’ve gotten the gist. Honestly, he was the one being selfish and unreasonable, not her. That wasn’t the way you should treat someone you care about. Someone you love. How long had it been since he said the words “I love you”? She couldn’t even remember. She could only think of someone else who said it just that morning.

  Follow spree complete. Don’t be upset if I missed you. I love each and every one of you more than you could ever know.

  Tessa shut her journal with a snap. To hell with Scott. Why shouldn’t she tweet about Eric Thorn all day long if it made her feel better? She picked up her phone and glanced at the screen to see what she had missed. Her eyes landed on a new Twitter notification, but not from Eric Thorn. Not from anyone she knew. Her eyes narrowed as she read the unfamiliar username:

  Eric @TheRealEricT

  @TessaHeartsEric Follow back please?

  The sight of it made Tessa’s mouth go dry. It was one of those weird Eric Thorn impersonator accounts that popped up from time to time.

  @ErricThorn…@ErickThorne…@EricThornOfficial…

  Tessa seemed to be the only one who found them disturbing—fan accounts pretending to belong to Eric Thorn himself. Some of the more gullible fans actually believed in them. “Maybe Eric really has a second account,” they’d suggest to one another. “Maybe he secretly tweets with all of us, all the time.” They fangirled up a storm whenever @ErickThorne retweeted one of them, and Tessa could never quite tell if they were kidding.

  Eric (@TheRealEricT) was proving to be a real pest. He’d just tweeted at her two more times.

  Eric @TheRealEricT

  @TessaHeartsEric Follow for follow?

  Eric @TheRealEricT

  @TessaHeartsEric Why don’t you follow back? I’m asking you nicely.…

  Why did this account keep hassling her? Could it be someone she knew? It couldn’t be Scott spying on her, could it? Or even Dr. Regan? She’d told her therapist about her Twitter account this morning. But Dr. Regan wouldn’t… Tessa dismissed the thought with a shake of her head. She’d obviously been watching too much Catfish on MTV. It was probably the second account of some other Twitter friend, some Eric Thorn fan that she already followed. She should keep an open mind. She didn’t hit Follow, but she tweeted in reply:

  Tessa H @TessaHeartsEric

  Do I know you, @TheRealEricT? Who are you?

  The answer that came back only unnerved her more:

  Eric @TheRealEricT

  @TessaHeartsEric Who do you think, dummy? I’m Eric! And I’m getting really pissed that you won’t follow me back.

  Pissed? The word hit Tessa like a slap. This was no friend. Why did Twitter bring out the worst in some people? This was what she got for trying to open herself up to strangers. No wonder she had an anxiety disorder.

  Ignore it, Tessa commanded herself, feeling her stomach knot. She pulled in a long, slow breath and held it deep in her lungs, reciting the usual mantra inside her head.

  Eric one…Eric two…Eric three…Eric Thorn…Eric five…

  Better. See? Everything was fine. Tessa navigated to the mute option. She wouldn’t let one creep-o cyberbully chase her off Twitter. If this account ever tweeted at her again, she wouldn’t have to see a single trace of it.

  Tessa’s finger shook slightly as she input one last tweet.

  Tessa H @TessaHeartsEric

  @TheRealEricT I don’t appreciate your tone. Go bother someone else, please. Bye.

  With that, Tessa tossed the phone onto her bedspread. So much for social interaction. She didn’t feel like journaling about it either. Right now, she needed something mindless to distract herself from the nervous tension bubbling around in her chest.

  Her eyes wandered to the small TV she kept on top of her dresser. Maybe some morning talk shows would do the trick. She reclined against the pillows and reached for the remote control as another notifi
cation lit up her cell phone’s screen:

  @EricLove333, @ThornAddict98, and 173 others just retweeted a photo

  Tessa sat up straight again. A hundred and seventy-five retweets? That must be something new. Normally only a tweet from Eric himself would spread so quickly among the users she followed. But it couldn’t have come from him. She had her account set up to notify her instantly every time he tweeted. What, then?

  She swiped her thumb eagerly. Not another message from Eric, but from his biggest fan:

  Mrs. Eric Thorn.

  Of course it would be @MrsEricThorn, or MET as everyone in the fandom referred to her. The girl never slept and somehow discovered every Eric Thorn–related tidbit five minutes before the rest of the pack. She’d started following Eric back in his lowly YouTube days, and she’d maintained her status as queen bee of the fandom ever since. These days, her follower count stood just north of 500K. No one knew much about her—not even her real first name—but that didn’t stop the whispered rumors from spreading among the other fan accounts: she must have gotten inside information from somewhere. Maybe even from Eric himself. He’d followed her for a while now, and MET sometimes hinted at a secret message exchange, although she always added a wink emoji for punctuation.

  Tessa didn’t know what to believe. It would certainly explain how the girl knew so much. She’d been tweeting up a storm just last night about trying to meet Eric at his hotel. Had she succeeded? Tweeted a selfie of herself and her Twitter husband, arm in arm?

  Tessa let out a startled gasp as her eyes skimmed across the tweet:

  MET @MrsEricThorn

  WHYYY IS THIS SO HOT???? #EricThornObsessed

  And then that picture… Tessa knew she’d never seen it before. She wouldn’t have forgotten an image like that.

  She hit Retweet as a matter of course and then switched to her timeline to read what all the other fans had to say. Everyone was online right now and buzzing—and no wonder. First the follow spree. Then the second tweet. And now this picture surfacing out of the blue like a gift from above.