Follow Me(9)

I couldn’t blame her for asking. She had almost no audience while I had over a million followers. But it had taken years of hard work to cultivate that following, and I wasn’t about to entrust it to someone as careless as Hannah. A woman has to zealously protect her brand.

I hadn’t always been so meticulous about what I posted. Like every other basic white girl on the planet, I’d started a blog in the late 2000s with a free WordPress template and very little to say. I wrote terrible poetry and posted memes and thinly veiled gossip columns about my friends. (Lavender slept with yet another member of the worst fraternity on campus, I wrote, as though Jasmine wouldn’t be able to tell that her code name was “Lavender” or for that matter that she had been the one sleeping with the terrible guy.) Despite being a shameless scandalmonger, I never lost any friends over it—almost certainly because no one was reading that blog. I had, like, two unique visits per day. I was essentially shouting into a black hole.

Then I moved to New York and started copying some of the more popular lifestyle bloggers. I splurged on a fancy camera and began posting “outfits of the day” and photos of my “meals” (in reality I only posted about 30 percent of what I actually ate, since the rest was popcorn and cheap wine). For more than a year, I posted diligently and received no engagement. I was discouraged, but it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. I stopped posting the things I thought I was supposed to post, and instead started posting the things I wanted to post: bizarre art installations, thrift store finds, my favorite hole-in-the-wall dim sum place.

And then I met Elle Nguyen, a top-tier fashion blogger, at the art gallery where I worked. We bonded over a series of mixed-media sculptures and our disdain for a particular D-list blogger who posted nothing but sponsored content. Elle took me under her wing, and she gave me a primer on best blogging practices, introduced me to some of her contacts, and, most important, linked to my blog in one of her posts.

My readership exploded overnight. No one was flying me to Milan, but I suddenly had offers of representation from management companies and an inbox full of emails from brand reps who wanted to work with me. I seriously considered quitting my job and devoting all my effort to becoming a major influencer—those girls could rake in some serious cash—but the idea of writing glorified ad copy drained my soul, and I couldn’t bring myself to give up a steady paycheck. I still believed I’d made the right decision. I’d stayed true to my vision and developed the engaged, loyal following that I craved—all without having to resort to shilling personal care products, like a not-small percentage of my blog friends.

I took another pull from the bottle and snickered. Swilling wine atop a half-made bed was hardly aspirational, but that was the magic of the internet: my followers saw only what I wanted them to see.

I was answering comments on my latest post when my buzzer rang, a wholly unpleasant sound that called to mind a dying cat. I made a mental note to ask Leanne if anything could be done about it and turned back to my phone. After all, I wasn’t expecting anyone. Someone must have hit my buzzer by mistake.

Scraaaaape.

I paused, tilting my head toward the sound. Was someone opening the gate outside my door? Fear shot through me as I remembered Cat’s warning about the alley, and I glanced uneasily at the curtainless window. I wrapped one hand firmly around the neck of the wine bottle and grasped my phone—unlocked and ready to dial 911—in the other, and then I eased off the bed. Just as I stepped into the living room, the front door swung open. I was already raising my makeshift weapon when I recognized the intruder as my upstairs neighbor and landlady’s grandson.

“What the hell?” I demanded, letting my arm drop to my side. “Knock, remember?”

He blinked bloodshot eyes at me and glanced around my apartment. “I heard noises down here.”

“I don’t think so,” I said, moving to block him from entering.

He ignored me and strolled into the apartment, surveying my boxes and making his way to the kitchen.

“Hey,” I said, roughly setting the wine bottle down for emphasis. “You can’t just come in here uninvited.”

“I rang the bell,” he said as he reached one hand into the open tub of animal crackers on the counter.

“And I didn’t answer because I didn’t want guests. Or unwelcome neighbors.” I stuck out my hand. “Now give me your key to this door and show yourself out, or I’m going to call your grandmother.”

He smirked. “Hey, man, I’m just being neighborly. Checking on the new tenant and all. You’re the one who left your door unlocked.”

“Bullshit.”

“Let me give you some free advice,” he said, popping an animal cracker into his mouth. “That door and gate don’t lock automatically.”

Could that be true? I had never lived somewhere where doors didn’t lock behind me; it hadn’t occurred to me to manually secure them.

“You’re welcome,” he said, his eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. He put another animal cracker in his mouth and meandered toward the door. In the doorway, he turned around and gave me a toothy grin caked with partially chewed cracker. “Have a good night, neighbor.”

I shuddered. Creep. Determined not to show him how rattled I was, I made my face a stony mask and followed him out the front door. I yanked my iron gate firmly shut behind him, locked it, and gave it a good rattle to ensure it was secure.