Page 52

The chat freezes. Cookiedoes, too. There's silence as the stream comes to a halt with a black box and yellow, bold letters stating a simple fact.

THIS STREAM HAS ENDED

I'm forced out of the room. I blink a few times, try to re-enter, but Cookie Crumb's channel keeps giving me an error. Then I reload, and it simply vanishes entirely. Gone for good. All that madness culminating into... what?

My phone rings; I jump, spooked by the noise in my silent condo. “Hello?” I ask, answering without looking. I see myself in my window across the way, the ocean glowing from the light pollution of Santa Monica.

“Hey,” Paige says.

My body becomes solid as rebar. “Paige! Are you okay?”

“Cookie was banned,” she says, not answering my question. “Mikel... she was behind all of it.”

“I know,” I reply gently.

“Right, you were watching. I guess you know as much as me. I just... I can't believe it. She must have been following me around, taping me, abusing my trust, just so she could make me look like a terrible person and scoop up my fans.”

“And look how that worked out for her,” I spit.

There's some silence, then a very tired exhale. “It's against the terms of service for streamers to harass others. It's usually not enforced, but I guess when over a million people report someone, the admins can't ignore it.”

I gaze out the window, then put my hand on it. The glass is warm. I know Paige is warmer, and I ache to hold her. “What now?” I ask. “Will you go back to being Fawn?”

“No.”

My insides sicken at her fast answer.

She adds, “I promised to be honest. I meant it.” Her voice gets lighter, like she's smiling behind the phone. “I'll stream as Paige from now on.”

Leaning my forehead to the window, I shut my eyes and chuckle. “I'm glad to hear that.”

“Mikel?”

“Hm?”

“I'm sorry I avoided you. I thought you'd be angry at me for bringing this mess down on your head. All the work you put into your company, I just—I felt ashamed.”

I remember how she looked at me that day weeks ago... how her eyes shimmered with a dark pain, her fear of being a burden to me. “Paige,” I say, my voice making the glass vibrate against my skull, “Where are you right now?”

“At my mom's house in Orange County.”

“Will you give me the address?”

She laughs nervously. “Are you asking if you can meet my mom?”

“Yes,” I say, pushing off the glass, heading for my front door. “But there's something else.”

“What?”

“There's someone I want to take you to meet, too.”