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“Yeah.”

“Not ideal, but I guessed there would be at some point.” There was a photography ban inside, but out on the red carpet, the media were free to release what they wanted.

“Yeah, um, it’s not so much the photos, but what they said. I mean, it’s not bad, it’s just. I wanted to check and make sure you were doing alright. The media can be such assholes sometimes.”

My hands shake as I put her on loudspeaker and bring up the internet. It doesn’t take long to find the first photo of Zachand me. He’s leaning down to kiss my neck as we get out of the limo. But it’s not the photo that makes me want to hurl—it’s the caption above.

“Zach Evans’s new girlfriend: cute, but not his usual type.”

I keep scrolling to another that reads: “Who wore it best?” Underneath, there’s a side-by-side shot of me and Amie taken at different points in the evening but stitched together. The comments underneath all discuss who’s hotter, who’s prettier. Some say Amie is a “whore,” and my stomach wretches once more when I read some comments talking about me being the exact opposite of what Zach would go for. Some also claim I’m a “rebound.”

The tears start up again as they spill over my eyes and down my cheeks.

Iknewthis would happen. IknewI’d be compared to her. IknewI’d be thrust into the limelight and picked apart like some fucking object.

“Babe? Are you still there?” Felicity’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts.

“Hmm? Yeah, yeah, I—I’m still here.”

“You’re scrolling through them right now, aren’t you?”

“No.” I lie.

“You are, and I know you are because I’d be doing the same. The thing is though, that’s what they want. That’s what they do. They say hurtful or contentious things to grab the headlines, to get people talking and commenting. It’s all just clickbait, and it has no truth to it.”

“It kind of does though.”

“Does what?”

“Has some truth. I’m not his type.” I turn the screen on my phone so I can get a better look at one of the pictures. “Amie is everything Zach goes for—tall, blonde, slim, even after a baby, long hair, blue eyes.”

“You missed the part where she’s a crazy bitch.”

I huff out a pathetic laugh. “That doesn’t matter to the media though. It’s all skin de?—”

I throw a hand over my mouth as a realization hits me. Throwing the door open on my car, the bile rising in my throat, I wonder if I am going to puke.

“Luna, are you still there?” Felicity shouts down the phone.

“School.” One word is all I can manage.

“Babe, you’re worrying me. What about it?”

“I never thought this through. The pictures, they’re all over the internet. My kids live on the internet; every day, they’re on social media. They will have seen the whole thing.” Humiliation rips through me.

“Luna, you’ve done nothing wrong.”

My phone starts beeping with an incoming call from Zach. I’m in no state to answer it, but I know he’ll just keep panicking and calling until I do.

“Zach’s calling me again.”

“Take it but call me straight back—I need to know you’re okay.”

I disconnect one and answer the other. “Hello.”

“Oh, thank fuck. I’ve been going crazy. Why didn’t you call me back.”

“Because I had my head up my ass and my phone in airplane mode for hours,” I snap, immediately regretting my tone. He doesn’t deserve that.