Page 27 of Not How I Saw That Going

“What? I don’t want a tic tac account,” I protest, trying to grab my phone back.

“It’s not a tic tac,” she laughs, tapping rapidly on the screen.

“Yay! A tic tac!” Crew yells, leaping from one sofa to the other.

I point a finger at him to get down and, by some miracle, it works. I look pointedly at Maddie. “See?”

“Fine, it’s a tic tac.” Maddie rolls her eyes and continues typing away on my phone.

She has probably already set me up with an account and seven hundred followers. I’m sure that’s not how it works, but I’m also positive it’s much more involved with social media than I want to be. I have a Facebook account, like an old person. But I don’t use my real name, or post pictures of Crew, just in case.

“Okay, stand up. Let’s practice,” Maddie commands.

“But life is so much more beautiful from a seated position.” I groan but haul my butt out of my chair anyway. I wanted to change, and she’s only trying to help me. Not sure how this will benefit me, but surely Maddie knows what she’s talking about. She’s almost a lawyer, after all, and has always had her head on straight. She’s the daughter my mom would have loved to have. “I’m not twerking though.”

“Oh, please don’t,” Maddie laughs.

I lunge at her, but she jumps away.

“Maybe you could if you had my Brazilian hips,” she taunts, doing a little cha-cha.

“If I had your hips, I’d be a single mom withfivekids.”

“Ooh, I found the one I want,” Maddie says, and comes over to me with the phone in hand. The two girls on the screen aren’t even dancing, they’re just waving their arms in the air. Is this the kind of dancing kids do now? It’s a lot safer than the kind of dancing I used to do.

Which explains my current situation.

Twenty minutes later, I mostly have all the right—and completely ridiculous movements—down.

“Ready?” Maddie’s finger hovers over the record button.

“I’m ready to go home.”

“That’s too bad. I don’t care.”

“You’ll be a great wife someday,” I grumble.Or a great dictator.

It takes us no less than fifty tries to record a video Maddie deems adequate. By the time I’m done, I’m sweating. Profusely. I should add more cardio to my nonexistent exercise routine.

Imagine how in shape I’d be if I got tic tac famous?

Maddie spends an additional twenty minutes editing the video to perfection. Then she holds out the phone to me.

“Do you want to push the share button?”

It all seems a little anticlimactic. Unless something happens when you push the button. Maybe an applause or some cash. I could go for a few…thousand fifties.

“Sure.” I hit the button. Nothing. “I think it’s broken.”

“No, it’s just loading to the main page.”

Great.This feels like a bad idea. “Crew, time to go,” I call to him in the living room, where he’s taking every DVD out of Maddie’s TV stand and using them as frisbees.

Maddie looks over and growls at him. He takes off running and my very prim and proper best friend chases him around the house like she’s a monster.

I smile and grab my purse, searching for my keys. I find three fruit snack wrappers, an open tampon—cool—and a Lego man.

An envelope slips out of my purse. It barely makes a sound as it hits the floor, but somehow I feel the aftershocks throughout my body. I freeze, staring at the name on the outside in familiar handwriting with the stamp from the post office, forwarding it from my last apartment.