Page 2 of Love at First Sighting

Aliens are so not my brand. I believe they’re real because the universe is too big for us to be the smartest things out there, but I did not expect them to come to Earth.

I did not expect them to follow me home from my photo shoot.

I know I’m hot and might be hearty stock for their intergalactic babies, but I didn’t think they’d pick me.

My brain plays an Instagram carousel of photos of what’s to come—little green men standing over my bed, probing, way too much chrome.

I have a meal delivery service and a snail face mask to promote by the end of the week.

I do not have time to get abducted by aliens right now.

“Holy shit,” I gasp as I stumble again. Dirt and rock shards dig into my palms. I scramble for the phone, the tripod, and the water bottle I’ve dropped.

As I grasp the bottle and the craft nears, I get an idea.

I hurl the aluminum water bottle into the air at full speed and hope my one season of softball in fifth grade prepared me for this.

It clangs hard against the metal, and I anticipate that maybe a laser beam will sear me in half, but instead, the craft wobbles.

Then it spins.

Then it crashes.

Then I realize that this Well bottle could definitely be used as a murder weapon.

The lights along the front flicker as they die, and sparks pop from the pile of sheer dark metal.

It looks like translucent scrap metal, but far thinner, far silkier.

It actually looks like the dress I wore to Corbin Bleu’s fragrance release party a few years ago.

The craft isn’t nearly as large as it first seemed.

The flashing lights and shimmering iridescence made it seem massive and unknowable.

I reckon maybe it’s the size of a golf cart, but lying crumpled and destroyed, it feels like much less of a threat.

I grab my phone and turn the camera back on myself as I move toward the crash.

In California, fire season has become a yearlong event, so I role-play my best Smokey Bear and scuttle down the side of the hill to the wreckage. Thankfully, the smoke has dissipated by the time I reach it.

“I don’t know what I just saw, you guys.

” I’m out of breath and my fitness watch tells me my heart is racing, as if I didn’t already know.

“I have no idea what just happened, but I hit it with my Well bottle and it crashed. It’s like…

busted, oh my god. Not only was it a lifesaver, but I’m glad I have my Well bottle here to… ”

I sprinkle water over the few sparking embers, to make it clear I am preventing a forest fire like a true friend of the environment.

There’s been debate after I almost got canceled for taking a private jet from LA to Coachella.

But that’s when I realize that even with the flash on, it’s near impossible to really see the iridescent, reflective sheet metal on camera.

I kick aside another piece of metal and it flips over. This time, it displays a serial number and product info. It’s stamped on, mostly smudged, but it could be enough to find the culprit.

“What does that say?”

The logo is a circle with three letters printed along the inside and three stars beneath each letter.

Property of PI…

I can’t make out the rest of it. But I take a screenshot of my live video anyway. If only I knew who to tag…

I’m breathing again. The craft is destroyed and I stopped a forest fire, but I still feel a sense of looming dread and adrenaline that’ll take hours to get rid of. Whatever this was, it could have killed me. I could have died in Spinx yoga pants.

And the brutal reality is that I’m not sure anyone would have cared. Or believed me.

“Guys,” I say into the camera. “I have no idea what just happened, and I doubt anybody is going to believe me, but I need to share this. And in case someone murders me on the walk back to my car, you’ll know what happened and where to find my body. Uh, peace and love. Bye?”

I end the stream and email the live video to myself, at two different email addresses for extra security. I once lost an entire vlog because I deleted the wrong video off my phone. Can’t let it happen with this.

I haul my ass back to my car. My hands hold steady on the wheel as I try to fight the shake of my fingers and the nauseous feeling in my gut.

I spend the drive focused only on the road but jump at every set of headlights that flashes behind me.

Each vibration or rattle my car makes sends me into a spiral.

It’s a miracle I make it back to the Hollywood Hills in one piece.

I am still full of dread as I pull up to the Bird’s Nest and park.

The Nest has been my home for the past two months and is meant to be temporary, so I haven’t fully unpacked and gotten comfortable yet.

The most lived-in part of my room is the corner with the best lighting, which I dubbed Content Corner.

It might be an ostentatious multimillion-dollar modern house located up in the Bird Streets of the Hills, but it’s still the closest thing I have to home at the moment.

As I pull into the driveway, I see Bex, our house leader, through the wide front windows filming a tea tasting.

I’m hoping I can avoid her en route to my room.

As I step out of my car, another whooshes past, sending a harsh gust of wind my way. I jump and scurry toward the door. Meanwhile, in my back pocket, my phone is buzzing off the hook.

Wtf is this shit

No one pays you to talk about your feelings

I would love to see this bitch deal with a flat tire on the side of the road

I guess it’s true—the pretty ones always die first in horror movies

Of course, there are more positive messages, too, but I know I’ve committed influencer crimes numbers two and three.

make it look effortless

stick with a cohesive color palette

always consider the brand

I trudge inside. The Bird’s Nest is horrifically white and open concept, with sprawling windows that overlook Los Angeles.

When Bex’s father, a wealthy real estate developer and owner of the property, struggled to sell it because the last owner died inside from a botched liposuction procedure, Bex concocted a simple plan—let some influencers live here to gain sponsorships and turn it into a cash cow like the Hype House.

Moving in felt like a wise business decision to grow my brand, and in my line of work, grasping any relevance or spotlight I can is always beneficial.

I got an in through a mutual sponsorship with How Glow Can You Go?

—a do-it-yourself spray tan kit. When I first moved in, I was living with two girls—Lea and Becca.

Lea has over ten million followers across several platforms and she makes bank becoming an expert on the crisis of the week.

She has a bachelor’s degree in photography, but her bio reads “Global Nuclear Relations Commentator” this week.

Last week, she was an “Anti-Crypto Environmentalist.”

And then, there’s…

“?’Bout time you made it back here!”

Two months ago, Becca was trying to break into the young Christian mom influencer circles for some reason.

But on account of having no kids and claiming no particular religion, it didn’t go so well.

So, she did what any wealthy influencer does when they’re in a crisis, and went to Europe.

She hopped on a plane to London and came back with a new brand and the most horrifically fake British accent I have ever heard, and insisted she was no longer Becca, but Bex.

Apparently, a few weeks experiencing another culture shifted her entire perspective, and her time in the UK made her feel seen.

Adopting the accent was inevitable when she heard it nonstop for three weeks.

She’s currently clad in a checkered skirt, a pair of Oxford shoes, and a Union Jack crop top and smells like her new signature scent.

It smells like Earl Grey tea, so I can’t complain, but she insists we call the tea “cuppa,” which I’d rather get canceled on the internet than do.

Time has yet to tell if the British gimmick is actually working for her.

If I had to pick two roommates to bring to Houdini House with me, I would take Lea twice just so I didn’t have to take Bex.

“We gotta ’ave a chat.”

“Right now?” I try to hide the fact that my hands are still shaking.

“What the bloody hell is this ?” Bex raises her phone, showing the glaring black void of my shared live video.

“Did you watch it?”

“Of fookin course I did. So did ’alf a million people. And ’alf a million people watched you throw a wobbly on the telly—”

“It was Instagram.”

“You know what I mean.” Bex’s overplucked eyebrows raise. I know her goal is to be as British as possible, but day by day, she’s morphing into a sixth Spice Girl named Desperate Spice. “If we’re going to keep sponsorships comin’ out our arse, we can’t have you acting off your trolley.”

I bite my lip. “Pretty sure that’s still ableist even if you say it as British slang.”

“You’re right, sorry. I can’t do two Notes app apologies in a month. But your profile looks like shite now. Are you even thinkin’ about your brand? You’re putting all our reputations on the line.”

I can’t stop thinking about my brand and all the ways I’m tarnishing it.

I’m breaking my own content rules, breaking the laws of Influencerdom.

This feels different from any of my other vulnerable posts.

For a girl with a picture-perfect life, I can’t let people know it’s not.

I can offer mild candid shots on a few select topics and reveal I get periods (only if I’m selling expensive au naturel menstrual products).

I have to confess my hair gets greasy in order to sell shampoo.

I post one makeup-less photo a month to prove I do have a face under all the sponsored foundations and blushes.

But I want everyone to see what happened tonight. I want them to see it more than my yoga pants photos or anything I’ve ever posted before.