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“I understand perfectly,” she says. “You aren’t my only public-facing client.

While we are throwing out disclaimers, I should tell you that, as far as I am concerned, you are a blank slate.

I don’t really enjoy Hollywood gossip and, even if I did, I wouldn’t base any of my impressions on it.

I won’t consider any facts that you, yourself, don’t tell me.

Your career, your relationships, et cetera.

I don’t know you, and I’ll do you the courtesy of remembering that. ”

“Thank you,” you say, meaning it.

“What brings you to my office?” she asks. “I see that you have been under the care of Dr. Okoru back in Nashville for a few years. Have you stopped seeing him?”

You shake your head. “Love Dr. O. He’s the best. But he’s my maintenance therapist. I wanted someone to help me deal with my current problems. They’re different from what I normally encounter.”

She arches an eyebrow. “You have a maintenance therapist?”

“You don’t? I thought all therapists have therapists.”

She huffs out something close to a laugh. “I do, actually. I just don’t use that terminology. That’s a new one for me. Give me just a minute, and we can get talking.”

She picks up an iPad from a low table by her chair and skims the screen.

Her doing so affords you the opportunity to look around her office.

You’ve been seeing psychologists pretty much continually since adolescence, and you recognize the look she’s cultivating here: dark academia.

It’s sunlit between the wooden slats of floor-to-ceiling blinds, illuminating the navy walls and dark furniture.

There’s a lot of greenery: succulents in round copper pots, hanging ferns, and a thriving monstera in the corner.

Outside, the cityscape of Manhattan rises around you, other tall buildings like the one in which you sit.

The room is cozy and welcoming, which you realize is probably deliberate.

Jordan, your security guy, is on the couch in the anteroom with Blair’s receptionist and a well-thumbed copy of Travel + Leisure.

He’s holding your phone so that you don’t get tempted to check it.

There’s an old-looking wooden model of a human brain on the bookshelf, and your indomitable inner 12-year-old boy itches to take it down and pull the carved lobes apart to see the insides.

“I noticed on your intake form that you are having professional stress,” Blair comments, dragging your attention back to the here and now. “There have been some unwanted and undeserved slights against your reputation, yes?”

You want to groan at just how big an understatement that is. “That’s true, yeah.”

“Would you like to give me a quick overview of what’s going on?”

She said quick , which the story is not. But you do your best to summarize the GoGo situation, including your friendship with Gabi, the blow-up at the restaurant with the photographer, and Kai’s scene in the locker room, all of which led to GoGo’s lies.

“The press can be vehement,” she says, by way of summary. “Cancel culture derived from a well-meaning place, but I personally find that fans can be quick to turn on their idols. And, with all due respect, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. What impacts have you felt on your career?”

“My latest album is doing well,” you say.

“But, in a sick way, maybe it would be better if it tanked. The more success I have, the bigger the reaction from the people who want to tear me down. My team is holding meetings almost every day and reviewing the latest crop of hashtags, think pieces, and reports from social listening services. It’s enough to drive me insane watching the world start to hate me in real time. ”

As you were speaking, Blair was making quick, silent notes on her tablet. She looks up at you. “What’s social listening?” she asks. “I’m not familiar with that term.”

You wave your hand vaguely. “It’s a PR thing.

These services crawl social media sites.

Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, Reddit, whatever.

They get hits based on certain keywords, like my name, or ‘Graylings,’ or ‘Goalposts Tour.’ You get the point.

As I was made to understand it, they categorize all the hits into positive, negative, or neutral baskets, and quantify data based on it. ”

Blair tilts her head. “So all those pop culture stan wars actually come to something significant? I imagine there’s a battalion of teenage girls who would be absolutely thrilled to hear that.”

Hearing the phrase stan wars come from your well-heeled therapist is disconcerting, to say the least, but you don’t disagree with her assessment.

“My fans are angry,” you sigh. “I don’t know why GoGo is inherently more credible than I am, especially to people who claim to love my music, but it’s the worst. Having that many passionate fans can be a lot, even when they are hanging on your every word and showering you with praise and hero worship.

When a bunch of those people turn on you?

You realize just how many of them there are. ”

She nods. Taps her fingers against the armrest of her seat thoughtfully.

“Are you safe?” she asks. “I saw your bodyguard out there.”

You bark out a laugh. “Yeah. I didn’t go many places without my security team before, but it’s 24/7 now.

There haven’t been any threats. Well, let me rephrase that—there have been plenty of threats, but nothing credible.

I’m really glad the tour is over. I think about having that many people under the roof of one stadium, and it kind of activates every single one of my worst fears. ”

“What kinds of things are you afraid of?” she asks. It’s a very stereotypical therapist question, you think, but you admire the way she slipped it so seamlessly into the conversation.

“Terrorism,” you blurt out, because it’s close to what you just touched on. “Gunshots in big audiences. Crowd-crush events.”

“Pandemonium,” she summarizes. “You worry about the bad things that can happen involving immense groups of people, and how those situations can quickly go wrong.”

You have a hangnail. You shouldn’t pull at it, but you find yourself thumbing at the ragged edge. A precursor to hurting yourself. “Oh, I worry about small groups and isolated people, too. Stalkers. Murderers. People with an axe to grind.”

“And there’s a lot more people with axes to grind right now.” Blair nods. “How would you say that you are handling things mentally? What measures are you taking to help yourself with stress?”

Mentally, you tick down the list before you read it out loud. “I do yoga,” you say. “I try to journal, but I’m forever forgetting my notebooks in other states. Talking to my loved ones is great. I’m really close with my parents and my sister. My partner, too. His name is Kaius. He’s the best.”

“Tell me about Kaius,” she instructs you. “Is he famous as well?”

This part strains your suspension of disbelief a little bit. You appreciate that Blair is trying to treat you like a normal person, but there’s simply no way that she doesn’t know who you are dating unless she’s been living under a rock.

“He’s a professional football player,” you say, instead of calling her out. “He plays for Miami.”

“Mmm, Florida,” she hums, making her notes. “You guys do the long-distance thing?”

You laugh a little before you can help it. “I have a private jet,” you tell her. “It’s insane levels of privilege, but it also means nothing’s ever really long-distance in the normal sense of the word.”

“How is Kaius coping with the increased stress and scrutiny?” she asks. “Is he also having his image affected by the situation with…”

“GoGo,” you speak up. Not for the first time, you absolutely loathe what a stupid fucking nickname the man chose to embrace.

“GoGo,” she repeats. To her credit, she only wrinkles her nose a little. “What does Kaius think?”

That makes you sigh. “Oh, Kai thinks he’s a jackass,” you say.

“Always did, even before.” For whatever reason, you hold off on mentioning the ultimatum that got GoGo cut from the team.

Even in the safe confines of a therapist’s office, it’s not your secret to share.

“Thankfully, his rep is doing okay. He’s really being acknowledged as a star on the Cyclones.

It’s good to see him getting the acknowledgement he deserves. ”

Blair looks up. There’s the ghost of a smile tugging at her mouth. It’s faint, but it’s there.

“You should see the way you light up when you talk about him,” she comments. “Have you two been together long?”

“Just over a year.”

“Sometimes,” she tells you, “getting through impossible situations like this is a day-to-day thing. I’d encourage you to lean on the people and things that make you feel stable and remind you of who you are.

Not a superstar in a poster on a wall. A person with feelings.

Someone that you don’t mind being around.

It sounds like Kai and your family are who you can count on to get you there. ”

“I don’t have the luxury of being around my inner circle all the time,” you say. “Most days, I’m in meetings, or working on projects. Sometimes with people that get under my skin. What do you recommend in those situations?”

“Deep breathing is an underrated tool,” she replies.

“Personally, I’m a fan of mindfulness. If you can center yourself in the present moment without judgment, you can stop a lot of runaway thoughts.

It’s a muscle, though. You have to get it stronger, or it won’t work for you.

Would you say that you are willing to work hard to get the things you want? ”

You frown. “You have no idea,” you say.