Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 30 of 78

The candle smoke still hung over the piano when Kylie's phone buzzed a fourth time. The song was out. Two days early. She had promised Arianna a private week on this ship, and a stranger's video had ended it. Now the label had the story, and her mother had questions, and neither of them knew Arianna the way Kylie did. If Kylie stayed silent, someone else would decide what Arianna was to the world. "I have to call my mom," Kylie said. "Right now. Before the label writes the story for us." Arianna touched her arm. "You promised no plans without me." "Then help me make this one," Kylie said. "Fast." They left the lounge and climbed to the top deck. The colorful hull dropped away below them, gold trim shining in the dark. Kylie found a quiet corner behind a lifeboat. She put the phone on speaker so Arianna could hear every word. Her mother answered on the first ring. "The video has two million views. The label wants a statement drafted by morning. They're calling her a mystery duet partner. Kylie, they'll invent a name and a story if you don't give them one." Kylie looked at Arianna. This was the part she used to decide alone. She didn't. "What do you want them to say?" she asked Arianna. Arianna thought. "The truth. I wrote the second verse. My name. And that we're together." Kylie's chest tightened. Going public meant no more decoy photos, no more hiding. But she had given Arianna a key and a necklace already. This was just the last locked door. "Mom," Kylie said. "Her name is Arianna Smith. She's my girlfriend. She co-wrote the song. We release that ourselves, today, in our own words. Not the label's." The line went quiet. Then her mother exhaled. "You're sure. Both of you." "Yes," Arianna said, leaning toward the phone. "Then send me one sentence," her mother said. "I'll hold the label off until it posts. After that, I can't control what comes." Kylie typed while Arianna watched. She read it aloud. "We wrote this song together over a year. Arianna Smith is my girlfriend and my co-writer. That's the whole story." Arianna nodded. Kylie hit send to her mother. They stood at the rail and refreshed the screen. Minutes passed. Then the post went live under Kylie's own name. The comments started fast, thousands of them, faces and names Kylie couldn't sort. The story was theirs now. No one could rename it. But the next message was not from her mother or the label. It was a reply to the post, three words, from an account Kylie knew too well. Malia. "We need to talk." Kylie stared at the name. She had put her real life in front of the world, and the one person who had broken it before had just walked back through the open door.