Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 42 of 78

The room upstairs was Arianna's now. But downstairs, on Kylie's phone, another woman kept knocking. Kylie sat by the tall window with the lace curtains, the night black beyond the glass. She scrolled her joint post one more time. Under every photo, the same name showed up again. Malia. Kylie had betrayed Kylie once, slept with her boyfriend for six months. Now she left comments. "So happy for you." "Call me." "We should talk." Each one dragged Kylie's old wound back into the new life she was building. Arianna came down with the little Yorkshire puppy tucked in her arm, the red bow crooked in its silky coat. "You're still looking at it," Arianna said. "You promised you'd stop." Kylie set the phone face down. "She keeps posting. Every fan sees it. They think I'm still talking to her." "Then answer her," Arianna said. "Or block her. Pick one." The puppy squirmed. Arianna set it on the floor, and it gave one tiny fearless bark at the dark window. "You keep leaving it open. That's a choice too." Kylie knew she was right. For weeks she had let the comments sit, half hoping Malia would stop on her own. She hadn't. Every silence Malia read as a door still cracked. Kylie flipped the phone back over. She opened the newest comment. Her thumb hovered. She could reply soft and private, the way she used to. Instead she typed where everyone could read it. "I said what I needed to say at the dock. I meant it. Please stop commenting on my life. This isn't for you." She read it twice. Then she posted it. Her heart pounded. She tapped Malia's name and pressed block. The account vanished from her thread. No more knocking. Kylie let out a breath she'd held for weeks. "Done?" Arianna asked. "Done," Kylie said. She showed her the screen. The comment was public now, out where reporters and fans would find it by morning. There was no walking it back. She had shut the door with her name on it, in front of everyone. The puppy trotted over and pawed at Kylie's shin. She lifted it into her lap and fixed the little bow. "She'll turn it into a story," Kylie said. "A headline. Poor Malia, cast out." "Maybe," Arianna said. "But it's your story now, not hers." Kylie looked out the window at the dark houses below. For a year she had chased one thing: to meet the girl who wrote her letters and give her a real chance. Malia's noise had kept pulling her backward. Now the noise was gone. The phone stayed quiet in her hand. Then it buzzed. Her mother's name. "The label saw your comment," the message read. "They want a statement before this trends. Call me." Kylie stared at it. She had closed one door and opened another.