An Article

The wall of text stared back at me as I tried to understand it. They were codes I’d written before the holiday period, but now I couldn’t understand even a single bit of how they worked. Reading and rereading the same five lines over and over again made me feel like I got dumber all of a sudden.

My poor brain was still stuck in holiday mode, and shaking it off seemed to be harder than I’d anticipated. Did I go through this last year as well? I would like to say no, but I had no way of knowing; the memory of my time working came and went like the money I got from the job.

I threw myself to the backrest, took off my glasses and rubbed the bridge between my eyes as I let out a groan in an attempt to refresh my mind. That helped a bit, but wasn’t enough to make the headache go away. I then put my glasses back on, and my eyes landed on a certain item on my desk.

It was a room spray, a Christmas gift from Rachel.

It was a spray that used to dispel bad odor from the room, replacing it with a scent of jasmine and orange blossom, as written on the label. It came in a short black bottle, each word written in gold; a simple yet luxurious design that made me afraid of wasting it, so I left it there on my computer desk, collecting dust as I went on a vacation to Florence.

Since Rachel’d gotten it for me, it would be a waste not to use it. I grabbed it and gave it a click, releasing a light and pleasant mixture of jasmine and orange blossom scent into the room.

Smelling it calmed my mind a little. I thanked Rachel in my mind before I shook my head and returned to my work with renewed energy. Only to be interrupted by the sound of my phone’s notification, causing me to instinctively pick it up immediately.

Kayle sent me a message. It was some kind of news article. I tapped it open to see what it was about.

“Rachel Glintwood’s blooming romance is with a woman!?”

Reading the title almost made my heart stop beating for a second. I sat up straight and focused on the article.

The article, as written in the title, talked about Rachel’s romance. It stated that throughout her life, blah blah blah, never shown interest in romance, blah blah blah, leaving her love life a mystery to her fans, blah blah blah.

I skimmed through the filler paragraph until I found the meat in the soup. It stated: “Photos are circulating online of Rachel seemingly on a date with another woman as they walked through the parking space hand in hand, and even kissed in one of the photos.”

I swiped down to see the evidence. It was a bunch of blurry photos, taken from afar using a common smartphone’s camera, as stated by the article.

In it were two women, one blond-haired, another brown-haired, holding hands as they walked through the motorcycle parking area. Another photo showed them talking among themselves, and another showed them kissing, with one’s arms wrapped around another one’s neck and all.

I wanted to call it a nonsensical article with a clickbaity title that used photos of Rachel’s look-alike, but seeing the clothes those two women were wearing and that pastel blue scooter in the photos, I couldn’t deny it. That was me and Rachel in the photos.

It might be hard to identify her due to the photos’ low quality, but in one of the shots, her face was shown clearly, smiling as she was talking to me.

And as for me, it wasn’t as clear because most of my face was covered by the scarf, the glasses and the beanie, leaving my butter-blonde hair and the fact that I was shorter than her to be the only two sources of physical identification.

Right, my face was covered by my scarf, my glasses, and her beanie. Her beanie! Rachel’d given me her mittens and her beanie because I was cold! So did that mean the fan happened to recognize her after she took off her beanie to give it to me, and saw us kissing? Did that mean that all of this was...

“Isn’t that you?” Kayle asked.

I didn’t answer her and shut my phone’s screen. I sank into my chair and covered my face, heart beating out of my chest.

Someone saw us, and now everyone knew about us.

This article was a small spark that would soon turn into a huge flame, no doubt. Rachel’d always been famous. News about her would guarantee a large number of clicks. And with this article talking about her “hidden romance”, provided with evidence, would soon become an unavoidable topic that brought eyes on her, whether she liked it or not.

‘What now... What’s going to happen now? What do I do?’

I took a deep breath and reached for my water bottle, but it was empty, so I headed to the kitchen to refill my water bottle.

When I got there, Mom was making tea in the kitchen. She heard me step in and turned her attention towards me. I ran back to my room the moment her mouth started to open, no words of hers entered my ear.

‘Did Mom see the article? Does she know about what I did?’

I shut the door and slumped down onto the floor.

I pulled out my phone and opened Rachel’s chat. Staring at her profile picture, I wondered what I should tell her. Someone saw us? There was an article about us? I had no idea. I didn’t even know if I should tell her or not. It was my fault that this happened to begin with. What if she blamed me for it?

If only I’d rejected her when she offered her beanie, they wouldn’t have been able to recognize her. If only I hadn’t kissed her for so long, they wouldn’t have had the time to take photos of us.

Because of me, there would be a scandal about Rachel. All because of me... I turned off my phone and buried my head in my arms.

What would happen now? I’m sure that article would start a new wave of paparazzi that would follow her around to confirm the truth about her sexual orientation. And if they saw me with her, they might notice that I was the same person from the article that sparked this frenzy.

What would happen to Rachel? Would she be forced to make a statement about the whole situation? That we were doing it to practice a scene and that we weren’t in that kind of relationship. And even if she denied it, would they still think that she was a lesbian? Surely that was the most likely case. In the world of celebrities, once someone was labeled, that label would stay even when it’d been refuted. Would there be less work coming her way because of that label?

And what would happen to me? Would I be discovered because of those photos? The chances were low but never zero; I was sure that someone was trying to find me at this moment. If I got identified, would I be followed around by paparazzi, trying to get more information about her and the relationship between us? Would her parents and her uncle ban me from coming close to her because there was a risk in being seen with me? Would her fans condemn me for going after her? A worthless nobody dared yearn for a touch of the brightest star. They would be mad at me for being the cause of all this mess. What if they tried to hurt me because of that?

Ding!

The sound of my phone’s notification brought me back to reality. Kayle sent me another message, but I didn’t want to read it.

Now that I’d been brought back to my senses, I realized that this wasn’t the time for me to mope around. I should find the best action I could take in this situation. First, I should absolutely put some distance away from Rachel since there would be people following her because of that article.

But then what? If Rachel didn’t make a statement about the situation, the flame would surely die down as time went on. But what if she got on an interview and they forced that subject onto her? She didn’t have to answer it, obviously. ...But what if she did? Would confirming it be good or bad for her? Would it be good or bad for us?

Ding!

Another message from Kayle. I shut my phone off completely this time.

‘No... I’m getting anxious again...’ The sigh I left out was shaky. I didn’t want to look up and face the world right now.

My mind raced to find a solution, but nothing came out as a result of my long deliberation. All that I knew right now was to create distance away from her and clear things out on my end.

Dealing with the press by myself would bring needless problems not only to me but to Rachel as well. My mom, my dad, Kayle; they weren’t the type to gossip, so I was sure that they wouldn’t tattle to the press.

‘Wait, right... Kayle’d asked me about that photo, didn’t she...’

I sighed for god knows how many times.

Knowing what I had to do didn’t mean I wanted to do it. Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t be mad that I took my time to answer her question; we’ve known each other for so long that she was probably used to me not answering her immediately.

And so for the time being, I forced myself back to work because that was the easiest thing to do at the moment.