Page 135 of What I Like About You

Grams is probably second-guessing my publicity career right about now. Honestly, so am I.

Publicists are supposed tofixproblems, notcausethem.

Photos spread through the YA Twitterverse like wildfire, and not of the cupcake variety.

Kels and Nash have gone viral. Online, our friendship is no secret. We comment on each other’s content, retweet posts, and chat in public Twitter threads. So the entire YA online community and REX fandom are kind of losing their minds reposting the photographic evidence ofus—Kels and Nash—together. One follower proclaimed in a REX subreddit that Nash and I are an OTP.

The photo is hideous, it is everywhere, and we’re both caught in the hype.

Curled up on the couch with Scout, I open Twitter on my laptop. I know it’s a bad idea. I’ll spiral down the rabbit hole, into this alternate universe where Kels and Nash are together and thebook world is justhappy. This is the last place I should be right now. But I have to—

Nash Stevens@Nash_Stevens27 23min

Blindsided

I click on Nash’s page. The grayFOLLOWS YOUbanner is not next to his handle anymore. He’s hurt. He’s making a statement. Calling out the lie in the photo. Everything is about to get so much worse. Nothing is private anymore. Not who I am. Not who I love. Nothing.

I click on the tweet.

Sophie@unicornbooks 21min

wait. so you’re NOT with @OneTruePastry? what did she do?!

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Olivia Brooke@livlaughlove333 15 min

are we cancelling Kels? cupcakes are overrated!!

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Lilah Montgomery@lilahrose424 12 min

Why are we assuming this is KELS’S fault?

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Deja Louis@dejavuwho 8min

#cancelonetruepastry

That’s only the beginning. People are taking sides. Over a one-word tweet.

Sometimes, I really hate Twitter.

“Stop.” Ollie sits next to me, closes my laptop, and swipes it from my grasp.

“Give it,” I say.

“Nope. Not happening.”

I reach for my phone on the side table andsurprise, it’s not there.

“Oliver.”

He shakes his head.Nope. Gramps passes through the living room on his way to the kitchen and Ollie throws my phone to him, almost like the intervention was choreographed. Gramps catches my phone and slips it into his back pocket. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even stop walking.

Gramps knows the Nash situation and it’s the most embarrassing part of our relationship. When Nash left me on the park bench around the corner from Central Square Books, I don’t even remember how I got back to the hotel. Idoremember Ollie and Gramps returning from their baseball game, high on the Red Sox’s victory, only to find me curled up in bed, hysterical. It really freaked Gramps out, I think. He tried to talk to me, but I went mute. I didn’t speak, not one word, the entire ride home to Middleton.

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