Page 51 of Beneath the Fame

No referral hadeverfelt like a better choice to me, and I was feeling good.

Especially since Chloe had put someone in place to handle the social media, which meant I didn’t even have to post. She assured me that whoever she hired had my voice down pretty well, enough for her to post in a way that for my followers, read organically.

When I got into my app, the first thing that I noticed was a high-definition clip from the most recent episode ofKinfolk, which had just aired the night before.

Posted tomypage.

It was one of my clips with Alec, which briefly concerned me—my personal thought was, keep far away from the “scandal,” but…maybe it was better to just put the chemistry in everybody’s face, since it was out there anyway. I didn’t even read the caption, my eyes went to the comments almost immediately.

It was like a damn sickness, seriously.

Very quickly, I realized why Chloe had sent me to look at social media.

The comments weren’t even close to the sort of abusive, nasty things that had driven me away. For the most part, they were kind of…glowing.

Probably being heavily moderated, but still.

Yes, there were a couple that were kind of shitty, stuff like:

“These comments are giving her a lot for passable acting.”

“Wow! Y’all are really gassing her up for not being completely terrible. The bar is in hell.”

My guess was, whoever was moderating was leaving those there for some balance, so an accusation of “only wanting to hear positive comments” couldn’t be levied. But even those negative ones were easy to brush off whenmostof the comments were along the lines of:

“Oh she brought her good acting with her this day. It’s giving Emmys.”

“Okay just from this clip I see I need to watch this! Somebody tell me where this show is streaming please!”

“Not me watching this at work about to cry! Vanity please, you gone have to shake some ass or something girl and relieve my spirits!”

I laughed at that one.

As much as I’d beensooverly concerned with the possibility of typecasting, hoping people wouldn’t be like, “Can you go back to talking about your pussy?” this comment didn’t feel like that.

She was a fan of the music mostly but appreciated the acting too.

And I just appreciated the support either way.

“Do you see why I sent you to look?” Chloe asked, reminding me that there was an open call on the line.

“Oh, shit.” I laughed. “Yes, I do. Thank you. I didn’t even realize I needed this.”

“Glad I could send a little light your way. Talk to you later.”

We hung up shortly after—no reason to linger. And I didn’t linger on social media either. The longer I poked around, the more chances there were that somebody would get weird, and I didn’t need that energy.

Not today.

Today…Charlotte and I were going to have a meeting.

As much as the thought twisted my stomach in knots, Alec had spent too much time hyping me up for me to back out now. Not to mention, I’dtold herthere was a script, and even already sent it to her.

She wanted to go over it today.

So…that’s what we were doing.

What I was supposed to be doing.

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