Page 31 of The Beach Trap

During the little time I did sleep, I had a dream that might’ve been a memory. I was young, maybe nine or ten. I was coming back home after the beach when I heard my parents fighting out on the back porch. I stopped halfway up the stairs, out of sight, as they argued in hushed, angry voices.

I’m not sure how much of what I heard is influenced by what I know now, but I swear my mom said, “your whore” and “that illegitimate child.” I was terrified they’d turn their anger on me if they knew I’d overheard, so I ran off, hoping to run into CoCo or Junior. Instead, I ran into Henry, who was standing outside the convenience store his father owned.

He asked what was wrong, but I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t—my parents had a very strict rule about not airing dirty laundry. Henry didn’t push me to talk; he just said, “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” Then he disappeared into his father’s store, coming out a few minutes later with two Popsicles—a red one for me and a purple one for him.

We sat on the curb of the parking lot, eating our Popsicles and not talking. By the time we were left holding empty wooden sticks, I felt better. I thanked Henry and walked back to the beach house, where I found my dad watching baseball and my mom cooking dinner as if nothing had happened.

Taking a page from my parents’ playbook, I brush the memoryaway and force myself to get out of bed. I only have two days before Blake comes back, and I have to make the most of this time. But first, coffee.

Down in the kitchen, I open the cabinet for a mug and the door practically falls off in my hands. “Shit!” I say, jumping back.

The bottom hinge is hanging on by a bolt. Or a nail. Maybe a screw? I know less about this home renovation business than I do accounting, or whatever degree mortgage brokers have. I give the cabinet door a tentative tug, but it doesn’t budge, so I leave it resting against the counter and grab a smugLIFE’S A BEACHmug.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m on the back porch with my coffee and a ’Gram-worthy plate of avocado toast. I snap a picture and upload it to my stories, promising myself that I’ll do better about preplanning posts when I’m home next week. Now is not the time to get complacent.

Speaking of which, I open my laptop and pull up the Worthington application. With her Southern style, billions of dollars, and millions of followers, Rachel Worthington is my only hope for being able to buy Blake out.

The application starts out easy, and I fill out the basic information: my name, Instagram handle, location, and number of followers, which has just passed eighty-seven thousand. I’m confident and optimistic as I scroll to the second page and read the first question under the getting-to-know-you section.

Question 1.In 1,000 words or less, tell us your “why.”

My stomach twists and I have the same queasy feeling I got when I had to write essays for my college applications. I’m not a bad writer, but my pithy and clever style is better suited to the small bites of content on Instagram—not essays that have my whole future riding on them.

Even if I was a better writer, I have no idea what my “why” should be. I have a brand moniker with #KatWalk and the “Life is a fashion show” line, but that feels too shallow for someone like Rachel, who’s down-to-earth, authentic, and classy.

If Rachel Worthington is going to pick me to represent her brand, I’ll need something with more depth. I think back to my early days on Instagram. It started as a fun way to show off my shopping hauls. But one post went viral after I went on a tiny rant about how it should be okay to wear white after Labor Day—hello, “winter white!”—and I got more and more followers. Brands started reaching out to me to feature their products, and I did that for more than a year before I realized I could turn my hobby into a legitimate career.

Four years later, itismy career, and I’m proud of how I’ve turned nothing into something. A big something. I’m within reach of one hundred thousand followers, yet I can’t come up with a thousand measly words on why I do what I do?

Maybe I should ask my followers for their opinion: why they follow me, what they get out of the content I put out in the world. It strikes me again that while some of them feel like friends, they have no idea they’re getting a curated version of me. My life isn’t that photogenic, and I’m not nearly as together as they think I am.

I’m sure Blake would be more than happy to set them straight and tell them all I’m a superficial, selfish snob. There’s so much hate in her eyes when she looks at me, it’s hard to imagine there was a time when we loved each other.

The truth of who I am is probably somewhere in the middle. Between the superficial girl Blake and my followers see, and the broke and broken girl I feel like who doesn’t have a why in the world.

CHAPTER TEN

BLAKE

Today’s the day! My first day working at the beach house. It’s been a long week at the Rooneys’ casita and I’m excited to get going. Which is why I’m here bright and early in the kitchen of the beach house, my good friend Taylor Swift singing in my earbuds as I take the doors off the cabinets. One of them is already hanging by a half-broken hinge. Leave it to Kat to treat our house as cavalierly as the Rooneys treat theirs.

The most important step for any painting project is prep, prep, and more prep, as Granddad would say. Sanding, cleaning, and taping will take most of the day. Later, I’ll prime everything and get these babies ready to paint the next week I’m here.

Even the dog seems excited, pacing underfoot, watching everything I do with laser-sharp focus as if I’m going to accidentally drop one of these cabinet doors on his tail.

“I’ll be careful,” I promise him, then return to singing along with TayTay. I don’t have an amazing voice, nothing like my mom’s, but I’m alone in the house—a house I technically own—so I allow myself to let loose.

I’m fully in my feels when I see something out of the corner of my eye—there’s a person standing in the doorway.

My heart seizes. For a split second I’m convinced that I’m about to be brutally murdered with one of the dull knives in the butcher block on the counter. But then I realize the person is Kat, though she doesn’t look anything like the glossy, polished influencer I’ve come to expect.

She’s wearing matching pajama shorts and a top with a polka-dot sleep mask pushed up on her forehead. Her hair is a wild, tangled mane, and she’s got mascara smudges under her eyes and pillow creases on her cheek.

Also, she’s yelling at me.

I yank the earbuds out of my ears and catch her mid-shriek: “...in the actual hell are you doing here at the crack of freaking dawn, singing—badly—and banging around like a construction worker?”

My heart is still spasming from shock, but I force myself to speak calmly. “Morning, Kat. I didn’t see your car parked outside.”

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