Page 77 of Well, That Was Unexpected

“Hey, Shar. Can we talk? I have an idea.”

My heart is crashing like cymbals, and honest to God, Kiki has had to stuff wads of tissue in my bra underneath my boobs to soak up theboob sweat, because despite the AC that’s being blasted in the room, I can’t stop sweating. She’s even put special little sweat pads in the armpits of my blouse, thank the lord for Kiki’s forethought. My mouth is dry and my throat is sore and I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with a cold. Or maybe this is what nerves feel like?

“Ready?” Kiki says.

No.

I nod. She taps a button. Her phone screen switches to the selfie camera and there’s a big red button that flashes for two seconds, and then we’re live. Live on ShareIt.

Join us for THE BIG CONFESSION! Tonight on ShareIt, a LIVE EVENT with George Clooney Tanuwijaya and Sharlot Citra. We will answer ALL your questions! #GeorgeAndSharlot #OneLiner

George came up with all the social media stuff. To be fair, he didn’t have to do much—all he did was post on Twitter andShareIt and Instagram twenty minutes ago and suddenly we were trending. We couldn’t leave it too long because he didn’t want to give his family’s publicity team time to find out what we were up to and stop it. So here we are, live in front of the entirety of Indonesia.

The phone screen splits in half and George’s face appears next to mine. He waves and smiles. “Hey, Shar.”

I gulp, because I’ve just noticed that on the upper left hand side of the screen is an eye symbol with a number next to it, and the number says 51,032. Holy shit. Over fifty thousand people are currently watching, and that number keeps rising even as I watch. Behind the phone camera, Kiki gestures to me and waves her hands in front of her face.Smile. I do so. Or try to, at least. I’ve never done a live anything online and it is a lot more unnerving than I’d thought it would be. “Um. Hi,” I squeak.

On the lower right-hand side of the screen is a comment box that doesn’t stop scrolling as people send all their hate.

Ew, she’s not even that pretty.

What do you see in her, George?

Sharlot the Harlot, lol.

“Yeah, I’m nervous too,” George says with an awkward laugh, and the realness of it is an anchor. I take a deep breath. I can do this. I can speak my truth here, right now, on ShareIt. I can share it. Ha.

“Same.” I tear my eyes away from the comment box. “Um.So?”

“So, I asked you to do this event with me today because I thought, you know, maybe we could offer our version of whatwent down the past few weeks leading up to the launch of OneLiner. Our truth.”

“Yeah,” I say softly. I’ve rehearsed this with Kiki, but now the words won’t come.

“Can I start with mine?” George says.

I nod.

“Okay, so the truth is, my dad caught me jacking off—”

HOLY SHIT. WHAT? I choke on my own spit. In front of me, Kiki’s jaw is mopping the floor and I can’t blame her because WHAT?

The comment box is exploding, shocked emojis everywhere, people screaming, WHAT? LOL. HUH???

“Yeah, my dad caught me masturbating to porn—it was vanilla porn, in case anyone’s wondering—and I closed the tab and the screen went to a game I’d had running in the background, and of course my dad thought I was, uh, masturbating to a gnome and a badger.”

Oh.

My.

God.

I burst out laughing. I can’t help it. I clap my hands over my mouth to try and stop the laughter, but it just comes and comes and all the emojis spilling out of the comment box are cry-laughing. George laughs too. He’s still talking. How’s he still talking?

“It was the craziest, most humiliating time ever!” he cries, half laughing. “But come on, you are saying nothing like that has ever happened to you?”

And now the comments are full of people agreeing.

My mom walked in on me one night—

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