“Do you want me to stay? I can wait out here until you tell me it’s cool. And if it’s not cool, you heard your dentist. You can just come and hang out at our house,” Heaven says. I know I need to do this, but I also know it’s too much to hope that my mom will have a normal chill response. Still, it’s time.
“Yeah. Please wait. I’ll come back out either way.”
“Okay. I’ll be here.”
I kiss her one more time on the cheek and head inside my house. I find my mom in her office, listening to music and scribbling something down in her planner. She looks up at me, her beachy wavy bob swinging as she smiles.
“Hi, honey. Did you have fun at Heaven’s?”
“Yeah,” I say. I walk down into the room and curl up in the big armchair she keeps in the corner. “We had a good time.”
Mom sits back and sets down her pen. “Well, I had a great time with Maurene, and she told me congratulations are in order. You and Heaven make such a cute couple!” I want to take the compliment, but the muscles in the back of my neck instantly get all tight and hot.
“Was that all you guys talked about?” I ask.
“Well, no. We had a long lunch. She asked me not to put Heaven in any more of my posts because she’s underage. Which is no problem at all.” She taps the words out against the edge of her desk.
“Mom. I’m underage.”
She blinks, genuinely confused, and I don’t know why, but that makes me more upset. She really doesn’t get it. “Yeah, I know. But Dr.G would be more comfortable if Heaven was less online and in the public eye until she turns eighteen.”
“But it doesn’t matter what’s better for me? Or Stella or Scarlett?” I feel Dad walk into the room. I know he’s going to tell me to leave it and do what my mom wants, but I can’t. “It must be nice to have a parent who is actually trying to protect you from bad things online.”
“What does that mean?” Mom asks. She’s not even mad, she’s genuinely clueless, and I feel like I’m losing my mind.
“I don’t want to make content with you anymore. I’ll finish up the Fosters deal because we signed paperwork, but I’m done. No more Get Ready with Me. No more outfit of the day. No dances, no reaction videos. No more videos about me.”
“Why? I thought you liked making content with me.”
“When I was like ten. Now it’s different. Now it’s all the time,” I say, and I don’t stop. “Nothing in my life is mine anymore. My arm. My hair. My girlfriend. Heaven drew on my cast to cheer me up and somehow you had to spin that into a party trick to make you look good.”
“I thought it was nice—”
“I know you thought it was nice, and Heaven appreciatedthe experience. I didn’t tell you how much I liked her, and I didn’t tell you she was my girlfriend because I knew without Dr.G stepping in, you would try to make content about us. I bet you’re still thinking about how you can make a ‘my daughter has her first girlfriend’ video without showing Heaven’s face or mentioning her name. I feel like I can’t have anything good or bad, broken arm or my first love, without you trying to take it and monetize it for views and likes.”
Mom opens her mouth to reply and then she looks over at Dad. I look over at him too. But he’s just watching this unfold.
“I want to go to school and be with my girlfriend and not worry about your followers calling my hair ugly or Heaven ugly, or saying we both need to go to church and fix our gay. And really, I don’t think my even younger sisters need to hear those things about me or themselves either. I’m not making content with you anymore and I want you to stop making content about me.”
I swallow, refusing to cry again. I glance over at Dad. He gives me a nod, one of those nods where he juts his bottom lip out in agreement. It’s as good as a thumbs-up.
“Well, Saylor.” Mom throws up her hands exasperated. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Mom, are you being serious right now? I’ve told you no like a million times and you just say ‘Oh come on!’ and start filming anyway.”
“Yeah, because I was trying to spend time with you and make memories with my kid who is going to be out of the house in a year. I thought you were just being a brattyteenager who thought her mom was cringe. I didn’t know it was actually making you upset.”
“Well, it is,” I huff.
Mom gets up from her desk and comes and squeezes herself into the armchair beside me. She pulls my hand between hers. “I didn’t know you were upset,” she says. “I’m sorry, honey. Truly. I love doing this stuff with you and your sisters, but it’s only fun for me if it’s fun for all of us.”
“And I can stop doing content?”
“Yes.” She laughs. “But we do need to do the ointment video. They paid us a lot of money for that. I have to phase you out anyway next fall, why not start sooner. And I’ll let your sisters decide what they want to do when they get back from camp.”
“I think you can start by not getting matching haircuts with them again.”
“Yeah, okay, that was a beyond cringe mom thing. I’m learning as I go. It’s hard.”