Chapter 5. Lyric
Lyric
LIP OF THE DAY:
Vampy Vibes
“Good morning, boo.” Kiana appears at my side and hands me a large Biggby Coffee cup.
She’s all bundled up in her faux fur hot-pink coat, black jeans, and black bodysuit, patent leather Doc Martens on her feet.
She’s wearing her signature iridescent cobalt-blue eyeliner that pops against her midnight skin and has a hint of gloss on her lips.
Kiana is perhaps the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.
At almost six feet tall, with a short fade and cheekbones to die for, Kiana commands the attention of any room she walks into.
And she’s graceful, not like a ballerina or a swan but like a plane landing, a jet engine humming with tempered speed and velocity, touching down effortlessly onto a runway, full of restrained power and delicious gravity.
I haven’t had a lot of true friends, but when we met during freshman-year orientation and Kiana complimented my makeup, it was like magnets coming together.
She knows almost everything about me, and I about her.
“Bless you,” I say, taking a long swig of my usual: a medium roast, with a splash of oat milk and one pump of hazelnut syrup.
Kiana knows I can’t afford to buy myself coffee every morning, and I’m usually running too late to make a cup at home.
It’s an unspoken tradition that most days she treats me to overpriced, over-sugared morning fuel, and in return I keep her stocked in the latest makeup that brands send me for free.
“Long weekend?” Kiana asks.
I nod. “Always.”
“And you and Jamison…?”
I grimace. “Off again.”
“Yeah … I saw that in his stories. Who is that girl, anyway?”
“No idea, and don’t care. Besides, in about five minutes he’s gonna see what my weekend was all about.”
“So, I’m guessing your holiday photo shoot went well, even without me there to help?”
“Oh yeah.” I grin with a gleam in my eye. “How was The Nutcracker?”
Kiana sighs and takes a sip of her black coffee. “It was perfect and magical as always.”
I laugh and put my arm around her shoulders as we head to first period. “I will never understand why you love that ballet so much. It’s extremely racist, and the plot? A snooze.”
“And you, my friend, are missing the point. It’s not about the plot. It’s about the tradition and artistry.”
Kiana used to be a pretty serious dancer—ballet mostly, with some tap and jazz thrown in—but sometime at the end of sophomore year, she quit.
The pressure to “fit in” to a mostly white community, where the ideals of beauty and body type were so limited, made her feel like shit each day.
“There’s a million other things I can do just as well!
” she’d told me. And if it had been anyone else, I would have laughed, but Kiana is truly one of those magical beings who is multitalented.
Now she runs track—the 100m and 200m—and she is so fast, she’s been scouted by some of the biggest schools there are.
I feel my phone start to vibrate in my bag. I look at the clock on the wall. “And it’s live,” I say, pulling it out …
Kiana glances over my shoulder and whistles low. “Damn, Lyric. WHO is that?!”
“Juniper—you know, the new girl? She’s actually really nice. Quiet, but nice.”
“And photogenic as hell. Look, you’ve already gotten a bunch of likes.”
I shrug. “I always do.”
“No, I mean … a lot.”
“Morning, folks,” says Mr. Benson, our history teacher, stepping in front of the room. I quickly put my phone away, even though I can still feel it blowing up. I try to ignore it as Mr. Benson starts introducing a new unit about the Cold War.
Fifty minutes later when the bell rings, I’m out of my seat and running into the hall.
“See you at lunch!” Kiana yells after me.
I give her a short wave of my hand in response and duck into the nearest girls’ bathroom. When I am locked in a stall, I take out my phone and open up to my post on BeautyStarz.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, “10K views already!”
I scroll and see that not only has LovelyLashes liked and reposted it, but so have some other big content creators in the beauty industry.
@Hannahglamgurl has added it to her stories, talking about how she must get her hands on these lashes to try.
@BeautyByBetty, my favorite drag queen, has also shared it.
But it’s the comments that really get me.
As I scroll through, I see that most of them are about the extreme chemistry Juniper and I have—that it’s not just about the lashes, but that somehow Juniper Jones and I have the kind of social media it-couple vibe that the internet just eats up.
I get a notification from Cash App, and see that my sponsorship money from LovelyLashes has hit $1,000. We loved working with you! We’ll be in touch soon for more collabs, the note attached to the transfer says.
“Cha-ching!” I whisper, immediately beginning to calculate in my head.
That’s $600 toward cosmetology school, $300 I can use to pay down some of Grammy Viv’s hip surgery debt, and $100 extra to add to Grammy’s pension payment for groceries and bills this month.
Not too shabby. One of my most lucrative sponsorships yet.
I navigate back to BeautyStarz and check my DMs.
“Holy shit,” I say, a little too loudly. The first DM message is from @KayceeBeauty—the up-and-coming brand of Kaycee James, celebrity actor and pop singer. I open it so fast and skim the note:
Hey, beauty—love your latest content. Wanna collab? We’d love it if you could promote our holiday highlighter collection. We pay $1,500 per sponsored reel. Feel free to include your boo in it—you two are too cute. Major holiday romance vibes. Hit us back. Xoxo
From the bathroom stall, I hear the bell ring for next period, but I ignore it.
I’m just gonna have to be late—this is too major.
I reply with a quick YES, and then give them my professional email to share further details and set up a schedule.
I debate whether to explain that Juniper is not at all my boo, but decide against it.
I mean—she could be for all they know, right?