19. Kieran
KIERAN
“Finally,” I mutter to myself as my latest YouTube video uploads. Feels like that took way longer than usual.
My focus has been shit—and yes, a certain baseball-playing asshole is to blame.
It’s been over a week and Jace Ryan still hasn’t said a single word to me.
Not one.
As much as I hate to admit it, something about being iced out by him feels worse than all the insults combined.
I got used to his attention… as twisted as that is.
Now the silence is louder than anything he’s ever said.
He doesn’t look at me in math. Doesn’t shoulder check me in the hallway or pull me alone into a corner with him.
Doesn’t call me Sparkles or ask if I got dressed in the dark or mutter something cruel just loud enough for everyone to hear.
I overheard David ask him why he hasn’t said anything to me lately, and Jace threw him some excuse about his dad saying he couldn’t risk getting in trouble now that he’s so close to the MLB draft.
Which would be great. It should be great.
Except my brain won’t shut up about him. Because it’s not that he’s ignoring me—it’s that he’s ignoring me after that.
After I got on my knees at a Halloween party, let him tug my hair and use me, and whisper “fuck” in that voice that still runs laps in my head when I try to sleep.
I wish I could say I regret it. That I hated every moment. That I haven’t spent the last week trying to think of excuses to do it again. Even the way he was so rough with me only made it hotter. He was my first hookup, and I’ll always remember it. Even if he’s acting like it didn’t happen.
His full-on avoidance makes me feel like I don’t even exist. Or maybe he’s just so ashamed of what he did with another man… or maybe it was so bad he can’t even look at me.
I haven’t told anyone, including Danny. I don’t even know how I’d admit I sucked off the guy I’ve been complaining about since we met. Especially after Jace used Danny as a ploy to lock me in the storage shed. Absolutely fucking not.
I don’t even know why I did it. Why I said yes. Why I let it happen. Why I wanted it so badly. Why a part of me still wants it to happen again. Or for him to at least acknowledge me.
Every part of me feels desperate for his attention, and I hate it.
God, I hate him. I hate him so much.
This feels like another layer of the fucked-up game he’s been playing since I started wearing makeup.
I don’t know if the silence means he’s planning something worse or if he’s waiting for his next opportunity to humiliate me all over again. But it’s got me far more on edge than if things had carried on the way they were before Halloween.
I force myself to stop wasting any more mental energy on Jace and look at my screen as I refresh it and glance at my notifications.
Another hundred subscribers overnight. It’s unreal to me how everything on my page is picking up. My “Vampire Smokey Eye Tutorial” is pushing 30k views, and people are messaging me requests for other tutorials they’d like me to do.
I should be riding a high because people are actually enjoying what I’m creating. But instead, I’m sitting here, wondering why the guy who literally came in my mouth a few days ago won’t even look at me in math class.
And it’s not like I’m dying for his attention. I’m not. But it’s still messing with me in that ugly, squirmy way that feels way closer to shame and self-doubt than I’d care to admit.
I’ve got to stop thinking about him.
Danny walks into my room and flops onto my bed beside me, eating watermelon Sour Patch Kids. “K, you’re almost at ten thousand subscribers,” he points out excitedly. “What should we do? You have to celebrate!”
I smile at his enthusiasm for me. His support has been awesome.
“No idea, but I think I want to start posting some more of the darker makeup I’ve been wearing lately. I hope my subscribers like that,” I worry out loud.
These past couple of weeks, I’ve been experimenting with darker looks in public—thicker black eyeliner, matte shadows, deeper tones. The styles are far more noticeable than my usual light and minimal makeup approach, but also feels far more natural. More masculine and more like me.
For a long time, I thought being a makeup creator meant sticking to whatever is trending in magazines or what’s popular online for other creators.
But playing around with the darker, rocker-inspired makeup—and with how many compliments I got from people at that party who usually don’t say anything to me—made me realize I can do whatever I want.
My employee discount has been put to good use lately with my new purchases, and I know this is the direction I want to keep going in.
“They will,” Danny says easily, smiling at me.
I click on the latest video I just uploaded and see comments already starting to come in. The more time I spend on my channel, the more comfortable I’ve become interacting with people, and it’s been really fun.
It’s easier to feel like I’m not a freak when people are hyping up the things that make me different. The same things that get me shoved into lockers at school are what make strangers hit subscribe.
Here, I’m not too much. The thing that brings me joy doesn’t make me a freak.
There are plenty of days at school I wanted to break, but online—in my videos with my little growing crew of internet weirdos who get it—it’s so validating.
Each positive comment is proof I’m not imagining things, that I’m not the problem.
I love knowing I’m helping people embrace themselves as well.
It doesn’t fix the way Jace looks through me like I don’t exist. But it helps me feel like I’m making a difference, just like they’re helping my confidence grow even more.