. . . a rant on record
I wake to three heavy knocks on my door, followed by a set of jack-hammer-style knocks immediately after.
‘Amorie!’ Sara yells. ‘Quick, I’m in between meetings!’
I drag myself out from under the covers and pull my feet to the door. A crack of light from the hallway seeps into my room and plucks a groan directly from my core. I blink drowsily as my eyes adjust to the intrusion and Sara pushes my door further, eyeing my attire.
‘Were you still sleeping?’ she asks.
I gesture wordlessly to my crumpled T-shirt, underwear and the lightless bedroom. She shakes her head.
‘It’s 11.30 a.m.’ She raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.
I growl. ‘I got in late last night.’
‘I know,’ she huffs. ‘And clearly you were busy. I’ve been sent your video so many times.’
I crane my neck towards her. ‘My video?’
She folds her arms in disappointment.
‘Your new video on A Latte Love,’ she says stonily.
My chest perks up. ‘You’ve been sent it? By who? Who saw it?’
My account’s been vacant since last March and usually that’s an excuse for the algorithm to punish you beyond repair, so I threw together last night’s video with very little effort.
I didn’t even bother speaking, just filmed it top-down and slapped a trending audio over it, so Jane and I didn’t have to stop our two-way bitch sesh.
Is that why Sara’s scowling? The lack of effort?
‘It’s more than taken off – check your phone,’ Sara says.
I duck back inside and eagerly unlock it. Within seconds it buzzes to life in my hands, pinging with comments and likes and thousands of new followers. My mouth drops open at the sheer volume of it all as I scroll to keep up.
‘This is wild.’ My eyes widen.
‘Yep,’ she says gruffly. ‘What were you thinking?’
I glance up properly this time and note her stiff stance and incredibly moody face. She didn’t just knock on my door to let me know; she came here to chastise me.
‘Okay, yeah, the coffee had rum in it, but Pharisaeer Kaffees do – it’s intrinsic to the recipe. And Drew doesn’t care if we drink in the store as long as we’re off the clock,’ I say.
Her lips stay pursed. ‘I don’t care about the coffee. I care about you slagging us off.’
My whole body goes stiff. ‘What?’
She huffs and beckons me outside. I follow her through to the kitchen, fluorescent lights be damned, as she reaches for her phone among her files on the kitchen table.
She pops her hip as she scrolls silently, a lethal look on her face, before turning the screen towards me.
At first I’m confused. All I see are my hands in the shot, delicately pouring a shot of coffee over the rum . . . But then I hear it.
The audio.
My heart stops beating.
I could have sworn I muted the video.
‘Hopefully this will show Paige and stupid Sara what I’m capable of,’ my voice begins.
‘They think I’m here because I have “no ambition”, because I don’t “work in a bank” or “run a PR firm” as if the corporate world is the be-all and end-all metric for success.
I have dreams too! I want to write, I want to travel, I want to live, but it’s not that easy, is it? Especially on our salary!’
I bite my lip and look to Sara, who purses hers back at me.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I only meant . . .’
She lifts her free hand to hush me, tilting her phone higher as Jane and I continue to natter on.
‘ “Get a real job! Go on a date! Stop using Tom as an excuse!” ’ My voice is high-pitched and nasally as I mimic my sisters.
My cringe grows tenfold as we listen.
I could have sworn I muted it. I wouldn’t have forgotten, surely?
‘Have they ever considered that Tom is not an excuse, but a very real reason?’ video-me continues.
‘I don’t miss him like that, or at all if I’m honest. But I am worried that the sex with whoever I meet next will be just as bad as it was with him.
What then? I will be forced to conclude that I’m the problem and not Tom. ’
I want to burrow into the ground as I listen to us break into raucous laughter at my crude remark. My eyes drill into the flooring.
‘How many views?’ I ask.
‘2.3 million,’ Sara says coldly. ‘And counting.’
I sink into the nearest dining chair as the conversation devolves into more and more filth.
We get into sexual preferences – intense, detailed accounts and a four-minute straight rant about dating apps.
The longer it plays, the more I find myself attempting to hide my face in shame.
Sara says nothing and does nothing, except nab one of her papers from below my elbow as I melt into the table.
Eventually the conversation comes to an abrupt halt, mid-sentence, and I glance up to see if Sara’s decided to pull me from my misery. It doesn’t seem to be the case, given that her hand’s nowhere near her phone.
‘That’s where you reach the end of your coffee clip,’ she says. ‘Your fans are on there begging for you to upload part two.’
I stare back at her sheepishly. ‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean what I said.’
She raises her hand again dismissively. ‘Don’t want to hear it. Honestly, I’d say that part is the least of your worries. Did you hear the rest?’
I nod sombrely. ‘I’ll delete it.’
She shakes her head. ‘There’s no point. Multiple tabloids have already reposted it to their socials.’
My spine straightens as she shows me.
‘Surely that’s illegal?’
She shrugs lightly. ‘Probably, but you know they don’t care.’
The comments on their pages don’t seem to be quite as kind, based on what I see as I risk a quick scroll through.
‘This is awful,’ I say, horrified.
I flick back to my own comment section in the hopes that people are a little nicer over there.
It’s a mixed bag – some think I’m funny and spout truth, others think I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown.
So many users claim I need therapy, half have diagnosed me with various ailments, and a few have gone straight below the belt and dissed my looks in a lot of detail.
I run my hand through my messy knot of bed hair and take a deep, frustrated breath.
Sara catches my expression and immediately swaps her irritation for pity, scooching her chair over and grabbing my hand.
‘It’s not that bad. The majority think you’re super relatable and they’re sharing their own worst date stories in the comments. Paige thinks it’s hilarious.’ She rolls her eyes.
‘You’ve spoken to Paige?’ I ask.
‘She rang me the second she saw it. Has she not messaged you?’
I scroll through my messages, trying to scan past the barrage of rogue chats. Everyone I’ve ever known seems to have remembered my existence, from old colleagues to cousins to people from primary school. But there she is.
PAIGE: You are an icon.
PAIGE: Srsly, I’m obsessed.
I start to type a reply, but my phone buzzes to life in my hand.
‘How did you think of that?’ Paige says without so much as a hello. ‘It’s genius, a subversion of the genre . . . Like those stories over Subway Surfers, but way more on trend.’
‘And a massive overshare,’ Sara reminds us.
‘Am I on loudspeaker?’ Paige asks.
‘Nope, just loud,’ I say. ‘I’ll switch you over though, one sec . . . Okay, you’re live.’
‘I’m serious, Squeak, it’s a masterclass in comebacks. I’m bookmarking it to show to my team,’ she continues.
‘It was reckless,’ Sara scolds us both.
‘It was an accident!’ I blurt out the truth.
Paige goes silent. Sara stares at me. I feel my breath tremble.
‘Come again?’ Paige asks over the speaker.
‘The audio was supposed to be muted. I was supposed to overlay a track. I thought I had, I don’t know.’
I cast my brain back to our antics last night.
I went to make cuts to the video and decided it was smooth enough without, so all I had to do was whack a track over the top.
Jane and I spent ages listening through options in the Top 50 Trending tab, but we got really bored by number fourteen.
So, Jane popped down the road for some M&S tinnies and we turned it into a bit of a drinking game . . .
‘I see what happened.’ I mutter this to myself gravely.
‘I’d put money on it involving booze?’ Sara asks.
I nod shamefully and watch as her face grows taut.
She sighs. ‘Am. It was a Sunday.’
I try my best to shrug her judging eyes off.
‘I work in hospitality. This week, Sunday was my Friday,’ I say unabashedly.
Paige giggles over the line. I’m pretty sure the reminder of her presence is the only thing stopping Sara from murdering me.
‘This is brilliant,’ Paige says.
I sigh. ‘This is mortifying.’
‘Accident or not, it’s a cultural moment,’ Paige says.
It’s so funny talking to Paige about social media, considering it’s part of her job.
Usually she does her best to separate work from life, but you get her chatting long enough and her PR-mogul hat comes on.
I’m sure she’s at her desk right now frothing at the mouth as she clicks through the visible stats of my post.
‘You’ve kicked off a wider conversation on dating in the modern age. You need to capitalise on this.’
I wish I could share her excitement, but all I can feel is my body growing cold.
My abysmal sex life has been posted and reposted all over Instagram.
People have already made Canva graphics and started think pieces in their comments section.
And, yeah, my face wasn’t in that one video, but it’s all over the rest of my page.
And I can already see the views on the rest of my videos inflating as people stalk.
‘What I need is to bury my head in the sand and disappear until this blows over,’ I groan.
‘Absolutely not!’ Paige’s squeal makes the phone speaker shake. ‘I’m gonna send some emails – leave this with me.’