Delilah picked up her glass of juice and handed it to her dad. Dad handed his juice to Mom, Mom handed hers to Ava, and Ava gave hers to Delilah. It was a ritual that started a million years ago for God knows why—Ava and Delilah used to habitually switch sippy cups when they were toddlers or something, and they’d continued the tradition. It seemed so dorky now.
“So we’re officially signing you up for school today,” Will said as he forked pancake into his mouth. “The campus is close to the trail to the Hollywood sign. We could go on a hike afterward.” He glanced excitedly at Delilah. “You could get a picture for your page.”
Delilah made a face. “I’d never put a picture of the Hollywood sign on my page.”
“Why not?” Her mother seemed genuinely confused. “If you’re going to say it’s too touristy, we still are tourists here.”
“Yeah, but the worst thing we can do is act like tourists,” Delilah explained.
Her parents exchanged a look, and Delilah suppressed annoyance. How did they not understand how utterly uncool it would be to post a picture at the cheesiest spot in LA?
“Speaking of school,” Delilah said, her heart picking up speed. “What do you guys think of online school?”
Her parents glanced at each other, then burst out laughing. “Worst idea ever,” her father joked.
“No thank you,” her mother said at the same time. “I’m not having you kids underfoot all day. Besides, in online school, do you even learn?”
Delilah hung her head. As she’d expected. She loved her parents, but they didn’t get it. Did they have any idea how her fandom was exploding and what that meant? Ever since having her picture taken with Jasmine and Fiona at the Evensong Hotel a few days before, her account had swelled in numbers. A few small brands had even reached out to ask if she’d do sponsored posts for teensy amounts of money. A photographer named Patrick sent her a DM, too, asking if she would be interested in him taking pictures of her. Delilah reached out to Jasmine about that one—was it a scam?—but Jasmine assured her that Patrick was the best of the best. Instagram photographers love to shoot up-and-comers, she added. It gets them exposure, and you get gorgeous pictures out of it. You should do it!
Yeah, right. Like her mom would ever allow that.
Her gaze dropped to her phone again, thinking of her other problem. It had been on her mind since yesterday, when she and Jack Dono had that strange, woozy almost-kiss and images of them started circulating.
And the comments started rolling in, too.
Mystery Bitch, someone with a Jacklet ship account called @ScarletArmy had posted, attaching the blurry picture of Jack leaning toward Delilah. The image earned 986 likes and 102 comments, all of which condemned Jack Dono for merely speaking to another girl.
“Lila?”
She clicked on another post from a Jacklet fan showing the same blurry photo of Jack at the restaurant. Thank God the photographer hadn’t been able to capture Delilah’s face. But what if someone else had taken a photo that hadn’t leaked yet—one that clearly identified her?
“Lila?”
Delilah had an online presence, too. Her fandom was nothing compared to Jacklet’s, but her picture could be reverse-image searched . . .
“Delilah.”
Her family stared. Bethany set down her fork. “Hand over your phone, please.”
“What? No!” Delilah pressed her phone to her chest.
“Hand it over,” her father said gruffly. “The phone can wait until we’re done eating.”
I’m not hungry, Delilah wanted to snap.
After scarfing down breakfast, she recovered her phone and stormed upstairs. She could hear her parents murmuring about her in the kitchen. She knew she was being moody, but this Jacklet problem felt like life or death.
She flopped onto her bed. A moment later, there was a knock on the door. Ava poked her open, freckly face inside. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Delilah mumbled without inflection. “What’s up?”
Her sister had her hands shoved into her pockets. She was wearing a fitted sweatshirt and Delilah’s hand-me-down terry-cloth shorts. And, because of their mom’s no-makeup-until-fifteen rule, she looked fresh-faced and innocent. “So, um, I wanted to talk about Jack Dono.”
That got her attention. Delilah sat bolt upright. “What?”
Ava looked cowed. “I, um, had to use the bathroom while we were waiting for you at Wellness. Mom let me run into the hotel for a second. I saw you in the restaurant . . . talking to him. Faith loves him.”
“Who’s Faith?” Delilah wracked her brain. No one from Minneapolis was named Faith.
“Oh. This girl. I met her online, actually, but she only lives a few streets away.” Ava shrugged. “We’ve been chatting a lot.”
“Did you tell her about this?” Delilah was mortified.
“No. Totally not. But she knows a lot about Scarlet. And about Jack.” Her throat wobbled as she swallowed. “The fans are saying terrible things about you, Delilah. All those Scarlet supporters—they’re evil.”
Delilah scoffed. “Don’t read that stuff. It’s not worth your time.”
“Some of them say they want to kill you.”
A flicker of fear rippled down her spine. “They don’t know that I’m the girl, and I intend to keep it that way. Anyway, fans make threats like that all the time. It’s no big.”
“But what if they figure it out? Maybe we should tell someone. Like Mom.”
Delilah clamped her hand on her sister’s arm. “Don’t. She’ll blow this out of proportion. It’s . . . normal, okay? It’ll blow over.” Of all the people, Delilah didn’t want her impressionable little sister to know about her Jack gaffe. She hadn’t even been able to tell stuck-in-France-without-a-phone Busy about it yet.
“Faith also told me some gossip about Scarlet,” Ava continued. “She’s kind of . . . ruthless.”
Delilah eyed her warily. “How do you know about Scarlet?”
“I just . . . do. There was this girl last year, ChloeDIY? She did a fashion vlog, some beauty stuff—had a pretty good following . . .”
“I remember her,” Delilah said faintly. It was so weird to be having a conversation with her little sister about influencers.
“So I guess Scarlet blew off Chloe at this event? And Chloe ranted about it in a vlog? She talked about how Scarlet isn’t that pretty, and that she has a terrible attitude, and that her mom’s supposedly a raging maniac bitch and her best friend secretly despises her and how it’s weird that she takes her dog and her dog nanny everywhere.”
“Scarlet has a dog . . . nanny?” Delilah asked. “How do you know this stuff?”
“I told you—Faith. And watch Scarlet’s vlogs—the nanny is all over them. Anyway, Scarlet found out about Chloe’s video. And she got mad. So she started spreading terrible rumors about her. People turned on Chloe. She lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and hasn’t posted since. I’ve heard she’s sworn off the internet entirely. Just because of Scarlet!”
A cold, sick feeling washed down Delilah’s back. “And this was just because this Chloe person said that she was jealous?”