The Blind Date by Landish, Lauren (suggested reading .txt) 📕

she’s garnered half a million followers over the past few years.

But dun-dun-dun, to no one’s surprise, things are not all sunshine and rainbows for Riley Sunshine.

Gasp . . . what? But how could that be?

I hear you, Kitty Cats. And I understand your confusion. I too saw the pictures with the hot guy Riley’s been flaunting around. She might as well have stamped ‘new and improved’ on her forehead and added in a caption saying, ‘love is out there for us all.’

Ugh . . . excuse me while I puke into my morning Froot Loops.

Don’t think me a jealous, catty bitch, though. The issue isn’t Miss Perfect finding her Prince Charming. It’s not even how she met him.

Oh, you missed that part?

Well, listen to the audio from Riley Sunshine herself saying she met the man of her dreams on a dating app. No big deal, we’ve all done it except . . .

Did you hear the part where she says people who use dating apps are LOSERS?

Why, Miss Riley Sunshine! I’m appalled, and maybe a little impressed, at your cattiness. But we can’t all be privileged princesses who make a living with smiles and so-called ‘normal girl stuff’ like makeup videos, photo shoots, and volunteering. We have bills to pay and needs to meet—like food, rent, and dick.

So excuse me if I skip over your fake-as-fuck, toxic positivity in favor of some real life. One where I probably haven’t washed my hair this week, my lunch consisted of Cheetos straight from the bag, and my dates come via an app where we all know the drill. I’m down to Netflix ‘n Chill, and then I’ve got things to do, so GTFO.

Oh, and hey . . . your fans see who you are now too. Fake, staged, and judgmental of those less ‘sunshiny’ than you.

Meow.

They’re ugly words, both Kitty’s and my own, and I’ve had to take time to process them. While I read and watch the video again, the story’s going viral. I guess people love to see others fail, and that’s what I’ve done.

Failed at my dating attempt. Failed at my relationship with Noah. Failed at spreading sunshine. And most importantly, failed at being real, the one thing I pride myself on.

The comments are an utter massacre . . . especially on the pictures of Noah and me. Someone posts a screenshot from the argument, and then someone else adds a caption to the picture that says, Dating App LOSER. That comment alone has thousands of likes now.

ItsLuz- Preaching positivity and spreading sunshine? Oops, don’t look now, but your ugly is on display. Too late . . . we all see you.

SlothsDoItSlow- Thought you were fake. Now I know. Fake AF.

YoYoYoYourCherona- Toxic Positivity, party of one, please sit down.

ChampionJosh- I’ll stretch those lips into a real smile . . . with my dick. DM me.

I lean back, rubbing at my eyes. I’ve dropped followers in the past twenty-four hours, about twenty-five thousand or so. And while that’s a major hit for my business, it’s not what’s killing me right now.

I mostly just want to talk to Noah, but I can’t show up at his work like some stage-five clinger. River called me this morning and told me he talked to Noah last night too and recommended that I hold tight. It’d sounded impossible at the time, but then all this online drama started and it’s at least giving me something to focus on. But it’s only a matter of time before someone does enough internet sleuthing to put together Midnight Mark’s face with Noah’s name, and then it’s a short Google search to figure out that he’s one of the developers of BlindDate.

This has the potential to destroy his livelihood too.

“Take a deep breath,” I remind myself as I see another notification pop up, this one a repost of Kitty’s story. “These sorts of things happen.”

Unfortunately, it’s true. Nobody who gets to a certain level of social media fame can avoid the occasional scandal. I bet, if there’d been Facebook at the time, even Mr. Rogers would have caught some flack.

But this is my first.

I need to decide how I’m going to handle it.

I could fight fire with fire, lash out at Kitty and the mean comments. But that’s not who I am, and even the thought of doing it doesn’t bring joy but rather a dark, swirling feeling to my gut.

I could ignore it, take the high road, keep doing what I’m doing and being who I am. That doesn’t feel right either, though. Arielle accused me of pushing anything non-sunshine down or packaging it up with a layer of rainbows, and ignoring this seems like I’d be doing exactly that. This hurts, and it’s okay to feel that.

Which leaves me with addressing it. But how?

My phone rings, but I let it roll to voicemail. It rings again, and I sigh grumpily as I look at it because there are few people I answer the phone for—Mom, River, Noah, Arielle, Eli, Becky, Simon, and Loretta. Anyone else can leave a message or text me. Mostly because I do not need my car’s warranty extended and I’m not falling for your computer virus scam.

But I see Arielle’s name on the screen. So even though I do not want to talk right now, I answer. “Hey, I can’t talk now. Work stuff is—”

Arielle cuts me off. “Answer your Zoom call. Now.” The line goes dead as she hangs up.

“What?” I ask, but she’s already gone.

A moment later, my computer screen is taken over by a Zoom invitation. I don’t want to answer that either, but Arielle has never done this before. What if there’s something wrong with her or Eli, or Becky, or . . . one of the residents? I’d never forgive myself if I was so caught up in my own drama that I missed saying good-bye to someone. It hurts that my mind goes there, but it’s a sad reality with Arielle’s patients.

I click to join the session and Arielle’s face pops up, filling my screen. Her face is bare, and her hair is pulled up in a messy bun that