Page 41 of Silver Lining Love

I guess I’d find out when I asked her tonight. But until then, duty calls.

17

WHITNEY

“You were born to make mistakes, not fake perfection.” ~ Gamma Mary

Mikey sat beside me on his phone. I still wasn’t sure if the phone was a good idea, but he’d sworn that his parents had promised that he could have one when he hit double digits. There was no way that I could say no to him on his first birthday after losing his mom and dad.

I just wished he’d talk to me instead of scrolling on that thing. If anyone knew how addictive it could be, it was me.

We’d driven into the city and spent the morning at the indoor racetrack. It had been the most fun I’d had—outside of last night in the bathroom!—since the accident. Mikey had even taken first place. Now we were headed back to the house so he could get ready for his game. He hadn’t said two words to me since we started driving home twenty minutes ago.

“Aunt Whitney!” he shouted from beside me.

“What?!” My heart slammed into my ribs as I gripped the steering wheel and looked for what I was about to hit.

“You havefour millionInstagram followers.”

“Oh.” I exhaled as my shoulders lowered from my ears. “Yeah.”

“That’s so many! And they’re worried about you. They want to know where you’ve been.”

“Don’t read the comments. People say mean things in comments.” I’d learned that lesson a long time ago.

“Not these people. They really miss you. A bunch of people think you went to a cult. What’s a cult?”

“It’s a…bad place.” I needed to get a lot better at answering questions. I hadn’t realized how much parenting was just answering questions. It was like…over half.

“If it’s a bad place, don’t you want to tell people that you’re not there?”

Before the accident, I’d had a publicist that would have addressed the rumors. But she’d decided to stop representing me when I went radio silent and refused to give her control of my social media, which I completely understood.

I wasn’t accepting any brand deals or posting any new content and I wouldn’t let her do it on my behalf, so there’d been nothing for her to represent. She’d told me to get in touch when I was ready to “re-engage.” It was a nice offer, but I didn’t think that was ever going to happen.

After the event last night, I knew more than ever that I wasn’t the same person. And now that I had three humans looking up to me, I wasn’t going to promote the same things I used to. No more diet pills, teeth whitening tools, tanning lotions, eyelash extensions, lip plumpers, or miracle creams for wrinkles and cellulite.

All of it was just superficial crap that the media used to manipulate young women, and men, into believing that they needed to change to be happy. I could never do a brand deal with any of those things again. I needed to set an example for Alice, Mikey, and even Benji, for that matter.

Plus, I didn’t use any of those things anymore. I was lucky if I got to take a shower. Last night’s event put the final nail in the coffin of my influencer career. I was going to have to figure out what I would do next, because Whitney in the Wild died with my sister and her husband.

“Aunt Whitney, you have to post again! You have to tell people that you’re okay! That you’re not in a cult or—" He squinted as he read. “—married to a sultan. What’s a sultan?”

“It’s sort of like a king. How did you find my page?” Mikey had never shown any interest when I’d had my phone out vlogging or taking pictures with the kids when I would show up for a few hours on the weekends.

“I was on Mom’s page, and you liked her last post the night she…”

Shit.I hadn’t even thought about him looking up his mom’s page when he told me he wanted an Instagram account. The guidelines I’d given him was that it had to be private and I had to have the password so I could check on it. But, of course, he’d looked up his mom’s page.

She’d posted a pic of her and Ben at dinner, and I’d liked it when I was at the club, and she’d liked my pic dancing with Talia. Tears filled my eyes, that was the last interaction we’d shared. We’d liked each other’s posts.

“How did you get four million followers?”

Bikini pics. That was the honest answer.

“That was my job.”

His head spun toward me. “You got paid for that?”

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