Page 1 of The Kat Bunglar

Chapter 1

A Wallet & A Scheme

Present Day

July 4th

Los Angeles

Kat Kar

383likes. This was egregious! Why did the number keep slipping? If her sponsors pulled her analytics, she was screwed. Khatira reviewed her latest Instagram post with a critical eye. Her butt looked amazing. Her lashes framed her almond-shaped eyes to create that mysterious, come-hither look. Normally an underwear pic with a crop top garnered a minimum of 6 thousand likes. But not this week. She had been marked an ‘un-fluencer.’ As in, it was trendy to unfollow her. Khatira scowled across the room at her roommate. “This lawsuit is ruining my life. I’m losing followers left and right.”

Christian walked across the room and looked over at the laptop. “Oooh girl, and these comments are not kind.”

Khatira–known by her Instagram handle @Kat_Kares, didn’t even bother looking. She knew what they were saying by heart:

“Kat couldn’t care less.”

“Cringe.”

“Trying way too hard to be cute.”

“Not even her real nose or cheeks. Fillers and Botox baby.”

“Cancer-stick sellout!! Hope she burns in hell!”

Her manager had been dodging her calls. Her two sponsors for the month, ASOS and Madmax, had ignored her emails about collaborating on their autumn line-up. She was owed money, but she wasn’t sure how much. She had been posting their products non-stop for the past two months with no return. She was slowly slipping from being a mid-tier influencer to a micro-influencer, which meant each post was generating less revenue due to the lack of views and interaction. Leaving her scrambling to pay the rent–again!

“I didn’t know those lipsticks contained carcinogens in them. I’m an influencer, not a scientist. I’ve worked with TrixieBrands before, and it was no big deal.” Kat stood up and paced their tiny 600 square feet apartment, feeling the walls closing in on her.

“Well, you’ll have your day in court to explain yourself,” Christian said as she took out the juicer.

The court summons was tacked onto the corkboard in their kitchenette area. It was a wall that Kat avoided looking at often, however, she felt the intense judgement coming from its direction.

“And in the meantime? Do I lose my income? No one wants to work with me anymore. They’ve branded me as unethical and money hungry. I don’t even have a lawyer to defend myself.” Kat nervously chewed her thumbnail and re-checked the stats on her YouTube shorts, also down by 50% compared to last week.

“What about the public defender that contacted you?” Christian began cutting up cucumber, cilantro, and apples into perfect, precise slices.

Kat rolled her eyes in exasperation. “He couldn’t even pronounce my name, let alone defend me.”

Christian cleared her throat and avoided eye contact as she tossed the ingredients into the Ninja Blender. Before blending the items, she made sure to take pictures of the individual ingredients and get a video of the blending motion. Kat drummed her fingers against the kitchen counter and waited, edging closer and closer towards Christian’s personal space.

“God works in mysterious ways, Kat,” Christian began.

Kat snorted, “Oh my God, you’re using your sermon voice—”

“It wouldn’t kill you to get a real job,” Christian interrupted.

Kat opened her mouth, but only a squeal worked its way out. Her? Get a real job?When Christian hadn’t worked a real job a day in her life. Between being a youth leader at her Haitian parent’s ministry and halfheartedly pursuing her master’s degree, she spent most of her days on TikTok and YouTube uploading content on her channel @ChristianChaos, regarding how to navigate the world with your morals intact.

“I think if you took a step back and looked at what God is trying to say to you, you would see that ultimately all this fame chasing is undermining your health and well-being, not to mention your spiritual journey into—

“I’m going for a run to clear my head,” Kat said, yanking on her Adidas and pulling her shoelaces with unnecessary force.

“I just don’t think social media is good for you,” Christian called after her.

Kat almost opened her mouth to clap back that it wasn’t good for Christian either, but then changed her mind. It was not worth the possible stress wrinkles. Instead, she tossed her hair and Christian’s words away.

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