Kiss Me, Kiss Me

I click onto my name and wait for the tweets to load. There was a long line of the band’s fans tweeting my name. None of the tweets I read were good. They were accusing me of using Michael for his money because my own mom leaked it to TMZ. In some of the tweets they were pissed off at Michael for lying to them for so long. Apparently since other gossip outlets go wind of me and Michael they took the story and ran with it. A lot of them are saying how Michael and I have kept our relationship under wraps for months now. Pictures of us at the mall the first day I met him were now surfacing as well as the story of me trying to get backstage at the show. Girls were calling me all kind of names because I happened to be seen with Michael. Groupie was the most common name I’ve seen in their tweets. I spent about an hour going through the tag before finally closing my laptop to go to bed.

‘I’m about to walk in now.’ Michael tells me into the phone as he was going into some interview.

‘Alright, have fun.’

‘I was meaning to ask; you haven’t seen anything nasty about you anywhere have you? I mean I can definitely say something about it if you have.’

‘Just a few of your fans trying to rip my head off and hang it over their mantels.’ I attempt to laugh off all of the negative comments that were burned into my mind. ‘No big deal.’

‘I’m sorry about that. It’s all pretty hectic on Twitter right now.’

‘I’ll stay clear of Twitter.’

‘No you don’t have to do that. I don’t want to take that away from you because of what’s going on.’

‘I really rather not go online until this has died down.’

‘We can finish this conversation later. I’ll call you right after this interview.’ He sighs deeply into the phone, ‘it shouldn’t take too long.’

‘I understand. Just call me when you get a chance, okay?’

‘I will, bye Kenzie.’ Michael speaks into the phone and I could practically see the smile on his face.

‘Bye Mikey.’

I roll out of bed and take a shower to get ready to go to work. I walk right past my mom who was asleep on the sofa with her long legs kicked up. I couldn’t help but feel like she gave me a dress made out of steak then threw me to a pack of wolves that hadn’t ate in an eternity. The car purrs to life and I peel down the narrow road. Outside of Galleria there were at least a dozen of people with cameras in their hands. I stare confused as I get closer to the mass of people.

‘There she is!’ someone cries out and they all rush through the parking lot towards me.

As I go into the building the all begin to take several pictures bombarding me with absurd questions. Well my mom has officially thrown me out to a pack of hungry lions and wolves after making my steak dress with matching shoes and marinating me in some kind of alluring sauce. I make it to Earth Bound and use my store key to unlock the store since Shelia wasn’t around yet.

‘Good, I see you opened the store.’ Shelia speaks filing her manicured nails as she walks, ‘I did not get any sleep last night so I’ll be in the back catching up on my beauty sleep. Keep a close eye on the store, will you? Someone in the afternoon shift is slacking and merchandise is coming up missing.’

‘Got it Shelia.’ I groan taking my eyes off of my phone.

‘Kill the attitude and don’t bother me unless the store’s on fire.’

‘Okay.’

Shelia goes into the back and slams the door closed. I plant my eyes onto my phone again waiting for Michael to call me back. I needed him to say something stupid yet funny to keep my mind off of Satan in the back room.

‘Hello, welcome to Earth Bound.’ I say once two girls around my age walk into the store.

They wave in return eyeing me as if I was some kind of two-headed creature with six long hairy arms. They walk around the store slowly with their iPhones in their hands. If I didn’t know any better I would think that one of them took a picture of me before scurrying back out of the store. Six other people came inside the store and did the exact same thing all before my lunch break. As I was waiting in the line at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels my phone starts to ring. Thank God. Michael.

‘It’s about time.’ I taunt answering the phone.

‘Yeah, I may have fell asleep after the interview.’ He laughs into the phone making me feel slightly better, ‘how’s working going?’

‘Horrible.’

‘Oh is Shelia being more evil than usual?’

‘Shelia’s at her pretty average level of evilness today. It is just people have coming in and out of the store looking at me like I’m some sort of science experiment. Not to mention the camera crew outside of the mall when I got to work today.’

‘Damn it,’ Michael mutters under his breath, ‘I’m sorry about this. It’s the last thing I wanted to happen right now.’

‘You’re obviously a very important person around here.’

‘Nah, not really.’ He stiffs out a half laugh, ‘it just sucks that we’re still trying to figure out what this is when you have hundreds of people speculating about it.’

‘I don’t see how you can deal with people watching every little step you make or investigate every person you talk to. That would drive me crazy.’

‘It does get overwhelming,’ he explains, ‘but other people can escape from it. I can’t tell you how many people have been scared off by all of this “Hollywood” crap. Most of the girls that are completely platonic people that I grew up with won’t come meters of me now because they know it’ll be everywhere the very next day. I’m not going to lie to you; it is hard being around me or even the band for that matter. People are going to make lies up about you, your family, your life, they’re going to assume things and run by what they read in scummy articles. They’ll follow you and take pictures of you just because you know me. They’re going to say rude things just because they can. Any personal things you have online they’ll probably find it like private accounts. It’s a lot to handle so I’m just letting you know what you’re getting yourself into up front so it doesn’t scare you off like everyone else.’

‘Lucky for you Mikey, I don’t scare easily.’