Roz doesn't understand it, but I don't have it in me to care. I call Daisy.

She gets to the apartment in under thirty minutes—a record for her, in all honesty. Usually, if you set up a time with her, she's somewhere within the ballpark of ten to thirty minutes late. I get it. Looking good is her job. But this? This impromptu, yet crucial, moment? She's here as soon as possible.

Daniel abandons Nigel to watch over the coffee shop as soon as she struts through the door. Her red hair is in a messy yet elaborate ponytail, and her bangs are curled deliberately away from her face. I rarely see her barefaced, but her skin is so flawless that you could mistake her foundation-less skin for makeup.

She poses in the doorway of the Brew—empty aside from us, and the old Persian man who lives next door—with her hands placed confidently on her narrow hips, her lips wrought in a thin, wry line.

"I hear somebody needs help filming an unboxing video?"

"Yes. Ugh." I walk across the room and give her a quick, one-armed hug. "You're my little mastermind. I'll probably die if I try to do this myself."

"Do you really need an unboxing video?" Roz asks. I didn't hear her walk up behind me, but she's there suddenly, wrapping a loose yet possessive arm around my torso. "I mean, I feel like being on the news is better for attracting readers. Which Marcie has already done."

I glance back at her. "What do you mean?"

"Just, this feels like a lot of work for little to no return."

Daisy shakes her head. "It's the perfect excuse to make content. Marcie's following is small, but any opportunity to expand her audience is a good one. Marketing isn't like it used to be. Publishers expect authors to do a lot of their own heavy lifting now."

Roz stiffens. It's ever so slight, but I still feel it. "Well. You're the expert."

In a way, Daisy really is. Some people acredit her publishing deal and consequential success to her large BookTok and lifestyle vlogging audiences, but her book is enjoyable. I don't usually read romance, let alone straight romance, but compared to some of the books I've seen on her side of the internet, I actually really enjoyed her dark romantasy retelling of The Goose Girl. It's underwraps right now, but there's a deal in the works for an adaptation with Amazon.

"I even brought my nice camera," she says, smiling. "And I'll include this in my vlog. You don't have to let me keep one of the ARCs, but I can nab one real' quick and pitch it to the camera, too. If you want."

"Keep the ARC," I tell her. "Take more and do a giveaway, if you want."

"Look at you," she says. "Practically a marketing executive already."

I shrug. "What can I say? I'm a woman of many talents."

In other news, Roz doesn't let go of me until we're up in the apartment. Through the main level of the coffee shop and up the stairs, her hand stays loosely coupled with mine. In the back of my mind, I know: she's jealous. Jealous of my being friends with Daisy, a woman she slept with before we got together.

I'm a little sickened by the fact that there's a part of me that likes it. That wants her to feel jealous, in the same way that I feel that spike of envy and discomfort any time we go to the Book Burrow, or any time Ottilie is circling about like a hawk, or pretty much any other time a woman who is thinner and smarter and lovelier than me is around.

Isn't that just terrible?

Daisy has been to the apartment a few times, but generally speaking, when we've hung out, we've met at a coffee shop, or at her significantly nicer apartment. Still, she knows where to put her sneakers, and where to set her purse, and follows me, Roz, and Daniel to the coffee table, where a medium-sized cardboard box sits.

Roz's hand settles on the side of my hip. "Look at that."

"I know." My pulse thrums. "Wow."

I've seen the book cover already: an overhead shot of a blueish rain-slick road winding through a forest of imposing dark green firs. The title, in a plain, lowercase white font: The Monster Down the Lane. My name in matching, smaller font beneath it: Marcella Harper.

My book. I'm about to hold my book.

Tenderly, I run a hand along the side of the box, feeling where the package turns smooth as my fingers coast over the shipping label, then back to coarse, thick cardboard. I tilt my head and glance at it.

St. Puffin's Press. Ship to: Marcella Harper.

My books. My books are here. Holy shit. Holy. Shit.

I take a step back from the box and glance back at Daisy.

"So"—I blink a few times, trying to press back the tears—"how are we doing this?"

***

Daisy sets up her camera, glancing between its screen and my face as she adds a small amount of makeup to my face. "No-makeup makeup," she explains, dabbing concealer beneath my eyes. We're both fairly pale—although I'm not a half-Slavic, ginger kind of pale like she is—so we're a good enough match on the little things. The rest of my makeup (the good stuff) is stuff Daisy helped me buy, before a big date night with Roz. It's nice—my mom never taught me this kind of stuff, and I was always too timid to ask Gina about it. Being friends with Daisy is almost like having a big sister.

"Your cheekbones are sooo nice," she murmurs, rubbing a cream blush onto her fingers and dabbing them onto my cheeks. "Face card does not decline."

My lips press together, and my neck heats up. Behind Daisy, Roz shifts in the living room armchair, her eyes trained on the box.

"Thank you," I say. "And thanks again for doing my makeup."

Her eyes aren't focused on me, really—her gaze is trained on my skin, switching between intense focus and a sudden darting about, as if she's trying to piece together the whole picture, keeping track of what all she's done and what else she needs to do.

"Do you have that eyebrow razor pack I gave you?" she asks, carelessly rubbing the rest of the cream blush on the back of her hands.

"The eyebrow shavey thing? Yeah, it's in the bathroom." I move to stand, but Daniel is already half speed walking, half skipping to the bathroom. It's like his long limbs buzz with energy.

"I'll get it!"

He returns mere moments later, handing out the razor to Daisy as he peers down at me. "Look at that," he says.

"What?" The heat in my neck intensifies, spreading out to my ears and cheeks. I wonder if the foundation is thick enough to hide my flush.

"You just look prettyyy," he says. "Pretty Marcie, Pretty Marcie."

Then he flops down onto the couch next to me, propping his feet up on the coffee table. "Actually, Daisy and Roz, we're doing a little get together thing for my birthday on Saturday. Well, my birthday is on Wednesday, but who goes out on a Wednesday? We'll probably meet here and then go to that new club that opened up a couple months ago. The Swiss one? I've never been to a Swiss bar. Il ... Fermenta? Or something? Toe? Il Fermento?"

"Sounds less Swiss, more Italian," I say.

"Lovely," Roz says, "Italian is an official language of Switzerland."

"Um, okay? And? You're a dork for knowing that." I pause. "I love you."

She snorts. "I love you, too."

"Thanks for the invite," Daisy says, uncapping the razor. She squints up at me now, reaching out and smoothing back my eyebrow hairs with her thumb. "It's actually my sister's birthday on Saturday, so I'll be going to a dinner in Ithaca with our grandparents, but depending on when it winds down, maybe I can come meet up with you guys."

She begins to shave away the excess (blessedly light) hair. She's gentle, but after I pricked my skin with one of these a couple weeks ago, I've become a little bit terrified of them. Still, despite my flinching, everything goes well. No blood is drawn, and Daisy recaps the razor, seemingly satisfied.

"It probably won't even show up on camera," she says, "but it was bugging the fuck out of me."

"Oh." Instinctively, I press a hand to my right eyebrow. "Sorry?"

"Oh, no, sorry. You're fine. I don't think anyone would have noticed. I was just staring at your face, really up-close and personal. They're so light, it's not really an issue."

"Yeah. O–okay." I force myself to drop my hand in my lap. My gaze wanders to the posters behind Daisy, hung on the wall above where Roz sits in the arm chair. Ottilie Le Blanc's black and white face stares at me, her lips pursed as if she's judging me. Judging me, and my furry caterpillar-ass eyebrows.

Daisy takes the concealer back out and has me close my eyes so she can work on eyeshadow. "Were you blonde as a kid, Marcie?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, very strawberry blonde, I guess. When I was really little."

"I wondered—open? Okay, close—because your eyebrows are so light, but I was sure that auburn is your natural hair color."

"Awww." Next to me, Daniel reaches over and lightly, playfully tugs a strand of my hair. "Strawberry blonde baby Marcie? Adorable."

"I'd pay to see that. Open?"

"I've seen pictures," Roz says, looking up from her laptop, perched on her lap. "She had ringlets when she was a toddler."

Daniel gasps. "No she did not! I don't believe it."

"Oh, you'd best believe it."

Daisy grabs a brush. "Close again? But, also, I believe it. I think you should get a perm. Be a curly girl again."

"Okay, so, I'm never showing any of you any photos of me again, ever."

"But you were the cutest baby," Roz says.

"I can see that," Daniel says. "You've got those big eyes. But they're not big in a creepy way. Like, they're not on that Steve Buscemi level yet."

"I still don't see why you think his eyes are scary. Steve Buscemi is the best. We love Steve Buscemi. But, um, yeah, mine are rather buggish," I tell him.

"'Buggish'? What do you mean by that?" Roz asks. "You don't have bug eyes."

My skin prickles. I open my eyes. "No, I do."

"What even are 'bug eyes'?" Daisy asks. "What does that even mean in this context?"

"Like ... the guinea pig from Bedtime Stories?"

"The what?"

"The ... guinea pig? From ... Bedtime Stories? Adam ... Sandler movie?"

"Honey." Roz half-closes her computer lid. "You do not look like the guinea pig from Bedtime Stories. Who told you that?"

"I don't know? Someone in, like, third grade?" I shrug. "I mean, she was right. My eyes are fucking massive."

"You have very normal eyes," Daniel says. "Like, on a scale of someone with their eyes shut, and a surprised Elijah Wood, you're around the sixty percent mark."

"I'm not insulting myself," I say, fighting the urge to cross my arms over my chest. "It's not bad or anything. It's just an observation. Like how my Cupid's bow is really pointed, or how my eye bags and cheekbones make me look gaunt somedays. It's not inherently negative. It's not, like, bad if I don't care about it."

Roz is frowning, her brow knit. "You're beautiful, Marcie."

"Sure, but—"

"No," she says measuredly, "you're beautiful."

No one says anything. A silence settles amongst us, and I find myself staring at the cardboard box on the table. The excitement to open my books feels somewhat dampened. My eyes are burning. I feel like I have a headache coming on. This is so embarrassing. I don't feel bad about how I look. Not really. I feel just as bad as anybody does. It's a normal amount. A truly, sincerely normal amount.

"Can I have you close your eyes again?" Daisy asks quietly.

Wordlessly, I oblige.