"And then," Daisy voice says over sped-up subway footage, "I went to my friend Marcella's apartment to watch her unbox her debut novel!"

Her voice online is different than it is in person. The ends of her sentences rise in pitch, almost as if she's asking questions instead of delivering statements. I don't know why, but if I didn't know her, I don't think I'd have thought that it sounded off at all. I think I'm a little too used to hearing that voice online. It's still weird hearing it from Daisy, though.

The next clip is inside the apartment, with me on the floor staring up at her with this awkward smile and a scrunched brow. "Uh. I don't ... have any socials?" My voice isn't as deep as I thought it was, and somehow, I sound a lot more Iowan than I'd anticipated.

Daniel's voice comes from off-screen, and handwritten font and an arrow pop on-screen to point in his vague direction, "Marcella's friend Daniel!!" His voice sounds exactly the same in the video as it does in person, which makes me wonder if this is what I really sound like in person. "You've got your Instagram. Unless I've been tagging the wrong Marcella Harper all these years."

On camera, I roll my eyes, something I didn't even realize I'd done. Amazingly—thankfully—it comes off as more playful than rude. "Okay, yeah, my personal Instagram, but I have like two hundred followers from high school and college." I notice a slight cut in dialogue, a trimmed space between sentences. "Is that really the place to put book stuff?"

Roz's voice comes from off screen. Her arrow says, "ROSALIND F$@!%!#& LINBERGH!!!!" in all caps. "It's easiest to start from there sometimes. I never use mine for anything outside of writing now."

There's a small cut, and suddenly, I nod, stare solemnly down at the box, and hold up the scissors. "Hi!" I glance up at the camera, smile wide—it's not a bad smile, thank fucking god—and try again. "Hi!" The smile shrinks a little, to something more normal.

On-screen, I clear my throat and tilt my head. "Hi, there—oh, fuck no." In my bed, my sudden cringe matches my expression in the video. "God no."

From off-screen, Roz's voice comes once more: "Yeah, that was pretty Midwestern of you."

I laugh, something warm and inviting and definitely not what my real laugh sounds like. Cannot be my real laugh. "Hello? You sound like you're from Duluth. You don't get to criticize." There's a small cut, and a zoom in on my face. My gaze is determined. I look a mix of somber and gleeful. It's strange to see—all I could feel at that moment was the intense need to vomit.

"Hi, I'm Marcella Harper"—another arrow points at me, this one with my name once again—"and ... I'm unboxing my debut novel. Wow."

I watch myself cut the box open, slowly pulling the scissors down the box. The sound is satisfying—thick paper tearing and scraping and slicing. The box opens with a pop. I watch as I remove the honeycomb paper and pull out the thick cardstock letter from my publisher. I examine it almost confusedly at first, my smile turned to a confused half-frown as I try to wrap my brain around what exactly I'm holding in my hand.

"Read it!" Daisy demands from off-screen.

Video-Me clears her throat. "Hi, Marcella. We wanted to congratulate you once more on your upcoming publication. We're so proud of you for all the work that you've done, and we can't thank you enough for"—she clears her throat again—"for letting us tell Leona and Carl's story. We look forward to seeing your masterpiece hit shelves. Love, Ilan and your team at St. Puffin's."

On-screen, I wipe at my eyes and say, "So that was really sweet" in a surprisingly stuffy voice, then carefully set the card off to the side. I pick up the sheet of paper covering my book covers and, eyes wide, press my hand over my mouth.

You can see the books in the box from the angle that the camera is filming at. Video-Me picks one up and, after silently examining it, displays it to the camera. The camera does another little zoom in, and there's that handwritten font again, exclaiming, "Marcella's book!!!!!!!"

On-screen, I look awestruck. "Look. It's my book."

"Pitch it," Daisy says from behind the camera.

"Oh gosh." I wipe at my eyes again. My laugh doesn't sound quite as snot-filled as I'd thought, but my voice is a little bit shaky. "It's about this nurse, Leona, who befriends Carl, the sweet old man down the street. He's, um" —I glance down at my book cover—"he's old, and he's sweet, and he's dying, and Leona learns that he's a war criminal in hiding. She has to decide whether it's worth it or not to turn an already—virtually—dead man into the authorities."

There's a slight cut, and then I say, "I like to look at the quiet moralities that seep into our day to day lives, and think through the potential outcomes of both cases, be it action, or inaction. What do we owe to each other? Or, as a society, one another?"

Another small cut, then: "Basically, you know the trolly problem? The 'kill one man to save five' thing? That's an extreme context. I like to ask similar questions in what are initially lower-stake situations, then raise those stakes."

I glance up past the camera, my expression uncertain but hopeful, as if I'm begging for praise.

"Those are the themes if you read into it," I add. "But this book reads as a mix of literary fiction, with a touch of psychological thriller and, like, anti-war novel. So ... um, yes. My book. You could ... you should read it."

The footage cuts, and Daisy is back on the subway, holding my book in her hand. Her voiceover says, "Marcella was sweet enough to give me a couple copies of her ARC. Stick around till the end of the video to learn how you can win one, but for now, come to a café and read it with me!"

There are a few clips of Daisy walking around the city—stopping at a few secondhand bookstore, then a stationary store, then at European market—before she finally settles down at a coffee shop I've never been to before, where she pops open The Monster Down the Lane and discusses the first couple chapters.

"This book is already insanely good," she says via voiceover as, on-screen, she slowly, elegantly sips on a turmeric latte, her eyes trained on the page. The window behind her shows a dusky Manhattan sky—she must have worked on this insanely late to get it up the morning after. I can't believe she managed to get it done this fast. "Leona is funnier than I'd expected she was going to be, which I guess makes sense because Marcella is hilarious."

I adjust my pillow under my head and try not to smile.

"Also, Carl is so sweet, but he's so off? Like, I do not trust him, because I know the premise, but it hurts, because he's such a little doll. Marcella's also great at working with tension. And, like, we all know that I am fragile. I'm so nervous, you guys. This book is going to make me cry at least twice, I'm calling it now. It's going to absolutely destroy me, and honestly? I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up thanking Marcella for it."

The rest of the video is pretty standard for a New York City clean girl—it's probably the stuff she had recorded before she came over—but at the end, she says that to enter her giveaway, you just need to find and comment my Instagram username, then give me a follow.

I frown and check my phone. It was on silent mode, so I didn't notice, but already, I've had five follow requests. And this video only went up thirty minutes ago.

Daisy had asked me if I wanted to see what she was including from the unboxing before she uploaded it, but I was too nervous to say yes. I'm a little bit sad that my discussion of deontology and themes wasn't included, but I don't do this for a living. She was probably right in cutting it out. If I want to discuss themes and literary devices, I should just call Kestler.

It's crazy to think that Daisy, who has 2.3 million subscribers on YouTube, is just a normal person whom I know, and who also just took the time out of their day to promote me on her channel. The fact that she got this filmed and included in her vlog for the next day is just absolutely beyond insane to me. It's also crazy to think that she's doing so much to help me for absolutely no return. There's this seedy little voice in my head that tells me I need to be skeptical, even though I know she's a good person. It feels good to be true.

I think I'm not used to having friends.

I copy the video link and text it to Roz: "A Day In My Life in NYC ... + Free Books?" She sees it immediately, reacting to the text with a heart, but says nothing further. I assume she's just watching it, so I choose not to double text. Instead, after a moment's hesitation, I send the link to my parents in our rarely-used group chat, with a timestamp to the unopening in-link, and tell them it's a recording of me unboxing my books.

Then I roll over in bed and sigh.

I'm still wearing my pajama bottoms, the tiger ones, but I never took off my plain black camisole, nor did I pick my button-up off of the rim of the laundry basket. My head still pounds from last night, and my throat must be scratchy from all the crying. I don't have the energy to get up, but I need to be at Roz's by ten at the latest, so we can head to the set together.

My joints are stiff as I slide off the edge of the lumpy mattress and make my way over to my meager dresser. I'm not entirely sure what to wear today. I mean, Ada is usually in a T-shirt and jeans, but they're probably designer, luxury items, if we're being honest with ourselves. Roz and Mauro, conversely, tend to dress more professionally, even though Mauro usually ends up looking a bit out of place in his sweaters.

I look through my drawers, trying to figure out if I have anything professional that would work well with today's forecast of eighty degrees. My fingers slip past a light teal dress that Roz got me for my birthday, one that's short-sleeved and swoops down to my shoulder blades and has a flirty, flouncy A-line skirt. I bite my lip, debating it, but in the end, I shut that drawer and flit through my T-shirt options instead. I don't think I can pull off that dress, honestly. It's just not a vibe, especially for today. I still feel like shit after last night.

In the end, I elect for a loosely Ada-inspired outfit: loose boyfriend jeans and a slouchy graphic tee that I might have technically stolen from Gina even before the breakup, a white shirt that has a reddish cutout of girl in red in corner with a thought bubble that says, "do you listen to girl in red?" (look, yes, I stole back a birthday present, but she never wore it, not once, and that's just a damn fucking shame). I feel a little bit elite when I add in a pair of multicolor striped socks.

I debate whether or not I should add a ballcap—is it pathetic to show up to work and single white female your super cool superior?—but I have a muddy brown cap from a Sioux City coffee shop, The Perky Bean, that I've had since high school that is just the right amount of worn-out. When I tuck my hair behind my ears and slip it on, a quick glance in the long mirror hanging off the back of my door reveals I've made the right choice. I look supremely gay in this outfit.

Setting the cap down on my bedside table, I make my way across the hall to the blessedly open bathroom. There, I go through my light makeup routine. It's crazy to think that, when I started this job, I was just rubbing eyeshadow and concealer on at random. Now, my movements are more intentional. I start off with sunscreen, this fancy Korean brand Catalina told me about, then move to blend in concealer with my many pinkish blemishes, carefully dabbing with my middle finger till you can't tell the difference between skin and concealer. I use an actual brush for my eyeshadow now, just applying a light brown to my crease to try and give my eyes a more alluring shape, one that isn't "round and distinctly buggish." I even manage to curl my eyelashes before applying mascara (okay, I manage to curl one set of lashes), and I apply a small amount of setting powder before tapping a light pink blush onto the apples of my cheeks.

It's a small difference, but I feel more together.

I slip my cap back on and grab my phone from my bedroom, heading into the kitchen. My bowl of cereal last night has been emptied; it now sits on the drying rack. I'm not sure who cleaned it, but I hope whoever washed it did so out of kindness or some kind of roommate chivalry, instead of roommate pity because they heard my cutesy little breakdown.

I use the same bowl for this morning's cereal, scarfing it down and handwashing it when I'm done. Then I'm grabbing my bag and my copy of Jane Eyre (that book is like the ancestor of Wattpad billionaire x employee romances, I swear; I do not understand why straight people have a thing for bosses getting with their workers), and I'm heading down into the Brew to grab a morning cup of coffee.

Nigel is working the register when I get down there, along with some pretty college student barista from CUNY or Boricua or something, who I've seen consistently every weekday morning since summer started. She's the one who takes my order—just a little cappuccino to take on the road—while Nigel glowers at me from behind the espresso machine.

"What? You got a bone to pick with me? Mr. Grouchy Pants? Or, is it Trousers?" I ask him, squinting my eyes. I clear my throat quickly, a vain attempt to get rid of my early morning scratchiness. It comes out nice and hoarse: "Mr. Grouchy Trousers?"

"You sound like absolute shit," is his only response.

I hand the girl an extra dollar. She moves to put it in the tip jar, but I hold a hand up, shaking my head slowly. "Hun, that's for you. Nigel gets no dollars. Not for glowering."

"Oh, you're fine," he says, rustling his hair. His glower is still there, even while he speaks. I think he has resting glower face. "I just think it's sad when Americans wear hats indoors."

I adjust the bill of my cap. "Does my choice in headwear offend you? Are you afraid of all beans, or just the perky ones?"

"I didn't realize your cap said that." Because, yes, yes it does. It does have the name of the coffee shop I bought it from in front, in a lovely hand-scrawled font: The Perky Bean. It's owned by an elderly couple that didn't realize how filthy that it sounded, and I really like their matcha. Of course I was going to buy it. I bought it, like, five years ago now.

"Does knowing change your opinion?"

"No," he says, tapping grounds into the portafilter, "I still think you look low-class."

"Wow, Mr. Grouchy Trousers," the girl says, slipping the dollar in her pocket. "I think her cap looks cute."

Slowly, I reach into my wallet and—without taking my eyes off Nigel—slip her a fiver. She snorts and sticks it in her back pocket. Worth it. This is why I have a disposable income now: to harass my friends. And, sometimes, Nigel.

"What can I say? I just like her more than you, Nigel," I tell him, walking down to the other end of the counter so the person behind me can order. "That's all."

He's still doing that slight scowl thing he always does. "Oh no," he says flatly. "I think I'm going to end my life over this."

"No," I say back, just as flat, "please don't."

He snorts, and the shadow of a smile passes over his face. When he hands me my cappuccino, it's lidless. I've never had anyone attempt to make art in my cappuccino before—the foam makes it too hard—but when I look down, I'm almost impressed. Instead of a heart, he's drawn a penis.

"I hope you know that I'm going to drink this," I tell him, already walking away, "and I'm going to think of you the whole time."

"Don't choke," he calls after me, and—surprisingly—I laugh all the way out the door, onto the sidewalk.

I'm feeling like, maybe, today won't be as bad as yesterday.

Hopefully.