We spend Saturday nights together at a quaint club called “Kat’s Bizness” now. I’m not sure how much more I can let her into my life, because I’m terrified if she sees too much of it she’ll be horrified—but I know she needs to be able to do her job. She said it’s hard for her right now and that she needs it, and I feel like I need to help her. It no longer feels like an obligation, but something I want to do because she’s starting to grow on me.

I was scared to show her this side of me. I feel like I’m on set and constantly making bloopers. People like me...we don’t really get friends. Instead, we get people who want to benefit from being connected to us, who may just want something from us and leave when it’s all over. She may have signed an NDA, but I’m still scared she might go behind my back and share the information I give her. Considering what happened last time, I trust my entourage will take care of things...but would it be so bad if people found out? If I didn’t deny it for once and instead owned up to it? Every time the media dredges up another lesbian rumor and I have to lie, I feel like I’m betraying my fans. The only reason I have so many “Olives” is because I was honest with them to begin with. How are they going to feel when they find out my relationship with Patrick Nelson was fake—that it was for show-and-tell, to put an end to the rumors?

I wouldn’t be surprised if they all unfollowed me.

Of everything else, one thing I know to be certain is that I’m not sure how much longer I can pull this off—how much longer I can live two separate lives, under two different names. Olive Dooley is me, but...she isn’t who everyone else sees. She’s more than that—she wants to be more than that. I don’t know how to bridge the gap between the Olive Dooley the world knows and loves, and the Olive Dooley I feel like I am on the inside...doesn’t she get a say, too? Doesn’t she get to come out and play? Doesn’t her life and wants and opinions and needs matter?

I feel like I am falling into a bottomless pit again, but this time I haven’t anyone to pull me up—to help me climb out and stay above ground. I have no one who knows and cares for the real Olive Dooley. I don’t know how to get those kinds of people; you can’t throw money at people and expect them to turn into the kind of people who care about you, because they instead turn into people who only care about the money. I don’t know how to find that balance.

When it was just me, my life was good. I kept to myself and spent time out with people. Now, I have someone else living in my house that I have to consider—someone else in my space perceiving me and everything I do, for a book the world doesn’t even need.

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Every time I try to focus on one thing, I’ll blink and be somewhere else, doing something else. I had a routine before Cameron moved in, and that worked. Now, that routine has had to change—why is my sanity linked to that? I sleep enough. I can sleep anytime I want! I’m not tired. I’m not burnt out so much as I am stressed about staying a particular kind of way, because I don’t want anyone else to know the sides of me that go bump in the night.

How much work would I have to force myself to do to buy myself out?

I look over the contract while sitting on my bed—door shut—and contemplate. I would need the royalties of three movies I starred in last year, six months from now. I could easily pay Cameron a decent salary for the year, simply to lay this all to rest. That would be better for me. Ever since we started living together, my mind has been out of itself. I have a migraine at least every other day and can’t stay focused. One second, I’m in the kitchen pouring a bowl of cereal; then I blink and almost drown because I’m waking up in the bathtub after slipping.

I had a routine that worked well for me so long as I stuck to it. Now, that routine is gone and I’m putting all my energy into how someone else is seeing me. Cameron was basically hired to analyze me, so she can write about me, which means every single thing I do at home is now scrutinized.

My phone buzzes. It’s Patrick Nelson. He’s not my type—and not because I’m gay—but because he looks like the kind of guy who’d be Disney parents’ worst nightmare, while his personality and behavior are their dream. I don’t like how much attention his looks bring to him, but I started dating him because that attention caused people to wonder how in the world we worked so well together instead of whether certain rumors about me are true. Dating him has made my life so much easier. “What’s wrong?”

“Does something have to be wrong for me to call you? Sometimes, I want to hear your voice in my ear, saying things just for me.”

He started dating me for different reasons. “Now you have. I’m busy, so I’m hanging up.”

“Wait—I need you tomorrow night. I got invited to this thing and couldn’t say no.”

“You couldn’t say no or you didn’t want to?”

“Can’t it be both?” I do like how he says “both” like it has an L in it. He reminds me of the kind of guy who—if I had had a normal life—would’ve lived next door and become either my best friend or worst enemy. Either way, maybe we’d have ended up together.

“Fine. Anything else?”

He promises to send a car for me tomorrow evening; the call ends. Patrick and I met when his band Kissing Prisons cameoed in one of my movies. He talked to me first, saying I was this and that—I don’t remember or wasn’t paying attention.

We haven’t spent time together in two months because he’s been touring. Honestly, I forget he exists until someone brings him up or he contacts me. Thinking about him too much, though, fills my heart with a warmth I don’t understand. I don’t even like it.