by Anna Todd
When you walk into Target, you go to the bathroom first. After fluffing your flat hair, you go into the very last stall. Right as you finally get the wonky lock clicked into place, chaos ensues.
“Kylie!”
“Oh my God! Kylie Jenner!”
You’re immediately confused because the voice—no, voices—aren’t your friend’s. What the hell is going on?
To eavesdrop without revealing yourself, you lean against the stall door . . . and it immediately falls open, launching you toward the sinks of the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror is a girl with long blond hair wearing a baseball cap. She turns around to look at you, and you make a weird little noise. Really, you can’t even describe the noise because you’ve never before heard it come out of your mouth.
You cover your mouth just as you realize she’s pushing against the main door to keep it closed. She’s wearing an oversize black sweater, black leggings, and spotless white sneakers. It couldn’t really be her. You live hours away from Los Angeles.
Kylie Jenner is standing in front of you.
In Target.
In a Target bathroom.
What the . . . ?
“Kylie!” another female voice screams. The door pushes open a few inches and Kylie panics and repositions her body to force it back.
She waves her hands at you. “Help me!”
Without thinking, you rush over and lean your back against the door too. The people on the other side must be strong—or crazy—to be pushing so hard to get in.
Crazy and strong, you decide.
“I knew I shouldn’t have gone out without security. My mom is going to fucking kill me.”
Her voice is softer than you imagined, and when you look over at her face again, you notice that she’s not wearing any makeup. Not a single drop. Her skin is much paler than when she’s fully done up, and she looks much younger. Her skin is so clear; not a pore in sight. You’re thinking to yourself that she’s actually really pretty without makeup. Admittedly, you thought she was pretty before, just in a different way. The girl in front of you looks nothing like the girl whose Snapchat you watched earlier. You want to laugh at the irony of the situation.
Briefly you begin to wonder if Kris Jenner has spies in every corner of the country who just wait for people to say something rude about her family, and then she sends one of them in, just to fuck with the naysayers. It’s possible. The woman built an empire from people’s obsession with her beautiful family.
Kylie pulls out an iPhone, and you note the giant crack across her screen. You have one on yours too. This is about the only thing you could possibly have in common with an eighteen-year-old millionaire, you’re sure of it.
“Khloé—don’t freak out, but I’m stuck in a Target bathroom and I—”
You can hear Khloé Kardashian yelling through the phone when Kylie frowns and moves the phone from her ear.
“I know, but I need help,” Kylie says into the phone after her sister says something about not ever, ever, ever going out in public alone.
The door pushes open a few inches and you try to shove it closed. It’s so heavy. There has to be a lock somewhere. . . . Flailing blindly, your fingers find a latch and you quickly turn it left. A bolt clicks into place and you breathe a little sigh of relief.
“Oh my God, how did you get the door to lock? I tried it, but it was stuck.” Kylie reaches up and takes the baseball cap off her head and walks over to the sink. The long blond wig is next; her short black hair, pulled into a small ponytail at her neck, makes her look so different to you yet again.
The pushing on the door has turned to pounding on the door, and you begin to wonder how the hell you’re going to get out of this bathroom without being mobbed.
“Is it always like this everywhere you go?” You feel a little guilty that you made your friend stay in the car; she would have given her left arm to be locked in a room, even a bathroom, with Kylie Jenner.
Kylie sighs. “Yeah, pretty much.”
You look toward the door that people are still pounding on and feel a little bad for her. She’s eighteen and can’t even go into Target without being mobbed? “Yikes.” You shake your head. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Her phone begins to ring.
You aren’t convinced that she thinks it’s “fine,” but you stay quiet.
She looks down at the screen and tilts her head back. “Thank God! We will be out of here as soon as my security, and most likely the police, get here.”
“Kylie! Please open the door! I love you!” a girl screams.
Kylie’s face twists into a sympathetic frown and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth.
“You have so many fans,” you say.
She sighs again and sits down on the floor and crosses her legs. She looks odd there, so pretty and rich and sitting on the dirty floor. “The sad thing is”—she pauses to look at the door, and you admire how long her eyelashes are—“most of them aren’t my fans. Half of them think they know me and my family from TV, and half hate me for that same reason.”
“Hate? I think that’s a pretty strong word to use.” You walk a little closer to her and sit down, leaning your back against a long mirror that goes from floor to ceiling.
“Have you seen the stuff people say to me? Teenagers, adults, even grown-ass men, send me death threats daily. I’ve been attacked while leaving a concert, I’ve had my car egged, been booed in front of thousands of people. The list goes on and on.”
Death threats? Grown men? What the hell is wrong with the world that anyone would send death threats to a celebrity for no reason at all? You have to ask. “I don’t get it. What do these people say you did, like, why do they hate you?” You’re positive that she doesn’t know because more than likely there’s no reason at all. You aren’t completely naïve to the nasty side of social media.
“Because they say I didn’t work for my money, that my family is trash, annoying, spoiled.”
You have seen comments like this everywhere. You’ve even rolled your eyes at pictures of the Kardashians on their lavish vacations.
“You have a hair-extension brand or something, right?” You wish you would have paid more attention when your friend was talking about her all day, every day.
“Yeah, and lipsticks, and endorsements, and a book, and photo shoots almost every day.” She closes her eyes when the screaming outside the door gets louder. “I’m not complaining at all—I have an incredibly blessed life, and I’m so lucky to have the life I do. It’s just that I wish people would pay more attention to what I do workwise or for my charity donations, or something positive. Instead they say hurtful things about my body, my face, my family. They don’t know anything about us; our personalities on our show and online are only what we choose them to be, you know? I just don’t understand why it’s okay for male models and celebrities to post shirtless pictures, but when I wear a tight dress and get my makeup done, I get spammed by people telling me to kill myself.”
You stay silent for a moment, taking in everything she said. She’s right: you don’t know her at all. You have no particular reason to think negatively about her or her family. Why should anyone care what she’s posting or doing? She’s not hurting anyone.
“I used to ignore it, but it gets hard sometimes.” Kylie looks into your eyes and you look down at the floor. “Sorry, I probably sound ridiculous: a spoiled Jenner girl whining about her fabulous life.” Her cheeks redden.
You shake your head. “No, no. It’s fine. I don’t know how you even deal with all of that. I mean, you were born into a family who became famous and you’re using your resources.” You roll your eyes in frustration. “All of those people online are just hateful.” Who even has the time and energy to send rude messages to strangers?
“I have many more blessings than curses.” She smiles, picking at her long fingernails.
“That would be a cool tattoo. That quote, it’s cool.”
Her brown eyes light up. “I
t so would be! It would be so lit.”
“Lit?”
Kylie laughs and shakes her head. “Like dope, cool, happening—you know, lit?”
“Sure?” You decide it’s easier to agree than to delve any deeper into her language.
She laughs and you join her. When sirens break up your laughter, you turn to her. “I almost forgot that I was locked in a bathroom,” you say, then laugh again.
The voices outside the door get louder and louder, and you hear deep, masculine shouting for the crowd to back away. You and Kylie both stand up.
“Thanks for being cool about this. I would really, really appreciate if all of this could stay . . . here.” She waves around the bathroom, sincerity in her words.
“Of course, I wouldn’t do that.” You’re honest with her.
She nods as if she’s so quick to know you’re telling the truth. “What’s your handle?”
“Handle?”
“Username, Twitter handle.”
“Oh.” You chuckle, promising yourself that you will brush up on the terms you should apparently know at your age. You tell her your username and she types it into her phone. Within seconds, your phone starts chirping.
Chirp after chirp, vibration after vibration, your phone is going crazy, and you try to swipe across the screen to see what is happening. The notifications are moving down your screen so quickly that you can’t read them. All you can see through the digital madness is Kylie’s name.
“Turn it on airplane mode and then turn your notifs off.”
You wouldn’t have thought of that. “I’m impressed by you, Kylie Jenner.”
She smiles and chews on her lip again. The door crashes open as she says, “I’m impressed by you, Edsheeranscat44,” then laughs a little at your ridiculous name.
It does sound pretty funny when said out loud.
Kylie waves to you as three men who had to be Vikings in their past lives sweep her out of the bathroom even quicker than they broke the door. You go back into the last stall and finally pee.
When you get to the car, your friend is lounging with her feet on the dashboard. “What the hell? Did someone get caught stealing or something?”
You don’t even know how to begin to answer her question. So you decide to get straight to the point. “I was locked in the bathroom with Kylie Jenner.”
Your friend doesn’t look amused as she looks out the window to the flashing lights of two police cruisers. “Yeah, okay,” she groans.
“Check her Twitter,” you tell her with a smug smile.
Knockout
Katarina E. Tonks
Imagine . . .
Everything stopped when you saw him across the four-way intersection.
And by him, you of course mean the Yorkie that ended up following you home that night.
See, it all started when you were checking your pulse at a crosswalk after a successful night run. The little rat was sitting under a streetlight, on the opposite side of the intersection, all alone, head lowered miserably, shivering from the frigid air. He had dark patches of fur on his back and tan legs. Adorable.
Suddenly, as if sensing your stare, he turned his head toward you and inclined it to the side, as if to ask, “Play?” He then stood up on all four little paws and moved toward you.
Your breathing hitched. Was this dog seriously about to cross the intersection to you?
Yes. Yes, he was!
And was a taxi approaching the intersection? Of course!
In about ten seconds you’d witness the creation of a Yorkie patty . . . unless, of course, you did something about it. Your instincts kicked in and you sprinted forward. You were an athlete, and all the training at the center kept you in the best shape of your life. Still, you barely dodged the taxi as you snatched the tiny dog up and held him football-style under your arm, leaping onto the curb in one piece.
The adrenaline now running through your body reminded you of a fight. The moment you got into the ring, your heart pumped in your ears, and all your senses heightened like they were now. You craved that feeling and couldn’t help but smile at the rat dog tucked under your arm.
“Hey, buddy . . .” You shifted the fur around his neck, seeking a name tag. He didn’t have a collar. “What are you doing out here all alone, huh?”
The dog’s pink tongue darted out and licked your sweatshirt. He was actually kind of cute, for a rat. . . .
And then he began to pee.
“Oh . . . hell—fuck! Are you kidding me?” You held the dog out as if it were diseased and put it down on the curb. Yep. This was exactly why you hated small dogs. You put your hands on your hips and stared down at the ball of fluff. He stared back, his little butt shaking with every wag of his tail.
You drowned in his puppy eyes.
Then you became aware of the warm urine on your right sneaker and snapped your head up. Nope! This dog was not coming to your apartment! You could barely manage your pile of laundry in your hamper, let alone a temporary dog—or whatever the thing was! Plus, your landlord was allergic to everything with fur. He’d figure out you had a pet. If he ever left his apartment, that is . . .
“Anyone lose a dog?” The few surrounding pedestrians ignored you, and you expected as such. Again, just your luck. A homeless man decided to reply, shouting drunkenly that you had a nice rack and some other explicit things.
You flipped him off.
The dog was well groomed. Friendly. Calm. So calm, in fact, that he didn’t seem to bark at all. He was not a stray. He was obsessed with you, since he’d loyally followed you down the curb as you made your way back to your apartment. Finally, you gave in, picked up the Yorkie, and stuffed him into your sweatshirt to keep him warm. He stopped shivering within seconds.
For once, you didn’t feel the echoing shout of loneliness in your mind as you walked home.
YOUR APARTMENT was, in three simple words, a total shithole.
Paint peeling off the walls. That odd odor from no particular source, which led you to buying thirty dollars’ worth of air freshener last month. The questionable and fading red stain in the carpet that you covered with a cheap love seat. All that, mixed with the couple next door who fucked as if there were a baby shortage, didn’t exactly leave you with the best living situation. In fact, if you hadn’t made an effort to add some life to the apartment here and there, it would have looked like something straight out of a horror film.
Your two jobs as a cashier and an instructor at a fitness center—three jobs, if you counted your . . . extracurricular activity—kept you busy. Your father had left behind some money in his will, but you were smart and stored it all in your savings. College had been out of the question. It was too expensive, and you had an appetite for something that couldn’t be found in overpriced textbooks and late-night cramming for finals.
“Night, Rat,” you told your new friend—-er, acquaintance. His little belly was filled with a fourth of that white omelet you’d had earlier, and he was curled up under a fluffy blanket on your bed, fast asleep.
YOU WOKE UP to two tiny paws dancing on your forehead.
“Please, no,” you croaked out. “Three more hours.”
A small, wet nose was pressed against yours, demanding attention. You blindly cradled the ball of fluff in your arms and sat up, wedging an eye open to check the clock on your dresser. Three in the morning.
You scowled at the dog. “Seriously, dude? You couldn’t hold it?”
You’d fallen asleep in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. You slipped on slippers and grabbed a paper bag before exiting the apartment. Only a little patch of grass was in front of your building, but Rat Dog certainly made use of it.
Fuck. You didn’t know a Yorkie could shit that much.
The rest of the morning was restless because you had to plan what you were going to do with the dog. You’d heard terrible things about animal shelters, and despite it all, Rat Dog was actually growing on you. You couldn’t just hand him off to some stranger. In your “copious” f
ree time, you’d find another way to get him back to his owner.
Two hours later, you arrived at work and were unlocking the back door of a large fitness center. At the back of the center was a boxing ring with punching bags scattered around it, and at the front of the center were mats and sparring equipment for karate.
Boxing was your forte, or so many had told you. However, you’d learned martial arts first and had a knack with a bo staff.
You weren’t cocky about your boxing or your bo staff skills, but you were confident, and it showed. As you walked past the square boxing ring, you ran your callused fingers against the black rope, yanked on it, and let go. Then you sauntered past the ring and began to push through a set of doors to the locker room. A familiar voice stopped you.
“Sluuuuuuggerrrrrrr! Let’s get reaaaddyyyy to rummbbbleee!”
You thought you’d arrived early enough to be alone. Startled, you whipped your head in the direction of the voice and pulled your black duffel bag closer to your side. Then you smiled. An older, athletic man with salt-and-pepper hair and a warm smile approached you. However, you knew Max well enough to tell that even though he was acting cheerful, something was wrong.
“What are you doing here this early, kid?” he asked. “You sleep less than a crack addict studying to be a lawyer.”
“True. I was just hoping to—” You stopped when you heard a low, pathetic excuse for a growl from within your duffel bag. You subtly shifted the bag and it stopped.
You didn’t have it in you to leave Rat Dog alone at your apartment. Puppy eyes were officially your weakness. You planned on putting the dog in one of the back rooms in the center with some food and water.
Max frowned. “What was that noise?”
“What noise?”
“From your bag?”
“What bag?” Discreetly, you poked a tiny piece of beef jerky through a small tear in the side of the bag and felt little teeth snatch it away. “Oh . . . this bag. My duffel bag.” Keep that poker face up or it’s over, moron. “That was just my stomach.” You forced out a laugh. That was easily the worst lie you’d ever told, and that was saying a lot. “Forgot to eat before I left this morning,” you added quickly.