Joan's POV
I crashed into someone so hard my coffee cup went flying.
Hot coffee splashed everywhere as I stumbled backward, trying not to fall. My heart was already racing from the scary phone call I'd just gotten, and now I had made a total mess in my favorite childhood coffee shop.
"I'm so sorry!" I started to say, but then I looked up and saw the most familiar brown eyes in the world.
"Ryan?"
"Joan?" He looked just as shocked as I felt. "What are you doing here?"
For a moment, I forgot about everything. The threatening phone calls, the weird girl at my show, my mom's worried questions. All I could see was my best friend from high school standing in front of me with coffee running down his shirt.
"Oh no, your shirt! I'm so sorry!" I grabbed napkins from the bar and started trying to clean him up. "I wasn't watching where I was going!"
"It's okay," Ryan laughed. "It's just an old work shirt. But Joan, what are you doing back in town? I thought you were too busy being famous to visit us little people."
His words stung, but his smile was playful, not mean. Still, I could hear the hurt underneath his joke.
"I was visiting my mom," I said quietly. "I try to come home when I can."
"Really? Because Mrs. Henderson said you canceled dinner with your parents four times in the last few months."
I felt my cheeks get hot. Of course he knew. In a small town, everyone knew everything about everyone else's business.
"Work gets crazy," I mumbled, not meeting his eyes.
Ryan studied my face like he used to when we were kids and he was trying to figure out if I was lying about finishing my chores.
"Joan, are you okay? You look scared."
That's when I realized I was shaking. The phone call in my car had rattled me more than I wanted to admit. The voice had said terrible things about what was going to happen to me. Things I couldn't even say.
"I'm fine," I lied. "Just tired from performing."
"Come on." Ryan took my arm gently. "Let's get you a new coffee and sit down for a minute. You look like you've seen a ghost."
I wanted to say no. I wanted to run back to the city where I could hide in my apartment and pretend everything was normal. But something about Ryan's kind voice made me nod instead.
We found a corner table, the same one where we used to sit and do chores after school. Ryan bought me a new coffee and got himself another shirt from his truck outside. When he came back, he looked exactly like the boy I used to know.
"So," he said, sitting across from me. "Tell me about the glamorous life of a superstar."
"It's not as glamorous as people think," I admitted. "Mostly it's just work and worry and trying not to disappoint people."
"You could never disappoint me, Joanie."
The nickname hit me like a punch to the chest. Nobody had called me Joanie in three years. Hearing it from Ryan made me want to cry.
"You don't know me anymore, Ryan. I've changed."
"Have you really? Or are you just pretending to be someone else?"
I looked at him. How could he still see right through me after all this time?
"Maybe a little of both," I whispered.
We sat in comfortable silence for a moment. It felt so normal, so safe. Like we were seventeen again and the biggest problem in my life was passing my math test.
"Remember when we used to come here every day after school?" Ryan asked. "You'd order that ridiculous drink with extra whipped cream and three shots of vanilla syrup."
I laughed despite everything. "It was not ridiculous! It was delicious!"
"It was basically candy with a little coffee mixed in."
"Says the guy who put four sugars in his black coffee."
"Hey, I was a growing boy! I needed energy!"
We both started laughing, and for the first time in months, I felt truly happy. This was what I missed about home. People who knew the real me, not the popular version.
"I miss this," I said softly. "I miss us."
Ryan's smile faded a little. "Then why did you leave, Joan? One day we were texting every day, and the next day you just... stopped."
I looked down at my hands. How could I explain that I was afraid he would think I had gotten too big for my small-town friends? How could I tell him I was scared he would see how fake and empty my new life was?
"I thought you wouldn't want to be friends with a celebrity," I admitted. "I thought you'd think I was showing off or being fake." "Joan." Ryan reached across the table and took my hand. "I've known you since we were five years old. You could be the Queen of England and I'd still see you as the girl who cried when we had to cut a frog in biology class."
Tears started running down my face. I had forgotten how good it felt to have someone know the real me.
"I've missed you so much," I whispered.
"I've missed you too, Joanie. More than you know."
My phone started buzzing on the table. The screen showed seventeen missed calls and dozens of text messages. All from Vanessa, my boss.
"I have to go," I said, fear rising in my chest. "Something's wrong."
"Joan, wait." Ryan stood up too. "Whatever's happening, you don't have to face it alone. I'm here if you need me."
I wanted to stay so badly. I wanted to sit in this coffee shop forever and pretend I was just a normal girl talking to her best friend. But the phone kept buzzing, and I knew my real life was calling me back.
"I'll call you," I promised, even though I wasn't sure I would.
"You better," Ryan said. "I'm not losing you again."
I ran out to my car and called Vanessa back. She answered on the first ring.
"Joan! Thank God! Where have you been? Something terrible is about to happen!"
"What are you talking about?"
"There's a video, Joan. A video of you from last night's show. Someone changed it to make it look like you were being mean to that young singer, Tiana Reed."
My blood turned to ice. "What video? I barely talked to her!"
"It doesn't matter what really happened. The tape makes it look like you were bullying her. It's about to go viral."
I felt like the world was spinning around me. "Can we stop it?"
"It's too late. It's already online. Joan, this is bad. Really bad. People are sharing it everywhere and calling you terrible names."
I looked back through the coffee shop window and saw Ryan watching me with worried eyes. In just five minutes, everything was about to change. The crisis was starting, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
"Vanessa, what do I do?"
"Get back to the city right now. We need to do damage control before this gets any worse."
As I hung up and started driving away from my hometown, I noticed something that made my stomach drop.
The person who called me earlier had known this was going to happen. They had heard about the video before it was even posted.
Which meant someone had planned this whole thing.
Someone wanted to destroy me, and they were just getting started.
In my rearview mirror, I could see Ryan standing outside the coffee shop, still watching me drive away.
I had just gotten my best friend back, and now I was about to lose everything all over again.
But this time, the loss would be so much worse.