Apartment 24

One.

I jam the key into the lock and walk into apartment 24. My hands full of groceries and a Sonic drink. Setting my things on the counter, I start putting groceries away.

Before long my groceries are put away, dinner was started, and I am recording my cover of High by 5 Seconds of Summer. Sitting in front of my phone, I start singing. 

"I hope you think of me high
I hope you think of me highly
When you're with someone else
I know your friends all lie
I know your friends don't like me
They want you for themselves
Today, I've called to tell you that I'm changing
But I don't think you have enough respect to see me try
I've been waking up in different spaces
And I think that my heart is built to last more than a night"

I type a quick caption, tagging the 5SOS members, post the cover, and get back into the kitchen to finish dinner. It didn't take long before I was sitting at my empty dinner table. Glancing up at my picture wall a wave of sadness washes over me. The pictures of my parents and my dog makes me miss them. Since I started dating Jake we fell out, and things have been rocky ever since. 

The sound of the door opening pulls me from my thoughts. As Jake stumbles in he knocks over a vase of dead flowers. "Clean this shit up." he slurs making his way down the hall. Hearing the bedroom door close, I make my way over to the mess. It only takes a minute to sweep up the glass. 

Sometimes I question if my parents are right, that Jake doesn't really love me. If he loved me would he come home drunk all the time? I make my way to the bathroom and hop in the shower. Stripping off my dirty clothes, I notice that most of my bruises have started to heal, save for a few new purple ones I received a few days ago. 

I make the shower quick knowing I still have a few chores to do before bed. Rinsing off my body wash, I grab my towel and step out of the shower. Quietly I walk to our bedroom to grab my pajamas, while searching for them, I go ahead and set out my clothes for tomorrow. Walking back into the living room I hear my phone go off. 

Grabbing it off the counter, I see that I've hit one million likes on my post. This is a usual occurrence for me. I have almost two million followers on TikTok. Jake hates that I have more followers than him. He also hates that I make money for selling my own songs. Sometimes I think I'm the only thing he does like. 

I set my phone back on the counter and get to cleaning. First I put dinner away and do the dishes. After that, I decide I should probably mop since there could still be glass on the floor. All of my chores don't take me too long and since it's still early I sit down with my songbook and write a few melodies. 

Before I know it, it's one in the morning and my phone has blown up. Notifications from TikTok, Instagram, texts, and even a few missed calls. When I get into the zone, it's like everything else falls away. 

Looking at my texts first, I have seven from my friend Cassy, all along the lines of me needing to check my TikTok. The next four texts are from my friend Andy, Cassy's boyfriend, also telling me I need to check TikTok. I have twenty texts in our group chat all about random things until the last few that mention something on TikTok. My missed calls are all from Cassy. 

Giving in to their wishes, I open TikTok and see I have about two hundred new followers, about fifty thousand comments, and seventy thousand more likes on my post. I scroll through my comments, liking and replying. I do this for a minute until a specific notification catches my eye.

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