till forever falls apart | Taylor Swift

01

April 2020

"Hey tiktok, August here! It's day... I don't even know anymore of quarantine. Well, I know we're in April... uhm, anyway, it's about four in the morning on— shit, it's Friday already? Right, so I couldn't sleep and I wrote this little riff and— crap, my phone just killed itself—"

August let out a frustrated huff as she picked up her phone from the ground and made sure the screen was still intact. Thankfully, there was no damage. She smiled awkwardly at the camera that was still recording and ended the video, saving it in her drafts.

She leaned her phone against her small lamp and started a new recording then, diving right into the small verse of a song she had written just a few minutes ago without any pleasantries. Maybe then her phone would stay up for long enough on her nightstand before deciding to face-plant for the hundredth time in the past ten minutes.

Thankfully, she managed to get through the entire verse without any disruptions. With a little excited and sleepy grin, she ended the recording and added whatever she wanted to say in the text box before finally posting the video. It probably wasn't going to reach a large audience at this hour in the middle of the night, or more like, very early in the morning, but she didn't really care. She was just entertaining herself while locked up in her parents' home during this pandemic. She honestly had nothing better to do.

With a little yawn and a stretch, she padded over toward the guitar stand and hung the instrument gently before returning to bed and slipping under the covers. Her dog, Phoebe, instantly jumped up on the mattress and curled at her feet. August smiled at the curly haired ball of fluff and gave her fur a few ruffles before turning the lights off and finally deciding it was best she got some shut-eye.

Naturally, August didn't wake up until the sun had been up for hours and hours. It was her older sister Zoë who had woken her up by barging into her bedroom sometime around noon, looking frantic and excited beyond belief. 

"Get up! AUGUST!"

August groaned, burying herself deeper into her mattress and pillows. She was way too tired. "Get out," she whined, slapping her hand feebly across the air. She didn't even reach her sister.

"YOU WENT VIRAL!" Zoë exclaimed instead, a little giggle in disbelief erupting from her.

"What?" August grumbled, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands when she realising her sister was not going to leave her alone.

Zoë had grown impatient. She flopped down next to August and pulled out her phone. August had to blink several times to be able to see through the bright lights as Zoë scrolled through her device, and still, she had to squint to make out any visible shapes. It didn't help that she was practically legally blind. (Okay, it wasn't that bad, but she still needed her glasses to make it through the day without any headaches). 

Finally, Zoë shoved her phone right in August's face and she had to recoil a bit to see the whole screen. With her eyes still narrowed, August could see her tiktok page open from her sister's account. The first thing she saw was her follower count. It had jumped from a mere ten thousand or so to forty thousand while she had been fast asleep, dreaming that she was a dog and Phoebe was her best friend.

"What the—" she muttered, pushing herself into an upright position. She fumbled for her glasses on the nightstand and put them on, hoping this was just her bad vision playing a trick on her. But nope.