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“What are you doing?”

“I have to check in with my Tok-ers”

“Your what-ers?”

“TikTok, Carly”

“What?” Her response takesfloored that my seventy-year-old mother does too “You’re on TikTok?”

“Uh-huh I love it,” she says, fluffing up her hair anda kissy-face toward the screen of her phone “Every day, I post a dance for , but I’m sure they’ll understand why I’ve been MIA the past few days”

“Moht now That’s, like, the exact opposite of lying low!” I hop up fro the phone off the coffee table before she can stop me

“Carly, I have to My folloill be worried about me”

“Nope” I shakeOnly sitting”

“Give h and holds her hand out for me to obey her demands

“I will,” I say “Once you sit back down on your donut”

She glares

I glare right back

She huffs again

And while I wait patiently for her to sit down, I take a quick glance at the screen of the phone where her TikTok account is front and center

Stella Got Her Groove Back

That’s her account name

I alets stuck in my throat when I see how many damn followers she has—over two hundred thousand

“What the hell?” I question just as ive it up and ease herself back onto her donut cushion

“What’s wrong?” she questions, her face pinching up in pain with the doard movement toward the couch “You didn’t accidentally delete one of my drafts, did you?”