“Let’s go! We have exactly 25 minutes for this, and by the time you get your coffee, you’ll have 15 minutes to sit and look like you’re flirting with Carter,” reminds Stacy, her manager. Today her blonde bob is pin straight, which means she means serious business. There’s no joking, no taking a few minutes for Ellie to try and fight panic in the car before she has to go somewhere. She just has to smile, shove down any emotions, and get through today. 

She gets out of the car, and immediately, she’s swarmed. She knew this would happen. Stacy planned it with Carter’s publicist to get some buzz going as she prepares to announce her new album and he gets ready for the new baseball season to start. She hated this part of show business, but if it allowed her to be out there sharing her music with her fans, she forced herself to do it. 

She keeps her head down as she is ushered into the coffee shop by security. She spotts Stacy excitedly waving her over to a table in front of the window with an iced almond milk caramel latte waiting for her. Carter is already there, but of course, he’s busy flirting with the waitress dropping off their drinks. She slides into the seat and does her best to cheerfully say hi to Carter, even though internally she just wants to cry and run out of there.

Working on her new album for the past several months, she almost forgot how scripted, how forced, all of her life had to be when she’s promoting music or on tour. She barely has a few minutes to herself, and she’s constantly putting on a show, having to be Ellie Wilson, famous pop star selling out concerts, winning awards, and known for her long blonde hair that somehow always has a ribbon in it. It’s her thing. Today, she has her hair partially up with a white lace ribbon that matches her white sundress. This is at least one part of her that still feels authentic, even when she’s being a pop star. 

The waitress finally walks away and Carter notices she sat down. “Hey Ellie. How hot was that waitress?” She rolls her eyes and groans, “Carter, this is never going to work if you’re blatantly hitting on other women in front of me. No one will believe it.” He just grunts in return, then starts talking about Spring Training Camp. He’s the pitcher for San Antonio, even though he’s currently trying to be traded to LA. He says he wasn’t made for anything other than California. He keeps talking, and she takes a minute to really look at him. This is the closest they’ve been since the whole thing started a couple of weeks ago. His short blond hair was gelled in the latest spiky but disheveled bed head type style. But she knows he had someone spend at least an hour on his hair this morning. Between his blue eyes, his smile, and his professional athlete muscles, she could see why he was named Hottest Sports Star. He was, in fact, gorgeous. But he was also full of himself. He’d been talking nonstop since she sat down and hadn’t asked her a single thing, so her brain has tuned him out, and she thinks back to the schedule for the next several weeks leading up to the album announcement. 

She knew it was coming. She knew her days and nights would no longer be her own. She was so grateful that God had blessed her with her career and being able to do what she loves. But being in the spotlight for the past 5 years has been exhausting. As they’ve been getting closer to the album announcement, she has started to have panic attacks. It started as just bad dreams, flashbacks to the last album announcement and corresponding tour. Then it grew to her heart racing and feeling sick whenever she’d think about it. The past couple of days, her body just wanted to flee the moment she knew she had to be in the spotlight. So as she sat there now, the iced latte hid the fact that her palms were sweating, she couldn’t hear Carter over the sound of her own heartbeat banging in her ears, and she kept trying to tell herself she’d have fun at the photo shoot she was going to next. It was all she could do right now. 

Ellie was brought out of her panicked thoughts by Stacy tapping her on the shoulder, “okay, time for you both to stand up and do a quick kiss before heading outside together. Then he’ll give you another kiss as you get into the car.” They both stood up, and it was like she wasn’t even in her body. She did what Stacy told them and followed Carter outside.

As soon as she steps out of the door, she is assaulted by a woman screaming at her. She tries to ignore it, but then the crazed woman lunges at her, shouting something about stealing her man. Thankfully, security steps in front of Ellie as the woman tries to claw her way out, shouting awful things at her. She’s surrounded. Carter is off to her right, checking his phone. Stacy and her security guard are both trying to detain the woman, even the driver came out from the car to help try and control the growing crowd. Cameras are flashing and people are yelling their names. That’s when something in Ellie just snaps..  

In her panic, she frantically tries to find any escape. She needs to get out of there. She can’t do it anymore.  Her body is shaking, and she can see the driver’s side door of the car is open from when the driver got out to help. Her panicked brain takes over, and she finds herself sprinting to the car. She gets in, slams the door shut, and drives away. No one even notices. 

She forces air into her lungs for a while, and finally her heart rate returns to something normal before it quickly jumps back up when she remembers that she just drove off, somewhere in LA, without a clue what she was doing. “Okay, you can do this. It’s been a few years since you’ve driven, but it’s just like riding a bike, right?” Then she remembered the last time she tried to do that, she fell less than 10 feet away. “It’s ok. You just have to drive home! You can use your phone to follow directions home, then call Stacy to let you in! That’s all you have to do. You’ve performed on the GRAMMY’s stage, surely you can drive a few miles.” 

She manages to type in her address and feels some level of comfort as the computerized voice tells her where to turn. A few turns later and she pulls into her gated driveway. Phew. She turns off the GPS and pulls up the screen to call Stacy when she realizes she has several missed calls from her and a few angry texts about being late for the photo shoot. Yes, Stacy’s concerned, but she’s mostly asking where Ellie was so they could maintain the schedule. The panic sets in again. Heart racing, palms sweating, and all of a sudden, she feels like she might pass out.  She can’t do this. She can’t. Her body is shaking, and she realizes she’s hysterically crying. She’s never felt like this before. 

Again, something takes over her body, and she finds herself reversing out of the driveway and getting on the interstate. She doesn’t know where she’s going yet, but she knows she can’t be in LA any longer.