Life's Too Short

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, death, substance use, and mental illness.

Vanessa works on her “depressing end-of-life checklist” (178), which includes meeting with an adoption agency about Grace, setting up a trust for Grace and the rest of her family, and hiring Sonja to help her father. However, she’s most worried about her income stream as she hasn’t had time to create content for her channel. Despite the overwhelming popularity of her video about Adrian, Vanessa doesn’t feel comfortable exploiting what they have for views. She finds she has been enjoying keeping her life private lately, but she soon has something “big” planned for the channel.

While attaching glow-in-the-dark stars to her ceiling, Vanessa gets her hair caught in the ceiling fan. She calls Adrian for help, but he’s at a work gala. He arrives quickly, still in his tux, and helps her untangle her hair, putting them physically close while she’s wearing a robe. When the robe falls open, exposing her breast, she panics. Adrian laughs, not at her body but at her reaction. Embarrassed, she urges him to return to the gala, but he lingers, cooing at Grace.