Stan

The following morning, Leah found herself checking Kian's socials as soon as she woke up. In doing so, she had undone all the hard work she had accomplished the day before, though she didn't seem to care. She was far too taken aback by the post she saw on his TikTok...

"He's only gone and shaved all his hair off!" she exclaimed, "Well, not all of it, he's not bald, it's just a buzz cut. I know he said he'd do it, but I wasn't expecting him to do it right away. I'm a HUGE sucker for buzz cuts. I kinda hoped he'd get one before, and now he has. Psychic as well as cute, huh..." Kian had also posted another video only 12 minutes ago ranting about how bored he was and how he was constantly being left on delivered. So, he asked his followers to message him on Snapchat. Leah squealed at the time stamp, "This is my chance!" she thought to herself. She raced to Snapchat before realising she had no idea what she was going to say to him. "Crap! Well, I can't say just anything, there are thousands of other people with the same idea as me. I've gotta be unique, so that if he does see it, he'll want to keep talking to me." After a few minutes of brainstorming, Leah settled on a "So, I hear you deal in mobile homes?", a reference to his bio on Instagram, which read "Mobile Home Dealer". Leah was dissatisfied with the final product of her brainstorming but couldn't think of anything better, so she sent the message. She tried not to get her hopes up as she'd responded to many of Kian's stories before on Instagram, to no avail. She was used to being ignored, but she hoped things would be different this time.

Leah went about her day as normal, still trying to keep her exposure to Kian at a minimum, but time seemed to drag on much more tediously. Hours went by as Leah ate her breakfast, binged Friday Night Dinner on Netflix and did some light reading. Throughout the day, Leah made occasional glances to her phone, checking her notifications for something – anything – from Kian...but there was nothing.

When evening came around, Leah had lost all hope. Deep down, she knew he wouldn't respond, but entertaining the possibility that he might gave her all the hope she needed to believe he would.

Leah liked to listen to music whenever she felt sad. It helped her to analyse her emotions (like some frickin computer, lmao) and get to the root of them to understand what it is that's making her feel this way and why it has this effect on her. It made her feel as though she had some level of control over her emotions, as they often overpowered her. Leah played "Songs I listen to when that one alt girl leaves me on opened", a playlist of Kian's on Spotify. Listening to Kian's playlists made her feel so much closer to him, like she was getting to know him better. She was made happy in the knowledge that Kian had also listened to this playlist. He had sat on his bed (when he got left on opened by an alt girl) and listened to the very same songs that were playing into Leah's ears.

Leah turned to her alarm clock that read "03:40 AM". She thought of the TikTok Kian made a while back, "Just two teens (that should really sort their sleep schedule out) vibing".

"He's right" she thought to herself, "but not tonight, not now. My emotions are such a mess. I tried so hard to get rid of this bloody OBSESSION, but no matter what I do, I always find myself going back to him. I can't just forget about him, as hard as I've tried. Listening to this seems about the only thing that helps with the way I feel. So that's what I'm gonna do."

She shut her eyes and, with her headphones over her ears, was transported somewhere far away alongside the man of her dreams, Kian Jardine.