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Chapter 1
Chapter One: Push Notifications and Pastel Crystals
Dylan Hart liked his studio best when it was empty. The pastel wall was forgiving. The crystals didn’t ask him to be more authentic. The soft synth track looped its breezy nonsense while he adjusted a ring light and checked his phone every ten seconds, just to see if he’d become famous in the last minute.
He hadn’t. “Hart to Start” had exactly three viewers, one of whom he suspected was his mother on mute while she folded laundry. He grinned at the lens anyway. The mug on his desk read MANIFEST OR DIE TRYING. He’d designed it himself. It looked better than it sold.
“Today,” he said, voice sliding into his practiced sincerity, “we’re exploring the power of tiny promises. Promise yourself to be what you already are. Remember: you can’t pour from an empty—”
Comments flickered. One was a string of clapping emojis. Another was definitely a bot offering ways to enlarge his wealth. A third tagged a bigger influencer, Blaze Monroe, known for the kind of motivational content that required shirtless videos.
“Seeing this?” Blaze’s fan wrote. “Diet Blaze. Try less.”
Dylan swallowed. He’d been pre-mortified for most of his thirties. He tried to breathe into his belly like a post had once told him. He checked his phone again. No new followers. The synths chimed. The crystals glittered, unbothered.
He thought of logging off. He thought of telling a joke. He thought of saying nothing.
He said everything.
