Six Years After, 2024

"Alright, we just want to once again thank all of our amazing followers for joining us on this super special road trip live!"

I smile into the smartphone and quickly turn the phone back over to my fiancé, Darren. He smiles and waves to the camera. His perfectly straight teeth look amazing as the sun bounces off of them at just the right angle. He winks into the camera before turning back and facing the road.

"I just want to thank you for all of the music suggestions and the audiobooks that we looked into for the trip. You guys are the reason we keep going! Be sure to check out the page for more videos of our trip! Bye!"

I press the end button and stare at the man who has been my everything for the past three years. His chiseled jawline and curly black hair that falls perfectly around his gorgeous face that is still getting hit by that ray of sunshine is enough to make me swoon. His bright blue eyes are the icing on the cake that shows the sheer beauty of this man.

"This was a dumb ass idea," he says to me once he's sure the camera goes off. "We have to be in the city to make the content that the people want to see. We don't need to be going back to your small Podunk town in the middle of nowhere."

Yes, my soon-to-be husband is gorgeous, but the issue?

I can't fucking stand him.

Once I got over the vision of beauty that he was our sophomore year of college I realized that underneath all of that sexiness was a piece of shit. He complains non-stop. He insults me. He never lets me have any victories.

"Briar, why the hell are you with him?" you might be asking yourself.

Well, I was young, dumb, and had a dream in college. I wanted to be an influencer. Beauty, lifestyle, health, and fitness: none of it really mattered to me. I just wanted to post my videos and watch the money roll in. It was the perfect plan; but only if you exclude the fact that I'm your average run-of-the-mill short blonde girl with brown eyes.

Yeah, I'm pretty. Maggie taught me that in high school. She taught me how to hide every one of my insecurities with a simple swipe of a makeup sponge. That's your everyday shit when it comes to making an online platform. You have to have something that makes you different. Something that makes you stand out.

Pretty and blonde had been done. I needed extraordinary. Something that makes people stop and think "Wow! That's something worth viewing!"

Darren was a godsend at the right time. He was just the right amount of sexy that made girls want to watch him, and guys want to be friends with him. He was charming on camera, and he knew how to put on a persona that made people see him as down to earth and kind. We started our TikTok Darren and Briar, and soon we had over 1.3 million followers.

It was a dream come true. I had the perfect life, the perfect man, and the perfect future.

At least if you asked my followers.

But oh honey, a storm was coming.

What started as romance and passion quickly turned sour. Soon nothing I did was good enough for Darren. Especially after we started our channel. I was never allowed to post any beauty blog content. I was never allowed to go live unless he was in the room with me. I was never allowed to do anything without his consent. Even my solo videos were scripted by him.

My idea and my dream quickly turned into his business.

He wasn't letting any of that go.

"Not everything on this trip is going to be for content," I remind him. "This is about my friend-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he says dismissing me quickly. "It's to honor that one girl who died in high school. Briar, it's been six years. We have things to do. I would have understood if it was one year later, but six?"

"That 'one girl' was my best friend, Darren," I say resisting the urge to snap at him. "We all decided that we would come back after we graduated college for one last hoorah and to make sure we remembered her before life took over."

"Well, I guess I can at least network with your father," says Darren shrugging.

We drive the rest of the way in silence, watching the familiar old buildings and fields blur past the windows. My friends and I used to drive past these same fields and vow that we would never come back.

If Maggie hadn't died I would have kept that vow.

We pull off the one-lane highway and turn onto the main street of the town. Grover View had less than twenty thousand people in the population. The single high school that I went to had less than two thousand kids in total. The town is your typical small southern football town. Where the football players are Jesus and the coaches are either the most celebrated or most hated depending on how the Friday night game went.

"Jesus it's like an old movie," says Darren as he drives down to the small mom-and-pop diner on the strip.

Charlie's is a Grover View staple. We would always be sitting in a booth with a milkshake and cheese fries. If it wasn't for the constant cheer practices and routine that I called I probably would have gotten severely overweight in high school.

Darren pulls into a parking spot in front of the diner and looks at me with an annoyed expression. "So how long will you be here? Remember we have that brand deal with the new toothpaste that whitens your teeth," he looks into the rearview mirror and swipes his tongue over his teeth. "Honestly isn't that bad."

"I'll be about an hour and a half, Darren. If it goes longer I'll text you."

"Don't let it go longer."

I get out of the car and close the door loudly because I know it annoys him. I see the frustration cross his face and a word that I'm sure wouldn't be allowed on daytime television muffled through the glass of his passenger door window.

I walk to the giant glass doors and look at my reflection in it. My blonde hair falls straight down my back, and my front bangs shape my square face nicely. The outfit I picked to wear today was picked directly by Darren and my management team to help make me look taller. The platform boots I'm in make me 5'3, and the orange sweater and brown skirt are "just what's in" right now. I think it makes me look like Velma from Scooby Doo. The only thing I'm missing is my glasses.

Darren forbids me from wearing those out in public though.

I've always been short. I barely hit 4'11, and before high school, it was something that people tended to make fun of. I was a bit of an outcast all through my school. Until I met Maggie Evans.

I walked into the school in my jeans and T-shirt. I had my head down and hair falling in my face when I felt someone run into me.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" She was beautiful. Like the earth decided to align with all the other planets on the day of her birth. Her striking features from her piercing green eyes to her sharp jawline. "Hey, you're Briar, right?"

"Yeah," I mumbled.

I knew who she was. Of course, I did. Everyone knew Maggie Evans. Guys wanted to date her. Girls wanted to be her friend. She called all the shots at Grover View. Even before she was in high school.

"You're like really pretty," she said to me with a genuine smile that made me believe her. "Like really pretty."

"Thank you," I said. I couldn't believe that THE Maggie Evans was speaking to me. Let alone talking to me. It felt weird. I instantly started to wonder if it was a joke.

"You should come sit with me at lunch today," she said with a smile. "Meet me at the cafeteria doors at passing period. We can talk more."

She walked away without another word, and from that day forward my best friendship with Maggie Evans was formed.

I snap back into reality and walk into the diner. The smell of cheeseburgers and fries instantly hit my nose, and I'm reminded of home. We came here for every homecoming, prom, or any school event. Charlie's always catered.

"Oh my god, is that Briar Oakland?!" I turn my head and see Diana Garcia sitting at the booth we all used to share all those years ago in high school. "Or is that a bitch who just looks like her that can't respond to a text message?" She stands from the booth with a giant grin.

I smile as I walk as fast as I can toward the booth and wrap my arms around her neck. Which is hard, because Diana is 5'7. Her long wavy brown hair looks beautiful wrapped into a fishtail braid. Her simple white blouse and jean shorts are reminiscent of the clothes she would always wear. That was just Diana. She liked the simple stuff.

"Look, it's been such a busy day!" I say laughing as we let go of our embrace and sit down in our booth.

"I know, I saw the stream," she says holding up her phone. "I'm happy for you, Bri, you worked hard for that. And that man of yours?" she lets out a low whistle. "If you ever want to set him free you can always send him to me for safekeeping."

I fake a smile. Not because what Diana said was out of pocket, but because this is always the response I get about Darren. "He's so hot!" but he has the personality of a moldy banana and the temper of a step-father in the 80s.

"I'm very lucky," I force myself to say.

We sit there in a comfortable silence when Rhonda, the resident waitress who's been for forever finally comes to our table. "Well, well, well," she says with her grandma-esque voice. She has taken our orders from the time that I was a child. She has to be at least in her seventies by this point, but you wouldn't be able to tell by how she moves and runs her tables.

"If it isn't the celebrity and the doctor!" she says with genuine pride leaking out of her voice. "I'll tell you what, Diana, your folks don't stop talking about how proud they are of you, and your brother is always talking about how he's going to follow in your footsteps. And Briar? Girl, my granddaughter is seventeen and she's obsessed with you and the hunky man of yours. Do you mind if I send her a picture of us? I'd get some cool grandma points."

"Not at all," I say with a smile.

Rhonda pulls out her old iPhone and points it at me. I do the smile and pose that I've been taught to do by the management team. "Let me try and remember," she says as she puts her phone away. "Diana, you want a chicken tender basket, honey mustard, and onion rings. Briar, you want a strawberry milkshake and some cheese fries."

"Sounds like an absolute dream, Rhonda," I say with a smile. I can't believe she remembered our orders from all those years ago.

"Can I add a cola to mine?" asks Diana as Rhonda is walking off. Rhonda gives me a thumbs up.

"So where is everyone else?" I ask.

I've wanted to broach this topic from the moment I sat down. There's one person in particular that I'm not excited to see. Declan and I didn't end on the best of terms when I went away for college, and we definitely haven't talked since Darren and I got together.

Darren would never allow that.

"Ezra texted me and said he was going to be late," says Diana. I wiggle my eyebrows at her and she rolls her eyes. "Shut up, Bri," she says with a chuckle. "That was never a thing."

"It totally was," I say. "You and Ezra gave each other bedroom eyes for a whole year!"

"Joel said he had to stop at his mom's doctor's office before he came by," says Diana quickly changing the subject. "And Declan is right there."

As if God wanted to laugh at me, the bell on the diner door rang, and in walks Declan Hahn. His once boyish face is no longer boyish. He sports a thick black beard, and tight flannel shirt that highlights his chest perfectly. His jeans are just tight enough to give you a show, but also keep you guessing.

Not that there are any secrets between us when it comes to that.

"Diana," he says with a smile. He gives her a big bear hug and then glances over at me. I can tell by his glances that he's unsure of how to approach me. "Hey Briar," he says with a smile. He leans in and gives me an awkward side hug. "How are you doing?"

"Foods here!" Rhonda said.

Oh, thank god.

"I'm good," I say shoving a cheese fry directly in my mouth. I try to avoid eye contact with him, but I can't deny the weird feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when he hugged me. It felt familiar.

You're engaged you stupid bitch. I tell myself as I shove another cheese fry into my mouth.

Diana and Declan catch up on pleasantries as the door rings again. Joel and Ezra walk into the shop side by side. Their arms are wrapped around each other like brothers at a frat house when they're at a party. The biggest smiles are plastered across their faces.

"Now that everyone's here," says Diana. "Let's talk about why we're here."

Yes. Let's talk about our dead friend.