red herring [h.s.]

Epilogue one. (*)

-- Three months later – June. --

Stella.

I had not often been this nervous in my life.

I stood in front of the mirror, continuously tugging on the dress and turning around, looking at it from all angles with a critical eye. I looked good, I knew I did, but this was important. It was so important.

"Stella?" Erin's voice called me throughout her loft and I exhaled a shaky breath, "Yeah?"

"Are you dressed?" Her fingers knocked on the door, "We should leave soon, Linda said to get there before nine."

I flicked my eyes up to the clock to see that it was fifteen minutes past eight. Swallowing thickly, I nodded to myself in the mirror, "Right. Yeah, I'm dressed, you can come in."

She supressed a squeal the second she saw me and I glanced at her through the mirror to see her clamping her hands together with a wide grin, "Oh my god, you look so good in that dress!"

"Yeah?" I blushed a little, smoothing my palms over it again, "You think so?"

"Bitch, it looks so much better on you than it did on me!" She complained while walking over to me. I threw my head back in a giggle and turned around to face her, "Thank you again for letting me borrow it."

"Of course." She shook her head, "No big deal. You need to look pretty for your book launch."

Nerves seeped into my system again at the words and Erin's smile faltered when she saw my anxiety, "Hey," She placed her comforting hand on my shoulder, "you're going to do so good, Stella. Literally everyone is there to celebrate you, you should try and enjoy it." She urged.

I sighed, "I know. I can't believe it's going on sale tomorrow." I fiddled with my manicured fingers again, painted a lovely red by Erin herself, "What if no one buys it?"

Erin rolled her eyes, "Stella, it's been blowing up on social media this entire time, ever since you made the announcement."

I nibbled my lip but knew that she was right. Apparently, my book got picked up by teenagers on TikTok and Instagram, and it was huge already before it even hit the stands. After printing out the little teaser and summary of it in the papers and magazines, people had been quoting it non-stop. I always assumed my audience would be early twenty year olds or something, and I was proven right.

The publishing agency loved the attention it was already getting, but somehow it gave me even more stress. Like the bar was so high with that one poem that I printed out that people expected the rest of the book to be on the same level.

Which I felt like it was, but obviously I couldn't read the minds of the audience. Maybe they'd all be disappointed.

So tonight was the book launching party that the pr-team of Olympia Publishers decided to throw for me. My parents had flown in yesterday and were attending, as were Harry and his friends, and my friends. Most of the people from the company were there as well as some press, some other writers, some people who owned large bookstores and a few critics who'd read the book and put out reviews.

I was already shitting my pants about that one.

Apparently there had also been tickets that were sold out for some reason. I didn't know who on earth would like to come to a book launch from a writer they didn't know yet. The entire thing made me nervous even if it did seem like a good idea a few weeks back.

Linda was going to do the introduction, as well as the chief editor – Samuel – of Olympia Publishing. I'd obviously have to get up the stage and say something too, as well as read a little part of my book out loud. I'd have to get fucking hammered before daring to go up there.