lillianrhode

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Lily lies on her back on the white duvet in the bedroom of the Paleys’ pool house, next to an imprint of Joel’s body.

She doesn’t know what part is the craziest, that she’s here at all or that she spent the night in bed with Joel. It’s not like anything happened, but Lily still feels different. She hasn’t felt that safe at night since her mom left. Lily’s been sleeping with the lights on.

Joel is nothing like how he appears on the show. On the show he seems so chill and happy. He’s always goofing around with Sean Johnson, who he used to make YouTube videos with, and there’s at least one scene featuring him shirtless every episode. He’s portrayed as a heartthrob and a good guy—certainly compared to Idris Morcos and Brandon Cadogan. In real life, there’s a quiet intensity about Joel, a melancholy Lily wasn’t expecting.

Lily picks up her phone, shooting Mia a text to tell her that she’s just finding her bearings, promising that they’ll talk soon, and denying her request for a “close-up photo of Bea Getty’s ass”—Bea is Mia’s crush; she has a collage of Bea’s modeling photos hanging on her locker door at school.

The truth is, Lily doesn’t know how to talk to Mia or any of her other friends who want to know what’s happening. She doesn’t know how to explain it because she doesn’t quite understand it herself. It’s all happened so fast Lily hasn’t processed it.

She stares back up at the ceiling. Beverly Hills feels like another planet…

Outside the glass doors she can hear workers cleaning up after the party in the Paleys’ backyard.

The lights aren’t the only thing Lily kept on after her mom left. Lily had to keep the TV in the trailer on all the time because she thought the silence would kill her. She was so lonely but had too much pride to admit it. She escaped to Zuma whenever she could.

“It’s the only place where I can truly be free,” Joel said one episode. It resonated with Lily so much and prompted her to request Zuma, despite having to take the bus to get there.

Lily googles Joel’s Instagram on her phone. Almost every photo is of him at the beach. Lily doesn’t have an account because she’s never had anything she’s wanted to share before, just things she’s wanted to hide. Before recent events, it felt like nothing exciting had ever happened to her.

You have the makings of a star.

Something possesses Lily to pull the trigger: she creates an account. When Instagram asks her to select a username, she tries @lilyrhode but it’s already taken so she uses her full name: @lillianrhode.

She follows Hailey but isn’t sure if Hailey will follow her back. Hailey didn’t exactly run out to greet her when Lily came back with Patrick. Lily’s been hiding out in the pool house ever since, but Sam texted to tell her to keep her schedule open today—she’s shooting a “girls’ day” with Whitney and Hailey…

Hailey’s feed is curated with glamorous photos, most of them starring Hailey and her superhuman tan. She uses captions like “Don’t be a Queen waiting for her King. Be a Queen ruling her Kingdom until her King joins her.”

The posts are a mix of clothes and jewelry and her shoe collection and her Judith Leiber collection and modeling shots and ads and parties and private jets, and then there are the highlights, which suck you in, one after the other—behind the scenes on Platinum Triangle, her Paper magazine shoot, photos from earlier this summer in the south of France. There’s a photo of her and Joel on the rooftop of Catch that Lily finds herself staring at until she loses all sense of time.

Lily climbs off the bed and walks into the en suite bathroom. Even her reflection looks different in Beverly Hills. It’s like the mirror should come with a warning: Objects may appear more beautiful than they are.

She takes a photo and makes it her first post.