Chapter 1

Nia

The shrill buzz of my phone yanks me awake, and I smack around my nightstand until I find it, eyes half-glued shut.  The screen is a horror show: 437 unread messages, 52 Instagram DMs, 18 Twitter mentions, and a new TikTok notification screaming "YOU’RE FAMOUS."

I sit bolt upright, the room tilting, my pug — Sir Duke of Messy — giving me a dirty look from the foot of the bed like he’s judging me too.

Panic punches through me, cold and disorienting.
What the hell happened last night?

I tap the first text — Harper:

"Girl. You broke the damn internet."

The second — Maggie:

"Call me. Now. Also, breathe."

With a trembling hand, I open the TikTok link... and there it is: me, mid-date, leaning back in my chair, one eyebrow raised, telling a man with a smile sharp enough to draw blood:

"Actually, no, I don't owe you my time, my number, or a second more of this evening. Best of luck, though."

The crowd’s gasps. His shocked face.  The soundbite looping endlessly: "I don't owe you my time."

And underneath, the view counter ticking higher, higher, higher.

I drop my phone onto the bed like it’s radioactive. The internet knows my name now.
But which version of me have they decided to love or hate?

I scroll through the comments with a sick knot twisting my stomach tighter with every swipe.

"SHE'S A QUEEN."
"This is why nobody wants to date anymore."
"Normalize setting standards and not apologizing for it."
"She’s gonna die alone with her cats. Lol."

My cheeks burn hot, not from shame — from rage.

I know the truth: setting boundaries isn’t cruelty. It’s survival. But the world doesn’t want a woman like me standing up and smiling while doing it. They want messy. They want broken. They want regret.

I slam the phone facedown, heart hammering.  I gave myself permission to walk away last night. I chose me. And still, somehow, I’m the villain in half the stories being spun.

My chest aches — a sick, heavy pressure — because I know what comes next:
The scrutiny. The assumptions. The million little knives of judgment disguised as opinions.

I wrap Sir Duke in my arms, breathing in the smell of dog shampoo and chaos, grounding myself in something that hasn’t turned into a public spectacle.

Somewhere, deep under the humiliation and anger, a spark flares. Not defeat. Not shame.
Fight.

If they’re going to watch me — fine. But they’re going to watch me on my terms.

I barely have time to wallow before Harper kicks down the front door like she’s raiding a crime scene.

"No time for pity parties!" she announces, armed with a bottle of Pinot Grigio in one hand and a bag of Sour Patch Kids in the other. "Put on sweatpants. We're entering Battle Mode."

Sir Duke barks in agreement — or protest, unclear. I pull myself off the couch, numb and blinking, as she throws a fuzzy blanket at me like she’s gearing up for war.

"You," she says, pointing at me like a general, "are about to turn this PR nightmare into a brand, babe. You are the queen of boundaries. The Oprah of saying no. The Beyoncé of emotional intelligence."

I laugh, a short, sharp sound that feels like breaking through ice.

Somewhere between Harper waving a bag of chips in one hand and sketching potential merch ideas in the other ("#BlackGirlBoundaries T-shirts, Nia. T-shirts!"), I start to feel something other than dread creeping into my chest.

Maybe...she's right.
Maybe I don’t have to survive this.
Maybe I can own it.

Later that night, after Harper has passed out on my couch in a nest of candy wrappers and inspirational post-it notes, I FaceTime Maggie. Her face fills the screen — calm, beautiful, framed by her soft locs tied up in a headwrap.

"You're trending in seventeen countries," she says, smiling gently. "You're basically the President of No."

I groan, dragging a pillow over my head. "Can we trade lives for a day? You can namaste your way through this."

Maggie chuckles. "Fame’s a slippery thing, Nia. Just make sure it’s lifting you up — not weighing you down."

She says it casually, but I hear the weight under her words. I hear the way a bad marriage and public failure once made her question every truth she thought she knew about herself.

I promise her I’ll be careful. And I mean it. But even after we hang up, her voice lingers in the corners of my mind — a reminder that survival isn’t just about setting boundaries.
It’s about knowing what’s worth letting in.

With Harper snoring softly under a pile of discarded snack bags and Maggie’s warning still echoing in my ears, I sit alone in the flickering blue light of my laptop.

I scroll through my DMs again — not the hate ones this time.  The quiet ones. The desperate ones. Women, men, nonbinary people asking:

"How did you say it like that?"
"How do you know where the line is?"
"How do you not feel guilty?"

I rub my thumb over my bottom lip, thinking.They don't want perfection. They don’t want another pretty influencer selling empowerment in exchange for clout. They want someone real. Someone who survived it.

An idea, reckless and wild, sparks at the base of my spine:
Boundary Bootcamp.
A series where I teach the things nobody taught me — how to say no, how to stay whole, how to walk away without bleeding out.

My chest tightens with fear. Who the hell am I to be their guide?

Then again...
Who the hell am I not to be?

I prop my phone on the windowsill, take a deep breath, and hit Record.My reflection in the camera looks tired, messy, vulnerable — and more alive than I’ve felt in months.

"Hey, internet," I start, my voice wobbling before it firms.
"You met me by accident. Now meet me on purpose."

I talk about boundaries, about permission to protect your peace, about how saying no isn’t cruelty — it’s self-respect. I talk about surviving being misunderstood.

Sir Duke snores through half the recording, but I power through anyway. By the time I hit Stop, my palms are sweating and my heart is a wild thing in my chest. Uploading it feels like stepping off a cliff blindfolded.

But something deep in my bones whispers: Leap anyway.

I sit there for a long time, staring at the thumbnail of the video on my screen.

My finger hovers over the “Post” button like it's a detonator.
Because in some ways... it is.

If I post this, I’m not just the girl from the viral video anymore. I’m choosing to be seen — messy, human, unapologetic.

Sir Duke snores louder, and somehow, it grounds me. You’re allowed to take up space, I remind myself. Even when it scares you.

Before I can overthink it into oblivion, I click “Upload.” The video disappears into the void of the internet, swallowed whole like a prayer — or a challenge.

I toss my phone onto the couch, burrow under Harper’s abandoned fuzzy blanket, and squeeze my eyes tightly against the tidal wave of what-ifs already crashing in.

A single buzz. Then another. And another.

My pulse hammers at the base of my throat as the notifications start to multiply — first tens, then hundreds, lighting up my screen like wildfire.

I tell myself not to look.  I tell myself I don't care.

But deep, deep down, I know. 

The world just tilted. And there’s no going back.