Damn it, why are sister spidey-senses so powerful? Of course there’s something I’m not telling her. It’s been four days since the girls gave me their friendly little intervention… aka The Ultimatum. My stomach has been twisted and wrenched into such a tight knot since then that I’m seriously shocked I’ve been able to get down any food. And she’s right—I haven’t been sleeping.

I sigh and turn to face her. “Okay, maybe a little.”

“Knew it!” She leaps up to sit on the edge of the sink, looking a little smug.

I swat her knee. “The reason I haven’t said anything is that I’m still processing it.”

“Are you going to keep me in suspense forever? Processing what exactly?”

And so I spill. Everything. About the “plan” I overheard at Youngeun’s café. About the horde of angry parents at DB. And last but not least, The Ultimatum. Are they just pissed that I was the first one to start a company? Or are they actually genuinely worried about my mental health and how much I’m juggling?

And worst of all—does it even matter, so long as they might be right?

“Whoa, whoa, Rachel, slow down,” Leah says when I get to this part of my confession. “I’m sorry, but you are giving the other girls wayyyy too much credit. The only person who knows how much is too much is you. They are your groupmates, of course, and you care about what they think, but you don’t work for them. You don’t answer to them. You work for DB. And you work for you. Do you think you’re in over your head with everything you’re juggling?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her truthfully, and feel my throat get tight. Shit. Do not cry right now. I don’t have time to fix my eye makeup before it’s even dried. “And the hardest part is I’m not sure how I’m supposed to know. The past few days have been hell. The past couple weeks, really. I’m sorry I haven’t said anything. I just don’t want to mess up. I don’t want to disappoint everyone.”

It hits me for the first time that for the past decade, I’ve always known one thing: that I wanted to be a K-pop star. But once I knew that, I was simply on a track where other people decided my success, and my fate, for me. As long as I played by their rules, I kept moving one step ahead. But now there’s no road map for the next steps. I’m drawing the map myself… while trying to navigate it. And now…