And I was like: Quit what?

And Mandy was like: Being famous.

And I was like: You mean, just like, walk away? Do what you’re doing?

And Mandy was like: Yeah.

And I didn’t say anything for a while, and then Mandy was like: You think that it’ll feel like dying. But it won’t. Once you do it, it’s as easy as taking off a pair of headphones.

And I still didn’t really know what to say, and so Mandy was like: We’re still so young. We can still be whoever we want to be.

And I was like: I’m being whoever I want to be.

And Mandy was like: This is who you want to be? This?

And I was like: Yeah.

And Mandy was like: Why?

And I was like: Because … I’m showing people what it’s like to be free.

And Mandy was like: You think you’re free?

And I was like: Freer than a normal person at least.

And Mandy was like: You are the biggest slave on the planet. You are an advertisement for a fake world. You think you’re the CEO, but you’re not even on the board. Just because people are staring at you doesn’t mean they admire you. They want to eat you. And of course they do. They’re starving. You’re the cheap fuel that keeps the whole thing running.

And I was like: You want me to stop being famous? You want me to just become a normal person?

And Mandy was like: You already ARE a normal person. That’s all anyone can ever be.

And I was like: Then how come I don’t feel like one?

And Mandy was like: You wanna know the difference between a normal person and a famous person?

And I was like: What?

And Mandy was like: A famous person is just a normal person who thinks they exist.

And right then, really loudly, “Be My Baby” started playing on my computer speakers. In the game, if you don’t select anything for a while in the conversation trees, it just automatically gets you together with Mandy, and so Mandy and I both looked over at the screen as this cut scene started to play of the two of us walking down to the beach and having our first kiss.

Sitting there with Mandy, watching the two of us kissing in the game and listening to my thirteen-year-old voice doing all this crazy shit on the soundtrack, it was like, all of a sudden, time stopped, and I could see the future.

I saw Mandy, and she was sitting in an office somewhere at some university, and she was a professor, and all over her walls were posters for different talks she had given or different conferences she had organized, and on her shelves were all these books—books she was reading and books she had written—and in the little corner of her office, not hidden or anything, but just not given the front and center placement, there was a picture of her from the Mobilize tour. Just a little framed picture—it felt like the kind of thing she’d show her students sometimes when they came in and be like: Look what I used to do. Look who I used to be. And they’d laugh and be like: WHAT? LOL. Or maybe they’d already know about it, but they’d still just be like: Whoa, Professor, you’ve had the craziest life experience. It was like Mandy was able to have such a sense of humor about it, you know? No anger, no resentment, just: That’s life. That’s where life can take you.