The video dropped at 8:02 a.m.
Danny was still asleep, drooling on his arm, when his phone began to buzz like it was trying to crawl away. First it was texts. Then notifications. Then a call from Devin at an hour Devin should never be awake.
Danny picked up, groggy. "If someone's dead, make it quick."
"You're FAMOUS, dude."
Danny sat up. "Oh no."
"Oh yes."
The video was called "Keep Austin Awkward – Episode 0: Danny Ruiz, Disaster With a Heart" and it popped.
In the first hour:
7,000 views
400 comments
A duet from a drag queen in full disco armor
A tweet from someone semi-famous that said: "This guy is the millennial Charlie Chaplin with anxiety."
Danny watched himself stumble through the food truck segment, tell a story about nearly crying in a juice bar, and somehow come off charming.
He cringed at his own face, then read the comments.
> "Protect this man at all costs."
"I would die for Danny."
"This is what authenticity looks like when it hasn't slept in three days."
He blinked.
Then read a message from Sandy:
> "We're getting offers. Don't freak out. Call me."
He immediately freaked out.
He called Devin first.
"You did it," Devin said. "You're finally famous for something other than burrito accidents."
Danny laughed, kind of. "Yeah. It's... weird."
"You're like an anti-influencer. People like you because you're clearly spiraling."
"Great."
Devin paused. "No but seriously—you good? This kind of stuff... it can mess with your head."
Danny hesitated. "I think I'm okay."
"Because I've seen what happens when people get attention too fast. It gets loud. Then quiet. Then loud again in the wrong way."
Danny looked at the comments. Most were kind. Some weren't.
One just said: "This guy's a cringe factory."
Devin continued, "Don't start changing yourself to feed the crowd. Just do your thing. Or you'll end up like Taylor, remember her?"
Danny nodded slowly. "She's a goat therapist now, right?"
"In Vermont."
"Right."
He got off the phone and started writing.
The words came easy now.
He wrote a scene where the main character gets everything he ever wanted... but can't sleep because someone on the internet called him "emotionally moist."
He wrote a line:
> The more people saw him, the less he felt seen.
Then he closed the laptop and breathed.
That evening, Mrs. Beverly didn't answer when he knocked.
Her porch light was off. Unusual. Even weirder: no background noise. No YouTube videos. No "Bless this Mess" reruns.
Danny tried calling her.
Voicemail.
He walked around the side of the house, nerves creeping in. Just as he reached for the knob—click.
The door opened. She stood there in her robe and slippers, pale and squinting.
"You look like death warmed over," he said.
"I feel like a preheated meatloaf," she muttered.
Danny stepped inside. "You okay?"
"Just a bug. Or karma. I ate gas station sushi yesterday."
"You need anything?"
She sighed. "Can you walk Pimento?"
Danny blinked. "The feral nightmare cat from three houses down?"
"He trusts me."
"He scratched the mailman."
"He has trauma."
Danny nodded. "Yeah. Don't we all."
She smiled weakly. "Thanks, kid."
That night, Danny walked Pimento on a leash made from braided shoelaces while checking his phone under streetlights.
Another 30,000 views.
A DM from a streaming company.
A voice memo from Sandy saying: "We need to talk branding. Merch? Maybe a live event?"
It should've felt good.
Instead, all he could think about was Mrs. Beverly alone in that house.
And how none of this—views, clout, comments—meant anything if he couldn't show up for the people who mattered.
Back home, he didn't open the DMs.
He sat on the floor with a notebook and wrote down one word:
Balance.
Then underneath it:
> "Don't turn into a character in someone else's story."