Free The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper Page A

actually very nice to us, don’t you think?”
    Mom sighs, kind of wistfully. “I don’t know how she does it. As soon as you left, she snapped into media-training mode. She taught us so much in so little time. Thank god they didn’t want to see me, though. I was a mess.”
    “They will someday.” My voice is soft, but it still sucks the joy out of the room. “They’re going to be everywhere we go for the foreseeable future. Every public event. Every party. Was Josh Farrow really that angry?”
    “He was,” Dad says. “About time someone wiped that smug look off his face.”
    It breaks the tension in the room, momentarily, even though we know we’re not out of the woods yet. It’s day one, and we’ve already angered the wrong people. But for once, our family is gelling, and maybe that’s because we’re in this together. We don’t have any distractions—my only real friend is thousands of miles away, and I still haven’t unpacked my things, so I can’t even escape into my cassette collection.
    As I go to my empty room, I feel oddly free. The coils of tension in my back have snapped, my breaths are stronger, deeper. I slide under the sheets and squeeze my blanket. Theheaviness of the day finally starts to set in as I plug in my phone.
    But just before I set my phone down, I see a new email in my “professional” inbox—the one I keep public so my fans and haters don’t clog up my personal email. One look at the subject line, and all the anxiety sucks back up into me, pulling my muscles taut and pushing an ache through my nervous system.
    StarWatch Media LLC: Letter of Cease & Desist for Calvin Lewis Jr.
    “Fuck,” I announce to the empty room.

    “I’m getting sued,” I tell Deb approximately two milliseconds after she answers the phone. “I’m getting sued!”
    “It’s seven thirty. In the morning.” She’s panting. “What is wrong with you? I closed last night.”
    “Oh, you closed a Paper Source in Park Slope? When? At, like, eight thirty?”
    “Nine, but I’m still tired. Damn.”
    There’s a pause on the line, and it hits me that just because I’ve been up half the night panicking and rereading the email I got doesn’t mean seven a.m. phone calls are appropriate. But I’m getting sued!
    “Elaborate. Please.” Deb still sounds mildly irritated, but she’s decided to put up with me, and I love her for it.
    “I got an email from StarWatch’s lawyers last night. I’ll spare you the legalese, but it basically means if I make anothervideo, they’re going to pursue legal action. Their lawyer has an official letterhead and everything!”
    She sighs. “So, you’re not getting sued.”
    “Well, not yet, but—”
    “You aren’t being sued. You’re being threatened. Just lie low for a bit and have your parents look it over. Maybe they won’t even sue—I mean, that wouldn’t look good, would it? A big media company picking on a teen FlashFamer like that?”
    I consider her appeal. It makes sense, but how can I risk that? And the cease-and-desist letter was so broad as to include ANY video with me in it, regardless of location. In one minute, my career just vanished before my eyes.
    “I can’t risk streaming anything now. I knew they were pissed, but I didn’t think they’d do something like this. I’ve got all this nervous energy now, and I can’t sleep, and I don’t know what to do.”
    “Take a run?”
    We both laugh.
    “No, seriously,” I say, still chuckling at the prospect of physical activity, especially in this heat wave.
    “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t panic. You just got on their radar, and they want to scare you away. And Calvin?”
    “Yes?”
    “Never call me this early. Ever again.”
    I sigh. “Understood.”
    After I hang up, I pull up the map on my phone. There’s not much around me, and I don’t feel like exploring the city withour junker of a car today. I’m stuck with only one option—the Starbucks half a mile away.
    So I put on a