It starts out like a dream.

Not the fever-dream kind where you wake up sweating, disoriented — more like the quiet ones. The soft, slow ones that don’t feel like dreams at all until you’re already awake and aching for them.

That’s what she felt like. That’s what Kendall felt like.

You met her at a party in the Hills. The kind with security at the gates and whispered conversations in candlelit corners. You weren’t supposed to be there — a plus-one to a plus-one, wearing sneakers too beat up for the marble floors. She was barefoot by the pool, balancing a half-empty coupe on the edge of the stone, toes brushing the water. You made a dumb joke — something about how she looked like the kind of girl who eats fries with a fork — and she actually laughed.

Real, unfiltered laughter. You saw it ripple through her chest like wind on water.

That was six months ago.

Now, you’re sitting on the balcony of her Malibu house. Not hers, technically — it belongs to some family friend or stylist or brand that owes her something, the way people in her world always seem to. But she stays here when she wants to breathe. She told you that once: “I come here when I feel like I can’t hear my own voice anymore.”

Funny how now, it’s you who can’t hear your own.

The ocean is below you, curling in soft gray layers, but all you can focus on is the way your phone glows in your lap. Instagram. Twitter. Reddit threads you should’ve never clicked on. Your name has no right being in so many mouths. Half of them don’t know who you are — the other half are trying to figure it out like your identity is a puzzle they have a right to solve.

“He’s just a normie.” “Mid as hell, but I guess she likes basic.” “Bet he’s clout-chasing. Give it three weeks.”

And the ones that sting worse: “He looks uncomfortable around her.” “Dead eyes. You can tell he’s overwhelmed.”

They’re not wrong. You are overwhelmed.

You hadn’t expected to be consumed by her. But dating Kendall Jenner means becoming part of the brand — a silent extension of her narrative. It’s not just a relationship. It’s a role. And some days, you don’t know if you’re acting anymore.

The pressure isn’t in the flashing lights or the scheduled photoshoots — although those chip away at you, too. It’s in the quiet expectations. The way you’re supposed to know what to wear before someone tells you. The way conversations bend toward names and events you’ve never heard of, and you nod along, hoping no one notices the panic behind your eyes. The way you shrink slightly when you’re photographed beside her because you feel like a tourist next to royalty.

Your friends don’t say it outright, but you can hear it in their voices. “You still you?” You don’t know how to answer.

Inside, Kendall is in the living room doing a fitting. Stylists buzzing around her like bees around a queen. You caught a glimpse earlier — hair tied up in a clip, bare shoulders, an oversized T-shirt slipping off one side. She waved you in, asked what you thought of a pair of boots she didn’t even like. You mumbled something. She smiled anyway.

She doesn’t see it.

She doesn’t see the way being with her has made you small. Not on purpose — Kendall is warm, curious, shockingly normal when you’re alone. She drinks pickle juice from the jar and watches conspiracy videos before bed. She texts you pictures of clouds that remind her of you.

But her life — the pace, the performance, the perfection — is eating at your seams.

Last week at a gala, she turned to you mid-speech and whispered, “I’m glad you’re here.” You’d never felt so exposed. Everyone was watching her, and by extension, watching you. Cameras flashing like silent gunshots. People dissecting your body language as if love could be seen in posture alone.

You wanted to tell her how your chest felt too tight in your borrowed tux. How you missed your old apartment — the one with the uneven floors and the leaky sink and the fridge covered in band stickers. How none of this glitter feels like yours.

But instead, you just smiled. You’ve gotten good at that.