The night before the release, Olivia couldn't sleep.
She was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, the soft hum of Los Angeles traffic drifting in through the open window. Her phone sat on the nightstand, screen dark, as if she was afraid to touch it.
"drivers license" was scheduled to go live at midnight. She'd played it for her closest friends — Iris, Madison, a few people from the studio — but the idea of strangers hearing it, of the entire internet having access to something so personal, felt almost unbearable.
At 11:57 p.m., she gave up on pretending to be calm and opened her laptop. She had the page pulled up, watching the seconds tick down.
When the clock hit 12:00, the song was out. Just like that.
⸻
By morning, everything had changed.
Her phone was a wall of notifications — texts from numbers she didn't recognize, Instagram DMs from people she hadn't spoken to in years, tweets from celebrities she'd admired since she was twelve.
Taylor Swift had commented on her post: I say that's my baby and I'm really proud.
Olivia just stared at it for a long moment before texting Madison in all caps:
TAYLOR. SWIFT. COMMENTED.
Madison replied instantly: you're famous famous now
⸻
But with the excitement came the noise.
By the second day, "blonde girl" was trending on Twitter. Fans had already connected the dots — the café photos, old clips from HSMTMTS, Joshua's own Instagram posts. Sabrina's name was everywhere.
Paparazzi started showing up near her apartment. They shouted questions when she walked to her car: "Olivia, is 'drivers license' about Joshua?" "Do you have beef with Sabrina Carpenter?"
She didn't answer. She just kept walking, head down, sunglasses on even when it was cloudy.
⸻
Three days after the release, Joshua texted.
Congrats on the song. Proud of you.
She stared at the screen, reading it over and over. No mention of the lyrics. No mention of the meaning. Just a polite, almost distant acknowledgment.
She typed a reply — Thanks, hope you're doing well — then deleted it. After a pause, she set her phone down without answering.
⸻
That weekend, she met Iris and Madison for dinner at a small Italian place in Silver Lake.
"They're obsessed with the 'blonde girl' thing," Madison said, scrolling through her feed. "Look — they're even breaking down your outfits to see if there's a hidden message."
Olivia groaned. "There's no hidden message. It's literally just a jacket I liked."
Iris gave her a sympathetic smile. "This is what happens when people feel like they own your life. They're not just listening to the song — they're dissecting it."
The truth was, Olivia understood why. She'd done the same with her favorite artists, piecing together their lyrics like puzzles. She just hadn't expected to become the puzzle herself.
⸻
That night, lying in bed, she listened to "drivers license" on her headphones. It didn't feel like hers anymore. The meaning had been ripped open, picked apart, and turned into a story she wasn't telling.
She didn't know what would happen next — or how the others would respond — but she knew the next chapter wasn't going to be quiet.
YOU ARE READING
Default Title - Write Your Own
Fanfiction📜 Description: In the golden haze of summer, Olivia and Joshua shared inside jokes, late-night drives, and melodies that felt like they belonged to only them. But when Sabrina enters the picture, their unspoken connection begins to unravel. Songs b...
