I could be onto something. No pressure.

I may have found my story. It’s not technically mine, but I’ve been granted permission to share. It meets my two search criteria: a true story that’s happening in real time. Given this, I don’t know the ending yet. That’s a risk, but it has an intriguing, magic-adjacent beginning and a dream protagonist so 🤷‍♀️.

Let me introduce you to my complex female character: Willa Dean. That’s not her real name. She’s okay with letting me use her life as a narrative practice ground, just not her identity. Smart kid, this might go viral. On my secret blog that 5 people know about. Lol.

I’ve mentioned Willa before. She and I met at the Eras tour in Melbourne (night 2). We were seated side by side, both alone. I had mates in the nosebleeds but I was quite happy to be vibing by myself. Our ticket saga is a sweet (love) story for another day. Willa was 16 then and it turns out being a Taylor Swift fan is not particularly cool when you’re Gen Z. Taylor has always been the living embodiment of cultural cringe and Willa decided she’d rather go alone than risk becoming a social pariah if she mentioned it to her friends.

That says quite a lot about her friends. Spoiler.

When we first took our seats we exchanged the tight-lipped ‘don’t talk to me’ smiles of the socially anxious. I should have realized then we were kindred spirits. We swayed and sang together in avoidant companionship for 2 hours, immersed in the largest crowd Taylor had ever played to—96,000 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Our only real interaction was a shared eye roll about the tall guy in front of us who was there with his partner. He was enthusiastic enough but he completely blocked my view of tiny Taylor on the mainstage. You can see him in the periphery of this Betty video. Willa is out of shot on my left.

She and I didn’t have our moment until the surprise songs. The previous night, Taylor  had played You’re Losing Me which was a deeeeeeep cut. Anticipation was running high. Being in that stadium was like living inside a giant’s held breath. It released with a roar when Taylor picked up her guitar and began playing Getaway Car. If I’m honest, I was a little disappointed. It’s one of those tracks I’ve never really vibed with. Nevertheless, it’s a fan favourite (partly because of the viral Antonoff-Swift making-of clip). We treated it like a collective karaoke session.

For the first 4 minutes it seemed like a normal surprise song, but instead of heading over the bridge as expected Taylor walked away from the mic, strumming her guitar. When she returned she shocked everyone by jumping into the chorus of August. Now that is a song that speaks to me. Specifically, to a 25-year-old version of me who made a bad choice that nearly lost me a best friend. The lyric ‘back when we were still changing for the better, wanting was enough, for me it was enough, to live for the hope of it all…” Ugh. That’s personal.

Anyway, when August happened, Willa and I gripped each other’s arms like we were lifelong friends seeking mutual reassurance. Our wide eyes met. We screamed the words of that chorus together. Then our chaos queen returned to her missing Getaway Car bridge before finishing the song with The Other Side of the Door (a throwback from Fearless). It was wild. Fans on grainy livestreams all over the world were in disarray. 3 songs in 1? What was she up to?  

To briefly explain the lore, Melbourne Night 2 was Taylor’s first surprise song mash up of the Eras Tour. She went on to mash up 2-3 songs every night for the next 8 months. I think initially it was an easter egg for her new album The Tortured Poets Department, which turned out to be a surprise double album. By the end I think she just enjoyed the challenge. It’s pretty special that I was there for the first one.

When the concert ended, Willa and I sat down to wait for the stadium to empty. We talked. She was a sweet kid. What stands out in my memory is the way her crystalline green eyes darted away from mine when she spoke, and how her initial shyness warmed to a dry wit that had me chuckling. I also remember being afraid of how good the younger generation are at make-up application? Flawless. They’ve got the whole of TikTok at their disposal I guess, all we had was Dolly magazine (iykyk).

We covered a lot of ground in 20 minutes. Willa was born and raised in Melbourne but her Dad was a Kiwi. She was an only child, a miracle baby born after her parents had given up trying. Her mum was a professor and a bit of an intellectual snob, she explained this with a touch of bitterness (before reassuring me they were actually ‘really close’). Willa was in her second-to-last year at high school and hated it. It was particularly tough-going because of her social anxiety. When I was at school I’m pretty sure we called it ‘shyness’, but Willa was a Covid-era kid and panic attacks were both common and treatable.

Our conversation flowed easily. This is an intense thing to say but it felt like some kind of instant cosmic understanding—like we were born knowing each other. I’ve never experienced anything like it. When I finally left to meet my friends (who were waiting by the Shane Warne statue outside), she suggested we follow each other on Instagram. I was honoured. For reasons unclear to me, I didn’t tell my friends about her. Like I wasn’t sure if she was real.

So that’s how I found my little Swiftie sister—not that I’m relevant to this story at all (I don’t think). We’re also both struggling with the Swiftie side of our identity right now. Luckily hyper fixation is another trait we share and she was on the BTS hype train well before me. RM is her bias. We keep in touch through DMs and the odd FaceTime. Willa’s 18 now and I know all about her school troubles and parental angst and upsetting lack of boy drama. She, in turn, has a tiny window into the mind of a millennial helicopter parent. Lucky thing. We’re expanding each other’s empathic capabilities just by knowing each other.

Willa is in her final 6 weeks of school now. The home stretch. 2025 had been internally dramatic and externally uneventful for her until recently. She seems very aware that high school is not where her people are, and ready to be let loose upon the world to find them. I see so much of myself in her. Maybe that’s why I feel so connected to her story?

I’ll tell you about the magic thing that happened to Willa in my next instalment. I’m going for Dickensian serialisation. Also I only seem to be able to write 1000 words at a time.