After All

by Karina Halle

  “Oh shit,” I swear, giving Emmett another tug. Finally, he yields to me and I pull him over to the street, looking around for the Suburban.

  “We can’t go,” Emmett finally says to me, his voice hoarse. His eyes meet mine and there’s so much anger and pain in them that I’m nearly speechless. “He’s called the cops. They’ll be looking for me.”

  “They’re going to put you in jail,” I whisper to him. “You can’t go to jail.”

  He sighs and shakes out his hand with a wince, spreading his reddened fingers. “I’m really sorry,” he says. “Really. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “The guy was asking for it, there’s no need to apologize.” I’m hanging onto him tighter and tighter, afraid to let go.

  “I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have.”

  Oh god, how I want to ask him about his mother, ask him if it’s true what the man said.

  God. Poor, poor Emmett.

  But it’s not long before the flashing lights appear and a police car arrives on the scene.

  One officer talks to the man while the other comes over to us.

  “Is it true you assaulted this man?” he asks Emmett, nodding at the guy who is waving his hands wildly, trying to act out the scene.

  Emmett opens his mouth to speak but I immediately remember every single TV show I’ve seen. “He’s not saying a word until he speaks to a lawyer.”

  The cop rolls his eyes. “All right, all right. Look, between you and me, we have bigger things to attend to tonight than this. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to put you under arrest and take you to the station. If he doesn’t press charges, you won’t have to stay long.”

  “You can’t arrest him!” I cry out. “He did nothing wrong!”

  “Alyssa,” Emmett says to me. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine!” Where the hell am I going to go? Wait at the hotel to see if he gets bailed out or not? And who is supposed to bail him out? Is it me? Autumn? Will? How does this whole thing work?

  “Ma’am, please,” the cop says.

  “But we’re Canadian!” I plead. “You can’t do this! We have an amazing Prime Minister!”

  The cop doesn’t care. “Then maybe your amazing Prime Minister will help bail him out when he’s done cuddling panda bears and doing one-armed push-ups or whatever the fuck you crazy people do up there.”

  And then he’s leading Emmett over to the cop car and cuffing him.

  Naturally, the crowd around the taco stand has their camera phones aimed at him and the whole event, including the snivelling paparazzi man who is trying to pick up the pieces of his camera, moaning in pain for dramatic effect.

  “The Bruiser and The Blondie,” some girl says, speaking into her phone, “just got into a whole lot of trouble.”

  Chapter 14

  Emmett

  I’d like to say I haven’t been in jail before but that would be a lie.

  After my mother died, I went to live with my religious aunt in this shitty town of Mission and though she tried to her hardest to keep her tabs on me during high school, after high school it was a different story.

  Once, when I was twenty and hanging out with my friend Matt (this was a few months before I landed the role on Degrassi), we were feeling rather rambunctious and doing a few lines of coke. We were bored, as we often were, and hanging out at Matt’s parents’ place.

  Matt’s parents were used to me always being there and I think they felt a bit sorry for me because of my mother and my upbringing and my shitty aunt (she was the type of person at church who would watch how much money you were putting in the collection plate and then publicly chastise you if it wasn’t enough), so they didn’t mind me hanging out and we were pretty much left alone.

  There’s not much to do in Mission. It’s a small town at the end of the road, lots of industry and a very religious slant. While I would work at the local video store and take the train into Vancouver for acting classes and the occasional audition, you had to make your own fun.

  So we drank, did some drugs. That kind of thing.

  This particular night, we did some lines and then let our boredom got the best of us.

  My friend thought it would be hilarious if we went to the local donut shop and harassed the cops.

  I know, I know. Made perfect sense at the time.

  Then we decided it would be even funnier if we dressed up in his mother’s clothes. His sister had some wigs. We melded the two together.

  So after we got all dolled up, we went down to Tim Hortons and started hitting on the cops.

  We thought it was hilarious.

  “Oh, I do declare, officer,” I’d say in my best Blanche DuBois.

  They gave us plenty of time to back off and go away and yet we kept on pushing their buttons.

  “My, aren’t you fellas so big and strong?”

  Finally, understandably, we were arrested. I remember clearly, like it was yesterday, the moment we were at the station being fingerprinted and I looked over at Matt, who was wearing a pink, floral dress and had a red, curly wig half-hanging off his head, and I said, “Matt, you look ridiculous.”

  Needless to say, we were let go in the morning, after spending a night in the cell dressed as women.

  But the LA jails are no joke. Lucky for me, tonight I was shoved into the drunk tank with a bunch of frat boys who had passed right out and didn’t give me any trouble.

  Fucking hell though, what a hell of a night it was. To go from the high of having Alyssa on my arm at the party, actually having someone I wanted to show off, that I cared for deeply, that I was proud of, to losing my temper on the paparazzi. I had the night planned out so differently.

  First, we would get the tacos and fill our bellies since I know from experience that the food choices at LA events are pretty skimpy since no one eats in this town, then we would go back to the hotel.

  And I know that Alyssa had been standoffish after the last time we had sex and I also know I admitted that I might just be a rat-bastard in the end, but the fact was, I wanted nothing more than to get her naked and beneath me again. It was truly the only time I knew that what we had was real, that each moan, each look, each touch, meant more than anything either of us could ever say.

  When I’m deep inside her, there is only truth between us.

  The thing is…she’s getting under my skin. She’s slipping into my veins, a poison, a drug, and like most foolish men, I’m too weak to stay away, to say no.

  I want her. Every day. Every night. I want her in my bed, I want her in my arms. I want her sitting across from me at the dinner table, not just for the next two months, but…for as long as I can. When I think about Alyssa now, it’s no longer in terms of contracts. It’s no longer in terms of what should be, what’s supposed to be. It’s no longer in terms of what’s fake.

  When I think about her, I think about just her. I think about what she does to me, what she means to me.

  Honestly, she means the fucking world.

  And I’m having a hell of a time expressing that to her because everything we have between us is supposed to be a lie. And if I was smart I would be keep it that way. After all, I told her about the kind of person I was, that I might hurt her in the end. But the truth is, I don’t want to lie anymore.

  I want every single moment we share to mean something.

  The only problem is, she doesn’t know the real me.

  Though, fuck, she sure got a glimpse of that tonight.

  I’ve always been very guarded with my private life. No one really gave a shit until I went on Degrassi and then the Canadian press started poking and prodding the boy behind Cruiser McGill. But that’s the Canadian press. They’re pretty bashful about it all. When they asked me about my parents, I told them both of them died when I was young and I was raised in Mission by my aunt. No one ever bothered to look into it. And there was no one from my previous life, the life on Vancouver’s east side, that would ever argue. Everyone except Jimmy is pretty much dead
.

  That said, it doesn’t surprise me that somehow someone would start digging and find the truth behind it all. I’m not ashamed. The problem with it all is that people get the wrong ideas. They start making assumptions. That’s where it gets dangerous.

  The right thing tonight would have been to address the guy’s questions and set the record straight. But I just wanted to be alone with Alyssa and the fucker caught me off-guard, especially as he was the only reporter so far who knew the truth about my mother. I know my mother was clean when she had me, that she only started using a few years after my father left, and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a prostitute. She was more or less always at home and if she ever had guys over, I was allowed to hang out with them, if I wanted.

  I rarely did. Even when you’re raised around drug use, it never stops being a terrifying monster, one that doesn’t live in your closet but out there in the open.

  Fuck. Who fucking knows. What’s worse is that even if I did try and set the record straight, the guy wouldn’t have cared. No one would have cared. They only want the worst details from you as possible.

  Well they have them now. Tomorrow, it will be known exactly what the man was asking me before I punched him, therefore, my truth will be laid bare for people to judge, as will my actions.

  The only bright side to this whole damn thing is that at six a.m., the guard comes to the door and tells me I’m free to go. Obviously, I didn’t sleep a wink.

  I didn’t even make bail–the assfuck who provoked me into this ended up dropping the charges for some reason.

  When I make it out into the fluorescent lights of the police waiting room, Alyssa is there. Red-eyed and still in the dress she wore to the party.

  This makes my heart ache more than I can bare. She didn’t even go back to the hotel and get changed. She probably sat here the entire night, waiting for me.

  I can’t count on my hand anyone who would do that.

  “How do you still look beautiful?” I say as I stagger toward her. I know I’m completely sober now, but there’s something about walking out of a jail cell that makes you feel like you’re part of The Walking Dead.

  “Yeah right,” she says, self-deprecating as usual. “How are you?”

  “Well no one touched my privates, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I tell her with a grin.

  She doesn’t laugh. “I hate that this happened.”

  “Me too,” I admit and even though I shouldn’t, I pull her into a hug. There are no cameras here and no one cares. But I care. I just want the feel of her warmth pressed up against me. She feels like she’s my home.

  Eventually we get an Uber who takes us back to the Roosevelt. Alyssa’s phone died a long time ago, so she’s not quite sure about the level of damage I’ve inflicted. I can only imagine that TMZ and the other sites are going ballistic with the information. Thankfully, it’s a small town and it won’t be long before some Kardashian ends up doing something stupid and then all the attention will divert over to them.

  But when we get to the Roosevelt, there are no paparazzi to greet us. We slink in through the back entrance and over to the cabana rooms without anyone other than the valet and the front desk people seeing us.

  Then the world gets a bit hazy…

  I wake up to a tapping on my arm. I slowly open my eyes, wincing at the light streaming in the room.

  “Sorry!” I hear Alyssa gasp and then feel a weight lift off the bed. The sound of curtains whirring closed and the light starts to fade.

  “Please tell me this isn’t prison,” I mumble into the pillow.

  “I promise you it’s not. You’re a free bird.”

  Moving slowly as to not disturb the molecules in my brain, I roll over and stare at Alyssa’s sweet face as she looks over me.

  Her makeup is all washed off and her hair is messy and it reminds me too much of the morning after we first had sex, when I showed up at her house and proposed to her the idea that we should date each other in order to fool the public.

  It was Autumn’s idea. It always was. And yet the moment she mentioned it, the moment I should have brushed it off as being one of her kooky schemes, was the moment it all made sense. I couldn’t tell you why, it’s just that when I was with Alyssa at the wedding, and particularly when I was deep inside her, she brought me a sense of peace that I was sorely aching for. A sense of realness when everything else I was chasing just seemed so fucking fake.

  Because it was, I remind myself. For the last few years, everything was fake until you found her.

  I reach up and gingerly stroke the edges of her cheek. “I’m not dreaming.”

  “You’re not,” she says. “You’re here in this hotel and you’re with me and you’re safe and sound.”

  I smile at that and close my eyes again. I swear I drift off for a little bit because when I stir, the light seems to have changed in the room and I can smell bacon. Fucking delicious.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a cook too,” I murmur and I’m suddenly struck with the realization that I’ve never slept over with her, or visa versa. We’ve had sex in the yacht club’s locker room, my living room, the boat, but we’ve never actually spent the whole night with each other, sleeping, until now.

  “I wish,” she says from across the room. “I ordered room service breakfast. I figured since you didn’t have to spend any bail money, you might as well splurge.”

  “Speaking of, do you know why the asshat dropped the charges?”

  “I think so. After the cops took you away, I was talking to the crowd and all of them were saying that the guy instigated it. They were all on your side. Someone even said they knew him from TMZ and would report him to the company. The guy got wind of that I guess. At least, that’s what Autumn said.”

  At that, I slowly ease myself up. “You talked to Autumn last night?”

  She nods. “I did. She didn’t sound happy, I’ll tell you that much. In fact, she told me if I wanted to, the contract would be revoked.”

  Now I’m awake. “What?”

  Alyssa nods and brings the tray over to the bed. In her kimono-like robe and the wiggling way she moves, she looks like Marilyn Monroe come back to life. Marilyn who is now bringing me breakfast.

  Focus, Emmett.

  “Yeah,” she says, lifting off the metal dome to showcase the bacon and eggs and ubiquitous avocado toast underneath. “She said she wouldn’t blame me if I up and left, that some problems were too big for a PR company to solve.”

  “What the actual fuck?”

  “Right?” Alyssa says, lifting off a piece of bacon from the tray and munching on it thoughtfully. “Anyway, I explained what happened, that it wasn’t your fault. Then she reconsidered.”

  I stare at her openly. “You got Autumn to reconsider our contract?”

  “I think I got her to reconsider all contracts,” she says with a shy smile. “Yours, mine, hers. Anyway, it’s all good now.”

  I don’t know what to think about that. I don’t doubt Alyssa is telling the truth so I’m sort of floored that Autumn would consider dumping me as a client over this. As she said, it wasn’t really my fault.

  But, at the same time, it was. I should have ignored the guy, I shouldn’t have responded with violence, especially not in front of Alyssa, and most of all…I’m pretty sure Autumn is pissed that I never told her about my upbringing. She’s strangely possessive over me at times, which is why I always thought it was odd that she suggested Alyssa and I get together. But she had the same idea about my past, whatever was presented on Wikipedia, and this whole time I was holding out on her like I didn’t trust her.

  And I don’t trust Autumn. That’s the whole thing. The only person I trust with all this is Jimmy and Alyssa. And Jimmy already knows the truth so…

  Well, now I’m handing the truth to Alyssa with my bare hands and hoping that after all this, she’ll still accept me. If not that, then at least be able to look into my eyes without disgust or pity.

  “So,” she says,
nudging the plate toward me. “Are you going to eat?”

  I nod but still push the plate to the side. “Listen,” I tell her. “I want to talk to you about last night.”

  “I told you, I understand.”

  “No, not about the paparazzi. I mean, again, I regret hitting him. I know I shouldn’t have done that. But I mean…why I was so upset.”

  She swallows audibly and nods. “Okay.”

  I breathe in deeply through my nose, sitting up straight and then look her right in the eye. “Most of what he said was actually true. My mother was a heroin addict. For all I know she wasn’t a whore, and I know she wasn’t using when I was born, but I did discover her when she had died and I did pretty much grow up on the streets.”

  Fuck. The words should be so simple in theory but the minute they leave my lips, they land between us like landmines. Maybe not going off now, but anytime someone missteps in the future.

  But even so, she’s staring at me with coaxing eyes, waiting for me to go on.

  I sigh. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I know how ridiculous that seems, but when you’re young, you don’t really know what’s wrong. You don’t know you’re poor, you don’t know that you’re living a life that’s unacceptable for many. I guess I was just lucky. I wasn’t often hungry; my mother was usually around. I went to school and saw my friends and played. After school I was either at the park or at home. I’d never been to someone else’s place before so I never knew how it was supposed to look like, or smell, or feel. There were always junkies lying around but back then it wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now. And again, being a kid, I just didn’t know any different. I thought a man with a needle up his arm was just a man who needed medicine.”

  Alyssa’s face crumples slightly. Not with pity. With compassion. Still, it’s not easy to take.

  I continue. “My only glimpses of the other life, the other side of the tracks, were what I saw on the TV. We only had three channels, but they were enough. They represented the fake world, the one I could escape into if I needed to. Maybe that’s where my acting bug got started, who knows. Anyway, I’m saying all this because I don’t want you to think what people want you to think. That I was suffering. I wasn’t. I just happened to have a mother who loved the drugs more than me.”