by Jen Wilde
“Shattered,” Reese interrupts. “Pissed. Betrayed.”
I roll my eyes at him. I know my fans. Ninety-nine percent of them are wonderful, amazing people. But that one percent can say some mean things. I worry about the tweets that must be filling Alyssa’s reply feed and her YouTube comments section right now.
Mandy purses her lips and puts a hand on my shoulder. “They’ll get over it. And like I said, most people are excited. I’ve seen the social media posts to prove it. They’re happy for you, and they love Alyssa to bits.”
Reese lets out an arrogant laugh. “And the rest just want to tear her to bits.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and groan. “That’s just great. Nothing like a little bit of cyberbullying to start our relationship.”
“Charlie,” Mandy says. “You’re focusing too much on the negatives here.” She glares at Reese. “And you’re not helping. Everything is completely fine.”
I throw my hands up in exasperation. “So what’s going on? Why are we even having this discussion?”
Mandy’s phone buzzes, and she cancels it. “I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. And see if there was any damage control we needed to do. Do you want to make a statement about your new romance?”
I shake my head. “No.” I don’t say that there might not be a relationship after Alyssa finds out about all this.
“Hey,” Reese says. “Why are you so bitchy today?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m ‘bitchy’ because I really like Alyssa, and I doubt she’ll like me much longer if she’s getting harassed by keyboard warriors just because she’s not you.”
“If I were her,” he says, raising an eyebrow, “I’d be more pissed about the fact that you want to keep your relationship so top secret. For someone who’s supposedly out of the closet, you sure are trying hard to stay in it.”
I stand up. “This has nothing to do with closets and everything to do with how messed up I was after what you did. I wanted to keep it secret because my love life isn’t public property.”
“It is now.” He smiles that smug smile, and I can’t be in the same room with him anymore.
“I’m leaving. I need to go see Alyssa.”
“Tell her I say hi,” Reese says with a sleazy wink.
I turn to Mandy. “Mandy, can you please call the studio back and tell them I won’t be doing any more press with Reese Ryan? Ever. I won’t take no for an answer on this.”
She smiles and nods while Reese stares up at me, speechless.
I look down at him. “We’re done here.”
Mandy stands up and gives me a hug. “Don’t worry. Everything is fine. I’m happy for you. You deserve someone good like her.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Reese’s jaw drop.
“Thanks. I’ll see you later.”
I leave and walk through the green room, feeling like a storm cloud is hanging over my head.
“Charlie!” I turn to see Mandy coming out of the room and hurrying toward me. She pulls an envelope out of her handbag and gives it to me. “I almost forgot. I know this doesn’t make up for posting your make-out session all over the Internet, but I hope it’s a start.”
“Mandy, I told you—”
“Just open it.”
I take the envelope and look inside, finding three VIP passes to the SupaCon After-Party. My head snaps up. “What? How?”
“I hustled,” she says. “Now you and Taylor and Jamie can go and celebrate in style.”
I throw my arms around her. “Thank you so much, Mandy. I promise, all is forgiven. It’s okay, okay?”
She nods, then pushes me away. “Go find your girl.”
I slide the envelope in my pocket and leave. I pull out my phone and scroll through the hundreds of Tumblr posts and tweets about me. There are a few cruel ones, and they hurt. There needs to be an app that pops up on screens when a nasty tweet is about to be sent that says, “Are you sure you want to say that? It’s mean.” But until that happens, I have the trusty BLOCK button. Thankfully, the majority of posts are positive, supportive, and supersweet.
I only hope Alyssa thinks I’m worth all this mess.
* * *
“The video of us kissing got online,” I say before I’m even in Alyssa’s door.
She raises an eyebrow at me as I enter and swings the door closed. “Hello to you, too.”
“Sorry.” I sit on the couch and pull my knees up to my chin, hugging myself. “I’m just freaking out a little.”
Alyssa sits next to me and tucks a strand of pink hair back behind my ear. “Talk to me.”
I throw my head back and groan. “It’s all over the Internet. Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, gossip blogs. We’re trending everywhere.”
“I know. I’ve seen it. So?”
I look at her, surprised by how calm she is. “Well, it’s not exactly the most private of relationships now.”
She gives me a half smile. “It was never going to be completely private.”
“I know,” I say. “But I thought we’d at least have this weekend, you know? I thought we’d have SupaCon. I just … I hoped I wouldn’t have to go through all this again.”
She leans back against the arm of the couch, hurt. “Hey. This isn’t the same situation. At all.”
I reach out and take her hand. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, some of the fans, they feel betrayed. They love Chase. And I guess seeing Reese and me together this weekend got them excited, and now with this out in the open, some of them are pissed.”
She lets go of my hand and crosses her arms over her chest. “They’re pissed? Why?”
I shake my head. “It’s nothing to do with you. It’s just because you’re not Reese. Parts of the fandom only want to see me with him, and now that they know it’ll never happen, the backlash has started.”
She shrugs. “They’ll get over it.” A smile grows on her lips. “Besides, I think not being Reese is kind of a pro.”
I let out a short laugh, nodding.
“It’s not just that,” I say, sucking in a deep breath. “This just makes me nervous. After the public scrutiny I went through, it took me so long to put myself back together.”
I feel a tear escape my lashes, and I wipe it away with my thumb. “I felt like it was my fault. That I just wasn’t good enough. I spent months trying to figure out why he chose someone else over me, trying to figure what I did wrong, why I was wrong. I’d stare at the mirror every morning and search for the part of me that was so unloveable that he felt the need to cheat. And for weeks, I didn’t tell anyone I felt that way, because I was so ashamed that I was falling apart over a guy. If it wasn’t for Taylor and Jamie, I don’t think I would have come out of that nightmare.”
Alyssa and I stare at each other, both of us quietly crying now.
“Listen,” she says. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Falling in love is risky. I know you enough to know that when you do something, you do it with your whole heart. So getting it stomped on like that … you didn’t deserve it. And it’s okay that you fell apart. Everyone does sometimes.”
I take in a shaky breath. “I guess, with millions of eyes on us now, it’s just scary. I don’t want to go through that again.”
She looks at me with a frown. “So, you wanna end this before it even starts? Is that what’s happening?”
I wipe my cheeks and shake my head. “No. I don’t. I really don’t. But if you don’t want all this craziness, I need to know now. I don’t want to bring you into this mess. I’m stuck with Chase, at least for a while longer. But you don’t have to be.”
She looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “That’s the thing. I know I don’t have to be. I want to be. I like you, Charlie. I learned a long time ago that what other people think about me is their problem, not mine. I can handle it.” She slides closer to me and puts her hand on my knee. “All I want to know is, can you?”
I cock my head to the side. “Huh?”
She drops
her gaze, straightens her shoulders, then looks at me again. “I get that you’ve been burned. I do. You don’t want the opinions of others to dictate your life. Neither do I. But I’ve been burned, too. I’ve been the girl who has to be kept secret, and it was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. I don’t want to hide from the world. And I especially won’t allow myself to be hidden by someone else. No matter how much I like you, if you want to hide me for any reason, I’m out. I hate that I have to say this, Charlie, but I’m not Reese Ryan. I’m not gonna play games with you. If you still can’t separate your history with him from a future with me, then maybe you’re not ready for this. But you need to tell me. You need to tell me if you’re in or you’re out.”
Tears sting my eyes. “I’m in.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You sure?”
I nod, but the fear must be evident on my face because she shakes her head.
She puts a hand on mine, then lets go and stands up. “I think we need to hit pause on this. You’ve got some things to figure out. Maybe you should go. I’ll see you tonight.”
I leave the room, but her words stay with me, lingering in my mind and cutting into my heart. I won’t allow myself to be hidden.… Separate your history with him from a future with me.…
The words go round and round in my head as I wait for the elevator.
CHAPTER 27
TAYLOR
Jamie and I are lying on the bed, a half-eaten cheese pizza next to us and The Breakfast Club playing on the television.
“Who’s your favorite Breakfast Clubber?” he asks.
I don’t even need to think about my answer. “Allison. The basket case. What about you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He smirks. “Bender. The badass.”
I laugh. “Actually, he’s the criminal. Besides, isn’t the whole big life lesson they learn in detention that everyone has their baggage and that they’re all more similar than they are different?”
Charlie walks into the room. She sees us lying on the bed together and covers her eyes with her hand. “Oh God! Am I interrupting something? We’re gonna need a system from now on. Especially if we’re all going to be living together next year.”
“Charlie!” I say. Jamie and I laugh at her animated reaction. “Relax. We’re just watching a movie.”
She peeks between her fingers. “Oh, okay.” Her eyes are red from crying, and I sit up with a start.
“Charlie? What happened with Alyssa?”
She sits solemnly on the bed and bursts into tears. “I think I screwed up.”
Jamie and I shuffle to the edge of the bed and sit on either side of her, hugging her tight. We listen as she tells us everything: the video, Mandy, Reese, and her tough talk with Alyssa.
She rubs a hand over her face and groans. “This weekend just hasn’t gone how I wanted it to. I had so much I wanted to prove to everyone, and I feel like it’s all just one big mess now. And once again, it’s all on display.”
I shake my head. “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. I know the last six months have shaken your confidence, but you need to wake up. Your perception of yourself is being warped by everyone else’s opinions. That’s relatively normal for most people, but it’s not normal for you.” I take in a deep breath, hoping my words are helping her. “Ever since I met you, you’ve been self-assured and independent. You always had such a spark. It dimmed a little last year, but it’s coming back. Brighter than ever.”
She presses her lips into a line, and her eyes lose focus, like she’s looking past me into some distant memory. “You think so?”
“I know so. You didn’t get this far because of anyone else but yourself. You started from nothing, built your channel, landed that movie, all without Reese. People don’t love you because you dated some movie star. They love you because you are unapologetically yourself. Stop putting all this pressure on yourself to step out from his shadow. You’ve never been in anyone’s shadow. You are your own light source.” I squeeze her hand to cement my message.
Jamie nods. “Tay’s right, and I think Alyssa is, too. If you want to be with her, you gotta stop expecting it to end in flames like it did with Reese.”
I rest my head on her shoulder, and she breathes in a shaky breath. “I can’t believe it,” she says. “I’ve spent all SupaCon trying to show others that he didn’t break me, but that still makes everything about him, doesn’t it? I need to stop trying so hard. Hating Reese so much has only been hurting me. And trying to change the public’s perception of me has done nothing but exhaust me. I’ve been giving my power away to everyone. I know Alyssa is right. And I know I want to find out if what we have is something, but it’s”—she whispers the next word—“scary.”
I lift my head up and look at her, unsure at first if I heard her correctly. Maybe it’s naive of me, but it never occurred to me before that Charlie could ever be afraid of anything.
I smile at her and say, “Well, as an expert in being scared, I can tell you you’re not alone in feeling that way. But if this weekend has proven anything to me, it’s that fear doesn’t always mean stop.” I stifle a giggle. “Did that sound super cheesy? I feel like it was covered in cheese.”
Jamie and Charlie laugh, and the mood in the room lightens. Charlie slides an arm around my waist and pulls me closer.
“Thanks, Tay,” she says. She looks at the half-eaten pizza on the bed and grins. “Speaking of cheese…” She picks up a piece, takes a bite, and chews happily, then jumps up and reaches for something in her pocket. “I almost forgot!”
She makes a zoom sound and holds up three sparkly pieces of paper.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“These,” she says, staring at them with hungry eyes, “are three VIP passes to—wait for it—the SupaCon After-Party!”
Jamie and I stand up so fast we get whiplash. “What?”
She grins like the Cheshire cat and nods rapidly. “Yep! Mandy scored these for me as an apology. I guess this is a positive to come out of my make-out video going viral. So, my two best friends in the whole wide, awesome world, we are going to rock out with the who’s who of SupaCon tonight!”
I leap up onto the bed, covering my mouth with my hands. “Do you know what that means?” I squeak. “Skyler will be there! I’ll get to meet Skyler!”
Charlie steps onto the bed and Jamie stands up to join us, and we commence freaking out.
We jump up and down, sending pieces of pizza bouncing all over the place, but we don’t care about the mess we’re making. Messes aren’t so bad, so long as you have people to share them with.
* * *
We go down to the con for one last round of exploring before it closes, then at five p.m. we get back to our room and start getting ready. Jamie throws on a new tee and watches Breaking Bad while Charlie and I take over the bathroom. I sit on the edge of the bathtub while Charlie gently strokes eyeliner over her eyelids.
“So, are you ever going to tell me about your date last night or are you going to keep me waiting forever?”
She smiles. “I thought you’d never ask. Tay, she’s so amazing. I’ve never met anyone like her. She took me to the SupaCon arcade so we could have some privacy and nerd out as much as we like. Then we ate pizza and drank Coke out of champagne glasses. It was like the perfect blend of romantic and fun.”
She lights up when she talks about Alyssa, and I smile at how sweet it all is. “I figured it must have been a good date when you didn’t come back last night.”
Her shoulders lift all the way up to her ears as she blushes and swoons.
I laugh. “That good, huh?”
“Mhmm. Even the memories of it are pure bliss.”
“Wow.” I suck in a breath. “Not gonna lie. I’m kinda jealous.”
She breathes out a laugh. “Well, unless I fix this with Alyssa, there won’t be anything to be jealous of—wait, so … you and Jamie didn’t?”
I shake my head, feeling the nerves run rampant in my stomach.
“No way. I think we could have, but I was too nervous. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I’m still getting used to being able to kiss him.”
She nods like she knows exactly what I mean. “The nerves are normal. And there’s no rush. You gotta do what feels right for you.”
Sex has always been a much bigger deal for me than it ever has been for Charlie. She’s just so comfortable with her sexuality and her body. “I kind of envy how easily you can open yourself up to someone like that.”
She lets out a loud laugh. “No pun intended.” I blush and she laughs again. “I wouldn’t exactly say it’s easy. I was nervous with Alyssa at first, you know.”
“You were?”
“Of course! It wasn’t just my first time with her; it was my first time with a girl. I was trembling with nerves. But we took it slow, and she asked more than once if I was okay. I knew that if I wanted to stop, I could, and she would understand. I felt safe. I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t.”
I nod, chewing on my bottom lip. “Do you regret having sex with Reese?”
She thinks for a moment. “No. It felt right at the time. I wanted to do it. You know me—I don’t have regrets. Why? Do you think you would regret sleeping with Jamie?”
“If I did it before I’m ready, yes. Physically, I’m totally ready.” I feel awkward saying that and train my eyes on the tiled floor while I talk. “But mentally, I still need some time to prepare for it.”
“And you’re entitled to take all the time you need. Remember that.”
“I will.”
She glides the feathery brush over her lid once more and steps back to see her handiwork. “I should do more makeup tutorials for my channel.”
“That would be awesome.” I push my glasses up on my nose, admiring her beauty. The black eyeliner looks flawless, flicking up at the outer corners to give her that cool cat-eye effect.
I stand up and study my reflection. I’ve got a few pimples on my chin that I’d rather cover up if I’m going to meet Skyler, but I don’t like the way makeup feels on my skin—and Charlie’s concealer is too dark for my pale complexion anyway.
“You look gorgeous,” Charlie says, looking at me with knowing eyes.
