#Starstruck

by Wilson, Sariah

  I went back to my apartment, not knowing if Lexi would be there. She wasn’t, and I didn’t see a note or any sign that she’d been there since she’d stormed out.

  I wondered whether my mom was right about Lexi.

  Turned out she wasn’t. Lexi didn’t come around in forty-eight hours.

  It took seventy-two.

  My day felt so dark and awful that it should have come with Swedish subtitles. I was getting ready to go to class when I heard Lexi’s key in the front door. I stood, stomach roiling, not knowing what would happen when I saw her.

  What happened was she threw herself in my arms and hugged me tightly, begging for my forgiveness. “I am the worst friend ever. I never should have said those things to you. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “No, I’m the worst. I shouldn’t have lied to you. I should have told you about Chase!”

  We cried and talked over each other and apologized and then finally sat at the kitchen table to work things out.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I’d done nothing for the past three days but think about why I had lied to the people I loved. “I had all these reasons why I couldn’t tell you. But they weren’t reasons. They were excuses. Rationalizations. I think part of me couldn’t believe someone like Chase could really love me. I was just always waiting for the other shoe to drop.” My chest constricted, and I could feel tears coming on. “Because deep down I knew I wasn’t worthy of him, and telling other people about it would have reminded me of all my shortcomings and flaws. I knew we wouldn’t last. I just didn’t want everybody to remind me of how hopeless it all was.”

  Lexi got up to hug me. “You stop that right now. You are absolutely worthy of him. If anything, he doesn’t deserve you. But I wish you’d told me. I wish you’d let me help you.”

  “You know how hard it is for me to trust people. Even you.”

  She nodded. Her arms were wrapped around me, and I felt guilty for not being more confident in our friendship. For letting my insecurities and doubt rule my life.

  “And you trusted him.”

  I could only nod, knowing if I spoke right then, I would cry. Her arms tightened around me like she understood. We stayed that way until my shoulders relaxed, and she finally let go and sat down in her chair.

  “Now that I’ve had a chance to mull it over, I’m not mad that you dated Chase.”

  That surprised me. “You’re not?”

  “Maybe a teensy bit jealous. But if he wasn’t interested in me, don’t you think the best thing in the world was him dating my best friend? Don’t you know I want only amazing things for you? I’m not upset about him. I was upset you lied. It’s so unlike you.”

  “Some part of me was also afraid he would love you instead of me.” I didn’t need to remind her about all my high school crushes who had liked her more. “I convinced myself that at first what was happening between me and him was nothing and wasn’t even worth talking about.”

  “And now?”

  “And now . . . he became everything to me.” And he was out of my life for good.

  Lexi gave me a sad smile. “I totally overreacted. And I was melodramatic. But that’s kind of my brand,” she said with a teasing shrug.

  “It’s why everybody loves you.”

  She suddenly burst into tears, and I reached across the table to put my hand on top of hers. “What did I say? What’s wrong?”

  “Not everybody loves me. Gavin broke up with me.”

  What? “Why?”

  “He thinks I’m in love with Chase, and that’s why I was mad at you. I kept trying to explain it to him, but he’s so stubborn. It’s like he decided this was reality, and there was nothing I could say to make him see things differently.”

  Boy, did I know how that felt.

  “But it’s okay. There are lots of other guys to date. Maybe we should go out and find some.” She smiled and said the things she always said after a breakup. But she wasn’t okay. Gavin was special. She loved him.

  “Maybe. We can talk about it later. I’ve got to get to my women’s studies class. It’s our last one. We’re having a discussion on the true meaning of feminism.”

  Lexi wished me luck. I ignored the reporters waiting downstairs for me, who followed me all the way to campus. Fortunately, security stopped them from coming onto school grounds, but they couldn’t stop them from yelling and snapping pictures and making everybody in the area stare at me.

  I felt like an animal in a zoo.

  When I got to my women’s studies class, I avoided eye contact with every other student in the discussion circle. I was so tired of being scrutinized and not being able to go through my breakup in private.

  Professor Gonzales came in and took her seat. “So, let’s get into it. What is the true meaning of feminism?”

  “Equality.”

  “What kind of equality?” the professor asked.

  “All kinds. Social, economic, political, religious.”

  “It should mean we stop telling girls to not be too smart or too ambitious because men won’t like them,” someone to my left offered.

  “It means we fight for our causes and our rights.”

  Then the sweater-set sorority girl said, “I’m sorry, but are we really not going to talk about what happened to Zoe?”

  My head snapped up. “That’s none of your business.”

  “The fact that the media is portraying you as a whore and a home-wrecker when you told us you’re celibate? It’s untrue and reiterates the whole virgin–whore paradigm.”

  At some point I had to run out of tears, right? “I don’t want to be recorded and have anything I say end up online.”

  “Not a problem.” She stood up and grabbed her bag. “Everybody give me your cell phones. And if you can’t keep your mouth shut, leave now.” She looked specifically at me. “And by the way, my name is Tiffany.” No one left, and they all turned over their cell phones.

  They asked me questions that didn’t venture into anything too personal, just the true facts of the situation I had experienced. And that led to a discussion of how I was being vilified in the media even though I’d done nothing wrong. How Amelia Swan had gained sympathy and popularity on the back of another woman—me.

  Every comment made after that was complimentary and supportive. They were all on my side, even the guys, and it made me feel understood and heard in a way that healed another piece of my heart.

  “This is feminism,” I told my professor. “A sisterhood of women who stand up for one another, support one another, and know that they’re stronger together.”

  Professor Gonzales smiled and nodded. She announced that class was over, and Tiffany redistributed our phones. I realized that although I’d carried it with me and charged it, I hadn’t yet turned it on. I was almost afraid to.

  “If you need to talk to someone, you can call me,” Tiffany said as we went into the hall. She handed me a piece of notebook paper with her phone number. I felt bad that I had dismissed her and judged her when she was obviously a kind person.

  “Thanks.”

  That class discussion had made me think of Lexi and how my breakup with Chase was more bearable because now I knew she was there for me.

  She needed her own happy ending, and as her “sister,” it was my job to help her get it. I had my girl’s back.

  Gavin’s apartment was north of campus. When they’d first started dating, Lexi wanted to set me up with one of his roommates. She’d taken me to his place, but we were not interested in each other. I banged on the front door. If Gavin wasn’t home, I would wait until he got back.

  I hoped somebody answered before the paparazzi found me.

  The door opened, and I’d obviously woken up one of the roommates. I couldn’t remember his name. “Is Gavin here?”

  He didn’t say anything. I heard muffled voices before Gavin came into the living room. “What do you want, Zoe?”

  “I want to tell you you’re an idiot.”

&n
bsp; “Thanks for that. Bye.” He moved to close the door.

  I stuck my foot in the frame. He wasn’t going to get rid of me that easily. “Lexi is not in love with Chase. He was a childhood crush. She met him. Twice. And she didn’t go after him. In fact, after she met him, she pretty much stopped talking about him other than to make you jealous. If you haven’t noticed, Lexi can be insecure and needs constant reassurance. You are the only guy I’ve ever seen her serious about. I think she might even love you. She was mad because I lied to her. And she had every right to be mad. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Did she tell you to come and plead her case?”

  I resisted the urge to shove him in his stupid chest. “Of course not. You know she wouldn’t. She’ll just move on and pretend like she’s over you, even if she’s not. You’re perfect together. Don’t be a moron and screw up the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

  I yanked my foot clear of the door and almost lost my shoe. I shoved my foot back into it and started walking along the sidewalk away from his apartment.

  “Hey, Zoe!”

  I stopped and turned around to see what Gavin wanted.

  “Maybe you should think about taking your own advice.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Obviously I did some good, because later that evening as Lexi and I watched a Hallmark movie, somebody tried to break down our front door, making us both shriek.

  “I have a gun!” Lexi called out as she grabbed her phone, ready to call 911.

  “You do not.”

  “Gavin?”

  The chain was on, but the rest of it was unlocked, so he’d managed to open the door a couple of inches. “This was a lot less dramatic than I had intended.”

  Lexi stood in his sight line, her arms crossed. Her face was defiant, but I could see her trembling. She wanted to hope but was scared to.

  “Lexi, I love you.” I watched as her posture changed at hearing those four words. “I never should have accused you of having feelings for Chase Covington. I was so afraid of losing you that I broke it off, thinking it would hurt less if I ended it before you could leave me. It didn’t. I screwed up. Open the door, sweetheart. Let me make this right.”

  She walked over to the door, gazed into his eyes, and then gently closed it on him.

  Two heartbeats later she reached up and undid the chain lock to let him in. He grabbed her in his arms and lifted her against him. If my heart had to be broken, I was so glad my best friend’s would be mended. But it made me ache to see how much they loved each other, and I missed Chase all over again.

  I went into our room and closed the door to give them some privacy for their reconciliation. I took my phone off my desk and looked at it. I had left it off because I was both afraid Chase would call and afraid he wouldn’t.

  Holding my breath, I turned my phone on. The pings started almost immediately. Out of habit, I went into my Twitter app first. Nothing from Chase, but I had more than ten thousand notifications from people who had tweeted at me. I started scrolling through them, feeling sick. Some people hated Amelia the way Lexi did and declared themselves #TeamZoe or #TeamZase.

  But then there were the people who believed the article. Who thought I was a home-wrecking gold digger. They said . . . not nice things. Including the ever-popular death threat. I knew I should put my phone down, stop reading. But it was like a car wreck I couldn’t look away from.

  Finally, I forced myself to get off Twitter. I had a bunch of e-mails to go through and thirteen missed calls. One from my mom, one from Stephanie, and the other eleven from Chase. There were voice mails, but I couldn’t bring myself to listen to them. Hearing his voice . . . it would be too painful. Just seeing that he’d called made my hands shake.

  I needed to focus on something else. I wondered what Stephanie wanted. I was planning on leaving in an hour to go into work. Couldn’t she just tell me then? It seemed odd.

  Thinking of her reminded me of what had happened with Chase, and I tried to block my thoughts of his accusations and his cold expression, as well as the nauseating feeling they created in the pit of my stomach. I thought of what Stephanie had said. How she knew Chase and I were in a relationship, something she couldn’t possibly have known. I’d been so caught up in my heartache that I hadn’t stopped to consider how she got her information.

  Then I remembered finding my laptop open after that design meeting when I was pretty sure I had closed it.

  Lexi burst in the room and rushed over to hug me. “Gavin told me what you did. Thank you. You are the best friend in the whole world. If there’s ever anything I can do to repay you, you let me know.”

  “There may be something Gavin can do.”

  I brought my phone and laptop out to Gavin. “Can you tell if these were hacked? Or if somebody stole pictures from them?”

  “Yeah,” he said, seating himself at the kitchen table. “What’s your password?”

  “I don’t have a password.”

  He glanced up at me, his eyes full of disbelief. “You don’t have a password? On either one?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” he muttered. “Maybe so somebody wouldn’t swipe pictures of your movie-star boyfriend and post them online.”

  He was having an emotional day, so I decided to give him a pass.

  “Did you open the pictures on your laptop?” he asked.

  “I transferred them to my laptop after I got them, but that was it.”

  He nodded and went to work. After about twenty minutes, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Okay. So you weren’t hacked. I can’t find any trace of software or viruses or worms or anything else on your phone or laptop that indicates this was done remotely. But when I went into your Event Viewer on your laptop and checked the logs, I can see that these files were accessed by somebody who didn’t know enough about computers to cover their tracks. This was really easy to find.”

  Gavin turned the laptop toward me and showed me the pictures that had been accessed. He told me the date and time.

  And my theory had been right. It had been during the design meeting. I didn’t know whether to be angry or sick.

  I grabbed my phone and purse.

  “Where are you going?” Lexi asked.

  “The Foundation. I’m going to find out what happened.”

  “I’m putting a password on your laptop!” Gavin yelled behind me as I closed the door. I stormed down the stairs, not caring if the paparazzi took pictures that showed me angry and upset. Because I was seriously pissed off. In an it-took-me-far-less-time-to-drive-to-the-Foundation-than-it-should-have sort of way.

  I entered the building and headed straight for Stephanie’s office. She was responsible for this. Either she had done it herself or she’d put somebody up to it.

  Before I could start screaming at her, she had the audacity to look up from her computer and smile at me. “Zoe. I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you about Chase Covington. Please take a seat.”

  I was so surprised she had brought it up directly that when she indicated I should sit in one of her chairs, I did. Stephanie closed the door and settled back behind her desk.

  “I’m concerned because it seems you’ve had a bit of a falling-out with Mr. Covington. I hope you were able to patch things up, and this won’t affect him coming to our benefit.”

  Was she serious? “How did you know we were dating? I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Noah figured it out.”

  Noah? How could that have possibly happened? We hadn’t even spoken since our failed dating attempt. “How?”

  “He saw a picture of you on The Helen Show. The one from Disneyland? He couldn’t see your face, but you had your keys out, and he recognized the fish key ring I’d given you. You’re the only person in the office who’s the right age and height, so we made an educated guess. I called my cousin Jerry. He works at ENZ. He said he would help prove it was you.”

  The paparazzo I’d seen in the crowd. T
he same guy from the gas station. “Does Jerry have a red, white, and blue denim jacket?”

  She pursed her lips, puzzlement shadowing her features. “I don’t know. But he found proof that you’ve been holding out on us, even though I told you over and over again how important this year’s fund-raiser is. Jerry discovered you’d been going into Chase’s neighborhood. A guard told him.”

  I knew I shouldn’t have handed my license over to that security guard. This Jerry had probably bribed him for it. Had Jerry been following me? Was he the one who had set off Chase’s perimeter alarm? Had he seen my car?

  But Jerry wasn’t the one who’d found the Disneyland pictures. “And the photos from my computer? Who did that? Was it you? You sent me to that meeting, making sure I was away from my laptop.”

  Her eyes narrowed for a moment, like she was deciding whether to tell me something. Finally, she admitted, “Noah forwarded them to me.”

  A lump formed in my throat. We weren’t friends any longer, but I had never imagined Noah would stoop to something so low. “Noah stole pictures from my laptop? Why would he do that? To make sure he was the one who got the full-time job instead of me?”

  “I wouldn’t consider it stealing,” she snapped back, her eyes narrowing. “It was on the Foundation’s property, and he used a resource to help our cause. Do you know that over a million seabirds and a hundred thousand sea mammals are killed by pollution every year? It was so selfish of you to not talk to Mr. Covington about our event. We desperately need people like him supporting us.”

  “Are you serious right now?” I had been raised to be respectful, especially to authority figures, but I couldn’t believe what was happening. “I was selfish? Noah posted pictures of me all over the Internet and made my life a living hell, and you knew about it! And I’m selfish? You are unbelievable!”

  “I’m committed. There’s a difference. And I didn’t know Noah was going to post the photos. I only knew that you had a serious connection you were withholding from us.”

  Anger coiled inside my gut, roaring to be set loose. She should be committed. “And yet you didn’t say a single word to me about what he did. You thought it was worth sacrificing my relationship and my privacy for?”