"I'll pay for your dinner."
"No, that's okay." I shoot her a weak smile. "I'm poor, but I'm not that poor yet. I can swing dinner."
"Okay then." She shrugs before stooping to grab a pair of jeans out of the floor. "Any chance you saw a pair of black Jimmy Choo's with a four inch heel in here?"
"Nope."
"I knew you were going to say that," she says with a dramatic sigh.
"I'm going to shower."
She waves me off before tossing her jeans on her bed and rummaging through the piles in the floor in search of her shoes, muttering to herself about how she's going to hire a male maid to clean for her because nothing is sexier than watching a man clean. I watch her for a moment before darting down the hall to the guest room. Once inside, I close the door and then lean up against it, breathing hard.
"What in the hell is going on?" I mumble to myself, almost afraid to find the answer to that question. Except…I'm pretty sure I have to do so. Something is seriously off, and I need to know what. I don't think I have a choice.
"Have you talked to Todd lately?" I ask over dinner, striving to remain calm and collected, though the longer I think about that folder, the more uneasy I become. Sure, we all have pictures of our friends. But most people don't keep hundreds of them in a folder on their desktop. And most people don't have pictures said friend doesn't even remember. That's weird, and I don't think I'm overreacting. I don't want to assume the worst, either. She's my best friend and has been for years.
There has to be a rational explanation…right?
I'm not sure.
"Ugh," she groans, dragging a nacho through a pile of guacamole on her plate. "I haven't spoken to him at all since I dumped him."
"Oh." I toy with my straw, circling it around and around in my glass. "How long were you two dating? I can't remember."
"I don't know. Eight or nine months, I guess."
"Right after we went to L.A. last summer," I murmur.
"Yeah. He was a big waste of time."
"I'm sorry."
She shrugs. "It is what it is."
"You met him at a convention, didn't you?"
She gives me an odd look, one brow cocked. "In Vegas. I told you, remember?"
"That's right. Is he an agent also?"
"What's up with all the questions about Todd?"
"Just curious," I say, giving her a calm smile. Inside, I'm anything but cool and collected. My instincts keep nagging at me, and they're telling me there's a whole lot more to that folder than I want to believe. "We haven't had a chance to talk about your break-up like we were supposed to do before…well, before everything. I feel bad."
"Well, don't. We were bound to break up eventually. I'm not you, Ivy."
My eyes widen at her tone. "What do you mean?"
"Look at you." She waves a hand in my direction. "You're gorgeous. Guys throw themselves at you."
"That's not true."
"Yes, it is. You knew Cam for all of five minute before he fell in love with you. It's not like that for me."
I blink, taken aback at the hint of bitterness in her tone.
She continues before I can say anything. "You don't have to try as hard as the rest of us to land a good guy. They fall all over themselves trying to get to you. The only ones who fall for me are losers. You're lucky."
"I was just charged with manslaughter," I say, anger rolling through me. "I may spend the next twenty years of my life in prison. I had to leave the one guy I've ever been in love with. I barely make enough to live in this city. My family is dead. I don't think any of that qualifies me as lucky."
"I didn't mean in that way." She rolls her eyes like I'm being overly sensitive.
"How did you mean it?" I ask, not sure how else she expected me to take it. Guys may look at me, but they sure as hell don't know me, and most of them don't care to. They want to fuck me just to say they did, especially when they find out I used to model. Cam wasn't like that. He actually saw me when he looked at me. And now that's over. The one guy I want…I can't have.
"I don't know," she says, holding her hands up in surrender. "Ignore me. I guess seeing you mope around all week has me feeling sorry for myself, too. I'm sorry. I just don't really want to talk about Todd tonight, okay? Let's just eat and enjoy the fact that we're not smelly old cat ladies yet."
"Fine by me," I lie, spearing a piece of chicken with my fork and popping it into my mouth for emphasis. I'm honestly a little pissed. Her comments lately, first about Rory and now about how easy my life is, on top of the photos, is really starting to bother me. Dots are beginning to connect, and I don't like the image of her being drawn. It's not one I've seen before, and I don't like where it leads.
"Are you excited about the convention?" I ask a few minutes later, trying to dispel the tense silence between us as we gorge ourselves on Mexican food.
"Yes," she says, instantly perking up. "Tia Kaplan will be there. She's a fucking goddess, and she's making her current agent millions. I'm going to land that woman one of these days. How cool would that be? Maria would promote me in a heartbeat."
"What time is your flight in the morning?"
"I have to be at the airport at the ass crack of dawn," she groans.
"Who else is going?"
"Maria is sending Sam so I can show him the ropes." She wriggles her brows suggestively. "Maybe I'll get lucky and get to see two hot guys going at it midflight. That'd be awesome. What are you planning to do? And if you even mention those damn yoga pants, I'm staging an intervention."
"I should probably go home," I admit, pushing my plate away from me when my stomach turns at the thought. I haven't been home at all since the morning I fled to L.A. I'd like to say that's because I didn't want to deal with the media, but the real truth is that I've been too much of a coward to walk through the front door and deal with the memories of Cam that will inevitably hit me. When I face them, all the pain I've been ignoring is going to drag me under. It's going to break me, and I'm not sure I'm strong enough to survive breaking.
"You can stay with me for as long as you need to," Erin promises, reaching out to squeeze my hand.
"Thanks." I give her a sad smile, feeling guilty for doubting her when she's been nothing but amazing to me for so long. Maybe I am overreacting about the pictures and drawing conclusions that just aren't there. But I don't think I am…and that's what really scares me.
"What are you waiting for?" I mumble to myself, standing in the doorway of Erin's bedroom early the next morning, staring at the computer sitting on top of her desk. She's been gone for an hour already, but I haven't managed to actually step into her bedroom. She's my best friend, and I'm considering invading her privacy in a major way. Without even having given her the chance to explain.
But something isn't right. I feel it in my bones.
Drawing a deep breath, I step over the threshold, half expecting for her to jump out and ask what I'm doing. The fear is completely irrational given that she's on her way to the airport to catch a flight to Atlanta. But I still find myself exhaling a relieved breath when she doesn't appear.
I quickly weave my way around the mess to her computer. It takes me another two minutes to convince myself to sit in the chair.
Once I do, my curiosity overrides my sense of decency. I slide my hand over the mouse and wait for the screen to come on. The same photo of Chris Hemsworth pops up in the background, but the folder with my name on it is no longer on the desktop.
"What the hell?" I mumble, scanning through the remaining folders without finding it.
She moved it.
Why?
Any reservations I had about invading her privacy vanish in a puff of smoke. I quickly tap on the Start Menu icon and then type my name into the search bar. The little magnifying glass appears. Almost immediately, documents begin to pop up, one after the other. I click the button to see more results and then blink, taken aback. There are almost one thousand results.
My heart rate picks up.
I begin browsing through them. Most of the results are innocuous…emails and IM conversations between the two of us and things like that. The folder of my photos is there. She's moved it from the desktop to another folder somewhere else, hiding it from sight. Other pictures are scattered around in different places. Near the end of the list are hundreds of entries for temporary files.
I click on the first and Chrome opens. An error page loads, advising that the operation cannot be performed. I back out of the browser and click on the next file, only to get the same results.
My frustration grows as I click through one after another, each telling me that the operation cannot be completed because my session has expired.
I try three more with no success. Clearly, I'm not going to find anything that way.
"Maybe because there isn't anything to find," I tell myself, disappointed that I haven't found anything. I should be happy about that, but I'm not. My instincts are urging me to keep going, to keep digging.
I shrink Chrome and scroll through the search results again.
I'm on the verge of giving up when a saved email catches my attention. It's from her to me, dated six months ago. The subject line reads, "HOUSTON!!!" in all capital letters. I pull it open.
My blood freezes in my veins when I see the exact date she sent it.
"Oh my god," I whisper, another piece falling into place. The date and location matches the one on Cam's list of dates and places Fake Ivy checked into on her Facebook account. Erin was with me on my trip to Los Angeles, too…the one that coincides with Fake Ivy's trip to L.A…the one where Rory attended my show and sat at the table right beside her.
Where else did Fake Ivy check into on her account?
I can't remember. I sit there for a long moment, staring at the screen, trying to decide what to do next, and then I say screw it and open Chrome again. Holding my breath and praying I'm wrong, I surf to Facebook.
Erin's profile loads. I browse through for a minute, but see nothing out of the ordinary. I type Fake Ivy's name into the search bar, but her page is gone. I move on to Twitter, with the same result. Fake Ivy's accounts have been deleted.
Giving it one last shot, I surf to Instagram. When it loads, I don't see anything out of the ordinary. Not until I hit the button to login and see Fake Ivy's name saved in the login field instead of Erin's.
"Please, no," I pray, my hand shaking as I click to login.
A message pops up informing me there is no account under that name. It's been deleted, too.
I click back out of the browser and then open the Start Menu again, unwilling to just give up now. Something is seriously wrong, and I have to know the truth. I click around for a few minutes, and then find the option to show hidden files. I select it and then redo the search on my name.
Almost two hundred new results appear. Photo after photo of me fills the screen. There are hundreds of them, exactly like in that damn folder. But I don't even care about those anymore. I click on a document near the top that she's labeled "Social Media".
Word opens, showing me a list of account usernames and passwords for Ivy Wade.
A whimper rolls from my lips.
I scroll through, so stunned, I feel numb.
"No, no, no," I chant to myself, but the evidence is right there in front of me.
All of her strange comments and behavior begins to make sense.
My best friend is Fake Ivy.
She's the reason Rory Clark died.
She's the reason I could go to prison.
She's the reason I lost Cam.
Oh God. Cam.
My last image of him floats through my mind, and then another one of him with his head against my stomach, praying. A dam bursts, and everything I've been fighting to ignore rushes in, roaring for my attention. All of my memories of him hit me at once, and it is so much worse than I was prepared for. Memories of him are everywhere, invading every cell of my body.
I leap out of the chair, knocking it backwards as pain slams into me, stealing my breath. I stumble through her bedroom, tripping on the piles of clothing discarded in the floor. Tears pour from my eyes, blinding me. I keep moving, bumping into things as I weave my way down the hall, desperate to escape. The pain is brutal and it won't stop.
My best friend is the reason my life is in tatters.
When I reach the guest room, I grab my phone and dial Cam's number.
It goes straight to voicemail.
He doesn't want to talk to me.
"Cam," I choke, sobbing into the phone. I'm crying so hard I can't even get the words out to explain that I know who's responsible for what happened to Rory. All I can say is, "Oh God, Cam. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
I drop the phone and stumble toward the door. I don't even know where I'm going, but I can't be here. I feel like the walls are closing in on me, suffocating me. I have to get away.
Why did she do this?
How could she do it?
She was supposed to be my friend!
"Stop."
I freeze at the sound of her voice coming from the bedroom doorway, confused. Thinking maybe I'm just imaging things, I swipe the tears from my eyes.
I'm not imagining anything.
Erin is standing in front of the door, blocking the exit.
And she's holding a gun.
chapter twenty
be here now
We stare at each other in complete silence for a long, tense moment. Shudders wrack my body, but my sobs die in my throat as fear creeps in, overshadowing everything else. Erin doesn't waver as she points the gun at me. She looks sad, like she doesn't really want to be here at all. And she looks crazed, like she doesn't think she has a choice.
Is she going to shoot me?
"W-what are you doing with that?" I ask, afraid of my best friend for the first time in my life.
"You know, don't you?"
I want to lie to her. For my safety, I probably should lie to her…but I can't.
"Yes," I whisper.
Her lashes flutter and then she sighs, a sad puff of sound.
We stare at one another again, not speaking.
"Why?" I ask finally, the only question that really matters. Why did she do this to me? Why did she do it at all? "I thought you were my friend."
"I am your friend," she says, rolling her eyes like I'm being overdramatic. "That's the problem."
"I don't understand."
"I'm always your friend," she says, hurt flashing in her eyes. "When you're around, no one cares about me. All they care about is you. It's always been you, Ivy. For the entire time I've known you, you've been the one everyone wanted to know. Half of the time, people don't even remember my name."
"That's not true."
"Yes, it is. Our entire four years of college, all I heard was, 'You're Ivy's friend, right?'. It's the same way now. I meet a guy I like, and they're too busy looking at you to notice me standing there. And that isn't your fault. You're beautiful, and funny, and so amazing. But when you're around, I'm just the girl standing in your shadow. No one can compete with you."
"I…" I don't know what to say to that. I've never been in competition with her. "I never asked for attention. I never wanted any of it!"
"I know," she cries, frustrated. "That's part of the problem! You don't even notice the way people look at you, or how they want to be close to you. You're completely oblivious to it, while it's glaringly obvious to everyone else. I've been half in love with Gleeson for months, but he only sees you. You think I'm kidding when I say he wants to sleep with you, but I'm not. I'm in love with him, and he wants you. That's so fucking frustrating!"
"You did this because of Bryan?" I ask, bile rising in my throat at the thought that she did this because of a guy. Bryan and I have never been anything more than friends.
"No, I did it because…" She huffs, her chest heaving. "I don't know what I wanted. I asked Gleeson out before we went to L.A. last summer, and he shot me down. I was hurt because I knew if you had asked him, h
e would have said yes without hesitation, even though he's your boss. And then, when we were at Antonio's, this cute guy sat down at the table beside me. He was sweet, so I flirted with him. I thought maybe he could help me get over Gleeson, but he couldn't stop talking about you. I was so frustrated and depressed. Yet again, it was all about you. When we got home, I created a profile using your name. I just wanted to know what it felt like to be you, so I looked him up, and we started talking."
"Oh my god," I whisper.
"I meant to flirt with him for a little bit and then toss him aside, but I couldn't do it." Regret flits across her face. "He was a nice guy, and I loved the attention he paid to me when he thought I was you. I made up Todd so you wouldn't get suspicious because I couldn't stop. When I was pretending to be you, everyone loved me. Guys were constantly asking for my number and flirting with me. I felt like a difference person, and I loved that. But Rory hated it. At first, I thought the jealousy was cute. It felt good, you know? He was so sweet, and he was completely in love with me."
I want to cover my ears and block out the sound of her voice. I don't want to know any of this. But she's still talking, words flowing from her mouth in a steady stream.
"A couple of months ago, I needed to borrow some money to hold me over until one of my sales went through, so Rory sent me his credit card. I paid off all of my bills, and did some shopping. You know how much I like to shop! I went overboard, and he freaked out. Like…massively freaked out, Ivy. I told him I'd pay it back, but he wouldn’t listen to me. His parents found out about the money and cut him off, so he couldn't even pay his tuition. He thought he was going to get kicked out of school. I couldn't deal with the melodrama anymore, so I broke up with him."
"You told him to kill himself," I mumble.
"I didn't mean it! He was getting on my nerves, constantly hounding me. I was going to pay him back as soon as my next check hit the bank, but then he showed up here. I freaked out when he told me he was in San Francisco. I didn't want him to track you down and realize that you had no clue who he was. I didn't want to give up being you. I just wanted him to leave me alone, so I was mean to him. I didn't know he was serious about killing himself, or I never would have told him to do it." Tears pool in her eyes. "I swear, I didn't know."
All Over You (All Falls Down #3) Page 24
