Happily ever after seemed impossible at the moment though. Jonathan didn’t believe me. Jonathan believed that I cheated on him, and I didn’t know if there is anything I could do to change his mind. Well, I guess I could figure out who it was who send the gossip website those photos, that was going to be a tough thing to do. If I couldn’t figure out who was even canceling appointments in my name, how was I going to figure out something like that?
I called Sally, and being the true friend she was she came over the next day. Once again, she brought me ice cream which we ate together as I poured my heart out to her. I told her everything, about the person who is canceling appointments, about how originally I thought it might of been me but then came to realize that it wasn’t, how I finally got proof that it definitely wasn’t me, how then that terrible article was published and then a week later the photos appeared and how I was certain somebody was trying to set me up for something.
Sally was the one person in the world that I knew would believe me. As crazy as my stories sounded, Sally did know me better than anybody else on the planet, and she knew that I didn’t make this stuff up willy-nilly.
“Now I’m basically devastated. I swear Sally, I swear I never cheated on your brother. I mean, you saw how I was when I discovered that Kevin was cheating on me. Do you think I would ever, ever do that to another human being?”
“No, no Sara I don’t think you would. In fact, I’m certain you wouldn’t do it. I’m absolutely, completely certain that. Look, you’re completely right about my brother. He’s not the type to believe in conspiracy theories, he’s not the type that thinks that people are out to get him. He’s almost naïvely innocent, and I definitely don’t blame you for not telling him about your suspicions that someone was out to get you. I think you’re right, he would just think you’re crazy. Let me talk to him, let me try and figure out what exactly is going on with him, let me try and convince him that it wasn’t you in the photos. If you told me it wasn’t you, I believe you.”
“I just wish Jonathan would believe me.”
“He will eventually. I know he will. I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. Jonathan has always been that way. It will take time, but he’ll eventually come to believe you.”
“I don’t think he will Sally. You didn’t see him, you didn’t see how hurt he was, the absolute pain he felt when he thought that I’d done it. I don’t think he’s going to believe me.”
“Well in that case, you’re just going to have to work even harder proof that it wasn’t you. After all, if you can figure out who’s doing this, then you can prove that it wasn’t you in the photos.”
“The thing is though, I barely have enough energy to eat anymore. I’m completely devastated. There’s nothing I want more to do right now than to curl up in a corner of my room and die. Just waste away and not do anything, soaking in my misery until it’s all over.”
“That’s not going to do anybody any good.”
Sally was right. Sulking and feeling sorry for myself definitely wasn’t going to solve anything. Jonathan was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I had lost him right now. There is only one thing I could do to get him back, to win back the love of the man that I loved, and that was to figure out who was tricking him into thinking that I was unfaithful to him. The only problem was right now I didn’t have nearly enough energy to feel like doing that.
Still, as a few days past and Jonathan still refused to take my calls, I knew there is nothing else I could do. I could stay here and mope in misery, rueing the day I lost the best thing that had ever happened to me, or I could force myself to get up and try and figure out what exactly had happened. That was the only way I was going to be able to get Jonathan back.
Eventually I got up, showered, when to my laptop, and got back to work on trying to figure out what exactly had happened. Then, out of nowhere came a stroke of luck. One of the editors that I had called, asking to let them know if anyone cancelled the appointment with the band, called me back.
“Hello?” My voice felt raspy from days of crying, and I hoped it didn’t show through the phone.
“Yes, this is Anita from Beat Magazine in Australia, you asked me to call you if someone tried to cancel her appointment.”
“Yes Anita, of course, has that happened?”
“It has. I pretended to cancel the appointment as usual, and noted the phone number from which the call came.”
“Thank you so much Anita, you have no idea how much this means to me.”
“Not a problem. We’ve seen the photos on the Internet as well here in Australia, I guess you can use all the help you can get right now.”
“Absolutely, you have no idea. Thank you so much.”
Anita gave me the phone number of the person who called, although she apologized and said that she didn’t really recognize anything else distinctive in the voice. According to her, all of our American accents sound alike. Still, it was something to work with. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize the phone number.
I went to my computer and tried to use the Internet to figure out who the number belonged to. I didn’t get a name, but the Internet did help me figure out what company phone number was registered with. It was a cell phone, and I called up the company in an attempt to get the name from them.
Unfortunately, being honest in simply asking for the name got me nowhere. So, I hung up and tried again, this time pretending to be the owner of the phone, in the hopes that they would accidentally tell me the name of the account, but I got stuck at the security question. I needed somebody close to the band, somebody who would tell me that phone number belonged to. Jonathan wasn’t answering my calls, so I tried the other band members. Unfortunately, they weren’t taking my calls either. I guess they’d been told by Jonathan to ignore me. I couldn’t really blame them after all. Still, I had little bit of proof. This was something, I was getting somewhere. It had to just be a matter of time now I had to be able to figure this out.
Chapter Eighteen
It quickly became obvious to me that no one involved with the band was going to help me. I realized there was only one person I could ask for to help me, but that person wasn’t taking my calls. Jonathan.
I needed him, I needed him to help me. Going to my computer, I looked at the appointments that were organized. Even though we had really discussed it, I hadn’t done anything related to the band in a few days. Nobody called to complain, and I figured that this is kind of an unofficial suspension. Still, I knew exactly where the band was going to be. They had an appointment set up that day, and I boldly got dressed and went as though I was just going to another day of work.
When I arrived at the building where the band was being interviewed for a newspaper article, they hadn’t arrived yet. When they finally did arrive, and saw me, I know Jonathan wanted to turn away. But, we were still close enough to being in public that he knew that the paparazzi that were hanging around would notice, and that this a make even more fodder for the gossip magazines in the morning. Instead, he acted civilly as we entered the building before taking me into an empty room to the side.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jonathan hissed at me.
“I need to speak to you Jonathan. You weren’t answering my calls, so I didn’t think I had any other choice.”
“Ever think there was a reason I didn’t want to talk to you?”
“Look, I know you’re angry, I know you’re hurt, but I need your help. Please. I know you don’t think I deserve it, and believe me, I know exactly how you’re feeling right now, but I promise you if you listen to me for the next 10 minutes, you’ll believe me. Someone has set me up, someone has been trying to break me up with you, and they succeeded. The thing is, I have little bit of info about them. I need you Jonathan to tell me who they are. Please, just listen to me for five minutes. If when I’m done talking you still believe that I cheated on you then I’ll leave. But I just need those five minutes. Please, for us.”
�
��Fine” Jonathan replied, sitting down on a chair. I sat down across from him, and I told him everything. Literally, everything. I told Jonathan all about me thinking initially that somebody might’ve been canceling the appointments in my name. I told him about how I was afraid that he think I was crazy, and how I kept felt myself. I told him about how I called the editors for the magazine’s overseas, I told him about how bad I felt that he thought that it was my fault, and how that was why I was a little bit more reclusive than usual. Finally, I told him about the night before, the phone call I had with Anita. I showed him the scrap of paper on which had written a cell phone number.
“This is the number Anita gave me. You can call her if you don’t believe me, if you think I made this up. But honest to God, I have no idea whose phone number this is. I tried to call everybody that’s been involved with the band, since it has to be one of the people that were close to you guys, but no one’s taking my call. I’m literally out of options, that’s why I came here today. I need you Jonathan, I need you to tell me whose phone number this is.”
Jonathan stared at the piece of paper for a while. Then, his eyes met mine for the first time in days.
“I can’t believe you were right. Listen, let me have this, let me make a phone call and I’ll tell you what I think when I’m done okay?”
I nodded. “Sure, thanks for giving me a chance” I replied getting up, giving Jonathan the room. I closed the door behind me, but it was thin and I could hear Jonathan side of the conversation as he dialed the phone and called somebody at the website that had originally published the photos. As soon as he began to speak with them, I knew Jonathan was angry. I knew he wasn’t joking around, and even though I only heard one half of the conversation, I knew exactly what was going on at the other end of the line.
“No, you listen to ME. I have more money than God, you realize that? If I decide to sue you for defamation, I can have my lawyers make your lawyers charge so much money that you’ll be bankrupt before a verdict even comes back. Not to mention, the verdict will come back in my favor. You’ve got two options here: either you can give me the name that I want, one simple sentence, or I can make your life a living hell until your magazine’s been completely destroyed.”
There was silence for a couple of moments.
You can tell your boss that if that’s the position he’s taking, let him know this: I know for a fact the photos are fake. I have proof of it. Tell him that if he actually did his job properly, he would have known that in an instant. Tell him that if he doesn’t give me that name right away, I’ll have him sued so quickly he won’t know what hit him.”
Silence for another few moments.
“Good. Thank you. Tell your boss I don’t ever want to see my name in a negative light on his website again, or the world finds out what he did.”
Did this mean that Jonathan believe me? Did you actually have proof that the photos are fake already? If so, why didn’t he come to me earlier? Before had a chance to contemplate these questions that were running through my head, Jonathan called me back into the room.
“Well, I’m not sure if I believe you yet Sara but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt for now. I just: threatened the owner of the website that published the photos originally, and I got the name of the person who sent them into him. Well, more specifically, the name of the company.”
“Fuck. Every time I think I’m getting closer to figure out who did this, or something else in the way. Of course they registered a company, just to make sure that there was one additional layer of privacy between them and me.”
“Don’t worry, companies aren’t exactly private here.”
Jonathan grabbed his phone again, holding up the finger to let me know to wait one second as he called his lawyer and asked the lawyer to check the registration for the company name that was given to Jonathan.
“We should get an answer in a few minutes. It’s not hard to check and see who owns a company, unless they were very, very careful about it.”
Sure enough, a few minutes later Jonathan’s phone rang again. Jonathan picked it up, scribbled something on a piece of paper, then thanked his lawyer and hung up. He looked at me.
“I’ve completely confirmed your story Sara” he told me, looking into my eyes. “I think, more than anything right now I owe you an apology. I should have trusted you, I should have been a better boyfriend, I should’ve known better than to think you would do something like that to me.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Had Jonathan really forgiven me? Did he really believe me?
“I’m so sorry. If you don’t want to be with me anymore Sara, I completely understand. I treated you so unfairly, even though I love you. I love you so much, when I saw those photos it was like I’d been stabbed in the chest.”
“Stop there Jonathan. I know exactly what you mean. I went through the exact same emotions not long ago. I’m so glad you believe me,” I added, daring to wrap my arms around him. It felt so good to touch his skin again, to feel his muscular arms wrap themselves around me as he buried his face in my neck, both of us clutching onto the other as though for dear life. I never wanted to let go. I’d come so close to losing Jonathan forever, so close to never being able to feel his skin, smell his musk, kiss his soft lips that now that I knew I had him back I wanted him forever. I wanted to hang on to this moment forever.
Eventually, however, we did pull away. Jonathan went back to his scrap of paper.
“The owner of the company that I got, who also happens to be the owner of this cell phone number, is Miranda.”
“Your assistant?”
“That’s the one,” Jonathan replied, nodding. I found I was actually surprised, even though in reality Miranda was probably the first person I should have suspected. After all, she had never stopped sending me dirty looks when she thought Jonathan was looking, although I had always suspected that she was only the type to passively aggressively glare at me, but that she never would have done anything like this.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Well, to start with I’m going to go into this interview and act like nothing is wrong. Then, when we get out of here and going to fire her, but not before I know where her laptop is. I don’t want her to be able to delete anything if she did it on her work computer, which still technically belongs to me.”
“Good. I never liked her, although I did never suspect you would do anything like this.”
“I’m so sorry Sara. I’m so sorry for not believing you about anything. I should’ve taken your fears more seriously when you thought something was wrong months ago.”
“Don’t feel too bad about it. I know that I must’ve sounded like a crazy person to anyone else, I know that it made no sense.”
“Maybe, but I was still your boyfriend. I was still the person he’s supposed to believe every crazy thing you say.”
Jonathan leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips. I closed my eyes, enjoying the sensation once more. It had been too long, and yet it felt like an eternity. I wanted Jonathan to kiss me forever. The interview felt like it lasted forever. But sure enough, three hours later Miranda had been fired. Going through the computer, we found the original photos that Miranda had taken, having hired somebody to act as me, the mystery man, and then taken the photos herself. She used in image manipulation program to make them look out of focus and blurry, but still just enough like me to trick everybody.
With this new proof, Jonathan called up the gossip website and ordered them to publish a redaction. I could tell from the tone of the call that the magazine editor wasn’t happy, but a thrilled Jonathan came out announced that they had acquiesced eventually.
Over the next couple of weeks, we got more and more details as to what Miranda had been doing. It was her fault that the article in the other music magazine had been so scathing as well, as she called up the editor pretending to be me as well and accusing her of being unprofessional on the day of the shoot. When she f
ound out what had happened, the editor apologized profusely, printing a full redaction of the interview in their next issue, and promising to make it up to the band. None of the band members were really enthusiastic about doing another shoot with the same magazine, but I eventually convinced them that it was best if we were on the good side of one of the most important people in the music journalism industry.
True to her word, the next article that came out about the band couldn’t have been more amazing. Things were now moving at such a quick pace, I had to hire another two people. There was now less than a month to go until the band went on tour, and everything was becoming so hectic that Jonathan and I were finding that we had very little time to ourselves anymore.
Chapter Nineteen
Then one night, two weeks before the tour was supposed to start, Jonathan surprised me with a weekend away.
“I was thinking we should get out of here. Not for long obviously, just for the weekend, but I think we need a break for just the two of us.”
“That sounds amazing Jonathan” I replied, “where were you thinking of going?”
“That’s a surprise for now” Jonathan told me. “But I figure it will start with the band’s first-ever dress rehearsal. I was thinking the other day, you’ve never really heard us sing live, have you?”
“No, I haven’t really. I’ve heard you in the recording studio of course, but you haven’t done a single concert since I started working for the band.”
Rocked with Passion (A New Adult Rockstar Novel) Page 12
