“Someone sent in photos to TMZ,” Alexis says. “It’s not good.”
I look at her. Her expression is unreadable.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I say. “Nothing happened, I swear.” Is that even true? I shake my head. “I’m a shitty friend, and a shitty girlfriend, and—oh God.” Rainer has seen these pictures.
I sit down on the edge of her bed. All of a sudden, my legs have given out. My chest is tight, and I can’t seem to get enough air.
“Alexis—please, just let me explain.”
“This is bad,” she says. “I’m not going to lie to you.”
I put my head in my hands. Alexis is dating Jordan. She is about to tear my head off, and I deserve nothing less. “I know,” I say. “I know. I never meant for—nothing happened; you have to believe me.”
Alexis squints at me. “I don’t,” she says. “But there’s an upside to this.”
I peel my fingers down. “What?”
Alexis comes and sits next to me. She pulls out another tissue and fluffs her bangs. “I’m not mad at you. Paige, Jordan and I aren’t dating.”
I look at her. What? “You broke up already?”
“We were never dating.”
When I don’t say anything, she continues. “I don’t know how to explain this—when the studio saw you and Rainer getting close on set, and then the whole thing happened with Rainer’s dad and Brit… our reps decided it would be a good idea, if…”
“Your relationship with Jordan was a publicity stunt?”
Her face is pale. She nods. “To offset the tension.” She’s raising her shoulders up, like There you go. This happens.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I ask.
Alexis shakes her head. “Jordan’s a friend. We knew it would be a good way to keep any questions from being raised. You know, about the two of you?”
“Oh,” I say, picking at my freshly done MTV manicure.
“Which is what you want,” Alexis says. “Well, what you wanted.”
None of this is what I wanted. I look down at my hands. “Thanks for telling me.”
Alexis smiles. “I probably should have made you guilt-suffer a bit longer.” Then she laughs, a needed moment of levity, and says: “But did you really think we were actually dating? We have no chemistry!”
“You two are good actors.” I pause. “You said it was so hot, and I thought he’s always had a thing for you.”
Alexis laughs, but it quickly turns into a cough. “No,” she says. “He’s always been a good friend to me.”
“But why lie about it? To me, and to Rainer?” It seems crazy to me that Alexis would hide anything. She’s the most self-assured person I know.
“Come on,” she says. “You know better than that.” Alexis takes her ponytail down and shakes her hair out. It falls in tumbles down her back, and I mentally kick myself for not paying more attention, for not being the kind of friend to her she’s been trying to be to me. “When you’re young, this business is hard. Sometimes faking a relationship gives you more privacy than having the relationship you want.”
Her eyes meet mine, and I notice a deep sadness there. I have to look away.
“That’s a shitty way to live,” I say under my breath.
“Yeah,” she says, her voice getting quieter. “It’s not ideal.” Her eyes dart back to the computer screen. Me and Jordan. “I hope you can be honest with me.”
“I don’t even know what the truth is,” I say.
“Well, if you don’t fill it in soon, those pictures are going to do it for you.”
I get up and close the screen. I can’t look anymore. “I have to find Rainer.”
Alexis rubs her eyes. “So he didn’t come home?”
I shake my head. “He wasn’t at his mom’s house, either. Britney was at the after-party last night,” I say. “She was with Ryan, but I think—I don’t know. I think maybe Rainer left with her.”
“No way, he’s done with that. He loves you.”
“He may not anymore.” I blow some air out of my lips and sit back down next to Alexis on the bed. “I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
Alexis puts a hand on my back. “He’ll forgive you,” she says. “You just have to make sure that’s really what you want.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t talk him into forgiving you if you’re…” She clears her throat. “If you’re not all in, too.” I look at her. Her eyes are big, comforting.
“Alexis, I really screwed up.…”
She holds out her arms to me, and despite her cold, I fold into them. “I know,” she says, her hand working to stroke my head. “Find your boyfriend, figure out what you want, make it right.”
“You make it sound so easy,” I say, dabbing at my eyes with her terry cloth.
“I’m an actress,” she says. “That’s my job.” And then she plucks me up and gives me a pointed look. “And I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, darling—but it’s yours, too.”
I try Rainer ten times from the car. No answer. I have a string of missed calls. Tawny is dialing me every minute, on the minute. I listen to a voice mail from Sandy: “We need to handle this, Paige. Call me back.” Her tone is clipped, sharp, rare from her. She means business.
Two from Cassandra, one from my mom, one from my sister. I click off the cell phone and keep driving. I don’t know where to go. I could try the Starbucks Rainer likes at the Beverly Glen, but being out in public is an idiot’s move, and I know it. I saw how quickly Alexis scrolled back up when I tried to read the comments on that Perez piece.
My phone rings again. I expect to see Tawny’s name on the screen, but instead it’s Jordan’s.
He said he’d stay away, that we needed space, but now the whole world has seen—what? Us together. If there’s a way to spin these photos as friendly, I have no idea what it is.
I feel epically, ridiculously horrible about the fact that he’s landed in this position. If I hadn’t called him last night, drunk and stupid, none of this would have happened. But if I hear his voice, I know I’ll fall apart. And I can’t afford to do that right now. I hit ignore.
I drive home. I can’t think of anything else to do. I’m just about to round the corner and pull into the gate when I see them—ten parked cars along the side of the road and just as many guys—all decked out with cameras.
They’ve found us.
My hands leave the wheel, and for a split second I think about just gunning it, plowing straight through them. I don’t see them as people now, but insects—small and insidious.
They spot me first. They start running.
I stop the car right in front of the gate. How am I going to roll down my window to punch in the code?
They descend on me like a summer rainstorm—they drench me in light.
“Paige! When did you start cheating on your boyfriend with his best friend?” “Who do you love?” “Paige! Just one question!” “Are you sorry?”
I’m stopped. I can see the house just down the slope, but I have no way to get there. I’m going to die in this car. I’m going to die with these people, these strangers, yelling things about my life that make me feel like the lowest form of pond scum. I sink down in the seat. I put my hands on the wheel. I can feel the panic rising up in my body. It feels like it’s going to tear open my rib cage. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I feel crazy, absolutely unhinged. I get now why you see those pictures of movie stars whacking umbrellas at paparazzi. This could make you snap.
They keep flashing. Think, Paige. Think.
I suddenly remember that Rainer gave me a clicker to the gate. I told him it was silly—I could just roll down a window—but he insisted. What did I do with it?
I yank open the overstuffed glove compartment and let the manuals fall to the floor. I find the piece of plastic. Yes. I click it, but nothing happens.
Is it broken?
I click it again. Still nothing. Third, fourth time. I whack it against the center c
onsole. What is the point in having all this stupid technology if none of it works?
I throw it on the floor, but just as I’m about to try to put the car in reverse and back the hell out of here—the gate opens. I half expect the paparazzi to chase me inside, but they don’t. They stay on the other side as I pull through and disappear down the hill to the house.
The first thing I see is Rainer. He’s standing there, holding an electronic key. He’s wearing a blue T-shirt, one of my favorites, and jeans. His hair is ruffled, and his eyes are big and red.
I shove the emergency brake on and lock the car behind me.
“They found us,” I tell Rainer—half-breathless. My heart is racing. Pounding like the first mile of a marathon. “They’re all up there. I don’t know…” But I stop talking. Because he’s looking at me in a way that takes all the words right out of my mouth.
“How could you?” he says. I look at him closer. He’s been crying.
I shake my head. I feel like I might be sick again.
“Can we go inside?” I say.
He nods. He doesn’t want to have this fight outside, either. Not when a long-lens camera could capture something.
I follow him inside. I toss my shoes off and go straight into the living room. I curl up on the couch. “Please come sit with me,” I say, not looking up.
“I don’t want to sit,” he says. “I can’t—”
I twist around to look at him. He’s pacing the living room, his shirt untucked. He looks like he used to on set sometimes when Wyatt was being particularly difficult. But this is also different. Back then, we were always on the same side. I knew how to make him feel better. What to say, how to touch him. Now he doesn’t even want to sit next to me. And who could blame him?
“Please just let me explain,” I say. “Those pictures aren’t what they look like. I swear to you.”
“Fuck that,” Rainer says. “They’re exactly what they look like.”
“No,” I say. “They’re not. You left last night, and—”
“You WOULDN’T COME HOME WITH ME,” Rainer screams. “I left because you made it really clear you didn’t want to be around me. And besides”—Rainer waves his hand through the air like he’s wiping a blackboard clean—“none of this matters. You weren’t with him last night because you were pissed at me. You’ve been involved with him, whether you’ll admit it or not, since the moment you met him. How stupid do you think I am? Honestly, Paige, how stupid are you?”
“Rainer!”
But he’s on a roll. “Not too smart if you thought hooking up with Jordan in the middle of the Roosevelt was somehow discreet.”
“We didn’t hook up at the Roosevelt,” I say. “I was drunk, and he was helping me get out of there. I promise you, Rainer, those pictures aren’t—nothing happened.”
“EVERYTHING happened,” he says. “You’ve been lying to me for months. You think you need to hook up with someone to cheat?”
“No,” I say. “But I want to be with you.”
“Do you?” Rainer’s eyes flash.
“Yes,” I say. “Rainer, I chose you. I live with you. I love you.”
“I don’t think you know what you want,” Rainer says, pacing. “I think that is our problem here. You say you want me and maybe that’s true, but the reality is you want him, too.” He looks straight at me. “And I don’t think that makes you confused, Paige. I think that makes you selfish.”
I gape at him. I’m seeing a side of him I never have before. “I’m sorry, but, Rainer—”
“Do you love him?” he asks.
I open my mouth and then close it again. I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
Rainer puts a thumb to his temple. He closes his eyes. “That’s pretty bad,” he says.
“I know,” I whisper. It feels like all the air has been let out of the room. “I don’t know what to say.”
Rainer moves suddenly, quickly. “Good,” he says. “There isn’t anything to say. Go back to Beverly Hills, stay here—I don’t care. I’m leaving.”
“Rainer!” I look at him wildly. “You can’t do this. Please, let’s just talk about it.”
“Don’t worry,” he says. His words sound tinged with iron. It’s like I can taste the metal. “I’ll say something discreet—can’t have your own costar trashing your PG rep, too.” He draws a line in the air from me to him, from his heart to mine. “But it’s over. I don’t want to be with you. Not anymore.”
He turns and leaves then. He doesn’t stop when I chase after him, when I start crying, even when I beg. He just walks right to his car, starts it, and pulls out of the driveway without a single glance behind.
Rainer and I have broken up. I am alone.
CHAPTER 9
“Get up.”
I peel one eye open to see Alexis standing above me. She’s dressed in some see-through white dress, and she’s got a bandanna tied around her head. I shut my eyes against her face and the sun.
“No thanks.”
“I’m not getting grass stains on my bottom, Townsen, so stand the hell up.”
I reluctantly sit up. I’m out by the pool, at the Bel Air house, the sliding door still open. It feels like I’ve been lying here for hours, letting my breakup with Rainer play and replay. I’ve been doing this for the past day and a half.
I made the mistake when he left of going online. I read everything. There isn’t a single gossip column, newspaper, or trade that isn’t running this story with varying degrees of hysterical exaggeration. In one of them, I’m pregnant with Jordan’s baby.
In a matter of minutes I became public enemy number one. I cheated on Hollywood’s reigning golden boy. I broke up Raige. People are pissed, devastated, and yet some are elated. There are whole factions of fans (Team Ed) who have been gunning for me to be with Jordan all along. The headlines are horrifying—so ridiculous and over-the-top, they make me feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare.
RAIGE CRASHES TO AN END
PAIGE BETRAYS HER NOAH
PAIDAN TAKES THE LEAD
The worst part, though, was coming clean to my mom.
Once I stopped sobbing, I called her. She picked up the phone immediately, and as soon as I heard her voice, I lost it again. Completely broke down. I was going to try to be strong—I’d had a little speech I had practiced about how the press makes up stories and you can’t believe a word of it.… It’s what I told Cassandra (not that she bought it). But the moment I heard my mom’s voice on the other end of the line, I knew I had to tell her the truth.
I told her everything. Things I hadn’t told Cassandra or even, probably, admitted to myself. She just listened. She didn’t say anything, not a word. When I was finished and had stopped crying, she took a breath.
“Come home, honey,” she said.
Here’s a little secret I’ll tell you about being famous. People talk about temptation all the time. The money. Access to drugs. Booze. Parties. They talk about fad diets and eating one meal worth my parent’s entire mortgage.
But the greatest temptation you’ll ever feel when you’re famous is to just give up and go home. To go back to where you came from and send the spotlight reeling toward someone else.
“Just get on a plane, Paige.”
“Mom…” I wiped my tears away.
“That’s right,” my mom said, gently. “We’ll deal with this together. You just have to get out of there.”
“It’s not that easy,” I said. “It would follow me there. And I’m under contract.”
“We can figure all that out. Your life in Portland—”
My life in Portland. Trinkets n’ Things. Joanna and Annabelle taking over every room in the house.
“—was a good life, Paige. People will forget eventually. You could go to college.” She sounded almost cheerful.
“Not act?” I said, the thought making my chest seize up. “You know I can’t do that.” The truth was, I didn’t even know how I’d get to the airport to get home, let alone give up my life
here.
“I think you don’t know what you can do,” my mother said. It went on this way for another half hour. She even put my sister on, who told me if I was home, I could help with the wedding. We could have sister-bonding time. It actually sounded appealing, which is how I knew I had officially gone crazy.
Alexis taps my leg with her stiletto, bringing me back to the present. I groan and drop my head onto my knees. “Not now,” I say.
Alexis crouches down next to me. “I called you a hundred times,” she says. “I’m sorry; drastic times, drastic measures.”
“Shouldn’t you be giving interviews about how much I suck? I slept with your boyfriend.”
Alexis throws her head back. “There is not one single part of that sentence that is true.” Her eyes fixate on me. “Is there?”
I groan. “What does it even matter? Everyone is deciding the truth for me anyway.”
“So that’s it?”
“What’s what?”
“You’re just going to give up, call it quits, spend the rest of your life on this mediocre lawn.”
“This is more lawn than you have,” I mutter.
Alexis yanks me up by the elbow. She’s got some serious strength. “You need help,” she says.
“Send a therapist.”
“No, I mean, you need someone to tell you what to do.”
I rub my eyes. “Are you going to do that?”
Sandy has called. I told her to be there for Rainer. Tawny came by. I immediately kicked her out. They all want me to make statements: Tawny saying how sorry I am to have betrayed Rainer, whom I love, and Sandy wanting a joint statement with Rainer and me denying any wrongdoing on my part. I don’t know what to do. “You need to set the record straight for your fans,” Tawny told me.
What they’re all failing to realize is that I don’t know what the record is. How can I set it straight? I didn’t sleep with Jordan, but I did betray Rainer. He broke up with me. He knows. Why does the world need to?
“You shouldn’t even be here,” I mutter as Alexis leads me inside. “I’m the worst. I probably broke your fake heart. Why would you come visit me?”
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