I spun around and went to her bunk. I checked under her pillow and blankets. Nothing. “You are a horrible person, Lacey,” I said, but that didn’t stop me from moving on to the kitchen drawers. I opened each one, reaching my hand all the way to the back. On the third drawer, my hand met with something hard. I pulled it out. It was a red plastic case. My breathing hitched, because I knew exactly what this was before opening it. I opened it anyway, hoping I was wrong. I wasn’t. The section of my zombie cheek that had gone missing was here. In Amanda’s trailer all along. My lip quivered, and I bit it, angry at the emotion that flooded through me.
I shut the case and shoved it back in the drawer. Then I stood there, not sure what to do. Did I take it and show it to Remy? Would he think I had taken it? And if he believed me, what then? Would he replace Amanda? I didn’t want him to. I liked her. She’d been my only real friend on set. But it was obviously one-sided. So I should just pretend this didn’t happen? I didn’t understand why she had done this, what sabotaging me did for her.
I covered my face with my hands. Did this mean she called into that entertainment site too, trying to trash my reputation with that article? Of course that’s what it meant.
I pushed the drawer shut and left her trailer, walking slowly until I reached my car. At home I found an empty apartment. Not that my dad was the first person I wanted to talk to about this. We still hadn’t spoken since our last fight. I had wanted an apology from him, and he’d probably wanted the same from me. We were at a standoff.
I thought about calling my mom. She’d be more sympathetic, sure, but she would also be more preoccupied.
I paced the living room several times before deciding there was only one person who might help me feel better right now. Donavan Lake.
Twenty-Eight
This time when I arrived on campus it was busy. The bell must’ve just rung, because it felt like every student in the entire campus was now walking to their next class. I went straight for the journalism department.
“Hey, isn’t that . . .” I heard as I walked by a couple of guys. I didn’t linger to hear how that sentence would finish.
Before I made it to my sanctuary, two guys came up on either side of me. One said, “Are you Grant James’s costar? You’re way prettier than that pic they posted.” That article must’ve been passed around online even more than I realized.
This is not how I wanted to become famous. I wanted to earn it with stellar performances. “No,” I said.
“You totally are,” the other guy said. He put his arm around me, held up his phone, and leaned in. I wanted to tell him not to touch me, but I was afraid he was recording. I didn’t need more bad press. I kept my head down, hoping that my face wouldn’t turn out well in that picture. At this point I was closer to the building in front of me than I was to my car, or I would’ve turned around and left. Finally, I couldn’t handle it anymore, I shoved the guy off me and they both left but not before yelling out to anyone who would listen who I was. I picked up my pace and ducked inside the building.
The journalism class that I’d been in before was halfway full and continuing to fill up. I scanned the room and the far office for Donavan. I saw him at the same desk he’d been sitting at before, his head bent over some papers. A new set of tears stung my eyes.
“Are you Lacey Barnes?” someone asked from beside me. “I’d love to get an interview.”
Right, now I was in the journalism department, where good journalists would be thinking that I would make a great story. “I can’t. I’m not.” Why did I keep saying that when it was obvious they knew exactly who I was? I stepped around backpacks and people until I was in the office where Donavan sat. I shut the door behind me and he looked up.
“Lacey?”
“I need to get out of here.”
Maybe he heard the tears in my voice or the desperation in my eyes, whatever it was, he didn’t question me, just stood. He took my hand, opened the door, and dragged me through the room as several people called out his name, including the teacher.
Outside, the halls were now almost empty, but he continued to hold my hand, like I needed a guide.
“I’m sorry to make you leave class. I didn’t know who else to go to,” I said.
“You chose well,” he responded.
The second he said those words, the tears I’d somehow managed to hold in began pouring down my face.
He clenched his jaw and squeezed my hand.
“I don’t want to be here.”
“I know. Where do you want to be?”
“I don’t know.”
He led me out to the parking lot, where I pointed out my car.
“Not spoiled, huh?” he said, obviously trying to make me laugh. The most I could manage was a smile.
I handed him my keys, and he drove us away from the school.
“Your house?” he asked.
“I want to go far away from here,” I said.
“Okay.” He flipped a U-turn at the next stoplight and headed for the freeway.
He drove for about an hour, neither of us saying much, before he pulled off the freeway and into the parking lot of a state beach. It was a weekday in October, so there were only a few other cars there, which I assumed belonged to the surfers I could see bobbing in the waves in the distance.
“This is the beach my parents used to take us to a lot.” He put the car in park, turned it off, and got out. I followed him to a bench that faced the ocean, where we both sat down. We watched the waves roll in. One of the surfers caught one and rode it until it fizzled.
The breeze blew hair across my face, and I tucked it behind my ears. My brain wouldn’t shut off, my eyes stinging with the thoughts. “Amanda hates me.”
“What?” he asked.
In sobs and hiccups, I summarized talking to the security guards and searching Amanda’s trailer. His face displayed the shock and sympathy he felt. When I was done, I pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my face in them. “I just want to do my job. I don’t understand why people are trying to stop me from doing that. I guess I’m unlikable.”
“Lacey,” he said. When I didn’t lift my head, he softly said, “Lace.”
I turned my head toward him so that now my cheek rested on my knees. My tears dripped sideways, over the bridge of my nose, and continued down the other side of my face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He put his hand on my back, as if he had no idea what to do. I had no idea either. “You are very likable.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t think it was Amanda.”
“I’d hoped it wasn’t her.”
“Back at your school . . . people knew me.”
He smiled a little. “You’re getting famous.”
“This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. People weren’t supposed to know me for something negative.”
“I know.”
Fresh tears followed the same trail. I sat back and looked up at the sky, trying to stop them. I hated crying when I wasn’t trying to. “But honestly, I don’t care about that as much as I do about what Amanda did. I thought we were friends. She made it seem like we were friends. Maybe everyone just puts on an act.” I looked at Donavan. “Are we even friends?”
He slid closer to me and took my face in his hands. He used his thumbs to wipe beneath my eyes. “Of course we’re friends.”
“Maybe I’ve been living in this world of fake emotions for so long that I don’t even know what real ones are.”
He brought my face closer to him and kissed my forehead. “You know what real emotions are,” he whispered.
There was something so comforting about that action that I pushed my forehead against his lips again and he complied with another kiss there. Then I lifted my eyes to his. He paused, his mouth lingering near mine, his hands still holding my face. This felt real. I was done thinking, and I didn’t wait for him to analyze this either. Because I knew he would analyze this, and I knew he’d come to the wrong conclusion: that now might not be the right time for this. I took a breath and pressed my mouth against his.
Maybe he wouldn’t have come to the wrong conclusion, because he didn’t hesitate at all, he kissed me back. He kissed me like this wasn’t the first time the idea had occurred to him. And for the first time that day, I was able to forget about everything but that moment—his hands, now in my hair, his mouth moving across mine, my hands, pressed against his chest, feeling his heart hammering fast. My heart sped to match the pace, taking my breath away.
He groaned and pulled back. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be. Not for that.” That was the most real kiss I’d ever experienced. Amanda would’ve called it my first kiss. It felt that way, because nothing before it even came close.
He closed his eyes and brought me into a hug. I draped my legs over his lap and leaned my head against his chest as he held me.
“So do you think Amanda leaked that story to the press too?” he finally asked.
“Yes. I do.”
He hummed a little.
“What should I do?”
“We’ll figure something out.”
I tightened my arms around him. “You’re the best.”