Fame, Fate, and the First Kiss(59)

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.