The Reunion by Kayla Olson(76)
A few minutes later, when Bre and I are finally settled into opposite corners of the couch for our Flower Wars marathon, Ford’s face fills my phone screen: I’d forgotten how he’s one of those rare people who actually prefers phone calls—he’s never had the patience for texting.
“Are you okay?” I say as soon as I answer.
“Hey, Livvie. No, not really.” He sounds exhausted, defeated. “Juliette’s got something going with Cast now.”
“You know this for sure, not just from some random photos?”
And here I thought my own love life was the only thing breaking—and being broken by—the internet.
He sighs. “I just talked to her,” he confirms. “Funny how she finally found the time to call. We had a hard time connecting from the minute her flight landed, so I guess that should have been a red flag. You’d think she could have squeezed a call in here or there, even a text—she didn’t even comment when I was ‘caught’ having a fake date on the beach as a last-ditch effort to get her attention.” He laughs, but it’s sad and hollow. “I kind of suspected we might be drifting apart, but I didn’t know she was hooking up with Jonathan Cast instead. I mean, who’d pick me when an award-winning writer/director is the other option?”
Not to mention Jonathan Cast has topped the list of “40 Under 40: Hollywood Hotties Behind the Camera” for the past six years straight, but I’m not about to say so.
“I’m so sorry, Ford. It’s her loss, okay?”
“Thanks, Livvie. That means a lot from you.”
His words are a salve. Ford and I were close, too, back in the day. Never Ransom close—but we spent day in and day out together throughout those years, and he was my next-favorite person on set. I hate to hear him hurting like this.
“Tomorrow will be better, okay?” I say for myself as much as him.
It has to be.
As soon as we end the call, Bre sets her empty sundae dish on the side table and announces, “I’m telling literally everyone I know to boycott that film when it comes out, Liv, I’m not kidding. Ford is a cinnamon roll, and he deserves better.”
Everyone needs a Bre in their corner.
We finally queue up Flower Wars—Fanline just dropped a fresh season in its entirety, so at least there’s something good about this day. Bre plans to stay in my guest room again so we can make it a true girls’ night event. Secretly, I think she also wants to make sure I arrive on set on time in the morning.
Four episodes later, I’m deeply invested in the new cast, more than happy to focus on their problems instead of my own. Grecia is going to have to pull an all-nighter if she wants to finish her ambitious project by the deadline; Cosette’s flowers have all but died in the summer heat (which seems like Floral Architecture 101, but who am I to judge?); Rigsby the “villain” is unexpectedly endearing despite the fact that he’s already made three people cry with his blunt, unsolicited feedback; and Hank’s skill set is very much not up to par for the task at hand. Still, there’s a moment between every episode where it’s back to real life: Shine Jacobs’s name pops up in the credits every time, reminding me of her missed call from earlier. I haven’t spent much time dwelling on it, but it now strikes me as very odd that she’d call me directly. She’s always gone through Mars before.
Sometime around three thirty in the morning, I wake up on the couch to the show’s title screen, alone—I slept straight through the last three episodes of the eight-episode season—and drag myself up to bed. Bre’s already up in the guest room, I assume, ever the responsible adult. I’ll have to get up again in just over three hours for another long day on set.
With a start, I remember what’s slated for tomorrow’s shoot: a pair of bedroom scenes with Ransom that appear in the middle of the episode, one of them pretty racy. At least I have a fun run-in with Ford to shoot first thing in the morning, which should help.
But oh, the bedroom scenes with Ransom—I don’t know how I’m going to manage them.
My eyes flutter shut, and a pair of tears slip out. All of this would be a lot easier if I didn’t care so much. If I could just get past my own scar tissue, decide it doesn’t matter if our private life makes a thousand headlines. If I knew for sure that I could take Ransom at his word—
And trust him to love me back.
Gemma Gardner Finally Snaps
By Zenia DiLitto // Editor in Chief, Pop Culture, DizzyZine.com Hello, hello, my dazzling Spinners—well, this week has been an absolute doozy, has it not?!
After weeks of silence in the face of both engagement and breakup rumors, Gemma Gardner (Ransom Joel’s most recent ex) has finally spoken up—and she has A LOT to say. In case you’re not already following her on Snapaday, you might want to hop over to her feed right freaking now before she pulls a “felt cute / might delete later” on her most recent stories—is there anyone out there who hasn’t woken up with regret after blasting big feelings to the internet in the middle of the night?
But never fear: if she does decide to delete everything, we’ve got the entire transcript below for you to enjoy. Read on for a fresh peek into the love life of Ransom Joel, with more than a few details that have never before been shared!
@gemsgemsgems via Snapaday / 3:04 a.m.