Someone I Used to Know

chapter Eleven

Adley


“Looking good, Alfred,” I complimented the Hawaiian bodyguard as I approached his post Monday morning. We were shooting outside and on-location at a farmer’s market, and he wore a pair of sunglasses where he sat with his arms crossed tightly over his barrel-like chest.

I’d never seen him sit down before, and from his stiff back and tense posture, it was safe to say there was a good reason that I hadn’t. Both he and the chair looked uncomfortable as his bulging body tested the plastic’s boundaries of the four legs beneath him.

“This weather is pretty extreme, huh? I don’t think they’d mind if we moved under the wardrobe tent,” I continued conversationally, with no expectation of him joining in on my small talk. He never did, and even if he had, I could easily predict what he would’ve said (or at least what the general message would’ve been). He would tell me that the hot sun could burn blisters directly onto his skin and he still wouldn’t have moved from his designated spot.

His eyewear prevented me from seeing the focus of his gaze, but his head was pointed predictably towards the action in front of the camera, where Georgia was taking twice as long to set up the shot, as she directed all the extras circulating around Madeline and Declan. If all bodyguards were as dedicated as Alfred, it was a miracle that anyone got stalked anymore.

I wasn’t nearly as devoted to Madeline’s wellbeing as he was, but I settled in the chair beside him anyways. I hadn’t made much leeway in my mission to win his approval. My attempts at bribes went unrewarded (apparently he didn’t eat sweets, although his size told a different story), and my efforts to force him to talk to me were all epic failures. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was secretly hearing impaired. It would explain a lot, like how he was able to put up with Madeline on a consistent basis, and why my attempts at getting him to like me hadn’t even put a dent in his staunch armor.

“This scene never happened in real life,” I informed him, squinting against the sun’s glare as I pointed my attention in Madeline and Declan’s direction along with him. I don’t know what prompted me to share the piece of information with him. It just slipped out. There was a harmless ease to my admission, knowing that he ignored everything that came out of my mouth.

Going over the script for the day earlier with Madeline, she’d realized I wasn’t going to be much help with the unfamiliar content, and the spirited teenager had been none too pleased with it either.

“Cam and I were more stay at home kind of people.” The words kept pouring out. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever read The Girl in the Yellow Dress, have you?”

The most I could say for his reaction was that I knew he wasn’t dead, because his lungs kept right along pushing air in and out of his strained mouth.

“Yeah, me either,” I answered as if he’d spoken.

Alfred might have been the only other person in the world who hadn’t read Cam’s book. A sense of camaraderie tingled up my spine. He didn’t seek any answers from me, and the irony was that it made me want to give them to him.

Suddenly my mouth turned against me, spewing out more facts about the truth behind The Girl in the Yellow Dress. I wished he would have stopped me. All it would’ve taken was one word, and the spell would have been broken. His silence seduced me with the power of a hundred seasoned psychologists.

“…I never met the family that adopted the baby. I didn’t want to. If I knew what they looked like…” I trailed off. Not because I’d regained any sense of control, but because Alfred had abruptly stood and walked away from me. I hadn’t even noticed the scene had wrapped. Madeline’s bodyguard was already at her side.

Well, alright then. I wobbled to my feet, feeling very much like I’d just been violently ill. In a way I had. I’d just emotionally projectile vomited all over Alfred. What the hell was wrong with me?

As if she could sense my uncertainty, Madeline looked up, meeting my eyes across the set. Her lips were pinched together as she paused, and then with a slight shake of her head, I understood my dismissal. I had nothing to offer her and, therefore, was undeserving of a place at her side. In the back of mind I knew it was nothing personal. It was just Madeline. Taking any of her actions personally was a good way to destroy my self-esteem, and do it quickly.

I tried to brush it off, falling back into the chair. As much as I hated to admit it, without Madeline’s demanding attention, I was kind of useless.

“Who is that? Is she somebody?” The whisper did nothing to keep the words from floating to my ears. Two girls that were dressed like all the rest of the extras lingered a few feet away.

I felt the other girl’s eyes on me in a quick belittling sweep.

“She’s nobody, probably just part of the crew.”

An unexpected burn rumbled inside of me, begging me to tell them exactly who I was and how important it made me. Surely they wouldn’t dare call me ‘nobody’ then. Just as quickly as it had come, the acid rush fizzled away, leaving me empty and berating myself. What the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t even want to be Adley Adair.

Besides, even if I’d wanted to pitch a fit, the girls had already walked away to go join the flock of extras surrounding Declan. Unlike Madeline, he didn’t rush away from the admirers the first chance he got, instead he let them fawn over him as he chatted and signed autographs.

I needed to clear my head.

I abandoned my spot and went in the opposite direction of Declan.

For a second, I paused at the border of the temporary production area, lingering at the line where Hollywood ended and reality began. And then I remembered. I was nobody, just as those girls had kindly reminded me. I was spending far too much time with famous people. Their paranoia was beginning to rub off on me.

I wandered through the section of the market the film’s presence hadn’t disrupted, sucking in the California weather I’d missed so dearly. My parents used to go to a farmer’s market just like that one every Sunday. Did they still do that?

Opening up myself to the past wasn’t like rolling down a window in the car to let an errant fly out, and then zipping it back closed just as easily. It was like expecting to poke a miniscule hole in a dam, and instead, busting the whole thing down with no way to stop every memory, feeling, and emotion, as it crushed me. For four years I had repressed every single thought of my mom and dad, but as I stood there, I couldn’t stop myself from wondering where they were at that exact moment. Was my dad still on his never ending ‘diet,’ trying to lose the elusive five pounds that settled around his waist? Did my mom still beam at my father like he handed her an Oscar when he complimented the meal we all knew very well she hadn’t cooked?

The stinging memories were jostled back into the present as I caught sight of a face I recognized in the crowd. Fran and another crew member were walking towards me and the film set I’d just left behind.

“Where are you sneaking off to?” Fran’s congenial smile cut deeply into her coconut colored cheeks. Her raven hair was pulled back into its predictable, no-nonsense ponytail.

“I’m afraid I’m not much use to Madeline today. It actually might not be a bad idea for me to get a taxi back to Cam’s and get out of everyone’s way,” I told her with a self-deprecating shrug.

“A taxi?” Fran’s expression bordered on outrage, like I’d suggested hitchhiking all the way to Vegas. She chewed on her lip, looking between the other crew member and me once, before shoving the unopened bottle of green tea towards the silent crew member. “Make sure Madeline gets this, and tell her I’ve gone to pick up her dry cleaning.”

The crew member complied without comment, continuing on the route Fran had abandoned.

“It just so happens that the dry cleaner’s isn’t too far from Cam’s place. How about a lift?” The personal assistant offered with a mischievous grin.

I glanced at the crew member’s back and made a split second decision.

“Hey!”

He halted.

“Can you let Mr. Davies know that I won’t be in need of a ride today?”

The guy didn’t question it. He nodded and walked away. Maybe he was mute.

I followed Fran to her car. It was a small, four-door sedan that looked both clean and efficient. The front seats were pristine, looking as polished and simple as I would expect of her, while the backseat looked like a glitter bomb had gone off. Barbies littered the floor board with the dignity of war veterans, and I had no doubt it had been Fran’s daughter, Maria, who took them to battle.

“I really appreciate this,” I said as she readjusted the vents so they blew a constant flow of cool air at me.

Fran was a very responsible driver, checking all her mirrors before backing out of the narrow parking spot.

“It’s no problem, honestly. I wanted to speak with you about something anyways, so really it was the perfect excuse.”

I hummed, waiting for her to elaborate.

“I know Madeline wouldn’t think to give you a heads up, but they’re shooting the scene where Adley goes to speak with the adoption agency for the first time tomorrow. I just wanted you to be able to prepare yourself. I can’t imagine that it’ll be easy for you.” Fran never glanced at me, her eyes drilled into the road ahead of us.

I had been aware of what the following day’s work entailed for all the same reasons Fran had thought to warn me. I kept a close eye on the call sheets, perfectly aware of Madeline’s complete and utter lack of tact, and also my need to emotionally leash my composure. Going to talk to the agent for the first time, however, was far from the top of my dread list. Fran’s careful warning made me second-guess that, and I quickly brought the memory into focus.

The building was three stories of intimidating brick in the heart of downtown Raleigh. It hadn’t even been too far of a walk from the loft, and my doctor had assured me that since I’d been active before I’d gotten pregnant, physical assertion wasn’t to be feared. The sun had hung directly overhead as it signaled noon, and made me wish for a hat to shade me and my oversized body. I wouldn’t have been upset that a hat would have hid my face either. I’m sure it burned with shame and guilt. Cam had no idea what I was doing.

If I hadn’t been so nervous, I would have purred like a pleased cat basking in the air conditioning, but instead, my hands rattled with fear as I briefly spoke with the receptionist. I had called ahead, and they were expecting me. A woman with graying auburn hair came to fetch me, and I followed her into the elevator and then through a complicated layout of hallways once we’d arrived on the second floor.

I uselessly wiggled in the plush chair she showed me to, uselessly seeking the comfort that had been denied my swelling body for months.

“I’ve been looking over the information you provided for us earlier, Ms. Adair,” she said as she rifled through a manila folder with my name scrawled across the tab.

“Is there a problem?” I sat on my hands to battle their nervous tremors. Nothing else seemed to work.

“No, not at all.” Her long, thick hair curled just the slightest bit at the ends, and I chose to focus on that rather than meet her prodding eyes. “Adley?”

I had no choice but to look at her then. There was something terribly motherly about her deep, tawny gaze, and for a second, I’d had to fight everything inside of me not to break down and beg her to hold me.

“Hmm?” I responded. My throat was too clogged to try for actual words.

“Before we go any further, I think it’s important to understand the reasoning behind your decision. I see a lot of scared girls who are convinced this is what they want, but when the time comes to go through with their decision, they can’t do it. A lot of people get hurt when that happens, and I’d like to prevent that.” Her voice was soft and reassuring.

“I have to ask you, Adley, why do you want to give your daughter up for adoption?”

I pushed myself out of the memory and back into the car with Fran as something horrible occurred to me.

Fran was a mother – a real one. She couldn’t have been older than me when she had gotten pregnant with Maria. Our situations had been the same, and yet, our decisions had been very different.

“Do you think I’m evil for giving the baby away?” As soon as I asked the question, I knew I didn’t want to know the answer. Fran was the closest I’d come to making a real friend in a very long time. What if she saw me as a monster?

Her brown eyes jerked to my face with disbelief.

“Give the baby away? Adley, you didn’t leave her in a trash can at prom! You gave her to family that desperately wanted her. Why would I think that was evil?”

Relief gushed through me. I hadn’t realized how important it was for me to hear that from someone who actually knew me.

“I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve never actually discussed any of this until I came here.”

“So the only feedback you’re getting is from Madeline?” Her face was sharp, eyes wide, and forehead had crinkled with concern. “It’s a miracle you haven’t gone postal on the whole set.”

I laughed. “She does leave something to be desired when it comes to positive reinforcement.”

“I love her, I do…but this life has screwed with her head so much I’m afraid she’ll never be normal.” Fran looked genuinely sad at the thought.

I knew Declan’s negative feelings about the lead actress’s posse, and about some of them, I agreed, but Fran really cared for Madeline. I could see it in her face. If he could see her expression at that moment, I doubt he’d ever waste another breath refuting the genuineness of her involvement.

“Normal might be a stretch.” My face contorted unintentionally as I tried to word it gently. “Sometimes when I’m talking, I look at her and I swear she’s plotting my murder…after production has wrapped for good though, of course. She’d never do anything to endanger her career.”

“I actually think she likes you,” Fran admitted with an abashed smile. “She’s just a very confused and misunderstood girl…Or, at least, I have to tell myself that she really doesn’t mean any harm, when the urge to bitch-slap her threatens to overwhelm me.”

We filled the rest of the ride with chatter of Madeline and her daily insane antics. It was wonderful to vent, to make light of the dramatics. Sitting outside of Cam’s house with Fran gossiping and cracking ourselves up, I realized how much I’d missed having a girl in my life that I could just hang out with.

“If it’s not too much of an inconvenience, do you think I could get a ride to set tomorrow?” I asked.

“Uh oh, is Declan driving you insane?”

“Don’t you dare try and convince me Declan’s really just misunderstood too!” I joked.

She made a pensive face that my light comment had no right to constitute.

“No… I think Declan might be the one actor who is exactly who he pretends to be,” she assured me with an appreciative chuckle and an oddly knowing twinkle in her eye.

I took in her assessment like I was sipping a fine wine; rolling it around, savoring it, taking my time to decide how I felt about it. I couldn’t pretend to know him, not really. A lot of times with Declan, I felt like he dumped gallons of personality on me, with only the barest slivers of his true self hidden within them. It was like he was constantly testing me, daring me to ask for more. But the truly shocking part of it was that I secretly got a thrill from all his tests, and not just the tiny doses of his real self either, even the horrid parts were starting to appeal to me.

I shuttered, startled by my realization. Those thoughts were forbidden. I needed to take a few steps back. Emotional, if not physical, distance certainly couldn’t hurt my situation with Declan.

“It’s nothing to do with Declan,” I lied, although my next statement was certainly true. “It just might be nice to have a little extra moral support every once in a while.”

Fran agreed, and I texted Declan that I wouldn’t be requiring his services the next morning. Once I was inside, I got changed into my pajamas and pondered my plans for the rest of my extended evening. The night passed, empty of the subtle beep beep that would signal a response from Declan, but I wasn’t worried that he hadn’t got it. He always read the emails and text messages he received, but almost never responded to them. Apparently, I was just as important as everyone else who didn’t warrant a reply.

On most nights I was utterly exhausted, but since my day had been cut short, I was wide awake and alone in the echoing mansion. I attempted to curl up with a book in the library, but the first edition of The Girl in the Yellow Dress glared at me from the other side of the room, and I gave up almost as soon as I began.

I decided a nice, warm bath might be exactly what I needed to relax, but there was only a shower in the bathroom that accompanied my room. Cam had a huge bathtub in his though, and I tiptoed through his room so as not to disturb the tomb he’d left, untouched since that day over a month ago, when he’d vanished in a whirlwind, almost as if he’d never really been there at all. It took forever for the water to fill up the tub, but it felt like heaven when I slipped inside.

The silence of the house boomed in my ears. Without Cam, the house was nothing, just an empty shell. It reminded me of what the loft had been like after he left. I’d been more than eager to sell it for tuition money when I needed it. Living there without him had been unbearable.

A little smart spending had stretched that cash out for a long time, but it was nearly drained after four semesters of school. The water seemed to rapidly chill around me at the thought. I yanked up the stopper and fled, closing Cam’s door behind me and trapping the stale, untouched air inside once again. Wrapped in a fluffy robe, I slipped under the sheets in my own room, without bothering to change. I hated thinking about my financial woes. It felt like the entire crew was doing jumping-jacks on my chest.

I’d rather think of nothing at all, so I closed my eyes, and that’s exactly what I did for the next eight hours.

The next morning I woke up feeling well rested, and I had plenty of time to get dressed for once. I put on a pair of jeans that actually fit me, and a black tank top that would help me get through the hot day. I even fixed my hair as opposed to letting it air dry like I usually did.

By the time a honk sounded announcing my ride’s arrival, I was practically skipping. I took two steps out the door before skidding to a halt.

Unless Fran had started driving a limousine and had transformed into an Australian movie star overnight, then Declan Davies had carjacked my ride. His lean body was propped against the door of the black car, exuding nonchalance. God, he was handsome. It wasn’t even fair…And I’d gotten to see him naked. The thought would’ve brought a wicked smile to my face if I hadn’t been so damn irritated at him.

“I called Fran to let her know you would no longer be requiring her assistance.”

“And why would you do that?” My eyebrow hiked skyward, just as the irritated hitch of my voice sloped into dangerous territory.

“I’m insulted,” he began and I wanted to stop him right then and there, but he plowed on, “I’ll have you know, I’m incredibly environmentally conscious. Don’t you Californians appreciate that sort of thing? I couldn’t just sit back and watch all that precious oil go to waste.”

My eyes studied him sharply, while he did nothing but bat his long, dark eyelashes at me innocently. I didn’t believe his act for a second, but what was I supposed to call him out on? I had no choice but to enter the door he held open.

I wasn’t exactly well-versed in the aftermath of intercourse. I mean, after I’d lost my virginity to Cam, I was whisked home on a plane the next morning before I ever had to face him or the realization of my actions. When I’d finally seen him again that summer, the morning-after awkwardness had long faded away, and there hadn’t been anyone after Cam. He was the single blemish on my number card. Getting knocked up pretty much cured any and all desires I might have had to sleep around during college. I was completely ignorant when it came to the protocols of casual sex.

If anything, Declan seemed even more at ease around me, lounging carelessly across the expensive interior to my right. His untroubled surface had the opposite effect on my disposition. It made me restless, eager to ruffle his feathers.

“Why are you even coming in today? I thought the big adoption agency scene was the only thing on the docket,” I questioned suspiciously. From what I could tell, Cam’s absence from my trip that day in Raleigh held true to real life in the script.

It wasn’t even an exceptionally important scene. I used the word ‘big’ only in terms of scale. The large set they’d been constructing was impressive in size and visual appeal. Plus, production would be overflowing with extras, and from what I could tell from Georgia’s plans for the filming, it would be a long day with many shots and shifting camera angles.

“You’re not even in the scene,” I accused.

Declan’s only response was a noncommittal shrug, but I took it as an affirmative gesture.

“Yeah, you’re a real environmentalist,” I scoffed. “So what exactly is the point of you coming to work today? Do you really find that much joy in torturing me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” His jaw hardened until it looked like it could’ve been carved from marble by a renowned sculptor. Someone could write poetry about that jawline. I’m sure there were millions of girls who had done just that.

With his head tilted away from me, and an intensity I couldn’t decipher, he didn’t offer any further explanation. I’d honestly been joking about his intention of torturing me, but his sullen reaction left me uneasy. If he wasn’t there to rile me up, then why was he there?

I didn’t dare push him on the subject, half fearful what the answer might be. I was almost relieved when he didn’t say anything more all the way to the lot’s parking area. He didn’t even try to follow me to Madeline’s trailer. It weirded me out, especially since aggravating me was his absolute favorite pastime when he was bored, and I couldn’t imagine he had something to entertain him without a script to go over or lines to practice. Maybe he was sick.

The strangeness of the morning persisted when Alfred was nowhere to be found. I sighed, chewing on my bottom lip in frustration. I’d hoped to start implementing my newest plan to win the bodyguard over, which involved me randomly spouting off sports information until I stumbled upon one he reacted to. Nothing bonded people together like a common team to root for. I was going to start with the NFL, although he was bigger than most of the players, so maybe it wasn’t as appealing to him as the average Joe.

Ms. Louna was coming out as I entered, and we had to awkwardly slide past each other in the narrow entrance, trading places in the glare of Madeline’s attention.

“Where is everybody?” I asked.

With Ms. Louna finished with their routine morning session and gone, Madeline and I were alone. The lack of crowd didn’t make the impersonal trailer feel larger though. It was lifeless, nearly claustrophobic, without the personalities that inflated the space with something more than the natural droll of professionalism Madeline exuded.

The young redhead was attired in workout gear and her high ponytail flung back, the impressive length swinging nearly down to her bottom, as she guzzled down a bottle of water like she’d just ran a marathon, even though I knew it had been at least an hour since her personal trainer forced her through a grueling workout.

She snapped the lid closed, finally addressing my presence with her calculating stare.

“Alfred went to help Fran get the boxes of fan mail from her car,” she rushed through. I’d become familiar with her enough to understand the irritation didn’t come from the specifics of my actual question, but instead the general fact that I’d inquired about anything at all unrelated to myself, The Girl in the Yellow Dress, or her job.

I knew I’d pay for my (however) brief distraction, and Madeline didn’t disappoint.

“Why did you give away your baby?”

“I have to ask you, Adley, why do you want to give your daughter up for adoption?”

Madeline’s words rang out in my head alongside the question once asked of me by the adoption agent, both voices pricking me indiscriminately, like vengeful wasps whose nest had been destroyed.

They wanted to know why. But the why was simple, straightforward, predictable. What they should have been asking was the when. When did I decide to give up the baby that I’d given up my life to keep.

It was a single moment, seemingly insignificant, but immeasurable in scope.

To an outsider it wouldn’t have looked like anything special, just a young girl sitting in a park, observing the dizzying world around her.

It had been a rough day. I was living in Cam’s loft with him in Raleigh, while watching the strain of the life I’d inflicted on him take its toll. I was tired all the time, but sleep never came easily, always turbulent and filled with vivid nightmares.

The trees loomed at my back, a breeze ruffled my Maxi dress around my ankles, and for once, the summer hadn’t seemed quite so unforgiving.

I’d just bought a pretzel from a vendor with money I had to ask Cam for that morning. It had never bothered me asking my parents for money (and far more than the measly ten dollars Cam had scraped from his wallet), but each time I had to ask him, it felt a little more like I was giving up part of my soul in exchange.

A woman with a stroller approached down the paved path that circled the outline of the sunny park. She had one of those faces that was hard to tag with an age. Her chin-length mommy-cut could have hinted at mid-thirties, but her face was fresh and youthful even considering the dark circles lassoing her tired eyes.

Half of her face was distorted by a cellphone mashed between her cheek and shoulder. Both of her hands were tasked with separate activities; one busy in the bassinet facing her, while the other tried to wrangle a toddler in a fuchsia tutu that was wildly skipping just out of her mother’s grasp. I could only hear snippets of the woman’s phone conversation over the baby’s wails, but her voice sounded as exhausted as I felt.

She’d paused in front of my park bench lifting a heavy diaper bag to prop on the handlebar of the stroller as she ransacked it for some unknown item. So preoccupied, the mother didn’t seem to even notice me sitting there, but the same couldn’t be said for the precocious little girl who promptly took a seat beside me. The tulle of her tutu erupted stiff and straight, hiding the lower half of her small body, save for the tips of a pair of wiggling, pink ballet slippers peeking out from underneath.

“Oh no!”

I looked up just in time to watch a myriad of bottles, pacifiers, and other assorted baby paraphernalia spill out of the diaper bag and down the sloping path away from us.

“Damn it!” another more frantic exclamation followed the first. Quickly she clapped a hand over her mouth as she stared at her daughter with wide eyes. “That’s an ugly word, Astrid. Mommy didn’t mean to say the bad word. We won’t mention it to daddy about the ugly word, will we, sweetheart?”

The child eyed her mother speculatively.

When she realized her eldest child was neither going to confirm nor deny her request, she held an impatient hand out to her daughter.

The little girl didn’t move.

“Astrid,” she commanded in a voice I could only assume all mothers came to possess on their child’s first birthday.

Astrid blinked, her big Bambi eyes unwavering. The mother looked on the verge of tears, glancing down the embankment where the diaper bag’s contents had come to rest. The baby’s cries spiked as if to put an exclamation mark on the situation.

“She can stay with me.” I don’t know what made me say it. Maybe it was because she was a little ballerina, just like I had been once upon a time. Or, maybe it was the first strings of motherly instincts pulling at my heart. “I’ll watch her.”

The woman’s surprised eyes met mine like she hadn’t even noticed me until that moment. Distrust lined her expression before trailing down to my enormously, round belly. It was as if my pregnancy was a big fat ‘Trust Me’ sign.

“I’ll just be a minute, Astrid. Please be a good girl for the nice lady.”

As soon as her mother was gone, pushing the incessant baby away to collect the lost items, Astrid came to life. Climbing onto her knees, she maneuvered clumsily until she was an inch away from my face. Her breath smelled sweet like candy or ice cream.

“What are you?” she asked.

Already I was regretting my hasty offer. Kids had never been my thing. Apparently looming parenthood hadn’t changed that.

“I’m a girl.”

“I’m going to be a ballerina,” she informed. Her light brown hair, just a shade or two off from her mother’s, was wild, kinky, and frizzing at the ends. It was a mess, but, one day, with age and the wisdom of a few hair products, it would be beautiful – the kind of glossy curls you see on shampoo commercials. “My mom used to be a lawyer. So what are you?”

I hesitated, thrown off by the question. As unrealistic as it was, ballet had always been my future. What exactly that meant, or how far it would take me, had never been important before. I’d assumed I’d worry about that when I came to it.

“Well…I haven’t really decided yet. I suppose I could be anything I want to, really.” And for a second it really did seem like all the possibilities in the world were laid out at my feet, begging me to choose between them.

“Wrong, silly,” Astrid cried victoriously before wrapping her small arms around my stomach and pressing her rosy cheek to the fabric covering my belly. “There’s a baby inside you. You’re a mommy! That’s what you’ll be forever and ever and ever.”

Even after Astrid’s mother collected her and thanked me profusely, the child’s words echoed in my ear as if she were still whispering “forever, and ever, and ever, and ever…”

“Wait,” Madeline yanked me into the present, impatient of my sidetracked silent daydreams. “If Cam really wasn’t there when you went to the agency, then how accurate could his account be?”

“I did tell him about it later,” I assured; a little offended she’d assume I’d keep something so important from him.

“So this is exactly how it happened?” She demanded skeptically.

“The important stuff anyways.” I looked away, avoiding her eyes, but her stare and silence burned me as if she’d set fire to my lie. “Well…the agent did ask me why I’d chosen adoption.”

Her emerald eyes sparked like fireworks, delighted by my seemingly harmless admission. Madeline was a shark. She could smell a drop of blood in the water from miles away.

“What was your answer?”

“I told her that I was too young to be a mother. I wanted Cam’s child to have a better life than I could provide, and neither one of us had any sort of reliable support system,” I breezed through my reply. That, at least, was an easy answer to give.

“And those were the real reasons?” She leveled me with the calculative edge that sliced right through my deflection.

“It was the truth.”

“But not all of it?”Her eyebrow quirked as she took a shot in the dark and hit a bull’s-eye.

My flinch betrayed the truth she’d just uncovered.

Nancy Drew looked nearly delighted as she laid out her plot, “In The Girl in the Yellow Dress, Adley doesn’t tell Cam about her decision to put the baby up for adoption until she admits to going to the agency weeks after it happened. He never really knows what made her make the choice.”

And how could he, when I’d made all the decisions for us. By the time I told him, my mind was set in stone, beyond questions or explanations. It was never his choice. I never let him have it.

I took a deep breath. “I gave up so much after I found out I was pregnant. I left my family without a second thought. That’s how much I loved him.”

“So you decided to give up your baby because you were unconsciously punishing him for taking away your family and ruining your body.” Madeline cut me off, rambling out an excited version of her own explanation.

“Jesus! Is that what you really think of me?”

“You just take so long to get to the point that my mind starts to run laps around yours.” She didn’t look all that apologetic.

I forced down my irritation, but my voice still clicked with sarcasm, “I’m so sorry. This isn’t really something I like to think about. I’m just kind of blurting out everything that comes into my head. There isn’t a point. I was under the impression you wanted my help.” Each word was an angry snapping turtle; I took another deep breath before continuing, “No, giving up my baby never had anything to do with punishing Cam. If he’d had a family to give up for me, he would have done it.”

I strained to compose myself. Maybe Madeline was right – not her convoluted theory of punishing Cam – but about my obvious absence of a point. It was hard to find the right words to say the thoughts I’d never even considered vocalizing. While I floundered, Madeline found strength. She was staring at me with creepy, unblinking doll eyes, like she thought if she looked hard enough, she could wrench free all my deep dark secrets.

“But Cam didn’t have a family to give up, and I guess, that was part of it too. I didn’t want to have to ask him to give up anything for us, not when he’d been given so little to begin with. So because he would have sacrificed everything, I couldn’t let him. Cam is the best person I’ve ever known. He deserves all his dreams, and –,” the coming words were so hard I choked on them. “And, I guess, I thought I did too. Or at least I deserved the opportunity to try and be something more than who I had been in the past.”

As was usual, Madeline didn’t speak a word in the aftermath of my confession. I couldn’t stand it though, not then, not while my own judgments glared back at me.

“Do you think I’m a selfish monster?” The irony that I was the one directing that question at the queen of narcissism wasn’t lost on me.

Her expression puckered once with distaste before she hit me with a bland stare.

“Honestly, you could tell me about a series of bank robberies you committed, and I wouldn’t give a damn. I’m not prying into your past with a moral compass, Adley. I need to understand the facts. Everything else is just…information.”

A knock reminded us of the outside world as Fran gave her the heads up that she was due in hair and make-up.

“Do you mind if I’m done for the day?” I hadn’t moved from the couch even as the actress headed on her way, assuming I’d follow.

A million thoughts trekked across her face, most of them involving how my absence would affect her, before she finally nodded her reluctant consent. The pros of being free of me moping around all day clearly outweighed the cons.

My head collapsed into my palms as soon as she was out the door. My life had become one sadistic trip to the dentist after another, except instead of pulling teeth, Madeline was pulling memories out of my very soul. Teeth would have been less painful. At least at the dentist’s office you get that fun gas that makes needles about as scary as a puppy.

Showing weakness here wasn’t an option. It was what they wanted. Madeline wanted to take, and take, and take, until there was nothing of me left.

I needed the money, I told myself for the millionth time.

Maybe that would matter again in a few more minutes, but at that moment, defeated, alone, and faced with my deepest shame, I could find no strength. I didn’t want to stand up. I couldn’t let myself move.

Because if I did, I was walking off that lot and never coming back.