Someone I Used to Know

chapter Seventeen

Adley


I had no idea how I was going to survive the next two weeks. My plane ticket didn’t offer an escape for nearly sixteen days after the final day of production. It served me right for letting Cam make my travel arrangements at the beginning of the summer. Every second of every day was a struggle against my deeply embedded urge to flee – to run as fast and as far as I possibly could – to forget the dent another plane ticket would put in my soon-to-be-acquired funds.

Cam’s house had turned quiet upon his return; even quieter than it had been when it had only been me haunting the halls. We lived in the most boring silent film ever made, going through our daily lives in perfectly polite contempt, never daring to reenter the crescendo of our last confrontation. I could do nothing as my past, present, and future closed in on me from all sides.

Thomas had appeared as if he’d been called forth by the universe to make sure no amount of pain was spared, no throb of heartache left unaccounted. Why had he come? He was supposed to stay locked behind the door. Didn’t he know I’d long since forfeit the rights to that part of my life? I’d given up – thrown in the towel – when it came to my family, and I knew better than anybody, there were no such things as second chances, not real ones at least.

My past was easier to avoid than the present. I’d never gone to identify the man Declan told me about. I already knew it was really him. I could feel it inside of me, and it happened to be just the sort of thing my brother would do. If he’d come to see me once, I doubted it was the last time, but that just meant I had to be more alert than ever.

My present was more complicated. I’d worked out a system on set that seemed to suit my intentions well enough. Along with avoiding any areas of the back lot where the public was permitted, I kept up a strict timetable. And I’d also learned that I could use their own weaknesses against them when it came to keeping Cam and Declan at bay. The brief awkwardness of hanging by Cam’s side was worth the distance Declan gave us when we were together.

If I wasn’t brooding silently in Cam’s shadow, then I was with Madeline, and almost everyone avoided her.

If there was one weak spot in my system, it was the three minute power walk to Madeline’s trailer every morning, but it went unnoticed – well, until Declan stepped out in front of me on the last day of filming.

“Not now, Declan.” I tried to brush by him, ignoring the hammering of my heart, a common side effect of being too close to him.

He blocked my path. “If not now, then when exactly? Today’s kind of the end, so were you thinking – I don’t know – never? I’m sorry, mate, that doesn’t really work for me.”

That had been exactly what I’d been thinking. The idea of just dropping out of his life without a word was both tempting and revolting at the same time. My insides were being torn apart as want and need battled for control.

Smoothing away signs of inner turmoil, I looked at him with feigned detachment.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Joseph Hoffman offered me Gone with the Wind,” he said, fireworks exploded the gray in his eyes with excitement. “I had lunch with him, and it was amazing. He’s unlike anything I ever imagined.”

“That’s excellent… Just really, really – what’s that word you use? Oh yeah – ace! That’s just really, really ace!” My outpour of words were dead, unenthusiastic, causing me to plunge deeper into ramblings, hoping quantity would substitute for quality. I wanted to be happy for him, I did. I knew how much it meant to him. It was written all over his face. My selfishness infected my goodwill, almost leaving it unrecognizable.

His eyes slipped backwards, rolling unimpressed with my display. “Oh, shut up.”

One moment I was standing there, preparing to summon up some semblance of a real response, and the next thing I knew I was being swept backwards like a limp ragdoll. Declan’s arms wrapped securely around me, and my body arched against him in comfortable recline.

God, he smelled amazing. Clark Gable couldn’t have possibly smelled better than he did.

“I’m not telling you so you’ll give me a pat on the back. No congratulations necessary. I’m not taking it.”

“What?” My jaw dropped, astounded. “Why?”

He planted his lips against mine in reminiscence of an old Hollywood kiss, better suited for black and white than the stunning color that exploded behind my eyelids. The feel of the kiss, his sweet rolling tongue and insistent mouth, made me lightheaded, but even the sensations he unloaded on me were nothing in comparison to the words that he told me silently.

When it came to me, Declan had always had the ability say more when he didn’t say anything at all, and that kiss spoke volumes. It wrote novels and twisted thoughts into reality.

He wasn’t going to take the role because of me. He felt the same way I felt about him. He cared for me as much as I’d hoped he hadn’t. I couldn’t call it love – couldn’t even think it – but my heart sang a different story.

It was painful to wrench away from him, as if some invisible – but nonetheless important – part of me stayed with him, lost to me forever. I gazed up into gray depths, trying to summon up enough strength to do what I knew was right.

“You should do the movie.”

The lines of his face sharpened with suspicious distrust, and I knew I had to strike again to keep him from figuring me out.

“You can’t be with someone like me, and I can’t be with someone like you. I’m not cut out for this life. And I don’t want it.”

“What do you mean someone like you?” He completely bypassed my curveball about his celebrity that I’d thrown to distract him.

“A girl who got pregnant at seventeen; someone who couldn’t even take care of their own flesh and blood...Everyone in the world knows my past, and if I was with you, then they’d never forget it...I could never forget it. I don’t want that.”

“It’s bullshit. This is all complete bullshit. When will it be enough, Adley? You can’t punish yourself forever…You’re being a bloody coward, and we both know it.”

I was being a coward, but it didn’t make my decision any less valid. Even I knew Gone with the Wind was the role of a lifetime. It would make his career. He might think the feelings he had for me meant something, but in the long run, he’d see that forgetting each other was for the best. I wouldn’t – couldn’t – let him ruin his life over me.

My chin dug into a stubborn jut. “It isn’t the right thing for us to be together.”

A shiver of tension rolled down his spine, spreading stiffness through his stance and exuding resolve through his steely glare.

“You can’t force people to agree with your decisions. That might be how things worked with you in the past, but that sure as hell isn’t going to be the way things go down with me. You don’t always know what’s right.”

“No, Declan,” I retaliated, spitting the sharp words. He didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He certainly didn’t know the sensitive buttons he was about to trample all over. “I made the decisions that no one else wanted to make. I submit to being the bad guy, so you don’t have to. I’m strong so everyone gets what’s best for them, and no one else is stuck shouldering the guilt.”

His expression slackened, disbelief coloring every handsome facet. “You honestly believe that things worked out so great the last time you got to make all the decisions? You think the life you and Cam have now is really for thebest?”

My eyes narrowed, and my body went rigid. He was treading on very dangerous ground.

“If I hadn’t been the strong one last time, and kept Cam from seeing our daughter, then his dreams would have never come true. And you’d be out of job.”

He paused for a long time. A look of incredulity painted thickly over him, to the point where it almost bordered on amused.

“You’ve really never read the book, have you?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I fired back. His senseless question threatened to knock me off balance, but I stamped an imaginary foot down in my mind. I was done. It was time for me to get the hell out of there before I could do something I would really regret…like stay.

“Look, I know you’re not used to hearing no, but I’m finished repeating it. I don’t want to be with you! This f*cked up, pretentious Hollywood life is reason enough to run for the hills, but I’m damn sure not interested in your fickle playboy ways either. Get it through your pretty head.”

I took a deep breath. “I. Don’t. Want. You.”

I tried to hide my cringe as he rocked back on his heels away from me, like I’d dealt him a physical blow. A hard sneer twisted his mouth, and I was almost eager for the retaliation I knew was coming. If he struck back hard enough, at least my guilt would be lessened.

He didn’t let me down.

“I never understood before why everyone you’ve ever loved has let you walk away: your parents, friends, Thomas…even Cam. Didn’t they see that you were worth chasing after?” The edge of his unforgiving voice sliced into me. “But I get it now. All you had to do was show them how cold, dead, and unfeeling you truly are on the inside, and I’m sure it was a relief to watch you disappear.”

“I won’t waste anymore of your time then,” I answered, raising my voice to equal his, even when his lash begged me to crack.

I yanked away, spinning in a jerky pivot…and then abruptly stumbled to an embarrassed stop. Our yelling match hadn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of people on the back lot. Madeline, Alfred, even Cam, along with more than a dozen or so other familiar faces, circled the show we’d just been orchestrating.

I didn’t dare meet their eyes, instead squaring my shoulders and pushing forward through the onlookers.

A hand darted out. “Where are you going? You can’t leave. I need you.”

Madeline’s grip held firm on my arm, impassive to my attempts to shake her off. I refused to meet her eyes, choosing to stare at the ground.

“You can’t leave,” she commanded, trying to use her leverage to corral me back to her waiting entourage.

I wasn’t her helpful little ducky anymore, though. I had no interest in falling back in line. My days of following had begun and ended with Madeline Little.

It wasn’t a pair of green eyes I met when I looked up. My gaze went straight to Alfred who towered behind her, casting a skyscraper like shadow over both of us. I made sure he understood every ounce of the violence I was prepared to use if she didn’t get her hands off of me.

His brown hand clapped on her shoulder at the same time he murmured, “Let her go, kalkuahine.”

I didn’t know if it was his command, or the restraining hand that kept her from coming after me again, and I really didn’t care as I hurried away.

Letting my phone’s battery run down until it died had seemed like a brilliant idea when I’d been inciting every type of avoidance available to me, but as I walked, stranded, I realized it hadn’t been my most thought-out plan.

Without another option, I ended up at the front entrance that led through the studio, instead of cutting around to the back, like my usual routes did. In fact, the only times I’d ever used the public entrance were at the beginning of the summer when Cam needed to speak with someone on the business side of things.

At my bequest, the security guard seated behind the waist-high, rounded desk called a cab and reported the ten-minute wait back to me.

I sagged a little at his words, feeling the slightest relief in pressure on my chest, knowing that an escape was imminent. I glanced over at the small seating arrangement, finding only one person occupying a seat of the ten available. I should have felt relief at the lack of an audience, but instead I was stopped in my tracks for the second time that day.

“Nothing to say, little sister?” Thomas’ ashy blonde hair folded neatly down his part, just like it’d done the last time I’d seen him. He wore a little bit more weight, but he’d always been on the verge of too skinny, so the extra pounds suited him nicely. There were circles under his eyes, and mismatched buttons collecting his striped shirt together, but despite the uncharacteristic flaws in his appearance, he still looked very much like my brother.

I gaped at him, my mind as empty as the piggybank he’d tricked me into letting him have when I was five.

“Close your mouth and sit down, Adley. You’re going to draw attention to yourself, and end up summoning that flock of rabid paparazzi that’s been stalking you. If my friend Marcel over there is right, I only have about nine minutes to say what I need to, before you make your escape again.”

I weighed the pros and cons of Thomas versus the paparazzi before deciding that with Thomas, there was slightly less of a chance of sustaining physical harm. Like a petulant child anticipating the scolding of a lifetime, I sat across from him so my back was facing the glass paneling of the front of the room, where anyone strolling along could look in.

His blue-ish green eyes studied me for a long time, despite his assurances that time was an issue. I let him plaster us with silence, helpless to the warmth of being back in his presence. I had never missed him more than in the moment he sat only feet from me. If I’d dared, I could have reached out and touched him.

“I’ve had years to think up all the things I wanted to say to you. I’ve gone through just about every emotion I’m capable of; I’ve hated you; I’ve cursed the day you were born; I’ve regretted almost everything I’ve ever said to you, as if one sentence could have somehow solved all this; I’ve missed you so bad I wanted to come find you and drag you home kicking and screaming; I’ve wanted nothing more than to forget you.”

He let the words hit me without remorse. They struck the armor of numbness I wore, sticking with intensity I knew I’d feel later.

“But when that article came out, claiming that you were here in California, just minutes from us, and I knew I had to find a way to see you, there’s only been one thing that I’ve been able to think of,” he paused, daring me to try and stop him.

But what he didn’t know was that all those years he’d been hating, cursing, and regretting me, I’d been coming up with far worse things to tell myself every night. I’d spent four years imagining the moment I’d face him again. Each morning, I’d woken up and felt the weight of their hatred. I’d told myself again and again about the shame and pain I caused my family.

There was nothing he could say to me that I hadn’t already said to myself.

“You were wrong,” he remarked finally, a simplicity I hadn’t expected marking his simple statement. “I can’t say how Mom or Dad or even I would’ve reacted if you’d told us you were pregnant before you left, but you know what, Adley? Neither can you, because you just decided how it was going to be, and you acted. You never even gave us a chance to prove you wrong…

“So after all this time, I wanted to look you in the face and tell you that you were wrong for walking away from us. You’re my sister, and I love you. I couldn’t stop even when I’d wanted to. But you were wrong about us. We deserved a shot to do the right thing. We had a right to decide what was best for ourselves without you deciding for us.”

Everything about Thomas looked a little lighter as he watched his declaration settle on me. It had the opposite effect on me. He relaxed, freed of the physical burden he’d just dumped on my shoulders.

I had yet to speak a single syllable in Thomas’ presence. I doubted if I even could.

His words were powerful. They echoed inside of me long after he’d said them. I didn’t have any doubt just how much he’d meant them.

But he was wrong.

I’d left just as much for them as I had for me. They didn’t deserve the burden of my choices. By leaving, I’d set them free. There was nothing I could say so he’d see that though.

The sureness of his gaze made me nervous. Just as much as I was certain of my own rightness, so was Thomas. And the more I looked, the more I questioned my own certainty. My doubt grew.

“Your cab’s here,” he said, nodding his head to the car that had arrived behind my back.

I walked away and the spell was broken. If anything, I was more determined than ever to leave everything behind. Questioning the past wouldn’t get me anywhere. It was too late for me, and it was time that everyone else saw it too.

There was really only one thing left for me to do….