Maddie runs off to her bedroom to get to work on some art while I get busy making dinner, booting up my old piece-of-crap laptop while a frozen pizza cooks. For the first time in well over a year, I type his pseudonym into the search bar.
I take a deep breath when the results pop up. Pictures and pictures—whoa, so many pictures—along with a video of the accident. My heart drops as I stare at it. I press play and watch. Thirty seconds. I hold my breath, expecting the worst from him—drunken staggering into traffic with no regard for his life, maybe. But instead, I see him shove a man, telling him to back off when a girl gets caught between them. The girl goes into the road, and his reflexes are fast, so fast, as he grabs her and shoves her back onto the sidewalk before—
Cringing, I slam the laptop closed the second the car strikes him. He saved that girl from being hit.
I sit there in silence, stunned. My nose starts twitching, the smell of something burning tickling my nostrils. It takes a moment—too long of a moment—before my eyes start to burn and it strikes me. Dinner.
I run for the oven, turning it off, and open the door. The smoke detector starts blaring, and I make a face, fanning the smoke away. The pizza is charred.
“Mommy, what’s stinky?” Maddie asks, strolling into the kitchen with a stack of paper and her box of crayons, her nose scrunched up.
“Had a bit of a mishap,” I say, glaring at the burnt pizza. “Maybe we’ll just order some pizza for delivery.”
“And chickens!” she declares, climbing onto a chair at the table. “And the breads, too!”
“Pizza, wings, and garlic bread—got it.”
I pick up the phone and call the closest pizza place, ordering the whole gauntlet. Can’t afford to splurge, but what the hell, right?
After hanging up, I sit down with her, staring at her paper as she draws Breezeo. She’s good. Talented. She could be an artist. She could be anything she wanted.
I know, because she’s not just my daughter.
His blood flows through her veins, too.
He was the dreamer. The doer. The believer.
When he wasn’t high, when he wasn’t drunk, when he wasn’t so utterly screwed up, I saw something in him, something I see when I look at Maddie. The two of them, they have the same soul, they live with the same heart.
And that scares the daylights out of me.
“Mommy, what kinda sick is Breezeo? Where does it hurt?”
“Uh, I’m not sure,” I say. “All over, maybe. Johnny—you know, the real guy that plays Breezeo—got hurt by a car when he was helping a girl.”
“But he’ll get better?”
She looks at me, her eyes guarded.
She’s worried about her hero.
I’ve tried to explain the difference between reality and the movies, to prepare her, just in case, but I’m not sure if she gets it.
“He’ll get better,” I tell her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart.”
“I just… I can’t believe this,” Bethany says, standing beside me in the aisle as I restock canned goods. She leans against the shelf, nose buried in the latest edition of Hollywood Chronicles. The entire thing is dedicated to Jonathan.
Story after story, speculation and theories. Drugs. Alcohol. Maybe he was feeling suicidal. I have no interest in reading any of that nonsense, but Bethany insists on spilling every nitty-gritty detail while on her lunch break.
“You know, you’re supposed to pay for that before you read it,” I tell her. “This isn’t a library.”
She rolls her eyes, flipping the page. “You sound like my mother when you say that.”
I make a face. “I’m not that old.”
“You sound it.”
“Whatever,” I mumble. “I’m just saying…”
“You’re saying either put up or shut up.” She closes the magazine as she pretend-gags. “I’ve already read about as much as I can take, anyway. Who even buys this junk?”
She does, I think. I’ve seen her buying copies.
She’s quiet for a moment as I work before she asks, “You don’t believe any of it, do you?”
“Believe what?”
“Any of this,” she says, waving the paper around.
“I believe my opinion doesn’t really matter.”
“But where Johnny Cunning is concerned, anything is possible, right?”
I cut my eyes at her when she tosses my own words at me. “Right.”
She frowns, defeated, and goes back to her register.
I finish what I’m doing, trying to shove all of it out of my mind. When three o’clock comes, I clock out, grabbing a few groceries and heading to checkout. I have to be back here in an hour for inventory, giving me just enough time to see Maddie after school and get her settled at my father’s. I pay and am about to leave when I notice the Hollywood Chronicles paper tucked beside Bethany’s register, meaning she bought it.
“Look, you met Johnny Cunning, right?” I ask. “And he was nice to you?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Whatever that trash says about him being horrible, you felt different. Don’t let some guy sitting behind a computer spinning sensational stories change what you believe.”
She smiles.
I don’t linger.
I cringe, honestly.
As if to make the moment worse for me, Cher’s Believe starts playing on the supermarket radio, and I figure that’s my cue to leave. The soundtrack to my life needs a serious update. Getting into my car, I drive to my father’s house, pulling into his driveway as the school bus arrives. My father’s sitting on the front porch in his rocking chair as he stares out at the neighborhood.
“Ah, there’s my girl!” he says, shoving to his feet, holding his arms open. Maddie runs to him for a hug, dragging her backpack along the ground.
“Guess what, Grandpa!” she says, not giving him time to guess before she continues. “I seen that Breezeo got sick in an accident, so Mommy told me I could draw him a picture!”
My father’s eyes go wide as he shoots me a look.
“I told her we’d find an address and mail it to him,” I explain. “You know, like fan mail.”
“Makes sense.”
“You wanna draw one, Grandpa?” Maddie asks. “I bet mine would be better, but you can try, too.”
He scowls at her. “What makes you think yours would be better?”
“ ‘Cuz I’m best at drawing,” she says. “You’re good, too, but Mommy can’t draw.”
“Hey,” I say defensively. “I can draw some seriously cool stars.”
Maddie dramatically rolls her eyes, making sure I see it, announcing, “That don’t count!” before making her way inside.
“You heard the girl,” my father says, grinning and nudging me when I join him on the porch. “Your stars don’t count, kiddo.”
After I get Maddie settled in, sandwiches made for her and my father as they hunker down at the kitchen table with paper and crayons, a fresh chocolate cream pie sitting on the counter (don't think I didn't notice), I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ve gotta go back to work, sweetheart. I’ll see you tonight.”