I love my little house. It’s nothing special—a cute cottage that has yellow siding, a white wrought-iron fence around the yard and cheerful window planters that are blooming with pansies this year. It’s not a mansion, but it’s mine. My hiding place. My sanctuary. The one place that I can be myself, whatever mixed-up blend of Kathryn, Kat and Katie Rydale that is.
I moved here right after I got the job with the studio. I needed to disappear and the small town of Enchantment seemed the perfect place to do so. And, so far, it has been. And that’s the way I like it. I don’t go looking for trouble and I can only hope that it doesn’t hunt me down. I’ve had enough of it to last a lifetime already, and I’m only twenty-four.
Before I can stop them, flashes of flames and fists, of writhing and wreckage, of tears and emptiness spew through my mind like a spray of acid, burning where it touches. Relentlessly, I push those turbulent thoughts to the deepest part of my consciousness. I learned long ago that the less contact I have with them, the less they can hurt me. I learned that if I give them an inch, if I give them even a few seconds of thought, they take over. They incapacitate. They paralyze. They eat away at the carefully constructed person I’ve become, destroying the peace and security that I’ve worked so hard to achieve. And I can’t let that happen. Not again.
I busy myself with the routine tasks I perform each day when I get home from work. I find comfort in structure, in the predictable. I thrive on being ordinary and living an ordinary life. The spectacular can only end in devastation. The bigger the star, the brighter the shine, but the more epic the explosion and subsequent death. That’s something else I learned. The hard way. It’s better not to shine too bright. Or, sometimes, not to shine at all.
At a few minutes before ten, I’m already brushed and washed and lying in bed with one of Mona’s books. I refuse to consider why I picked up another of her silly romance stories tonight of all nights. I also refuse to consider why, when I hear a door slam outside, I think for just a fraction of a second that it might be Kiefer Rogan. And that a guy like him might actually be interested in a girl like me.
I ignore the niggle of disappointment and remind myself that I’m better off without men like that in my life—the kind who love beauty and glamour, the kind who gravitate toward the kind of girl that I used to be. That got me nothing but trouble and pain and regret, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. No, I’m better off by myself and I’ll do well to remember that.
Why, after all this time, I’d let a guy like Kiefer Rogan get under my skin is strange, yes, but I have to keep it in perspective. Not let him get inside my head with his killer smile and charming wink. Letting him in would be a disaster, plain and simple.
I snap the book shut with a definitive thud, glaring at the beautiful laughing couple on the cover. Life isn’t a romantic comedy. It’s more of a light Shakespearean tragedy. Or a cruel joke. At least that’s been my experience.
EIGHT
Rogan
Because Enchantment, Georgia, is a small town—like such a small town that the one restaurant it boasts is actually a diner—the studio had some more . . . luxurious houses built for their stars. They’re designed to be leased on a very temporary basis, meant mostly for those who don’t like living out of their trailer or don’t want to travel back to their real homes on the weekends and between shoots. The place I leased from them for six weeks is perfect for my purposes, mainly because Kurt, my younger brother, has certain living requirements that make trailer, hotel or apartment residences nearly impossible to navigate with his wheelchair.
I’m still surprised that he wanted to come down here with me. He doesn’t like getting out of his element much and, as shitty as it sounds, I was sort of counting on that to keep him at home.
But it didn’t.