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I start toward the door, but she grabs my jacket sleeve to hold me back.
“That was a joke,” she says.
“I would, though,” I say.
“I know.”
“You should, too.”
She exhales and releases my sleeve.
I pause. “Dani, why do you let him control you like this?”
“I don’t know,” she says after a moment. “Who wouldn’t want their dad to make them rich and famous?”
“Well, what do you really want?” I ask. “To be rich and famous? Or to have a normal high school experience?”
Dani doesn’t answer but it’s written all over her face. She doesn’t want the constant pressure of auditions. She doesn’t want stage names and on-set tutors.
But she doesn’t know how to break free.
Luckily for her, that’s my specialty.
I bob my chin at the windows along the wall. “Come on,” I say. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Getting out of here?” she repeats.
“Yeah, what do you want to do? I was thinking of hitting the pier, but I’m flexible.”
She blinks twice. “It’s twelve-thirty.”
“So?”
“So, we have classes until three.”
“Right.” I nod. “We’re skipping them.”
Her jaw drops in horror as I pull the window lock free. “I can’t skip class!” she says.
“Have you ever done it before?”
“No!”
I slide the window open. “Then, how do you know you can’t?”
She tries not to laugh. “Fox, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
“It’s a normal high school experience,” I say. “That’s what you really want, right?”
She shifts on her toes. She bites her lip. She silently considers the pros and cons of coloring outside the lines for once. I honestly enjoy watching her struggle a little bit. To still be this sweet and innocent at sixteen in the heart of Hollywood…
I step over the windowsill, easily putting my feet on the grass outside. When I turn back for her, her face isn’t quite as pure white as it was a moment ago.
Just one more push…
