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Chapter Thirty-seven
Tori
We are halfway down the stairs when I know that something is wrong. The music has stopped and I can hear Octavia’s voice coming from the main room. There is no other voice except hers. She seems to be reading something aloud.
Suddenly my blood runs cold. I stand stock still. I can’t move. My feet feel as if they are encased in concrete.
Oh, Jesus. No. No. No.
How could it be? This can’t be real. Please don’t be real.
I turn to look at Cash. There is a frown on his face. Instinctively he knows that something is wrong, but he still has not realized what she is reading. This is just a fucking nightmare. I just have to wake up, but I can’t wake up. I’m already awake.
Then my brain goes crazy and I run into the living room. I can see her at the end of it surrounded by people. The voice she is using to read is different than her usual one, and she has changed her accent to an American one. I realize that she is pretending she is me!
‘Can you believe it, Monstrosity? I got the job. I’ll have to put up with a totally selfish, vacuous, self-absorbed teenager, but it will be worth it. I finally, finally get to meet Cash Hunter. The guy I’ve been madly in love with since I was thirteen. It’s been a long time, but here I am.’
‘Stop it,’ I scream, my body shaking uncontrollably.
Octavia stops reading and smiles at me. It is the cruel, gloating smile of a winner. The smile of someone who knows she will take everything that you hold precious. At that moment I hate her. I actually feel murderous towards her.
Frantically, I look at all the faces of all the people gathered there. Some are looking at me with disgust, others pity and some are jeering. I look at Britney and she is looking at me with so much hurt.
Jesus.
I want to scream that it’s not true. That was at the beginning. I changed my mind. I love her like a sister now, but my throat has closed over.
I turn to see Cash standing just inside the doorway and he just looks so shocked. He is looking at me as if he never knew me. As if I cheated him or betrayed him.
Jesus.
It’s not like that, I want to scream.
I didn’t come here to stalk you. I came here to get over you. I was going to tell you tonight. But when I open my mouth nothing comes out. I am so embarrassed, so humiliated I feel suffocated. I gasp for air to fill my empty lungs and my chest hurts. It literally hurts to breathe. Tears begin to flood my vision and I snap.
With a cry of shame and defeat, I run out of the room, out of the hallway, through the open door, down the stone steps, and out into the street.
Cash
It’s like a hurricane that comes in from nowhere. First the shingles are ripped off the roof. As hundreds of them fly off, water starts coming into the house, then the rafters crack and, with a sickening sound, the whole fucking roof flies off.
That’s what this instant feels like.
One moment my life is great, my palm is on the warm skin of Tori’s back, her smile familiar and sexy, then the next instant, the heavens rip open and unleash this black vortex. It’s only purpose was to destroy everything in its path. In seconds it sucks up what I believed was mine. And there is not a fucking thing I can do about it.
I look at Octavia reading from a furry blue book and don’t register what is happening. My mind refuses to believe that, that poison dropping out of her mouth could ever have been hatched in Tori’s head. Lovely, kind hearted Tori, but one look at Tori’s horrified, guilty face and I know it’s true.
That is her diary.
She did write those hateful words and she is that mad stalker that every celebrity fears. I never heard the warning bells. Not once. Her disguise was perfect. She insinuated herself seamlessly into my father’s house. An imposter. She’s not real. Nothing was real. I thought I put my tongue into her cunt and felt her heartbeat. I know the truth now. I didn’t. It was all an elaborate lie.
In strange silence I watch her run away. Strange. I don’t stop her. I let her go. It doesn’t even feel real. She’s left a book sitting face down to mark its page. She’ll never finish it now. Then I look at Brit’s face and my heart breaks for her. I start to seethe. I stride over to Octavia. How dare she? I’d like to snap her scrawny neck. It’s tempting, so tempting. She is six feet away, four, two, one. Zero.
I hold my hand out.
‘She was no good. I did you a favor.’ Her voice is cold and hard.
I look into her eyes. Funny how I’ve never looked deep into her eyes before. Malicious. ‘You’re a bitch, Octavia. You didn’t do me a favor. You just got yourself fired.’
I reach my hand out and pluck the book from hers.
‘Cash,’ Octavia calls.
I ignore her and walk up to Britney. ‘Do you want to come with me, Brit?’
Her face is white and her chin is wobbly. She shakes her head. ‘No, you go on. I’ll be all right. This is my party.’
I stare at her, even in my moment of loss it occurs to me how much she has changed. She used to be so fragile and unstable.
Then she does something strange. She goes up on her tiptoes and whispers in my ears. Her words are like a lightning bolt. The whole world goes red.
Tori
The paparazzi completely ignore me, and I run down the street in my little flirty fun dress and no panties. I don’t know what to do. I can’t go back. I have no money even to make a phone call. I go down the steps into the tube station. Tears are pouring down my face. I go to the ticket inspector and I tell him I have no money, but if he lets me through the barriers I will come back tomorrow and pay him. He is a kindly, middle-aged black man. He tuts and takes me to the ticket counter where he buys me a ticket.
‘Where to?’ he asks.
‘Virginia Water.’ I try to fight back the sob inside me. It’s picking up force the way a storm does.
He hands me the ticket. ‘Listen love. It’s never as bad as it seems.’
‘Thank you.’ A sob escapes, the sound erupting from deep within my chest. I feel as if I’m breaking apart.
He pats me on the arm and I go down the escalator in a daze. At Waterloo station I get off and find my way up to the train station. I wait for my train and then I go in and sit on an empty seat and stare blankly out of the window. Once someone comes to sit opposite me. I look up confused. A woman in a long grey and white dress smiles kindly at me
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper.
All I see in my head is Octavia reading my diary in that strange voice and Cash’s face. He looked as if he had been stabbed. I have never seen him look like that. He was white under his tan.
Oh God! Britney.
Her face. Her birthday party was ruined.
God, why did I keep that diary. I frown. How did she get it? The hateful bitch must have taken it out of my room. When I saw her coming down the stairs she must have already taken it. But she wasn’t holding it. She must have put it somewhere else temporarily to wait for the best moment. I remember her telling me to smile.
And the award for Idiot of The Year goes to …
Tears run down my face. I fucked up, and so spectacularly too.
When the woman opposite me leaves at the next station, a man comes to sit beside me. ‘Do you need help?’ he asks.
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I shake my head. I can’t talk. The motion of the train has made me feel physically sick. When I get to Virginia Water, I stumble off the train and sit for a moment on the bench before I make a collect call to my aunt. She tells me she will be there in ten minutes. I sit on the steps outside and wait for her. As soon as her car arrives she jumps out and comes to me. I can barely stand. I know my face must be red and my eyes swollen.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ she soothes as she takes the last few steps towards me.
‘Oh, Aunt Claire. What am I going to do? I’ve made such a mess of everything.’ The words spill from my mouth as I fall into her arms.
‘Shhh, it’s OK. It’s OK,’ she croons softly.
She holds me tight while I cry racking sobs. I think people pass by and probably stare at us, but I’m dead to everything.
Eventually my aunt sighs. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’
I feel bruised, battered and irreparably damaged, but my feet somehow move forward and I get into the car. My aunt closes the car door and gets into the driver’s seat. The tears fall and fall. They refuse to stop. Some part of me won’t give up, but I know in my aching heart that he is gone. No more illusions. No more fairy tale endings. This is real life. He’s gone.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Britney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_SI2EDM6Lo
I lift onto my toes, grasp my brother’s shoulder and, putting my ear close to it, whisper, ‘You can’t trust Gavin either. He tried to rape me at your party.’
Of course you want to know why I whispered that bit of venom right at that confusing moment when my brother’s heart would have been racing fast enough to explode?
It’s not because I’m a trouble maker.
It’s because I look at his shell-shocked face (it was glowing less than fifteen minutes ago) and I feel a rush of pity for him. His die has been cast. There he is. A sex God. Everywhere he goes he is mobbed and loved the world over. Almost any woman he wants he can have and yet at that instant I realize he is the loneliest person in the world.
There is not a single person in the world outside my dad, me, and Cora that he can truly trust. I knew then that if I did not tell him about Gavin, all I would be doing is leading him down a path where he would stand shell-shocked by still another betrayal.
