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I got out, pulling my keys from my pocket. Fuck, my leg hurt. It had been a long day. “Thanks for the ride,” I told Devon.
He rolled down his window as I circled my car. “Go see her,” he said, and drove off.
I opened my car door and got in the driver’s seat, and then I stopped. With the door still open and one leg on the ground. I ran a hand through my hair and stared at the wet parking lot, at nothing.
It was dark now. Late. She was probably asleep.
She wouldn’t want to see me.
I had two choices. Go home to Shady Oaks, or take my chances with Gwen.
I sat in the dark for a long time, wondering which one I would do.
Chapter 25
Gwen
Olivia stayed with me through everything. Through the police statement, and the hospital exam, and the other police statement, and the review of the police statement. Trent was arrested, with no chance of bail this time, since his assault on me had violated his bail in the first place.
While we waited in a hospital corridor, we called our mother on Olivia’s phone and filled her in. When Olivia passed the phone to me, my mother was crying.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, her voice choked with tears. “Tell me you’re okay. Please tell me you’re okay.”
I hadn’t cried until that moment, but suddenly I lost it. It was the familiar sound of my mother’s voice, distorted with panic and love for me. Tears ran down my face. Why had I ever thought my mother didn’t care?
“I’m okay, Mom,” I choked out.
“That awful job,” she said. “I hated it so much. I worried about you every day. I’m coming to see you. I’m getting in the car right now.”
I mopped the tears from my face. Mom lived in LA. She was the opposite of the cliché of the Hollywood has-been—she was a good mother, kind and loving, with her head on straight. But still, all those years in Hollywood had left her in a gentle bubble, a place where too much reality hit her harder than other people. She would probably just flutter around me, helpless and more distressed than I was. “Don’t come, Mom,” I said. “Olivia’s here. I’m just bruised, that’s all.”
“The doctors have checked you out?”
“Yes. I’ll be all right in a few days, I promise.”
“No more stripping,” Mom said. “I mean it. Find something else to do—anything. I’ll help you if you need it. But no more.”
I sighed, sniffing. I hadn’t known my job had worried her so much. “I was already quitting. And I am going to find something else to do.” I tried to break it to her gently. “It won’t be acting, though, Mom. Sorry.”
“Oh, goodness, sweetheart, you don’t have to be an actress!” I’d upset her all over again. “I just sent you to acting school because that was what you said you wanted. And you’re so beautiful. But acting is a terrible career. It’s full of misery. Go find something that makes you happy.”
Olivia handed me a Kleenex, and I mopped my face. “I love you, Mom,” I said.
“I love you too, Gwennie.”
Strangely, considering we were sitting in a hospital hallway after my drug dealing boss had kidnapped and assaulted me, I hung up feeling better than I had in months, maybe years. Mom hadn’t called me Gwennie since I was a little kid—she was the only person who ever called me that. Hearing her say it made my heart crack open. I handed the phone back to Liv, and she put her arm around my shoulders, hugging me to her. We sat like that, content and quiet, until the doctor said I could go.
Now, hours later, I was home in my apartment. I’d had a shower—delicately avoiding my bruised stomach—and something to eat. I put on a pair of girl boxer shorts and a cami. I lay in bed for a while, thinking I would sleep and not sleeping. Finally I got up, covered up in a robe, and sat restlessly on the sofa, wondering what to do. I had no phone, so I couldn’t call anyone. I was just about to resort to flipping aimlessly through TV channels when there was a soft knock at my door.
I stood up, but I didn’t open the door. “Who is it?” I asked.
“It’s Max,” a familiar voice said.
My heart did a crazy flip in my chest, and I realized I wanted to see him. That I’d wanted to see him for hours. I opened the door, and we looked at each other. He was wearing the same jeans and black hooded sweatshirt he’d been wearing hours ago, when he’d pulled Trent out of the car.
His hair was mussed. He looked tired. His eyes held mine, and for once he wasn’t frowning. He just looked worried and quietly vulnerable.
He leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, since I hadn’t stood back to let him in yet. “Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t call.”
