“How do they know we’re here, Oisín?”
My voice sounded so hollow it rang, echoing in its own emptiness.
“I … I was going to propose. I …”
He phoned them. He got them here.
He didn’t love me, of course. He just planned on making my success about him before he ruined it because he couldn’t resist taking a moment to shoot at me. Once, he built me up so high, and now I was his to tear down.
I think I was just as upset at myself as I was at him.
Fuck all of this.
I stood up, pushing Oisín off me. I started walking down the street, and then I ran.
The paps followed me all the way to the bloody Metro. I can’t explain why. Maybe I was in shock. Maybe I thought it was a more iconic shot than me crouched in the street, bawling over a boy I should have cut loose a year ago.
I got off at the nearest stop and hailed a taxi to take me home.
The driver did a double take, giving me that familiar look:I know you, but I can’t remember who, exactly, or where, exactly.
But give me a week—I was about to become an It Girl of Hollywood.
Oscar Woes for Sundance’s Golden Couple
Nadine Heywood and Oisín Connellan Split???
Nadine Heywood Subpar on Subway
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, throwing another magazine onto the table and nearly taking out Ruchi’s coffee cup in the process. The article was particularly cruel—a shot of me crouched on the street zoomed in, circling creases in the fabric of my dress and proclaiming stomach rolls, the self-satisfied headline scrawled across it:Star Too Big for Romance.
Ivan had phoned that morning, asking if I was alright, telling me about a murder mystery he’d been working on whose plot he was happy to put into practice on Oisín if I so wished. Venting to him was likely the only reason I wasn’t breaking down in the face of this deluge.
Still, I wished he weren’t on a set in Santorini, that I had other friends, that I wasn’t talking about this with someone whose affection I paid for.
I wished Icouldbreak down—and that they might be there for me all the same.
“Honestly, I think you spun it well.”
I gave Ruchi the sort of look she often leveled me with. “This is my life we’re talking about.”
“You knew what you were getting yourself into.”
I stood, pacing the confines of my hotel suite. I’d packed a suitcase and left the house in Westwood. There was a future without Oisín—and quite a bright one, which made him ruining it all the more infuriating.
He hated me too much to even ride the coattails of my success. That stung.
“Right, and this time I made an okay call. But next time? I need to be able to hurt, Ruchi.”
“The game’s changing,” she said with a shake of her head. “You’ve spent the last year running from them, no wonder they’re glad to pin you down in a moment of weakness.”
“So I’m supposed to play nice with those leeches?”
“Yes. Call them. Use them. Feed them. And then they won’t go looking for blood elsewhere. Or, well, I suppose they will, but it won’t be a pack of them chasing you across the city.”
“You think we should use them for this?”
She considered. “Let’s work it out. Oisín hasn’t made a statement yet, and any PR worth their salt will be treading afine line—near enough to this scandal to still be relevant, but as close to the Oscars as they can get to steal your spotlight and place it on him.”
