“I am not having this conversation,” he said. “Please, Nadine, you can’t wear that. Everyone knows I’m your stylist—”
“It’s the Kids’ Choice Awards; we can spin it into a joke.”
“You are not a joke! You’re Nadine fucking Heywood and I’d love for you to start acting like it again, Clipboard.”
That old nickname nearly sent me over the edge, because yes, this was not me.
My phone rang.
“Do you like it?” Harper asked when I answered.
I let the phone fall to the floor without hanging up.
“Amos, I need you to get Ruchi.”
———
I told her everything—about how stupid I’d been, how weak, how I wasn’t surewhyexactly, just that I could no longer make it through a day without some sort of assistance. And about how Harper had pictures of it. How she was using them against me.
I wasn’t sure what I expected—scolding that I should have gone to her earlier, maybe, or a rant about Harper. Not Ruchiclasping me in her arms and saying: “You’re the bravest person I know, Heywood.”
“What?”
She stepped back so she could look me in the eye when she spoke. “You’re not weak. You’re not stupid. Addiction is a disease, and I’m so sorry you’ve been battling it alone.”
“But—”
“No buts. I should have been there.” She brushed her hands down her trousers nervously. “We should have got you therapy, a grief counselor—”
“I would have said no, Ruchi. I would have said it was a bad look. Don’t blame yourself. I did this.”
She sighed. “Maybe we should settle it with assigning fault and blame to how this happened isn’t a fair or reasonable thing to consider at all. I don’t want to move us onto where we go from here and how we play this—it feels callous.”
“I’m callous; you’re practical,” I said. “I don’t want Harper holding this over me. Which I think means letting her leak those pictures.”
“We can manage this privately,” she suggested. “I can speak to her publicist, loath as I am to ever speak to Adrian fucking Navarro, but there must be something she’d agree to. This would be terrible for her too, if the full story leaked. We can settle it and get you into an evening program.”
“No, that’s not enough. I know what I could lose if I don’t sort this, Ruchi. I want to get better. So I want whatever gives me the best shot of that.”
She looked at me, and I wondered if we were about to discuss the risks: that I might be throwing everything away before the drugs themselves snatched it from me. Things like these were supposed to be handled quietly. Shamefully.
Instead she nodded. “I’ll phone Victor and confirm with him. But we’re with you—all of us.”
So we sent the press release ourselves:Nadine Heywood has been struggling with substance abuse since the tragic and shocking death of her parents. She has elected, preemptively, to enter a rehabilitation program so she can rest and attempt to begin the journey of healing.
Instead of the Kids’ Choice Awards, I went to rehab.
Ruchi ensured the paparazzi couldn’t follow me.
Amos promised to have a wardrobe waiting for me that would make Harper cry (there was even a burlap belt. A bag. A thinly woven scarf).
Ivan—when he visited me a few weeks into my program after I was finally allowed visitors—distracted me with tales of his new projects until I finally demanded to know why he was still putting up with me. He looked at me, level and serious, and it hit me just how little he’d changed in the years I’d self-detonated and said: “Very early on, Nadine, I stopped caring quite so much about mutual interests and started caring about you. Perform to the whole theater all you like, but I’ll always be your front row.”
Then, of course, there was Harper.
I didn’t see her, but the cameras couldn’t get enough of her while I was away. Mournfully, she told reporters: “My heart goes out to her. I just really hope she gets the help she needs.”
Then she sent those pictures to every paper in the country.
