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Before he could say anything else, she jumped into her car and sped away. At home, she threw down her coat and purse then immediately opened a bottle of wine. Being a cheap drunk, she felt tipsy enough after two glasses to boot up her laptop and Google CJ Cunningham.
There were thousands and thousands of pictures. Some from red carpets, alone or with other actors. Some snapped by fans on cell phones. Some from professional shoots with him brooding or glamorous or rugged, all of them utterly handsome. More than any others were the paparazzi photos. There were a lot of pictures of him with various people, some famous, some not. Most were random shots of him walking through the streets of LA, trying to cover his face or driving expensive cars. There were the ones of him in various stages of inebriation: elated and laughing, angry and violent, or passed out. There were even some of his car accident, which looked terrifying. If she hadn’t known he was alive and well, she would’ve guessed anyone inside the car was dead.
Next were the movies. She watched any film she could get her hands on. From the three made-for-TV teen movies, which were cute but didn’t make any sense, to All That Burns, the HBO family drama miniseries, where he played the son of an addict. Then Broken Window, where he played a sniper in Amsterdam during the Second World War. The Interview was a thriller she couldn’t finish because she still didn’t like to be scared, no matter who it starred. So she moved on to Rebel, the role that earned him SAG and Golden Globe nominations at only twenty-five years old. It was a beautiful film, and with the right makeup and lighting, Chris really did look like James Dean.
She read some articles in which he said he related to James Dean’s estranged family dynamics and was quoted as saying he believed all sexuality was fluid and that working on Rebel made him explore his own attractions. In one interview, he said, “I don’t feel I owe the public any explanation about my private life, but if it helps to crush the stigma in Hollywood and elsewhere then, yeah, I’m attracted to men as well as women. Sometimes it takes a certain event to realize something about yourself, and this movie did that for me.” Connecting the dots from what Chris had told her about his family to the articles describing his downfall since the Dean biopic, she assumed that was when the chasm happened. Because of this movie and his coming out as bisexual.
She also stumbled upon a CJ Cunningham superfan, who had found clips from an old children’s television show, which featured him among some other kids talking to a cartoon angel and devil on their shoulders. This superfan had a timeline of his whole career, from that weird Barney-like Christian show to his most recent film, The Heat is On, a crime drama in which he played the bad guy.
Well after the sun came up, Bronte finally ducked under the covers in her bed, the empty wine bottle next to her head. She wasn’t sure if she could ever trust him again. If she even wanted to trust him again.
She closed her eyes, trying to sleep, but it was difficult to shut off what her mind did naturally. She kept coming up with arguments for why she should or shouldn’t stay with Chris. If this were any other problem, she would’ve made a pro/con list. It had always been easier to think in black-and-white.
The trouble was, feelings tended to be every other color of the rainbow except black-and-white.
