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I hammer on her door with my fist until she opens.
“Jesus, Blake,” she says bleary-eyed, blinking in the harsh light of morning. “Break down my door, will you?”
I push past her into the apartment.
“Do you want to come in?” she asks sarcastically.
“What the fuck are you playing at?” I demand.
“What?” She blinks at me, confused.
“Don’t give me that deer-in-headlights look. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Anger replaces her confusion.
“I know you’re used to calling the shots and when you snap your fingers, the rest of the world jumps, but I actually don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” She crosses her arms over her chest.
“The article,” I seethe. “Did you think it would be fucking funny? Did you do it to get back at me?”
“What the hell are you talking about? What article?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.”
She stares at me, defiant, shaking her head. But her face changes from frustration to shock as if something dawns on her.
“Oh, no,” she says and grabs her phone. She opens her app and starts to read. As she does, she pales.
When she looks up at me, her blue eyes shimmer.
“Blake, I didn’t know.”
“How the fuck don’t you know that you’re telling areportermy fucking life story!?” I demand.
“I didn’t know he was listening.”
“You told someone elsebesideshim?” I laugh bitterly. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now since the whole world knows my story.” I shake my head and try to breathe through the fury that washes over me in waves. I won’t lose my shit, I won’t lose my shit, I won’t lose my shit.
I can’t afford to put one foot out of line now. Anything I do now will be measured against my past, against my father’s actions. If I lose it and break something, if I scream and shout and this gets out… everyone will know.
My life, my career, it will all be over.
I squeeze my eyes shut and focused on breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. Slowly. I try to calm down.
“I’m so sorry, Blake,” Rachel says.
When I open my eyes, tears have welled in hers, and she looks like she’s unraveling. A pang shoots through me when I see her on the verge of tears, but I can’t find it in me to stay sympathetic. None of this reflects badly on her. Her damn name hasn’t even been mentioned. I’m the one taking the fall because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
“Explain to me why you thought you could talk to someone about this,” I say, trying to keep my voice as steady as I can. I have more control than I thought I would.
“I needed to talk to someone about what’s going on. I didn’t know how to feel or how to respond to what’s going on between us, and since I couldn’t reach you—”
“You’re saying this is my fault?” I cut her off, furious all over again. These damn breathing techniques don’t do much to get me through a bout of anger. “I wasn’t willing to share everything in my life with you, so you decide to run to the press with it?”
“I didn’t run to the press!” she cries out. “I was talking to Sam. How could I have known Alex was listening? I didn’t mean for this to happen, Blake. You have to believe me.”
I shake my head. It’s possible that it happened that way. I don’t think Rachel is malicious. Nothing she does comes from a bad place. But that doesn’t change the fact that everything I’ve been hiding for so many years has been thrown out there for the world to see. My past, my deepest pain, it’s all right there for anyone to pull apart and judge me. It’s right there for me to face every day. It might have happened three decades ago, but for the rest of the world, it’s happened right now.
Which means I have to face all this hell all over again.
