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“And her?” My gaze flickered over to his mother.
“She’s the one that encouraged me and got me into the industry. I think, mostly, because her parents never helped her when she was young and wanted to pursue acting. So she gave me the dream job she never had. She means well. Everything she does and says is to help me keep living the dream, but somewhere along the way, she forgot she was still my mom and not just a manager.”
Though he sounded gracious, a part of me wondered if his mother hadn’t pushed him more for her own selfish gain. After all, he’d told me once he bought her a house in Bel Air, and seeing her all wrapped up in silk and cashmere on a private jet didn’t seem like a hardship.
“So you have no one you can talk to? No one you trust, not even someone from the industry that would understand what it’s like?” I asked, wondering if his life really was that lonely.
“No.” His gaze darkened as he said, “I made that mistake once and don’t plan on repeating it.”
“What happened?”
He fiddled with the armrest of his seat.
“You don’t have to tell me—”
“It was one of my costars,” he said, like the name left a bitter taste in his mouth. “We worked on a film together early on. I was twelve, and he was thirteen. A few years later, when I scored the Treemont High contract, I got him a bigger role. Until then, he’d only been in a couple of guest appearances and never any supporting roles. We grew pretty close during filming. And then . . . Do you remember the story that broke, the one about being arrested for possession?”
I nodded, my stomach tight as a drum.
“Yeah,” he drawled. “The drugs weren’t mine. He and I took a trip to Mexico together, and I admit, there was drinking on my part and a lot of partying, but when we came back, we got stopped at the airport. He took off in the other direction, leaving me with our bags. Like an idiot, I thought nothing of it until they searched them.”
“And they found drugs,” I finished. “I remember. It was on the cover of every tabloid for a month.”
His mouth pressed into a thin line. “They reported it as just weed, but there were pills too.”
“But how . . .?” My voice trailed off.
“Did I get off?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s amazing the things money and fame can buy.”
I swallowed. Thorne had only been sixteen. I couldn’t even imagine what that kind of betrayal had cost him.
“Why didn’t you explain they weren’t yours?”
Thorne shrugged. “No one would’ve believed me. And, honestly, a part of me thought taking the heat was just what friends did. Until he tried to get me in trouble again, at a party, and I realized he was a piece of shit user that wasn’t going to change. But ever since, I’ve continued shooting myself in the foot by doing reckless things and making headlines. It’s like once the world thought the worst of me, I gave up. It seemed too hard to turn it around, so I played the part.” He shook his head. “It was stupid. I wish I’d been stronger, more like you. Someone like you wouldn’t have allowed any of this to happen.”
“You don’t know that,” I said.
He offered me the tiniest of smiles. “Yeah, I do.”
I inhaled and glanced out my window, thinking of everything he told me, the betrayal and how alone he felt, and my heart ached for him. Yet here I was. He’d trusted me, so maybe not all was lost.
“Why me?” I asked, turning back to him. “Why trust me with our”—I glanced to his mother to ensure she was still sleeping—"arrangement? I could break our contract and tell the press. They’d probably pay the legal fees for me to do so.”
The corners of his lips lifted. “What have I got to lose?”
“A lot.”
He shook his head and leaned forward, clasping his hands between his legs. “Not as much as you think. No one takes me seriously now. I’ve been spiraling since Davis, and I was lucky to get the role inThe Soldiers Within Us. I’ll be even luckier to keep it. I don’t want to star in these cheesy teen films anymore. Not to mention that there’s an expiration date on those as I age. If I don’t show the world I’m a real actor now, that they can take me seriously and that I take my work seriously too, I’m out. This is my last chance to make an impact and star in a film with real meaning and value beyond two hours of entertainment. So if I lose that, where am I? Better to take the risk and fail than to never take the risk at all.”
I stared at him for the first time since meeting him, feeling like I understood him a little better. He wasn’t the egotistical jerk I’d imagined. And he wasn’t entitled or a narcissist. Quite the opposite.
He was real and wounded and in need of love. And he was just trying to do his best and get by like the rest of us.
All of these revelations made me wish I could help, do more than pretend to be his girlfriend. If nothing more than to get the media off his back. But I didn’t have superpowers or connections or a magic wand to fix his life. After all, he’d gotten himself into this mess.
