AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
Once I’m back in the greenroom, alone and empty, I sit for a moment. The pent-up nerves that had filled my chest release when I inhale and exhale. But the heaviness sits at the pit of my stomach.
This shit is so fucking lonely.
There, I said it. Even if I say it to myself, not even out loud, I’ve acknowledged it. It doesn’t make sense how, just minutes ago, I was surrounded by adoring fans waving and cheering at me, and now, I feel like someone sucker punched me in the gut. But this is the life that I’ve created for myself. Full of people but no one to truly share it with. Never alone but always lonely.
“Rhy?” I look up and see Charles peeking through the doorway. “You about ready to leave?”
I stand. “Yeah, I was just making sure I didn’t forget anything.”
“Let’s walk out together. I’m sure the crowd outside is going to be just as wild as the one in here.”
I hesitate.
“Bella already left. Something about an after-party.”
I visibly sigh, not meaning to express my relief, but I can’t help it. It feels like the first piece of good news I’ve heard all night.
“Yeah, let’s head out,” I finally say.
When the metal doors to the back entrance swing open, the crowd lining the streets clamors wildly. On one side, they’re screaming our names, calling out adoringly with words of love and admiration. And on the other side, there are the paparazzi. As we step closer towards our waiting cars, I hear the taunting, the ridicule to incriminate both myself and Charles. To get the reaction they want.
Questions prodding into our personal lives. Asking Charles about his kids, where his wife is tonight, why she isn’t by his side, insinuating another scandal to add to his already growing list of false rumors. The last one, a low blow to his marriage, was an allegation that he’d been cheating on Amelia with the nanny.
And the questions to me are just as direct, just as personal, trying to poke at a giant that they want to be woken.
“Where’s Bella?”
“Did you two have a fight? Is that why she left without you?”
And then the demands.
“Come on, Rhy! Give us a smile!”
I don’t engage. I know better. Actually, Shana knows better, and she instilled that mentality in me years ago. Her mantra has always been: “Don’t give them what they want.”
I duck my head, my eyes glued to the passenger door of my waiting car. I don’t turn and wave farewell to Charles. Instead, I keep my eyes on the prize, my exit out of here.
Once in the quietness of the car, the muffled sounds of the paps flowing in from the other side and the dark tinted windows providing me some sort of refuge, I sink in and sigh deeply. I allow the gentle thrum of the engine to take me home while the quiet driver behind the wheel provides me the comfort and privacy I know I need after this chaotic night.
TWO
ELLIE
“Ellie, I just think that you need to start looking into other options. You can’t work at the bookstore all your life.” My mom’s voice is turning whiney. Her tone, meant to be encouraging, is now pushing me away, making me want to avoid the topic altogether. “I mean, you’re graduating from UCLA for crying out loud. Albeit a literary major, but I’m sure you’d be able to findsomething.” She pokes at the white, creamy pasta on her plate with her fork, almost half gone, as is the sweet wine that she served us all.
With my head ducked low, I nod, bobbing along to my mom’s words as if I were listening to music. Like a monotonous and repetitive tone that I’ve learned to let play out.
My cousin Walter is sitting at the far end of the dinner table, engrossed in the screen of his phone, AirPods lodged into his ears, making it difficult for me to signal an SOS in his direction.
“She’s right,” my aunt Janice chimes in. “That goes for the both of you.” Her voice raises a decibel as her statement is directed towards Walter, implying he quit his job at the music store where he teaches guitar lessons.
Walter lifts his head, pulling his gaze away from his phone screen while removing an earpiece out of his ear. “Huh?”
Aunt Janice rolls her eyes. “I was saying that you and Ellie can’t work at those minimum wage jobs for the rest of your lives. You need to think more in the long run. Think about what you want to do after you two graduate.”
“Like Hector?” he says through a sarcastic undertone and a shake of his head. Our being the same age means that we met many of our milestones together. When we said our first words, when we got our driver’s license, and now, graduating college. Something that our moms have been looking forward to for the past twenty-two years: planning a dual graduation party in the coming months.
