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“Ellie, there’s more.”
I look at her, panic smeared across my face as my mind races. What else could there possibly be that’s worse than those comments?
“What are you talking about?”
She takes her phone back and swipes through it, stopping to show me a full article covered by TMZ.
Pictures of Rhylan and me rushing to his car at the farmer’s market are captured all over, with stills of my shocked and disoriented face and Rhylan’s uncontrolled anger. I zoom in on the pictures of Rhylan attacking one of the paparazzi before I read the article.
Hollywood ‘It' Star Rhylan Matthews was seen at The Country Way Farmer’s Market this afternoon with the mystery girl he’s been seen all over town with. The mystery girl, who we have identified as twenty-two year old UCLA student Eleanor Salerno, was seen wearing the same clothes from the night before when the two were seen leaving a dinner date, leaving little to the imagination. More shocking, Matthews, 26, lost his cool and attacked a paparazzi photographer after an altercation between the two.
According to the paparazzo, Rhylan’s attack was “completely unprovoked” and was the “reaction of yet another star that has become unhinged.”
It seems any speculation of a romance between Matthews and hisUnrestrainedco-star, Bella Raven, 29, are forgotten as Rhylan appears to have a new leading lady in his life.
I can’t believe what I just read. Pictures of Rhylan and me all over the internet, along with these assumptions about our relationship. Lies that Rhylan randomly attacked someone for no reason. I don’t even know how they know who I am. Their invasion of my privacy, exposing who I am to the world without a single consideration for my permission, makes me sick.
Claire’s phone drops to the floor. I run to the bathroom sink and dry heave into the sink. Nothing comes out, but I can’t control the unbearable lurching from my stomach.
I run to my room and frantically search through my purse for my phone to call Rhylan. I need to talk to him. I need him to tell me everything will be okay, that he can fix this. He doesn’t answer his phone. It goes to voicemail barely after two rings, so I hang up and frantically punch out a text message.
Me:Please call me.
I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what to do.
“Ellie…” Claire’s voice trails off. She’s standing behind me. As if she’s there to catch me if I fall. I turn to her and cry into her shoulder as her hands envelop me, soothing me and allowing me to cry, to let it all out. My sobs grow deeper. The shock is slowly fading, and reality is finally settling in. We stay like this for what seems like forever, our bodies sunken into my bed as I lean into her.
What will happen to us, to Rhylan and me?
Just as my cries settle down, Claire stills. Her hands that were stroking my back in an attempt to soothe me come to a stop as she turns her head towards my door.
“What the hell?” She stands and I follow her, wiping away my tears with the back of my hand. I watch as she walks towards my door and peers out the window. It’s when she splits an opening with her index finger and thumb through the horizontal blinds that I see the flashing of lights from outside.
“What the hell!” she screeches, repeating herself. But not as a question, more of a demand.
When she opens the front door and I peer over her shoulder, it’s then I see where the lights are coming from. Lined up along the curb leading up to my house, a line of paparazzi clamors to get a picture. The roar of clicks and people calling my name muffles against my head as my body numbs. A prickle of static courses through my body, traveling through my stomach to the tips of my fingers. I’m stuck, frozen with my fingers gripping my door while my cavernous breaths can’t seem to catch up with my hammering heart.
“Hey!” Claire calls. She’s yelling, her arms thrown in the air as she wards off the photographers. “Get the hell out of here!”
She takes a step off my stoop before I reach for her, my hand grasping at her wrist as I yank her back into my house and slam the door shut.
“Claire,” I whisper, my hands covering my mouth as tears brim the edges of my eyes. “What do I do?”
She guides me to my couch, sitting me down as she takes her phone in her hands.
I don’t remember anything after that. With my eyes squeezed shut and my hands gripping the cushions until my knuckles turn white, I fade away. Until I’ve shut out the world around me.
* * *
“Ellie?”
I stir, the soft voice coaxing me out of my temporary state of paralysis. I feel a warm hand smoothing down the mussed tangles of my hair as my name is repeated. “Ellie.”
When I open my eyes, I see my mom. She’s hovering over me as I blink away my lethargy.
“Mom?”
“Hi, honey.”
