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Bordeaux stands and rushes over to me, planting both hands on either side of my head against the wall. His chest heaves as he speaks. “I don’t want to fucking talk. Is that a goddamn crime? I can’t want to be left alone right now? Isla, could you try to be a little less self-absorbed? My best friend is fucking dying, and all you can talk about is a goddamn article on a gossip website.” He turns away from me and throws his hands in the air. “Holy shit. You are not the woman I thought you were.”
His words hit me like a truck and pain radiates throughout my entire body. I close my eyes and see stars, begging myself to wake up from this nightmare.
“Oh, I’m self-absorbed?” I say, shaking my head. No other words come out. I can’t think straight. “I’m not the woman you thought I was? What does that even mean? You’re a fucking asshole.”
He nods, crossing the room and opening the door. “Yep. You’ve got that right. Now get out of my room.” He looks from the door to me and motions me out, and my heart shatters. I stand still, searching his eyes for something, anything, but there’s nothing there.
“Is this really what you want?” I ask through my tears, and he nods, looking away from me. “I’m the bad guy, right? I’m the one who sat outside your hotel room, begging you to let me in for hours, only to get my life story broadcasted to the entire world. But I’m the one in the wrong. Does that really make sense to you? Who are you right now?”
He finally looks at me, his voice dark and low. “You aren’t the first woman to sit outside my door all night, and I can guarantee you won’t be the last. You might be able to leave your friend to die and be fine with it, but I can’t.”
His words cut me like a knife, and I swear if I were to look down right now, I’d be bleeding all over his hotel room floor.
I force myself to straighten, my eyes as cold as Bordeaux’s. “Great job, Bordeaux. You did it. You finally did it. You pushed me away. I’ve finally found your downfall.” A psychotic laugh escapes my lips as he narrows his eyes. “You hook people in, right? You make them fall for you, you act like you’re not the same as every other fucking man in this fucked-up world with your bullshit, ‘oh, I don’t know if I’m capable of loving anyone because I was never loved’ act. Your downfall is you fucking ruin people.”
I turn without another word, and before I allow him to see me cry, I run.
Forty-Four
Isla
One Month Later…
Abience (n.) the strong urge to avoid someone
or something.
___________
Getting wrapped up in the whirlwind life of one of America’s hottest rockstars is not for the faint of heart.
And I, apparently, am very faint of heart.
It’s been four weeks since I left Bordeaux’s hotel room. Four weeks of hating myself, of hating him, and if I’m being honest, hating the world in general.
I’m mad that I just totally dropped my life for him. He had me from the moment I kissed him in our hotel room. I told myself I’d never relinquish all self-control like that again, and what did I do the moment our lips crashed together…? I lost myself in him.
The past four weeks have been anything but easy, but now as I sit in my therapist’s chair, I’m realizing the severity of the imprint that Bordeaux Daniels has left on me.
“Do you want to talk about the article?” Megan asks, shifting on her high-backed ivory chair. She sits directly across from me, pushing her black, square-rimmed glasses up her nose. “I won’t push it, but I think it’s kind of a big deal, don’t you?”
Yep. Sure do.
“There’s not much to say about it,” I tell her. And there isn’t. I’ve come to terms with what happened all those years ago, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still haunt me. Seeing the words they wrote about me stung like hell and it brought it all flooding back, but honestly, it’s always here. I just do my best to not let it affect me like it used to.
“I would ask you how they got ahold of that information, but I read that you’ve been seeing Bordeaux Daniels, is that true?” She then follows her question up with, “I saw the photo of you two together, and it seems like those gossip writers will sink their teeth into anyone who is photographed with a celebrity.”
I shrug.
“You don’t have to tell me about any of that, I just want you to really let me in about how you’re feeling after the article. How isn’t there much to say? Level with me, Isla. There’s no way reading that article didn’t send a thousand emotions flooding back in.”
Taking a deep breath, I tell her everything. Not because I want to, but because it suddenly feels like I need to. I haven’t told my parents anything. Veronica knows what happened but not the entire story. She doesn’t know about Bordeaux screaming at me or me screaming at him. She doesn’t know the cruel things we said to each other. The way it felt like he ripped me to shreds with the comment about Cynthia. How he compared Cynthia and Flynn, and implied I didn’t care enough to save my best friend. I couldn’t bear to tell her. I didn’t have it in me.
But now, sitting on this black leather sofa, in this aromatherapy-filled room, I decide it all needs to be said before it destroys me even more. Because I know it will. I let my guard down with Bordeaux; I let him in when every single part of me was screaming, begging for me not to. I went against my gut and trusted him, and he let me down in the worst way. I’m tired of giving him and that entire situation power over every waking moment of my life.
When I finish, she looks up from the notes she’s been scribbling. She thinks better of it and reaches down to highlight something she wrote.
“You’ve been pretty busy since I last saw you,” Megan says, tilting her head to the side.
