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I choose to wait for Dick at the coffee house right across from his office in the hopes of seeing him come in so I can follow him in. Fifteen minutes into my coffee, he arrives.
He stands on the steps just outside his office building, a cluster of microphones thrust into his face, the hungry paparazzi feasting on his anger like insatiable feral dogs, and I join the crowd.
"Listen up," he begins, voice loud enough to cut through the morning chaos. "I want to set the record straight about my sister,Tony." The reporters lean in, their phones and recorders eager for every syllable of venom.
I pull the decorative scarf I hung around my neck as a fashion accessory over my head like a hijab and don on my extra-large sunglasses, hoping to effectively hide in plain sight.
"Tony has betrayed our family," Dick continues, his jaw clenched. "She's living with Liam Dexter, the man responsible for our father's death. She's nothing but a—"
I flinch as he spits out the slurs, each one a bullet tearing through the remnants of our bond. He doesn't know half of it, the whole twisted mess that's beyond his understanding.
"Never again will she be part of our lives!" His declaration is emphatic and resolute. "We want nothing to do with her or her games. She's colluding with the enemy!"
I can't help but think of Mr. Rothwell, caught in the crossfire of conspiracies and accusations. The way his wife sobbed, clutching at straws of hope, the same hope I'm trying to hold onto—that there's a way to prove his innocence, that there's a way to untangle this knotted web without losing everything.
Dick's press conference comes to an end, and the flock of journalists disperses, their appetite temporarily sated.
I move on out with the paparazzi, stepping into the bustling Miami street, just another face among many, yet utterly alone. My family's doors have slammed shut, their words echoing in my skull, branding me an outcast.
I hope one day Liam will see that this secret doesn’t just affect him but me and my family too.
Chapter forty-seven
BACK TO SCHOOL.
TONY
The blinking cursor on my laptop screen seems to mock me, a relentless reminder that my pharmacology essay isn't going to write itself. I rub my temples, trying to focus, but the words blur into an indecipherable mush of medical jargon and personal turmoil.
My fingers tremble as I fumble with the pages of my pharmacology textbook, the passage I’m referencing blurring before my eyes. The classroom is quiet except for the scratch of pens and the occasional cough, but inside my head, it's chaos.
"Tony, you coming to study group tonight?" Sarah, my classmate, peeks over the cubicle divider with hopeful eyes.
"Can't," I mutter, not meeting her gaze. "Got too much to catch up on."
She frowns slightly, concern flickering. "You've been saying that a lot lately. You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, just . . . family stuff." The words taste bitter, heavy with unspoken grief and twisted truths.
"Okay, well, if you change your mind . . . " She trails off, leaving an open invitation hanging as she retreats to her own mountain of textbooks.
I nod, unable to form words, my gaze drifting to the empty chair beside me. Mom always said education was my lifeline; now it feels like I'm drowning in it. Each paragraph I read is a battle, each chapter a war I'm losing. School used to be my sanctuary . . . not anymore. This is purgatory.
"Concentrate, Tony," I mutter to myself, forcing my attention back to the mechanisms of action, side effects, and contraindications, but it's mom's smile, her soothing voice reading bedtime stories long ago, that fills my mind, not these dry facts I need to memorize.
I miss you, Mama. I hope you found Dad and you are both very happy in Heaven.
There is no way I’m ever leaving this room. I can’t . . . I won’t. I ran away from Miami as fast as I could, thinking the scandal would be locally contained. How stupid was I! That stupid oaf of an airhead —Jeebz, caught wind of the story, and I'm the star of his Blog, Celeb Secrets.
In the quiet solitude of my room, I find myself reflecting on the unexpected turn of events my life has taken lately: the blaring headlines from the Miami Beach Sentinal, the intrusive photographs, the demoralizing captions—it's as if the entire world now has a front-row seat to my personal struggles.
It's a surreal experience, one that has made me acutely aware of the harsh scrutiny celebrities endure daily—every moment,every choice scrutinized and dissected by people who have no right to an opinion. It's disheartening to think that my private battles are now public spectacles, up for commentary by anyone who has access to a smartphone, a tabloid, or a gossip column.
I must say that until now . . . now that I am on the receiving end of the injustice, I too was a passing consumer of these unconfirmed, unproven insinuations and inuendoes. Like everybody else, I, too, would snag a rag at the grocery store checkout as I waited in line, casually and aimlessly flipping through people’s lives, absorbing the intimate details of others' misery and insecurity as if it were a mundane routine occurrence.
It hits me now—now that I am a victim—the callousness of a society that thrives on the misfortunes and vulnerabilities of others.
Until you have skin in it, you don’t realize how wide the empathy gap is. Looking at it from a victim’s perspective, I realize now how easily we’ve become passive consumers of others' misery, all in the name of entertainment and morbid curiosity. It's a harsh reality, and I wonder how many times I, too, may have unknowingly perpetuated the cycle before becoming the subject of its scrutiny.
