Mark is a steady stream in my thoughts as I concentrate on the deserted road ahead of me. Brian dips his way in and out. A Vail song crashes into my thoughts as I drive. It’s one of my old favorites, a song off their first album. I don’t belt out the words like I always do. Instead, I listen to the emotion in Mark’s voice. His songs are one of the few places where I can see him stripped raw. He allowed me to see that side of him, but he took it away as quickly as he gave it. That’s my one biggest regret in this whole thing—that we didn’t get more time together, that we only shared a few days that showed me everything we could’ve had.
I pull into my parents’ driveway a little before dinnertime after five long hours in the car. I sit in the car for a second and let the memories of the last time I was in this driveway wash over me. Mark showed up and I sat in the car with him for five hours as we returned to Vegas. Thinking back, that was basically the fuse that lit the rest of the fireworks that ensued.
As soon as my mom pulls me into a hug, the waterworks start. I can’t help it. Mom’s comforting arms always make me emotional, and after the hell I’ve been through over the past week, I needed her love. I’m at my breaking point, and time away seems like the only thing that will heal the open wounds.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice soothing. “Is it the boy?”
I draw in a shaky breath and pull out of her hug. I nod, swiping away the tears.
“Are you ready to talk about him yet?”
I think I should at this point. I didn’t come all this way to shut myself in my childhood bedroom.
She ushers me in. My dad’s head pops around the corner. He sees the tears, gives me a hello hug, and makes himself scarce. After years of raising two daughters, he’ll be the first to admit that tears are mom’s department in this house.
We plop onto the couch and I tell her everything. Well...almost everything.
I tell her how I thought I was in love with one man but started dating someone else before I was ready, fell in love with him as well, then found out they were brothers. I tell her about my trip to Los Angeles with Mark and the emergency trip to Chicago we made. I don’t give too many details, but I do mention how one of them is a celebrity, and she freaks out on me.
“Which one? The original one or the brother?” She’s squealing, and it’s only now I remember why I tend to keep my personal life private. “Who is it? Who? Who?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re losing sight of the point.”
Her eyes are all alight with excitement, and I realize this is exactly where I learned my habits of reading gossip magazines and watching entertainment news programs.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I can see in her eyes she’s itching to know, and I’m frankly shocked my sister hasn’t already told her.
“Rachel didn’t mention any of this to you?” I ask.
Her eyes widen. “Rachel knows? That little brat!”
I roll my eyes. As annoying as this entire conversation is, it still feels good to be talking to my mom and getting some of the pain off my chest.
“Again, missing the point.”
“Right. Sorry.” She nods and salutes me.
“Anyway, it turns out Brian was just using me to get back at his brother. They’re competitive when it comes to women, and I guess Mark told him he had feelings for me.”
“Brian...Brian Hutchinson?” she asks hopefully, naming one of her favorite soap opera stars.
I roll my eyes. “No.”
“Brian Williams?”
I shake my head. “It’s not Brian anybody, and you’re missing the point again.”
“Right. So it’s Mark, then? Hmm...” She taps her finger on her chin thoughtfully. “Mark the Shark?”
My brows furrow.
“The host of that fish show on Animal Planet. He’s cute.”
“Ew, Mom. No.”
“Mark...give me a hint. Is he an actor?”
I heave out an exasperated breath. “It’s Mark Ashton.”
She knows what this means. She heard the teenaged Reese talk obsessively about him with teenaged Jill. My dad took us to our first Vail concert.
Her cheeks grow pink—another trait I got from her—and her eyes nearly pop out of her head. “The cute singer you had that poster of hanging on your wall?”
I nod as I think of the poster that used to hang in my bedroom, a twenty-something heartthrob in ripped jeans and no shirt.
“The one from that reality show that was on a few years ago?”
“One and the same.”
“The one who is a known ladies’ man?” She asks that one a little softer in the event my dad is listening.
“It’s all an image his publicist paints.” I don’t mention the fact that he has slept with an awful lot of women and some of what we see is probably true.
“And you love him?”
I sigh. “I do.”
“And he loves you?”
I nod.
Her brows draw down sharply. “Then why aren’t you with him?”
“It’s complicated. He’s putting his family first and I’m respecting his wishes. Isn’t that what you do when you love someone?”
She shakes her head. “No, baby girl. When you love someone, you fight for them.”
* * *
The next day, we go shopping, Mom’s cure for everything from a common cold to heartbreak, but it doesn’t lessen the sting. Sleeping in my childhood home feels good, but I know this won’t last long.
The following day, I’m scrolling the home page on my mom’s laptop when I come across the headline in entertainment news. Vail Front Man Mark Ashton Attends Grandfather’s Funeral.
I abuse myself further by clicking the video accompanying the article.
The video begins with a wide angle shot of a large group of people walking toward the cameras through the green grass of a cemetery on a sunny day. My eyes find Mark. An array of yelling voices bursts into the shot, and I jump in the chair and scramble to turn down the volume. “Are the rumors true that you’ve fallen in love?” “Who died?” “Is she here?” “What about the woman you were spotted kissing at Sevens?” “Will you and Ethan be hitting the town tonight?”
He doesn’t address the paparazzi, simply keeps his head down. I see Brian with his arm around Diane. Paul’s on her other side. Lizzie and Dave walk a few paces behind them. In the background, I can make out Ethan, Steve, and James. Angelique and Morgan are there, too. Becker and Jill walk beside Jason. The video zooms steadily onto Mark. His grandmother’s arm is looped through his, and my heart twists. I should be there with him. I should be holding his hand, walking beside him, helping him through his grandfather’s funeral.
I watch as Vinny rushes toward the camera with his arms spread open as if to shield Mark from the photographers. “It’s a funeral, people,” he yells, his image looming larger in the camera’s field while Mark is blocked from view. “Have a little respect.” The video ends there.
Now I get it. Now I understand what Mark hates most about his job. He told me he doesn’t have any privacy, and he’s right. He told me the media paints a picture of him, and I wonder how they’ll twist the sweet images of him holding onto his grandmother at her husband’s funeral to turn him back into the rock star sex god everyone knows him as.
A burning rage fills my veins for him. I’m guilty—I’m one of the very people who has spent her time looking for these types of pictures. Oh, a private wedding on an island and there’s an exclusive photo in that magazine? Awesome. Oh, a picture of that celebrity supercouple’s first baby? Let me see. Oh, a rare photo of Mark Ashton holding his grandmother’s hand? Let me cut that one out for the scrapbook.
I’m disgusted with these people, but I’m ashamed of myself for spending so much time buying into it. This video and the accompanying photos tell the general public nothing about this man. They don’t know how kind he is, or how funny, or how he puts everyone else first. They don’t know the battles he wages inside. They don’t know how he bottles his emotions and blows them out into his music or into a quiet embrace on a rooftop. They don’t know he almost died once because of an overdose. They don’t know about the couch on his roof or the buildings that inspired his lyrics. These are the private things he allowed me to see—the things some gossip rag would never print because that’s not the rock star image his publicist paints of him.
I close my browser and stare at the blank screen for a few beats as I allow myself to really feel. I love him. I love him so much it physically hurts.
I pull out my phone and open the last message from him. I stare at the screen, debating what to say. I want to tell him I’m sorry about his grandfather’s funeral and for the paparazzi being there and for me not being there. I want to say how much I love him and what a big mistake I made taking that ticket out of town and away from him, how my heart aches without him and how I can barely function. How much I miss him and need him. I start to type all the words.
He’s the one who wanted this, not me.
Clean break, I remind myself. It’s the only possible way I’ll ever be able to get over him.
I select all my text and delete it before I do something I can’t take back. I text Lizzie for Gram’s address, and once she texts back, I send a bouquet of flowers and a note expressing my condolences.
It’s not enough. I wish I could be there, but now it’s time to live with the consequences of my actions.
* * *
“We have some news,” Rachel says. She and Ben are standing in front of my parents’ mantle, the place where we took pictures on Christmas morning as kids—even though I always wondered what the hell we needed a fireplace for in the middle of the desert. Santa Claus, I suppose, and photo opportunities.
I can guess what her news is from the glow in her eyes and the way she’s not so inconspicuously hiding her left hand behind Ben.
We all knew this was coming eventually, and I’m thrilled for my little sister.
But it’s also a stark reminder that I’ve had three failed relationships in the last year, each one progressively more heartbreaking than the last.
My mom’s cheeks burn pink with excitement as she waits for Rachel to spill the beans.
“We’re getting married!” she finally says, pulling her arm out from behind Ben’s back. She holds her hand out toward us, showing off the sparkly new diamond on her finger.
I push down the jealousy that runs through my chest and pop up from the couch. I hug my future brother-in-law first since my sister is attacked by our mother. I go through the motions, painting on a face of happiness for my sister. She deserves this—deserves to have her sister present in this moment, happy and excited for her.
When I hug Rachel, she says, “I want you to be my maid of honor.”
“Of course,” I say. “I’d be honored.”
My dad pops a bottle of champagne and my mom asks about ten thousand questions and all I can think of is Mark’s tears dripping onto my chest when we made love before I left Chicago.
“Have you thought about a date yet?” my mom asks Rachel.
“This just happened a few hours ago, so I haven’t thought about anything. But I want a long engagement. We’ve both got so much going on at work right now that we’re either eloping tomorrow or we’re planning a huge wedding in a couple years.”
“A couple years?” my mom screeches. “But what about grandbabies? Do I have to wait a couple years for grandbabies?”
Rachel looks at me and rolls her eyes, and I can’t help the giggle that bubbles out of me. It feels good to laugh with family—to be with family, to be somewhere I know I belong, a place where people want me to be here and don’t say goodbye by sending me out of town with a plane ticket.
The more I think about it, the more pissed off I become about everything—the unexplained woman at Sevens, the way Mark pushed me toward his brother, how he ended it with me over the phone while I stood in a bathroom stall at the hospital. Kicking me out before the funeral and sending me home.
What an asshole.
I drink champagne to forget about him. I ward off the tears I feel pressing hotly against my eyelids, playing them off as happy tears for my sister.
I want to talk to Rachel about everything that happened with Brian and Mark, and I will. Tonight just isn’t that night. Tonight’s for celebrating.
I head home the next day without a chance to dissect my life with my sister. I need to get ready for school, and as good as it felt to be home with family, I need to start picking up the pieces of my life and moving in a forward direction.
When I get home from the five-hour drive from my parents’ house, I check my phone. I have a new Snapchat from Jill. I click it and chuckle as I look at a picture of her lunch. Without thinking, I swipe over to the page with my friends’ stories.
The problem? I never unfollowed Mark’s account.
A new story from Mark Ashton posted just a little while ago sits waiting for me. He didn’t send it directly to me. He posted it to his story for the whole world to see.
I realize he can click one button to see who has viewed his story and my name will be among those who have, but I can’t stop myself. I tap his name and his face fills my screen.
But it’s not just his face.
There are no words, no filters, no doodles to accompany the image. Just Mark, eyes glassy and looking like he’s had a lot to drink, with his cheek against some other woman’s cheek. I’ve never seen her before. She looks nothing like me, but she’s gorgeous with her straight copper hair, dark eyes, and eyelashes I can practically grab through my screen they’re so long. She has glassy eyes like Mark and the same sort of haze only drunk people wear.
I’d like to pretend this is one of those older pictures his publicist posted for the world to see, but that’s not how Snapchat works. He took this picture with this woman today.
All I see are the faces of two people looking too cozy. For seven short seconds, the image claws at my soul. I don’t replay it—I’m not masochistic, but I consider it for a few seconds. I don’t need to see it again. The image is burned into my mind and will stay with me for a long time to come. But I still can’t bring myself to unfollow his account.