8
BE KIND. ALWAYS
Tessa lay in her darkened bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. It was almost midnight, but she knew she wouldn’t get much sleep tonight. Her sleep schedule was completely out of whack—one of the lovely side effects of staying cooped up inside twenty-four hours a day. She hadn’t seen the sun in weeks.
Circadian rhythms were the least of her problems though. She’d taken a dose of her anxiety meds, but she still felt the grip of barely suppressed panic weighing on her. She could see the ugly messages every time she closed her eyes, like they were imprinted on the inside of her eyelids.
Taylor: You know what kind of animal Eric Thorn would see, if he ever noticed you existed?
Eric. Eric Thorn. Eric one…Eric two…Eric three…
It was no use. Breathing exercises had their limits. Tessa rolled over in bed and reached for her phone. She knew she shouldn’t look at that DM thread again but, honestly, what difference did it make? She couldn’t stop thinking about it. She’d probably spend the next month dissecting every word.
She should be proud of herself, right? She handled herself well. Someone had come after her, and she’d stood her ground. She’d fought off her attacker. She didn’t turn and flee. Not like she had in June…
Tessa brushed a hand in front of her face to shoo away the memory. She didn’t want to face it. Not yet. Probably not ever. Better to obsess over this Twitter conversation, as awful as it was.
She lowered her eyes to the Tumblr quote that marked the end of the thread. Something about it kept bugging her. Maybe it was those three words at the end:
Be Kind. Always.
Not: Be Kind. Sometimes.
Not: Be kind. Unless the other person is mean to you first.
That was what bothered her most, she realized. Not that she’d been attacked, but that she’d struck back. She’d been so busy defending herself that she hadn’t even stopped to think why the other girl might be coming after her. Everyone you meet is fighting a battle… What kind of battle was Taylor fighting to make her act that way? She might be dealing with mental health issues of her own. Maybe undiagnosed, untreated. Maybe she just needed to talk to someone.
Tessa closed her eyes for a moment, and the panicky tension in her chest loosened its grip. She’d gotten to the bottom of it. She knew what she needed to do.
The DM thread stood open on her phone. With a resolute nod, Tessa entered one more message.
• • •
Eric slouched down in the backseat of the limo and rubbed his bleary eyes. The car ride from the poultry farm back to the hotel would take a little over an hour. He should probably grab some extra shut-eye, but he had a feeling that sleep wouldn’t come easy. Not after the hellish day he’d had.
He’d been on edge all day, waiting for his publicists to find out about his morning Twitter escapade. By some miracle, his selfie slipped by them unnoticed. They must have written it off as a fan’s twisted Photoshop edit—no different from the usual crude filth they tweeted about him all day long.
Eric tried to summon some righteous indignation, but he knew it was pointless. He couldn’t blame the sick feeling in his stomach on anyone but himself.
He gazed through the limo window at the darkened landscape passing by, but his mind remained fixed on the topic that had occupied his thoughts all day. Bits and pieces of that DM conversation kept coming back to him. He couldn’t shake the memory or the ever-deepening sense that he’d done wrong.
Eric scrubbed a palm down the length of his face, trying to force his mind onto some less depressing train of thought. Maybe he should call someone, he thought. Maybe his parents? He hadn’t talked to them all week. Maybe it would help, just to hear familiar voices.
Not that he could tell them how he really felt deep down. They always changed the subject whenever the conversation turned to darker thoughts. They only saw the concert lights—the dazzling glitz and glamour—and the money rolling into the bank. He knew what he would hear if he tried talking to them now: his father’s voice, full of laughter. “Champagne problems.” And then his mother would remind him how a solid eight hours of sleep always made everything better in the morning.
Eric sighed. His parents didn’t get it. Maury didn’t get it. No one got it. Eric could talk until he was blue in the face, but no one ever listened to a single word he said.
Angry tears pricked his eyes, and Eric rubbed them away harshly with the backs of his hands. He met eyes for a fleeting moment with the limo driver, who was watching him in the rearview mirror. Something about the man’s unblinking stare creeped Eric out. He pressed the button to close the privacy barrier as he reached into his pocket for his phone.
Eric scanned the list of contacts, but he didn’t place a call. His finger moved to open Twitter instead, and he sucked in his breath with a hiss when he saw the username:
@EricThornSucks
He hadn’t bothered to switch back to his real account when he abruptly closed the app this morning. He’d missed that fangirl’s final words to him: one of those tidbits of holier-than-thou Tumblr wisdom.
Eric groaned as he read it. Not because it was preachy—although it was. Preachy as hell. But because he couldn’t imagine any words better designed to make him hate himself. Fighting a battle… This girl could have some battle of her own going on for all he knew. She hadn’t spelled it out. It could be anything, really. She could have terminal cancer.
And he’d attacked her.
What was wrong with him? Here he was, consumed with fear that some random stranger might come after him—and he’d turned around and done the same thing to someone else. He’d slipped into attack mode so easily. It was just Twitter after all. Just words. Not real.
But that was a real person on the other end, wasn’t it? A real person who obviously wasn’t as mindless as he’d painted her to be. She seemed like she might have half a brain, actually. “Projection,” she’d said. “You should look it up sometime.”
Maybe he should, he thought. Maybe that was his penance. Go look up projection like she said, and maybe then he’d feel less horrible about himself.
He entered the word into his phone and pulled up a Wikipedia page.
Projection
A psychological phenomenon first described by Sigmund Freud, in which the individual denies his or her own negative qualities while ascribing them to others.
Eric could already feel his eyes glazing over after the first sentence. He’d never had much patience for homework. He hadn’t even bothered finishing high school. Once he had his record deal, there hadn’t seemed much point.
He skimmed farther down the page.
Examples include:
Blaming the victim…
Justifying infidelity…
Bullying…
Something caught in his chest when his eyes fell on that last word: bullying. He forced himself to click on the detailed explanation.
Bullying: The classic bully engages in activities that target the weakness of others as a projection of his or her own sense of personal insecurity or vulnerability.
Eric winced. There it was on Wikipedia—exactly what he’d done. He’d been feeling vulnerable for weeks, ever since the details started to emerge about the Cromwell case. And the label’s reaction, or lack thereof, had only added to his growing sense of powerlessness. He had absolutely no control over his life. That was what had made him so angry that morning. And he’d taken it out on that girl. The classic bully. He couldn’t deny how well the label fit. Apparently, he was a textbook case.
Eric squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. He knew what he had to do.
No more angry hate-tweeting, for one thing. He needed to deactivate this fake account and find a healthier way of dealing with his demons. Like maybe talking to someone. Someone who would actually listen and try to understand. Not Maury. Not his parents. Not his personal trainer or his hairdresser or his limo driver, who were all on the record-label payroll. Not his old friends from back home either, whose interactions with him now were always tinged with jealousy. There had to be someone somewhere on this planet without a hidden agenda. Someone who would listen.
But first he owed @TessaHeartsEric an apology. Plain and simple.
Eric began to type a DM into the message bar when something else flashed onto his screen. A new message had been added at the end of the thread.
He blinked, confused. Had he hit Send by accident?
No, it wasn’t from him.
She must have DM’ed him something else just now. He ran his eyes across the words:
Tessa H: I don’t know what kind of battle you’re dealing with, but if you ever want to talk for real, just let me know.
Eric felt a fresh wave of shame buffet him. She wasn’t what he’d expected, was she? To reach out like that after the way he attacked her? To a total stranger on Twitter?
He finished his message and hit Send.
Taylor: I’m sorry for what I said. I’ve been having a rough time, and I took it out on you. I feel horrible. You didn’t deserve it. I’m so sorry.
Her reply popped back a moment later.
Tessa H: It’s OK. I get it.
Tessa H: Do you want to talk about it?
Eric looked away from the phone. He fiddled idly with the limo’s seat temperature buttons as he considered his next move. He’d made his apology. Now he should end the conversation. Close the account. Destroy the evidence. The consequences could be devastating if the wrong person ever found it.
But it was just so tempting…
It was perfect, really—the answer to a prayer he didn’t even know he’d made. She didn’t know anything about him. An egg: that’s all he was to her. And she was offering to talk, one human being to another, with no other motive than pure kindness.
Just one little conversation, he thought. One innocent little heart-to-heart. He could deactivate in the morning.
Tessa H: Are you there?
“What harm could it do?” he whispered to himself as he entered his reply.
Taylor: Yeah, I’m here. Let’s talk.