Sophia
"Why didn’t you tell me? You are all such lying bastards." A dark rage burns through my veins faster than any drug I’ve ever taken. "That’s why you got Blake back." This hurts so much. For some ridiculous reason I convinced myself he came back because I was in rehab and needed help. Because he cared.
He is just the hired help after all.
And I’m the same childish fool I’ve always been.
"Forget Blake, Sophia." Erica pours a gin into a large balloon glass, oblivious to the shakes and sweat transforming me into a pile of pathetic skin and bone. "It’s just a fanatic, trying to goad you."
"Why did you ask him to come back?" I refuse to allow her to evade my questioning. I step up, one wobbling foot in front of the other. My trainers land on the plush carpet of the living room. Nothing about this place is like a home—it hasn’t been for a long time.
"You were a mess. I knew he would keep you straight, especially if you were under threat."
"Why? How did you know that?" Something is being held back, a truth that’s still being kept from me. "How did you know he would come back if I was under threat?" I repeat myself, a steely edge hardening my question.
Erica snorts and swigs at her straight gin, gulping it down. The heady scent of juniper berries hits me from across the room, bitter and cloying with a hint of sweet under the surface. It’s a miracle I could smell anything other than weed. My palms slick at the thought of all that weed and the way it hit the back of my throat, making me crave a hit. Need a hit. I swallow, refusing to allow the craving to rise to the surface. "Don’t be naïve, Sophia. Everyone knew he had immoral feelings for you."
I stare at her. Her words hit my ears but I can’t process them. "Immoral feelings? What do you mean?"
Erica sneers, her top lip curling. "He was in love with you and he knew he shouldn’t have been."
"No, he wasn’t."
Her mouth falls open, "Oh my goodness, you didn’t even know?"
I want to tell her to shut her damn face. But then I also want to know what she thought was happening all those years ago.
"Didn’t you notice him being overprotective?" She’s warming up now, her face animated, hands flying as they gesticulate. "And what he did to poor Johnny, beating him like that, he was lucky he wasn’t sued." She pauses. "We were lucky we weren’t sued."
My head shakes in denial faster than it ever has before. My brain reeling until it’s scrambled. "He was just protecting me from making a mistake I’d regret."
Erica laughs. "Or he was pathetically jealous."
My entire perception of the last ten years twists on the head of a pin.
"But you rehired him?"
Erica laughs, a bitter chuckle that resonates in the crystal glass held to her lips. "Because I was bloody desperate. You were off the edge and I didn’t know why." The way she finishes the sentence jangles in my ears, ringing a bell making me think faster, harder, until finally it makes sense and my eyes shutter closed.
Everything slots into place. In one bolting moment of clarity it all makes sense. She’s lying. She knew exactly why I was off the edge so she’d played her trump card and brought back the person who’d sent me off it in the first place. The only person I’ve ever cared about. The only person I ever listened too.
"The letters, the threat that brought Blake back. Are they real or did you make them up, so he’d come back and fill my pathetic little existence with happiness again?"
Nothing would surprise me about this woman. Nothing.
The rigid expression of her face softens as much as the botox will allow and she shakes her head. "No, they are real. They started after the press broke the first story about your," she coughs, "problems."
Problems? That’s all my desperate addiction and cry for help is to her. A problem.
"Do you even love me at all?" It’s a simple question when I state it like that. I should have asked it years before.
"Don’t be so dramatic. If you’d put that much effort into your acting today, that shoot wouldn’t have taken so long."
Is this woman for real? What part of our dysfunctional situation is the truth? Does she even know the truth anymore?
I spin, turning away. My head can’t deal this. The show-home glares back at me, a mocking mirror of all the things Erica has made me work for. My own home, my secluded haven has been violated while she stayed here—safe.
My brain reels, words spinning. He was in love with me? He couldn’t have been. I’d offered myself to him, shown him how much I needed him and he’d forcibly declined. It was my lowest moment; the moment Blake Henderson had lifted me off his lap and said in plain words he didn’t want me.
Had he lied? Or is Erica lying now?
"I can’t carry on." It’s a low whisper but I shout it from my heart.
Erica steps up, her face a furious mask beneath the stiffness of surgery. "You will carry on." Her lips fold into a sneer. "Because if you don’t, this," her hand waves at the house. "This will all be over."
"I just need a little time, it’s all too much. I’m not ready." A wobble underlines my words and I hate it.
"No, Sophia, there is no time. If you don’t film this movie, then they will let you go, there will be a fine, and that next movie, the one that keeps you at the top, will go to someone else, someone like bloody Charlotte, who doesn’t have half the talent you do."
I reel back. "Is this about talent or about fame?"
"Who cares, Sophia? You don’t get the luxury of being on a moral high ground."
A simmering volcano threatens to erupt within my chest. "Do you even know anything about morals?" I nearly scream, my face floods with heat. "You are so twisted, you can’t see anything true anymore. This town has ruined us, Mum, look at us." I hold my shaking hands towards her. If she noticed I just called her mum for the first time in years, she doesn’t let it show.
"Grow up, Sophia." She turns away, our conversation over.
I watch her shoulders, waiting to see evidence of remorse settle in the stoop of her posture, but nothing happens. "What’s more important, Erica? Your daughter, or fame?"
She turns, her expression a smooth mask. "They both go together."
My throat tightens and I run. Where I’m running to I don’t know, just away from the liars, the people who want to keep me a puppet on a string, the people who can’t be honest.
All I want is release, freedom, and I know the only way I’m going to get it.
I grab my phone, the one Blake unlocked, and dial a number I know from memory.
"Johnny, it’s me."
A chuckle filters down the line. "Sunshine, I knew you’d call, eventually."
Twenty minutes later his silver car pulls up at the steps of the mansion and I run for the open passenger door.
I thought maybe Blake would arrive to stop me, but he hasn’t. He lied too and I don’t know if I can trust him again. He lied back then, all those years ago, and he’s lied now.
"Where to?" Johnny grins at me, his fair hair flopping in his eyes. His body is encased in a blue shirt and dark navy jeans. He’s all immaculately groomed. It hides the darker side under the surface.
"I don’t care."
He laughs, throwing his head back and slamming his foot on the gas. "Let’s watch the sun come up, Sunshine."
I close my eyes and drop my head onto the headrest. I don’t care.
* * *
"Do you think he loved me?" I roll onto my belly trying to find Johnny but he’s all blurred, his outline wavering and shimmering as if I’m looking at him through smoky glass.
"Who gives a fuck, he’s the bloody bodyguard." Johnny’s lips trail up my throat. I should bash him away. I know we’ve gone there before—there is something dark and sinister at the end of the memory—but try as I might I can’t remember what it is.
It can’t be anything to worry about. It’s just Johnny. Johnny’s always fun.
Was he?
Dragging hard on the blunt, I fill my lungs. It’s so good. Every toke lifts my body, releasing it from the cares and worries tethering me to the ground. Who wants to be grounded? It’s boring on the ground, too many worries. Too many things holding me back from what I want.
What do I want?
Blake…
But Blake lied, he’s just like everyone else.
"I just want to get high." I announce, giggling with my revelation. Johnny shifts against me, his lips crushing clumsily onto my mouth. He’s always trying to kiss me, he’s like a frog. I giggle again.
A kissing frog.
Laughing, I roll away sliding across the grass. The stars are dancing, it’s a frigging disco up there. I could dance but then I’d have to find my legs and I don’t know where I put them. I lost them.
"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny?" I laugh again. "Did you even go to rehab?" That’s so Johnny, he’s such a douche. Fancy not managing ninety days sober. "I did it. They gave me a coin."
Johnny straddles me, his knees digging into my hips. "You can keep your coin, you can’t tell me this isn’t more fun."
"It’s very shiny though." I dodge his lips but he holds my face still and probes my mouth with his tongue. Kissing’s boring, but I let him do it.
"I’ll give you something shiny, look at this." Keeping his knees firmly wedged into my side, Johnny reaches into his back pocket, pulling a foil packet out. It looks like a condom, and a flash of a memory flickers to the surface but I shake it away.
"This stuff is amazing. Come on, it’ll make filming much better in… wait for it…" He holds his index finger up and glances at his watch, "two hours." He laughs again. It is quite funny. The make-up girls hate it when we’ve been up all night.
"Why don’t you go out with Charlie?" I ask.
His mouth is back on mine again, panting and hot. "Why would I want Charlie when I have the queen at my fingertips?" His own fingers graze under my top, skimming the surface of my skin and I know I should bash them away but I can’t summon the energy.
He yanks at my top, lifting it over my head. "Johnny, don’t. I’m going to get cold."
We’re outside, I think. But when I look up there is nothing there. The disco has closed for the night—it must be really late. I blink trying to focus.
"I won’t let you get cold. Come on, Fee, you know I’m good." His fingers tug on my jeans, levering them down my hips and I reach for my wrist. I’m expecting a bracelet, there should be something there. A connection. It leads me to something… I just can’t remember what.