When I decided to fake my own death, I knew it was a drastic choice.

But sometimes drastic situations call for exactly that.

Drastic, irreversible measures.

For a long-ass time, my life hasn’t been mine. And after the scandal broke out at the Fuck Club, I knew that the person I allowed myself to become was no longer the person I wanted to be.

Maybe it makes me sound like a selfish bastard. Maybe I should have drawn hard lines in the sand that I could abide by.

But I know my strengths. I also know my fucking weakness.

I’ve always been a sucker for attention, a sucker for accolades from people who mean nothing to me.

And I had let those very people dictate my life. The only solace here is, I’ll never have to take shit from them again. I’m dead, after all.

My hand’s on the wheel of the car I bought with cash. The windows are down in this classic Chevrolet, and there’s nothing in front of me besides wide-open land.

I just keep driving east. Because if I drove west, I’d be in the Pacific Ocean. Which is the very place my family and friends think I am. Dead on arrival.

But I don’t really care what my family thinks right now.

My parents have as much to do with this—my death—as anyone else.

And I can’t let anyone know that—ever. Ever. The only way I could face their truth is by killing myself. They knew it and I knew it.

No one else ever needs to.

I exhale, trying to get rid of the feelings of regret that have been tearing me up inside. Maybe I’m a selfish motherfucker. What kind of man allows his friends to believe he’s dead when he’s not?

A man who’s desperate, that’s what kind.

My family has put Cal through enough shit.... Being friends with me is only going to cause him more pain.

I pull in to a gas station, needing to refuel so I can keep driving through the night. As I step out of the car and stretch my legs, I run my hands over my beard. What was scruff a week ago is now the beginnings of a full beard and has helped with my disguise.

I reach into the passenger seat for my trucker cap and pull it on low. With my jeans and plain white T-shirt, no one is going to identify me as the Hollywood celebrity, Sawyer Bennett. Especially now that everyone on Earth thinks I’m dead.

With my fake ID, a trunk full of cash and an offshore bank account, I don’t need anyone or anything.

That gives me a hell of a lot of freedom.... The only problem? I don’t know where the fuck I want to go.

In the gas station, I pay for a Red Bull and shitty food that’s warmed by heat lamps. Before I go, I see a copy of the latest issue of Exposé.

Motherfucker.

My face is on the front of it.

Despite the fact that it is everything I hate, I find myself reaching for the magazine, lowering my eyes as I do, and handing the cashier a five-dollar bill.

* * *

I drive all night, sleep the morning away at a rest stop, and then keep driving. I’m in the fucking middle of nowhere, and if I was trying to leave the past behind, I’d say I goddamn have.

My eyes keeps shifting to the damn magazine beside me, and I tell myself I won’t cave in and read it, even though I want to know what has been said about me.

Is this sick? A fucking twisted game? I don’t know.

But my best friend, Cal, has already been through the wringer. He watched his parents die because of the fucked-up town we were raised in. I can’t let the same thing happen to me.

And I knew I was spinning out of control.

Dating Sondra. Agreeing to shitty movies I didn’t care about. Signing on to product placements that I didn’t vouch for. Everything about me had become a fucking advertisement and I didn’t want what I was selling.

I had lost myself.

It’s better this way. The studios owned me while I was alive but they can’t own me in death.

It felt like the only goddamn way out.

If Cal knew the truth, it would tear him up.

Which is why he’ll never know. The truth of my parents will wreck him more than it has hurt me.

Which is why I keep driving.

Which is why I feel like a fucking monster, tormented by demons of my own making.

I want more, but I fucking lost the man I was.

Sawyer is dead.

And the truth is, I don’t know what’s left.