Break It Up Part 21

But her due date is days away, and she is having twins. She's already carried them longer than most women are able when they're expecting two babies at once. Now is not the time to have the media hovering like buzzards over carrion.

I make the decision on my own, and I don't ask anyone, because I know what they'd say. In my room, with my headphones on, I Google myself, and I read and I watch and I listen.

Kyra Armijo Had at Least Two Dozen Lovers Five New Ex-Boyfriends for Armijo Step Forward with More Intimate Details "Kyra and I Had s.e.x Four Times a Day"

Armijo Likes It Dirty A s.e.x Tape of a Three-Way with Armijo?

Ben is quoted everywhere, saying just what I expected-that I seduced his cousin and lied in a pathetic attempt to ingratiate myself with the band. He says that I propositioned him too and that I offered to do a vast catalogue of s.e.x acts on him.

Wonderful.

I keep reading.

I read about how I'm a manipulator and a wh.o.r.e. I read about how I supposedly slept with the whole varsity football team and every musical act that came through town. I read about how I'm to blame for the end of everyone's favorite boy band and how I deserve to burn in h.e.l.l.

I stare into the maw of the beast. The force of human nature so powerful that even Chloe quailed before it. I stare at the consequences of all the stupid decisions I ever made growing up. I stare back into the eyes of Triple Cross fans who want to murder me in cold blood. I take in the pages and pages of search engine hits with my name on them. There are four pages of video links, and I watch every single one.

I take in the fact that it is now me against the world. I am the girl everyone loves to hate, the person responsible for ending an era in the music industry.

No one blames Aidan or Rick. No one even points out that Aidan was entrusted with the band's reputation and used the opportunity to bring them down. No one even talks about him, even though he continues to supply the mob with video clips of me present while Zach and Ben fought and postured and pushed each other's b.u.t.tons.

I stay online for hours until my father knocks on my door. "Jen's going into labor," he informs me. "So we're headed to the hospital."

I look over my shoulder at his silhouette in my doorway. "You want me to stay away?" I ask. I have an image of hordes of reporters following me to a private family moment.

"Absolutely not. We want you to be a part of this." The way he says it, with that steely stance of his, lets me know that he and Jen are of one mind about this. Forget the stupid media with their agenda. Forget all the awfulness out there. Our family's stronger than that.

"You guys go ahead. I'll distract the photographers."

"Kyra-"

"Go, Papa. Your wife's in labor." I sidle past him and march down the hall. All right, media sharks, I think. Come take the bait. I get out my cell phone and throw open the front door to the crowd of photographers. Feigning surprise and shock, I look around as if out of places to hide. Let them think I'm having a traumatic conversation and am trapped, unable to get away from my house or the media. "Go away," I cry, half hysterical. That I don't have to fake. The images of all the nasty words that have been written about me are burned into my retinas. "Just go away, all right?" A tear runs down my cheek. My drama teacher would be so impressed.

"Who's on the phone?" a voice shouts.

"Are you talking to Zach Wechsler?"

The hot desert sun beats down, merciless as always. I put my hand up to s.h.i.+eld my face and say into my phone, "Just...can we talk? Please?" I hope that it doesn't ring and give away the fact that I'm faking this.

To my right, the garage door rumbles open and my father's truck reverses out. Jen sits hunched over in the pa.s.senger seat. The two of them wave at me as they zoom down the driveway into the street, and then are away.

"Oh my gosh," I say into my phone. "You're naked right now? Send a picture. I wanna see."

But the game is up. The ma.s.s of cameras and microphone-wielding reporters turn and watch my father's truck drive off, weaving past all the cars parked alongside the road.

"You got a tattoo where?" I go on. "Down there? What's it say? Oh, you're going to tweet it? All right. No, not your secret pet name for me!"

"Very funny," says one of the reporters. He chuckles and a ripple of laughter moves through the crowd.

I take my phone away from my ear and stand up straight. "Listen, that's about as exciting as it's gonna get around here." I step back and slam the door, moving fast enough that not even the most obnoxious paps can try to brace it open and hara.s.s me.

It's a small victory, but I'll take it. Boots, the cat, peers out from his cardboard box on the floor. Dare I believe that dismissive look he gives me has a measure of respect to it?

THE PAPARAZZI all tail me to the hospital, of course. I drive around the city to three hospitals just to be annoying, but they end up at Presbyterian with me, trailing along like a convoy of baby ducks following the big, red mother duck, Libby. I hate them. I hate them all.

The APD meets me at the entrance, though, and they form a wall of uniforms and muscle between me and the cameras. Wow, what a waste of their resources. My guilt edges up another notch.

And once I'm inside the air-conditioned interior of the hospital, with its industrial tile floors and tessellated foam tile ceiling, everyone stares, and I do mean everyone. Nurses in scrubs, patients in wheelchairs, families waiting with small children (some of whom point). So many times in high school I thought everyone was looking at me. Turns out I was wrong. It never felt anything like this. Every comforting thought I told myself about how not everyone reads the papers flees my mind. The world knows. Mothers are telling the story to their babies in cradles. I'm not just a bad media moment. I'm history.

"Kyra Armijo?" says a woman in scrubs with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. "Here. Come on." She gestures me to follow her and I do. Her shoes squeak against the floor while mine clop like horse hooves. I'm sure everyone's eyeing the length of my skirt and the way I move my hips, which makes it hard for me to walk. I'm sure I look like a marionette whose puppeteer is having a coughing fit by the time I get all the way to our destination, which turns out to be a staff room where Jason waits, seated on a couch, his phone to his ear. Now we're displacing the staff.

I scoot into the room and deposit myself on the couch next to him. He waves absent-mindedly while he tells the person on the phone, "I can't commit to that many episodes and the producers know it. Why'd they change the contract after they subbed it to you? Well, it's stupid. I'm not gonna... Uh-huh..." He shuts his eyes and leans back. "Greeeaaat. That's just fantastic."

At least he doesn't stare at me like I'm walking around naked, prost.i.tuting myself. His iPad is balanced on his knee and I realize I forgot my phone at home. I'm clearly losing it. I reach over to snag it and he puts a hand on my arm. "Sec," he says into the phone. Then he turns to me. "Google yourself and I will beat you senseless. We clear?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." He resumes his phone conversation while I swipe the iPad with no real plan for what I'm going to do with it.

The screen lights up when I touch it with my finger and I find he's got his Kindle app displayed. On the page, he's highlighted the following words: "Love ain't boxing. At least it shouldn't be. To love, you need to both lower your hands and stand there, completely vulnerable, easily damaged, both believing with all your hearts that the other person could never, would never, hurt you. And then they hurt you. And you hurt them."

Yeah, that's a good hook. I navigate to the beginning of the book and see it's called Bachelor Number One by some guy with a name I don't dare try to p.r.o.nounce-Mishka Shubaly. While Jason yammers on with his agent or whomever he's on the phone with, I read what turns out to be a short nonfiction piece about a guy who gets an offer to be on a dating reality television show. The author is a recovering drug addict who says stuff like, "I decided I would apply the same logic to this idiotic dating reality show that I had used when I elected to smoke crack: Why not? I've tried everything else."

I laugh, even though I know it's sick. I can relate to this. Oh, and this guy's in a rock band too. This is so not something I should read. Googling myself might be safer.

Fifty percent of the way in, another highlighted pa.s.sage hits me like a knuckle punch to the gut. "...having done every filthy, hedonistic, rock'n'roll thing I can think of, my wildest s.e.xual fantasy now involves having s.e.x with a woman I love in a decent hotel room with a big bed with clean white sheets with a door that locks. That's it. No gaggle of national cheerleading champions, no pink furry handcuffs, no exotic locations, definitely no toys or accessories, no champagne gla.s.s-shaped hot tub, not even any champagne, in fact, no artificial ingredients of any kind: just one man, one woman, one big clean bed, privacy, and clear and present love. That's it. Pretty boring, huh? I think it sounds like heaven."

Yeah, definitely heaven. It's only when I pause to wipe my eyes that I notice Jason's off the phone, staring at me.

"Did you plant this so I'd find it?" I ask, holding up his iPad.

"Um. No." He swipes it back. "It's one of my favorite books. Not something I read and thought, 'Gee, I'll share this with my eighteen-year-old niece, because that isn't creepy at all.' Especially that part about his ideal s.e.x fantasy." His face is red as he shuts down his Kindle reader and switches his iPad off.

I stare at Jason as a moment of realization hits me so hard that I feel knocked out of reality for a second. The room turns to dream haze and Jason's discomfort is like something I'm watching on a television through the gla.s.s window of an appliance store from across the street. I literally need to rub my eyes and shake my head to come back to the here and now.

"That how you felt when you met Chloe?" I ask. "That you'd done every stupid-"

"Yep."

I knew Jason had a reputation as a party animal in Hollywood, especially when he was younger, and he sure was in the tabloids all the time.

He looks sidelong at my face, catches my expression, and his posture softens. He turns towards me. "You and Zach. That was real, wasn't it?"

I shrug. "For me it was."

"What's he think about all this?"

"He won't even answer a text." I've already cried too many tears over this, so I force myself to pull it together.

"Ouch."

"Yeah..." Don't cry, I think. Do. Not. Cry. "So what did Chloe think of your past?" Chloe, the introverted virgin who didn't even watch Jason's movies.

He shrugs. "Well, I guess you could say we're still dealing with all that. It's not like it's one problem. It creates new problems all the time. Like with this whole cheating accusation scandal, thing. I don't think she'd have thought twice about it if it weren't for my past."

"Did she think you'd cheated on her?"

His gaze is uneasy, as if he's afraid I'm about to punch him. "She doubted me a little, which was the worst feeling ever. I love her so much, and here she thought I might do something like that."

"But she's okay now?"

"Yeah, well...I'm luckier than I deserve to be."

"You are not." The words come out with more heat than I expect.

He raises an eyebrow, surprised.

"You're good to her. You'd do anything for her. n.o.body loves her like you do."

Jason eyes me up and down before he puts a hand on my shoulder. "I knew, okay? When I was s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around, I knew that what I was doing was the exact opposite of what any of the guys in my family would have done. I was arrogant and I thought I could just switch over to being the nice, committed, family guy at any time. You're in kinda a different situation."

"Because my parents' marriage is weaker than yours was?"

He takes a moment to process that. "Your dad and Jen's marriage, you mean?"

"Yeah, okay, so she's not my mother..." Hot tears pool in my eyes.

"No, hey, that's not how I meant it. I'm just trying to keep straight who you're talking about. Jen would love to hear you call her your parent, okay? She'd probably forget to torture me for, like, five whole minutes she'd be so happy. I'm not making judgments about Kyle and Jen. I meant...you got abandoned by your own mother. I don't know the story there, like, not any of it, but that's gotta affect you. I'd be so messed up if that happened to me. I know I'm way needier than you are, but still."

"That would be a lame excuse for what I did in high school. My dad and Jen were married the whole time."

"Sure, but Jen's...listen, we never ever thought of you as an outsider. Once you are in the family, you're in. You can't get rid of us. We all have baby pictures of you and that's how it is, but I know we're a little different than your birth mother's family."

"You mean because of the race thing?"

"Whatever. Mixing families, it's not easy. And while you were dealing with all that stuff, we loved you but we didn't know how to help you."

"I knew that sleeping with half my school was stupid. I guess I just thought the happily ever after thing wouldn't be my bag anyway."

"Okay, that's...yeah. Well...maybe we aren't so different after all. I thought it wouldn't happen for me either so it was, you know, not worth trying for sometimes."

"Right."

"But then I decided being alone was better than doing any of that stuff. Sleeping around and all that. It's like..." He hefts his iPad. "Like what Mishka however-you-say-his-last-name says. I wasn't wired that way, and a lot of us aren't. At the end of it all, you just want something real."

I nod.

"So what happened with Zach?"

The tears that have been threatening to fall spill over and I dab them away with my fingertips. "We didn't even sleep together. It was like he was my best friend and every kiss was...so intense that we had to pace ourselves."

Jason pulls me in for a rough hug and I lean against his muscular chest. My friends may think of him as the ultimate s.e.x G.o.d, but to me, he really is just family. I can ugly cry in front of him. "You want me to see if I can track him down? Get you one last conversation? He owes you that."

I shake my head. "I'm doing this the normal person way. Not the Hollywood princess way."

"I hear that."

"It's my fault. I didn't tell him about my past."

Jason rubs my shoulder. "It's kind of hard to find a good time for that, you know? 'Hey, I like you. I've screwed more people than are in this room. So what's up? You want to hang out sometime?'"

I laugh. "Pretty much."

"Yeah..."

"At least Chloe already knew, thanks to the media. And hey, every person I could possibly ever date knows too. Upside?" I say.

"Chloe didn't know because she never read that stuff until a friend of hers got a bunch of articles about me and made her read them. This was after...before we got together, but after we'd met. When I was basically texting and calling her all the time, trying to get her to give me the time of day."

"Oh."

"Yeah. It wasn't fun."

"What did she do?"

"Umm..." He heaves a sigh, my head still on his shoulder. "She said she didn't care because I was 'just a friend.'"

"Ouch."

"I know. I broke down, like, a week later and told her I loved her, and she said no thanks."

"I know. When you came to our house to cry about it afterwards, I was listening in the hall."

"What?"

I shrug.

"I'd have totally done the same thing," he says.

"Yeah."

"But I still hate you for it. How embarra.s.sing."

"Nah," I say, "it was sweet. And Chloe was cool. I've always liked her. I tried to, like, talk to her and stuff so she wouldn't just forget about you. I don't think it helped, but I tried. And when you guys finally were dating, I tried not to be the most awful person ever when she was around. I failed, but I tried."

"That's what that was about then. You shaping up the moment Chloe walked into any situation."

Now it's my turn to shrug. "I know it didn't help much."