Chapter One
Amelia
“I am standing in front of Tenpoint Bridge, where beloved 15-year-old child star Skylar DeGray, best known for her roles in Red Fame, The Honorable Tennyson, and Forty-One Nights in Persia, was involved in a horrible accident that took her life, along with the life of her manager, Jeremy Lowe, at 4:00 p.m. last night. As you can see behind me, fans of DeGray have already started to leave candles, teddy bears and flowers for the child star, who just last week was awarded was awarded Young Actress of the Year by the Screen Actors Guild. This morning, police officers are still unsure of what caused the accident—”
“That’s enough,” Noah whispered, closing the laptop in front of me. “Get up, Amelia.”
But it wasn’t enough, and I could barely move anymore. My eyes burned so badly from my own tears, yet I still couldn’t stop them from falling. The only proof that I was alive, that this wasn’t some horrid nightmare, was hearing my own heartbeat drumming away in my ears. I was petrified of my own thoughts at this point. I felt as though the world would crumble at my feet the moment I stood.
For sixteen years, I’d given up any sense of freedom for one person—my mother—so that she would be proud.
No matter how disappointed she made me, no matter how badly she pushed me, I still loved her. When other kids were suing their parents or cutting them off, I held on to her. Why? Because she was my mom. She was never perfect; in fact, she was down right selfish, pushy, and sometimes just plain delusional. But I never once thought she didn’t love me. I always told myself that she had so many issues in her own life that it was hard for her to be there for me all the time. That it wasn’t her fault.
I never blamed her, and I should have. I fucking should have.
Why was I like this? Why did I always hold on to people like this? In the end, I was the one left hurt.
“Amelia.” He pressed his hands on my cheeks, forcing me to stare into his blue-green eyes. “Talk to me, please.”
With his thumb, he wiped my tears, even though it was useless. They just kept coming. It felt like someone was tearing out my heart. Of all the secrets I thought he was keeping from me, never in my wildest dreams did I think it would be this. My mother was one thing, but he was another altogether. For years, I’d tried to hate him. I blamed him. Every time he was in the press, I wished he’d hurt just as much as I did. Yet all along, he had been carrying all of this on his shoulders for the both of us.
Amelia London, you are so stupid. You’re such a fucking idiot!
Noah, sensing that I was berating myself, said, “I know you are in pain. Believe me, I understand, more than anyone. I also know that you shouldn’t suffer alone. It only makes it so much worse. So talk to me.”
If he knew that, if he knew I shouldn’t suffer alone, why did he allow himself to?
Because he loved me.
“My mother is a murderer.” I finally said the words aloud. “She murdered my friend. She always forced you away from me. She’s lied to me and used me all of my life. My family is a fake. Everything about me is fake: what I do, what I believe, those around me. It’s all fake. What can I possibly say, Noah?”
“Don’t insult me like that,” he said, frowning, his hands still caressing my face, “because I’m not fake. I’m right here in front of you, being as real as I have ever been in my whole life. How I feel about you—the fact that I love you, the fact that I have always loved you—is not fake, Amelia.”
“I don’t know what to do, Noah.” He had just told me that I was in danger, that his father would hurt me. There was doubt in my mind that if it came down to saving herself or saving me, my mother would always choose herself. I couldn’t bring myself to just forget. Once Pandora’s Box is opened, there is no closing it. “She can’t get away with this. I…we need to tell…” I stammered.
“Amelia, I need you to listen to me,” he said seriously. His lips formed a thin line, and even his shoulders tensed. “We aren’t going to say anything. We did not commit a crime—”
“Not reporting a crime is just as bad as committing one. We were kids. I know we will make it out—”
“Amelia!” he yelled, releasing his hands from me. He backed away, took a deep breath, and shook his head before calmly speaking again. “Amelia, I need you to trust me. I’ve kept my mouth shut for one reason and one reason alone: you. If anything were to happen to you, I…I don’t know what I would do.”
Skylar DeGray was one of my only friends growing up. She was a year younger than me, with a mass of curly brown hair and deep brown eyes. She used to follow me around the set during break. She was like my own little sister. Everyone thought we didn’t get along, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Back then, our managers told us to pretend to fight in public to stay in the headlines. Our fights were huge and always so hilarious to us, because we could not believe how anyone could believe them.
When she died only days after Noah and I broke up, I honestly wanted to kill myself because I felt so alone. I remember sitting on my bathroom floor with only a towel around me and holding my mother’s bottle of Valium. If my sister, Antigone, hadn’t knocked on the door, I don’t know what would have happened.
That was a lie. If Antigone hadn’t knocked, I would have killed myself.
That pain—all of it was my mother’s fault, and she just let me suffer through it.
“She can’t get away with this, Noah,” I said. I wouldn’t let her.
“She won’t. Neither will my father,” he assured me. Sitting beside me, he took my hands into his. “I’m not asking you to let this go. I’m asking you not say anything—not now.”
When I glanced over at him, he squeezed my hand tighter, reassuring me.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
Noah shrugged. “We do what we’re good at—acting. We go to work, apologize for missing shooting today, and keep going as if nothing happened until we can prove it without destroying ourselves in the process. You’ve worked so hard for so long. There’s no way in hell I’m letting your mother take that away too.”
There he went again, caring only about me as if he didn’t work just as I did, as if he didn’t suffer just as much as I did.
Lifting our hands, I squeezed as tightly as I could.
“Noah,” I said.
“Yeah?”
I smiled and said, “It’s you and me again. We’re back in that tree.” Despite everything, with him, I could always smile.
He kissed the back of my hand. “There is nowhere o
n earth I would rather be.”
I had no clue what the hell was coming in the future or how we were going to get over this. But what I did know is that I loved and trusted him, and I wasn’t going to let anyone get between us again.
So if he wanted me to act like nothing had happened, then nothing happened.
Noah
I swore I would never tell her the truth. However, coming into my room and seeing her waiting for me, hearing her defend me, seeing her stick beside me no matter what…I couldn’t not tell her.
Maybe it was the alcohol.