Tears stream down my face, I feel like hell. My world is falling apart. I don’t know where to turn from here.
Iceland, I think sadly to myself. I should go to Iceland.
That would be my escape, and a good step for my career as well. I don’t think anyone would care about me in Europe, I could just be me. Then by the time I get back home the whole country will be on to something else, I’m sure. It would be the perfect thing for me… but can I just go without speaking to Shane first? I don’t know if he’ll want to talk to me, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to settle without trying.
“I don’t even know where he is,” I remind myself. “How the hell am I going to talk to him?”
I don’t have any answers, only more questions. And no solutions either. This situation is a hole, and I just keep digging myself in to it deeper and deeper. I can’t see how I’m going to climb out.
Knock, knock, knock.
The hammering on the door makes me jump. It’s angry and desperate. I can’t help but hope that it’s Shane. It won’t be Rae since she’s on the television, so it has to be him. There’s no one else. I’m going to get a chance to speak to him after all. Excitement brews and the words spill through my brain, I can’t wait to get everything out.
“Co… coming,” I stammer loudly, staggering across the room.
My eager fingers grip on to the door knob and I turn it rapidly. Only for one split second does the mess of my appearance cross my mind, but I quickly decide that telling the truth is far more important than how I look. He won’t care, I’m sure. He doesn’t need to see me at my best right now.
“Shane, I…”
I don’t get to finish my sentence. Bright flashes consume my vision along with a booming sound, like thunder and lightning. I cross my arms over my face and try to protect myself as I work out what this is. It doesn’t come until the thunder becomes words… but words I really don’t want to acknowledge.
“How long were you and Shane Valentine dating?”
“Did he tell you about his mother?”
“Where do you think Lady Saffron Jones is being held?”
The press. They are here already. They have leapt on me like there’s no tomorrow, finding out my identity rapidly. I suppose it doesn’t help that I have just been in a movie where I got loads of attention.
“I… I don’t have anything to say,” I stutter, all my media training flying out of the window.
I don’t know what part of me thought that would stop it, but it’s made it worse. Speaking has only aggravated them and now they are yelling at me. Questions that I have no idea how to answer.
“Please, just leave me alone.”
“Will you be doing any interviews?”
“Can we get a quote from you?”
I don’t know what to do. Ice cold panic cascades through me and I react on impulse. I slam the door closed so hard it ricochets through the whole building, but the questions keep on coming. I haven’t had much experience with this side of the press before and I’m not sure where it will lead. How it will end. The news about this story is rolling and rolling and I guess they need a new angle to report.
I am that new angle. They are vultures with a sniff of blood and I don’t think they are going to let it go no matter what happens. I’m going to be stuck in my home for a while now.
Fucking Rae, why the hell would she do this to me? What’s the point? Just to get some attention herself? Or maybe to punish me. Perhaps she’s hated me ever since she made that comment about Olivia and it landed me a bigger role in the movie which led on to other things. This all might be revenge.
I slide to the ground, blocking the door so no one can come inside, and I let my head fall into my hands. This is hopeless, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Leaving for Iceland is becoming a more attractive prospect by the minute. Even if it means I don’t get to talk to Shane about the truth.
Chapter Twenty – Shane
I turn the television off, unable to look at Tia’s face any longer. The sight makes me sick. Sure, she doesn’t exactly look prepared for the interview, if anything she looks really sick, but she did start this by uploading that damn picture to the Internet. If she hadn’t done that, everything would be different.
She has fucked it now. There is no going back from what she did. No matter what way I look at it, and I have looked at it from every possible angle, trying to work out the best way to sort it out. There isn’t a solution. She has betrayed me, she sold information about me when she didn’t even need to, she currently has enough fame herself, and I cannot forgive that. It doesn’t matter what comes next, I can’t ignore that.