21
Ididn’t know how long I stayed just inside my door on the carpet, weeping into my own jeans, before the knock came.
“Not now,” I choked out.
I didn’t care who knew I was crying. What was the point of going through life with a fake smile and a chipper attitude anymore? Everyone knew.
Worst of all, I didn’t have a leg to stand on. It was true. Every bit of it was true. I hadn’t bothered reading through the comprehensive timeline the blackmailer posted, but the spirit of it was correct, even as cruel as it was.
I was with all three of them, doing things with them that were only hinted at in the article.
The best decision was to leave the school, leave the boys, and make sure I distanced myself as far as I could from all of this. If I was paranoid before about the entire school knowing, I could now rest assured that everyone most certainly did. My paranoia had been validated.
There was an odd comfort in knowing what decision had to be made, but the comfort part had yet to kick in.
Yet again, I had allowed myself to get my hopes up, allowed myself to be lifted up just to be knocked back down. I was tired of being the tennis ball to the world’s elite. It was time to go back home, where the nights were genuinely silent, and the stars blazed in the midnight sky, far away from any cities, far away from any wealth, just far away period.
The knocking came again.
“Aubrey, it’s Sunny,” she said. “Let me in, please, because you know I’m just going to stand out here forever until I see you, and I can be very patient.”
I relented, slowly getting to my feet, sniffling and wiping at my face, before opening the door.
Sunny stepped inside and wrapped her arms around me.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “I promise.”
That was all it took for the dam to crack open again. I broke down in another flood of tears. She held me, letting me weep into her shoulder. We stood there for a while as she let me get it all out.
Once I stopped shaking quite so hard, she patted my back gently.
“Got it out of your system?” she asked.
“I think I’m too tired to cry any more right now.”
“Good,” she said, pointing to my bed. “Sit. Let’s talk.”
I did as I was told. As I sat down, she pulled up a chair, sitting right in front of me. I curled my legs beneath me and looked at her, waiting.
“I don’t have all the answers for you,” she started. “But I know what you’re going through.”
I laughed, sniffling. “I don’t know if that’s true,” I said.
“I was a child star, Aubrey, remember?” Sunny said firmly. “We talked about this the last time I was sick. Believe me, I know what this is like. So for now, you’re going to sit there, and you’re going to be sad, and you’re going to listen to me for a minute, okay?”
“Okay,” I said meekly, folding my hands in my lap, drawing into myself.
“I know you’ve heard some of this before,” Sunny began, “but when I was in the spotlight, I was judged for everything. My looks, my weight, everything I said, everything I didn’t say. Producers and child-handlers, and my parents. It was a nightmare.”
“It sounds like it,” I said. “I’m sorry you went through that.”
“During childhood it was bad, but at least it was contained to just a few things, you know? There was only so much you could criticize a young girl for doing and saying, and I learned how to deal with it. But later, when I started growing up and stopped getting work, I started slipping off the producer’s radar and onto the presses radar.”
“I think I remember, just in passing,” I said. “I’d see stupid articles in the rack at the grocery store, things like that, or meaningless nonsense on gossip sites.”
“It was a living hell,” she said. “The media turned me into some sort of celebutant drama queen, like I was out of control and living on the edge somehow. I was judged for everything under the sun. Too fat, too thin, too mouthy, too entitled. If I went to the beach, I’d see a picture of my ass later that day online.”
“I can’t even imagine,” I said. “How did you deal with it?”
