It’s on every news site. It’s above the fold on every single Sunday paper after the show aired last night. And it’s blown Twitter up.
I can’t believe I forgot to tell Josh. I suppose being ambulanced to hospital will do that for you. But it felt like we’d come so far together on Friday, and he’d finally laid himself bare to me, and he’d told me he loved me, for God’s sake—had always loved me.
So, when I had to come clean to him, there in the bath, the hurt in his eyes killed me.
‘It’s okay,’ he told me as he turned me back around and cradled me against him in his arms. ‘I get it. Seriously, baby.’
‘It’s not okay. But I’d got myself into a real state that morning, and I was so pissed off with you—and with myself—for letting myself get close to you again. And also, he took meby surprise. He was under orders from Mara not to ask me about you. So I let rip with this smart comment that was a mix of spite and deflection, I suppose. And all at your expense.’
‘It doesn’t matter what people think about us. It only matters how we feel about each other.’
But that’s a hopelessly naïve comment, coming from a guy who’s been a cog in this machine for half his life. Because what the world thinks of us matters far, far more than we’d like it to.
Mara’s been working hard since she dropped me at home after Gordon Kay, but there’s not much she can do to contain the story. She got in touch with Josh’s publicist, Mike, and gave him the heads-up. Josh has had Mike prepare some bland statement saying he’s enjoying collaborating with me onGrosvenorand wishes me nothing but well.
And Josh left my place at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, which felt really shitty, given how amazing he’d been to me the previous twenty-four hours, but was strictly necessary. I hated how much of a wrench it felt, having him leave my bed after holding me all night.
‘You need to stay the hell away from him,’ Mara told me. ‘Until you go back to work, you cannot let anyone think there is a flicker of a personal relationship between you two. You know, the press will use this to re-anoint you as a feminist icon.’
I didn’t see that coming, but she’s right. The Sunday supplements are full of op-eds on how this is my moment, on how far the tables have turned on ‘predatory’ Hollywood players, on the increase in currency of strong female actors such as me, whose commercial success is eclipsing that of the men who prey on them.
I find their language terrifying. #MeToo didn’t become a thing until the year after Josh and I dated and blew up, so while the press shamed him at the time for using his fame to chew me up and spit me out, they also shamed me for beingnaïve enough to trust that he was in it for anything other than a quick fuck and a bonus boost to his career. And of course, some of them also shamedmefor usinghimas a quick fuck and a boost tomyfledgling career.
Now, with the #MeToo movement having gained such massive momentum in the intervening years, my participation is being reframed. According to many of the op-eds on both sides of the Atlantic, I’m the phoenix who brushed off the ashes of a disastrous romantic run-in with a huge Hollywood power player and emerged, not just intact, but positively triumphant.
It seems the press is loving that camera still of me, poised and dressed up to the nines on Gordon Kay’s sofa, abona fidestar at the top of my game, being in a position to laughingly shrug off my former lover as a total joke. I’m their new, involuntary poster child for female empowerment.
And given this is really the first time I’ve referred directly to my prior relationship with Josh, some reporters are speculating whether I felt too intimidated to speak out before: silenced by my terror that doors might close to me if I did.
There’s also renewed, more fevered speculation about how the hell Josh and I ended up starring opposite each other inGrosvenorand whether Azure is doing enough to ensure I feel comfortable with this situation.
Much as I count myself a staunch feminist, I’m horrified.
Because even if I hadn’t had Josh pouring out his heart to me, telling me he’s always loved me and sharing his scrapbooks (which were the nerdiest things I’d ever seen and made me fall into a whole other level of love with him), I wouldn’t have considered Josh and my fling to be a #MeToo situation.
It was born of intense attraction on both sides, and however unfathomable and unforgivable I found his behaviour when he ended it, it never felt like an abuse of power on his part.
Because I would have put money on him being as smitten as me.
And while I seriously resented the relentlessness with which the press stuck to their obsession with my having been dumped, our relationship didn’t do anything to damage my career, in the end.
I get the all-clear from my doctor, and go back to work on Wednesday. The team has done an incredible job of shifting the shooting schedule around, so my absence doesn’t cause too much of a delay, but I need to play catch-up. Josh has been back since Monday, and though we’ve spoken and WhatsApped a fair amount, I know he’s giving me space.
And it hurts like hell.
It’s a relief, being back in Georgiana’s shoes after what felt like a weird time vortex of being ill. Everyone’s being so sweet and attentive to me, treating me like I’m made of glass. Parka Pete has fresh camomile tea for me at every opportunity. Alyssa gives me a stern talk about communicating with her when I feel any inflammatory symptoms come on, so we can head off any issues before I have a full flare-up.
And Kate’s so overwhelmed by the furore over the headlines and the slurs towards Azure, with none of the benefit of knowing how close Josh and I have grown, that her processes and preambles ahead of any intimate scenes between Dominic and Georgiana are growing longer and longer.
And Josh is… amazing. He’s getting hit with all the bad press and he won’t listen to a single word of apology or frustration from me.
‘I deserve every single word of it,’ he tells me in my trailer when we’re supposed to be running lines.
‘You don’t! It’s all utter bullshit. They’re making up this ridiculous narrative when there’s no story there to tell.’
‘Hey.’ He pulls me close to him, and I turn my head to rest on his coat lapel so I don’t get Georgiana’s rouge all over hisshirt. ‘It’s very sweet of you to say so, but we both know I deserve it, even if it’s Old Josh that was the total douche, not New Josh.’
‘New Josh is doing a pretty amazing job.’ I slide my hands under his coat and grip him tightly around his waist.
