I stand and stuff both my hands into my hair as I start pacing my now-familiar path across the carpet. “She’s trying to be my mom,” I say, instantly realizing how stupid that sounds. “I mean she’s trying to make me her son.” As if that is any better. Meeting the three worried gazes fixed on me, I grimace and try to find the right words to explain the insanity that is my life. “You almost had it last night,” I tell Donovan. “Isolate me from my friends so I have to find someone else to turn to.”
Her eyebrows fly up. “Someone like your loving and concerned mother who has only ever wanted the best for you.”
“Exactly.”
“But for that to work, she would have to make sure you haveno onein your life.” Her lips lift in a smirk. “Does that make me a complication?”
“I didn’t know you guys were…you know…” Janie looks from Donovan to me, her face pink and her eyes full of fear again. “I didn’t know who you really were either, Donovan, and I thought mentioning you would be a red herring. But then Brenda got really excited, and once I searched your name, I knew I’d messed up. I’m…I’m so sorry.” Her apology comes out in a barely audible whisper.
Donovan and I seem to realize the truth at the same time, and I scramble to grab my phone from my pocket while she jumps up to join me. The headline ofHot Scoop’s latest story sounds as innocent as it did before, but I only have to read the first few lines to know just how far my mother is willing to go to get herself back into my life.
Hollywood Hot Scoop
From Fame to the Fringe:
The Untold Disappearance of Nova Tate
We’vebeenattheforefront of Hollywood news for a long time, Scoopers, and we’re no stranger to scandal. Not everyone can handle fame, and even the best and brightest—Derek Riley, anyone?—can struggle under the pressure sometimes. But it isn’t often that our beloved celebrities fully crack under the weight of their decision to step into the spotlight, so today’s story is a big one, so full of drama that you’re not going to believe it.
Trust me, Scoopers, this is all certifiably the real deal, so buckle up and get ready to finally find out what happened to the once great Nova Tate.
Some of you younger readers might not remember the bright star in Hollywood that was Nova Tate. Young, beautiful, talented—this girl was poised to rise through the ranks and become a Tinseltown legend. With her first major role at seven years old, Nova was no stranger to fame by the time she was in talks for her first Oscar nomination. With box office hits likeTime SwitchandOathbreaker, anyone could see she was going places.
Turns out the only place she would land was rock bottom.
Sadly, Nova’s impressive resume wasn’t enough to save her from her inevitable fall from grace, and like others who didn’t have the strength to carry their own careers, she disappeared. We here atHot Scoopalways thought she simply faded into obscurity as so many do.
Until now.
Thanks to an anonymous tip, our best journalists did some digging, and we now have the truth about what happened to Nova Tate. What started as a confrontation with a costar on set turned into a DUI and arrest for driving without a license, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve uncovered photos from wild parties and illegal drug use, all instigated by Nova—whose real name is Donovan—before she turned sixteen.
The girl we thought was a demure and talented actor with a promising future turned out to be nothing but a wild child taking advantage of her youthful looks and manipulating her way to money and attention. It’s a good thing for everyone that she went off the deep end before more people got caught in her snares.
After her arrest and subsequent stint in rehab, Nova Tate’s parents made the desperate decision to send her away to a wilderness retreat for troubled teens, and our sources say she never fully recovered from her self-destructive childhood years. With likely brain damage from drug and alcohol abuse, she is little more than a teenager trapped in an adult body and will live out the rest of her life under the care of distant family members who have taken pity on her.
What could have been a life of luxury and admiration has become barely a life at all, all because she thought she was more than she was.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks a life in Hollywood is a walk in the park. Only the truly great have what it takes to weather the storms. Maybe, if Nova Tate’s parents had recognized her destructive behaviorsooner and pulled her away from dangerous influences, she might have had a chance.
We here atHot Scoophave always done our best to shed light on the inner workings of Hollywood, both the good and the bad, and we can only hope that more of our stories are in celebration rather than mourning. That all depends on how our heroes handle the consequences of their actions.
As always, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any important scoops!
Chapter Thirty-One
Donovan
“Well,thatwas…”Honestly,there’s no good word to describe how I felt while reading that article.
Derek tucks his arm around me, but he’s so tense that the gesture doesn’t feel as supportive as I’m sure he means for it to be. When I look up at him, he looks like it’s taking all of his willpower not to hunt down whoever wrote the article and do some damage.
Where’s a Class V rapid when you need one? Derek would make a flawless run and have the energy to row back upstream to do it again.
“Are you okay?” I ask, drawing out the words because I’m not sure if he can even hear me right now. His jaw is so tight, his eyes stormy anddistant.
But the instant he hears my voice, he blinks and lets out a shaky exhale. “Areyouokay? That article was…” Clearly he can’t find a word for it either.
That’s when the laughter hits. I’m not usually a giggler, but the laugh that bubbles out of me comes pretty darn close. Derek’s staring at me in utter bewilderment, which only makes me laugh harder, and I have to tuck an arm around my ribs to keep from falling apart as I gasp for air.
