The party is chaos, but I find myself drifting, hand in his hand, wondering whether I want the spotlight or whether I’m already paying too high a price.
CHAPTER 18
ASHER
They sayyou only ever see yourself clearly by wanting something, or someone, with your entire body. In the mirrors above Cannes, in the lens of every camera, through all the smoke and theater, I’ve watched myself chase Emma until my cells vibrate with the effort to catch up.
But the closest I get to real is always back in the hotel room, after the fans and handlers and champagne. The door clicks shut, and it’s just us. Just her, kicking off her shoes and pirouetting out of her press smile. The gold slip she’s wearing puddles on the tiles like a dare.
I stand in the foyer in my suit, watching her stalk to the minibar and root around for gummy bears. She finds them and tosses me the bag, then sits on the edge of the bed, cross-legged. Her hair’s wild, full of wind and mousse, and the smudge of mascara under her eyes says the day has finally gotten to her.
The impulse is to hold her, to undress her with worshipful hands, but for once I don’t move. I want to keep her in this quiet, animal moment. I want to memorize her as she is, legs tucked up, chewing candy, looking at me like she’s somewhere halfway between punch drunk and cosmic terror.
“You all right?” I say, and my voice comes out too loud in the cocooned quiet.
She nods, and then: “No. And yes. But mostly no.”
I sit with that, then peel open the bag of gummies and eat a green one. Emma takes a red and then a yellow, and we pass the bag back and forth in silence until only the rejects are left—grape, which we both hate.
“I didn’t think I’d ever get this far,” she says, voice barely above a hush. “Even when I wanted it. Especially not with you.”
I don’t trust myself to answer, so I just watch her, calibrating the weight of every word.
“There’s a point,” she says, “where what they want from you and what you want from yourself splits, and you have to choose a side. And I don’t even know what side I’m on anymore.” She laughs, and it’s harsh, but honest. “You probably think I’m melodramatic?—”
“Not even close,” I say, and it’s true. I think she’s one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.
She looks up, meets my eyes, and whatever she finds there makes her exhale. “I just… I want to keep making things. I want to keep being this person, even if I don’t know who she is yet.” She makes a fist and drags it over her heart, then lets her hand fall. “But it can’t ever be mine, can it? The more they look at you, the less you belong to yourself.”
We’re both quiet. There’s no good response to that, other than to keep showing up. Fighting to give her a place where she’s not consumable, not a brand, just Emma and skin and laughter.
I sit on the bed beside her, close enough to feel her body heat, but not touching. “You know, you’re not alone, right?”
She rolls her eyes, but it’s a cover. “I mean it,” I say. “You’re not a product. Or a narrative. You’re the only actual surprise left in my life.”
That makes her bite her lip, and when she looks at me again, her eyes are watery. “You’re such a liar,” she says, softly.
Only this time I don’t argue. “I’ll never lie to you.”
She blinks and, for a second, I see the girl she must have been, before all the glitter and anatomy of fame. She leans her head against my shoulder, and I don’t move. I just sit, letting the clock run, until her breathing slows and she’s calm.
Eventually, she says, “Did you mean it? Back at the cliff, about walking away?”
The panic shudders through me, but I don’t let it show. I’ve thought about it, of course. I’ve fantasized whole alternate timelines where we’re nobodies in an ugly flat in London, eating knockoff Frosted Flakes for dinner and watching old movies on a busted TV, loving each other in the wreckage of ambition. But I know, and she knows, that’s not us.
So I say: “If you’d asked, I’d have done it already. But I also know you, and I know you’d hate me, just a little, for keeping you small when you could be so fucking huge.”
Now she’s smiling—really smiling—and there’s a current in the room. “Maybe. I’d probably hate you a lot.”
“Fair.”
She coils her arms around my bicep, hugging it in an almost comic way. “I don’t want to go home. Not to the people who just want autographs and interviews. I want to go somewhere else. Just us.”
A mad idea flashes through my mind, and that’s how I know it’s the right one.
The words tumble out before I can stop them. “After this circus, the premieres and bullshit, come to England with me. I start the Netflix thing in two weeks—six episodes in London. Just stay. I’ll show you the ugly bits, the grey and the real.” I watch her face for any hesitation. “Then when you’re ready, we’ll go to Paris together, and you can terrorize Bressard and theentire continent.” I squeeze her hand. “We don’t have to live in their fishbowl; we can build our own—just for a while.”
She closes her eyes and, for the first time in hours, looks truly at rest. “Promise?”
