Harlow smiled. Evie, insightful and smart beyond her years, was the best daughter he could have asked for. “Yeah, it does.”
“So… like I said, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s really me, and what’s teenage hormonal stupidity.” Evie scuffed the bottom of her shoe on the roof. “I spent all this week kind of… coming off Hollywood, you know? Like, no contact with my old friends, no contact with any of my staff, no familiar sights, or sounds, or smells. It was what I was looking forward to the second-most, after meeting Shep at last, you know?”
Harlow nodded and listened. He wanted to hear what she had to say.
“Except, it’s not… it’s not easy to completely leave all that stuff behind.” Evie’s shoulders bunched inward, her guilt tugging at her body like a black hole sucking in the universe surrounding it. “There have been so many people blowing up my phone, so many tags on Twitter, so many emails and messages… and it’s not only the people I know are trying to ride my coattails. The fans are scared. They’re confused, but they’re not angry. They’ve been sending me so much love and encouragement, praying that I’m okay, and that they’ll get to see me again… and after spending the day with Nikki, after being Leah again and feeling sogoodabout it, I… I feel like maybe I’ve made a mistake. I feel like I let my teenage hormone brain convince me that what I was doing was pointless, and that everyone I spoke to was fake, and that I’d never know what it’s like to be genuinely happy unless I left and lived a ‘normal’ life. But that’s not what I want, is it? That’s not really what’s going to make me happy.”
Tears streamed down Evie’s cheeks. She took her hand from her pocket to blot at her tears with her sleeve.
“When you asked me the other day to… to think about what I like, it hit me. Ilikeacting. I like being Haraleah, and being on camera, and learning lines. Ilikestaying up super late on set and laughing with the guys. I feel like all of it was a gift from Dad, you know? That… that after he died, and you took me in to find an agent and make things happen because it’s what I wanted to keep my mind busy, that he was looking down on us and pulling strings. All of the little signs… Haraleah,Heaven, Locked… I remember when that was so special to me. I want to go back to when it was special. It’s not acting I wanted to get away from—it was the people.” Her shoulders shuddered, but she held back the sob Harlow was sure would follow. “People like Justin, who are nice to me only because they see me as a stepping stool.”
“Wait.” Even as Harlow’s heart broke for his daughter, he found himself confused. “Justin is your best friend, isn’t he? You two hang out all the time…”
“Because he’s a snake, and I know if I didn’t, he’d make my life miserable.” Tears kept tumbling. Evie desperately blotted them away. “At the beginning, he… he was nice, you know? He seemed like a good guy. But now, he’s got… I mean, it’s not like he’s gotdirton me, because I don’t do things to get me dirty, but it… it’s like…” She sobbed only once, then pulled herself back together. “I think he’s been chasing away people I could be friends with—good people—because he doesn’t want anyone else to hog hismeal ticket.Earlier this week, he sent me this… this really nasty text, and I know I just told you I’ve cut contact with everyone and that I haven’t been following up with my old life, but… but it’s hard, you know, to dodge it all.”
“He what?” Harlow’s voice hardened. “Evie…”
“It was like, likefalsenice, the text, you know?” Evie elaborated. “Like, ‘Oh,Eves, I hope you’re okay and not dead or anything, because think of all the people you’re putting out of work if you actually did die,’ you know? Like, I could be sold into the black market and he’d still be like, ‘It’s all your fault for putting all of us out of work so come back soon, mkay?’ and I can’t. I just… I can’t.”
“Evie…” Harlow rubbed her back. All this time, for all these years, she’d been pretending to be his best friend for fear of repercussion, and Harlow hadn’t noticed. If Justin ever showed his face around them again, Harlow wouldn’t hesitate—he’d give that hangnail a piece of his mind. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Evie said. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to him. I was so new to the industry, I didn’t know better… but I’m sixteen, and I know better now. And after running away, after seeing everyone’s true colors come out… I’ve realized something. Not everyone I worked with is bad, and not everyone… not everyone normal is good, either. The world is so messed up. Like, really, seriously messed up.” She sniffled. “So you’ve gotta do what makes you happy, because if you don’t… if you don’t, people like Justin are just gonna take advantage of you in whatever else you’ll do, and then you’ll be evenmoreunhappy.”
For a while, Evie let the statement hang between them. Then, with a shake of her head, she continued.
“I had this big romanticized idea of what it would be like to… to not be Evelyn Warwick anymore, and to live like a normal kid, but… but that’s not what I want. I thought that when Shep went through so much trouble for me to blow up the lights and kill all the cameras and bust me out, that it was the most romantic thing ever—thatthiswas what real life was about, you know? That I would finally get a chance to be a normal girl who’d live a normal life and fall in love with a normal person and just…”
She let out a shuddering sigh and shook her head. As she composed herself, Harlow marveled over what she’d said.
Shep had been the one who’d killed the lights and overridden the cameras? Harlow’s mind spun. When confronted just a week ago, Shep had made it seem like he knew little about computers, but that didn’t seem to be the case. If he had the technological know-how to stage something like Evie’s escape, he was far from an amateur.
What else was he capable of?
While Harlow listened to Evie’s woes, he stored that tidbit of information away for later, figuring it might be helpful.
“I just wanted it to be different. I wanted it to feel real. I thought that there would be this… this change, you know? Like I would feel… valued. But that’s not what happened. I don’t feel… I don’t feel any different than I did before. All I feel is lonelier. This isn’t what I want at all.”
“Whatdoyou want?” Harlow prompted. The longer she talked, the more he ached for her. Being a teenager wasn’t easy—he recalled his own teenage years, the hurt, the confusion, and the pain. When he’d been Evie’s age, he’d recently met Emerson, and had gone out of his way to woo him. It was no different than what Evie was doing. If Harlow had been in possession of her resources when he was young, facing the same problems and feelings, he would have done the same.
“I want to go back to California.” Evie was hoarse now, the smoky notes of her voice bogged down with disappointment and regret. “I want to go home.”
In her voice was the little girl who’d looked at him with tears in her eyes when he’d landed back on American soil from deployment following Emerson’s sudden death—the same one who’d run from her uncle’s side and locked her arms around Harlow’s waist to tell him in mournful tones that Daddy had died. Back then, Harlow hadn’t been able to change what had happened. A pulmonary embolism had stolen Emerson from them—he wasn’t able to go back in time and tell his husband not to take the nap he’d never wake up from, but to seek medical treatment instead. But now, as Evie faced the next great hurdle, he had power. He could provide.
Before, he’d sworn he’d move mountains and rewire the stars if it meant she would be happy. He’d meant it. No matter what it took, and no matter how much it broke his heart, he would make sure Evie lived her best possible life.
“We can do that, kiddo.” Harlow’s voice was thick, but he wouldn’t cry. He’d made the decision on the day they’d lost Emerson that he would do whatever it took to give Evie the life she wanted—he wouldn’t let his emotions manipulate Evie into settling for anything less than what she deserved. “We’ll get on the phone with Pete and we’ll take it from there, okay? We’ll get you home. We’ll get you back onHeaven, Locked.You made a mistake, but it’s okay. We’re going to get it figured out.”
“There’s no growth without pain,” Evie murmured, echoing a sentiment he’d shared with her numerous times before. “Mistakes are okay as long as you learn from them.”
“And you’ve learned a ton, haven’t you? About yourself, about the world, and about where you fit in it.”
There was a pause. Then, with a full-body shiver, Evie sobbed. She covered her face with her hands and pinned her elbows to her chest, hunching over, as though sorrow itself had warped her body. Harlow tugged her to his chest and held her, unlatched the clip from her hair and buried his face against the top of her head.
“I’ve got you, kiddo,” Harlow whispered. He stroked her back as she sobbed, wishing that he could sob, too. “I’m here. I’ve got you. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Goodbye, Aurora.
Would it be goodbye, Simon, too?
