It was the truth. And it was the worst part of my job. Even though most days I was proud of myself and my work, the shame that people so often felt from consuming my content and my films crept up on me sometimes. And if I knew anything, I knew what it felt like to be recognized in a grocery store when a fan was with their whole family or for someone I was dating to keep me around long enough for a good time, but not long enough to meet their parents.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said defensively.
“No. That’s exactly what you’re saying. You said it yourself. I was your fantasy. Your dream.”
“Bee, I love you,” he said desperately, like it was a final attempt to salvage whatever was left between us. It was the first time anyone had ever said those words to me while I was fully clothed and free of liquids or toys or kink of any sort. And yet, it wasn’t as sweet and wonderful as I had always hoped it might be, because I didn’t imagine my firstI love youto feel like a last-ditch effort.
Still, his words sank deep into my chest, into a place where I would hold on to them forever, because if all Nolan Shaw could offer me was a brokenI love you, I would treasure it like a delicate keepsake, even though it could never be enough to keep us afloat.
I inhaled through my nose. I wanted to say it back, but I couldn’t. It would hurt too much, because the next thing I was going to say—the next thing Ihadto say—would be something he couldn’t live with and something I couldn’t livewithout. “Nolan, I don’t need you to love me in private. I need you to love me in public for the whole world to see. And that’s not something you’re prepared to do.”
“Bee.” My name broke through the speaker like a cry.
“Merry Christmas, Nolan. Goodbye.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nolan
I hated the day after Christmas. In fact, the hatred I had for the twenty-sixth was inversely proportional to the love I had for the twenty-fifth, which meant I hated it so much that the mere idea of it made me want to gnaw a hole through the drywall and flee into the frozen suburban wasteland of my hometown. I supposed it was related to the imminent un-cheering of the house, the abrupt drop from that big, cozy, sparkling joy back into the gray cold of a winter that actually didn’t care if you were happy or not.
But today was bad even for the twenty-sixth. So bad that before Maddie left for her shift slinging slices at one of Kallum’s pizza parlors, she informed me that I was bringing down the vibe of the entire house. Which couldn’t possibly havebeen true because we were dog-sitting Snapple, and Snapple turned any vibe into something betweentrapped in line behind a customer who wants to talk to the managerand that scene inReturn of the Jediwhere Luke Skywalker has to fight a rancor with an old monster bone.
But I had a right to mope today, because last night I’d told Bee I loved her, and she’d told me it wasn’t enough.
And she hadn’t even said that she loved me back.
I was a few Kahlúa hot cocoas into the evening when my mom found me staring at our Christmas tree as I mentally rehashed my conversation with Bee for the five-thousandth time.
She just doesn’t understand, I kept telling myself.She doesn’t get what’s at stake for me, and why I have to play their game.
But what if she did understand? What if she understood, and it still didn’t matter?
“Hey,” Mom said softly, sitting on the couch next to me. Horrible Snapple trundled over to Mom’s feet and pranced, her way of asking to sit on the couch. Mom scooped up the yorkiepoo and set her down on the cushion next to her, where Snapple turned a circle, glared at me, and then laid down with her head on her paws to glare at me some more. “How are you holding up?”
Mom wasn’t on Twitter and very rarely looked at articles that weren’t recipe- or craft-related, leaving only one option for how she’d heard the news.
“I’m guessing the scandal has reached Facebook, then?”
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing Snapple’s ears—which would have cost anyone else a finger and maybe their entire hand. “They’re not being very nice about your costar.”
I still hadn’t told Mom about whatever it was that Bee and I had—or no longer had. I couldn’t even imagine trying to explain it to her now. It hurt too much.
“No,” I said, my stomach knotted somewhere in my chest. “They’re not.”
They were saying fatphobic things, shitty slut-shaming things, scary and creepy things about what they’d like to do to her if they found out where she lived—not to mention all the people who believed she wasn’t a good feminist or the right kind of bi woman because she had sex for money. And here I was hiding behind Steph’s statement, like a fucking coward.
But what was I supposed to do? Let everything burn to the ground? Let my family suffer because my heart was getting in the way of taking care of them? What could possibly be the right answer here?
“Do you really think the Hope Channel will cancel the movie?” Mom asked, lines of worry creasing her forehead. “Just because of her work as Bianca von Honey?”
“Steph thinks they might,” I said. “The Hope Channel won’t want to risk alienating their audience, not like this. It would be easier to bury the movie and ride out the storm.”
“Would that make it harder for you to get other work?” she asked quietly.
I stared down into my cocoa mug before answering. “I don’t know yet,” I finally answered. “Neither does Steph.”
Mom didn’t say anything for a moment, and when I looked over at her, her face was bent toward Snapple in a way that told me she was trying to hide her expression from me.
