Page 62 of Lucky Shot

“I can think of better ways to wear yourself out,” Gallo says to a round of laughs.

I lift my hand in the air, my middle finger poised in the universal language of love as I do so, before I walk out of the patio to my car.

We’re just playing with you.

And they are. Were. And isn’t what they said something that easily could have come out of my mouth a hundred times before? Most definitely.

Then why does it irk me so bad this time?

CHAPTER TWENTY

Whitney

I never asked for this. Never wanted any of it.

The attention. My life story spilling out into the press and the pages of social media. The fact that everyone knows I was poor and unwanted. That now they look at me with pity and compassion when all I want is for them to see the kick-ass woman I try to be daily.

Pretend to be is more like it.

They say words like admire and incredible, but words are empty, and they don’t take away the years of wanting to belong to someone that still taints every relationship or interaction I have.

I’ve never been to therapy, but I’m smart enough to know that the stain of being unlovable isn’t easily erased. It has seeped into me so that a part of everything I do and feel is tinged with it.

But my life is not the story here.

Yet it feels like somehow it has become that. The narrative has changed without my consent. I’m the orphan who stayed at the only place she ever belonged to give back to kids like her.

I’m the charity case who the philanthropist, Alexander Hardy, has blessed with his presence and is trying to make whole.

It’s total bullshit. It’s disingenuous. And there is nothing I can say or do because every day that passes means more money coming in for the academy.

It’s like a double-edged sword with my own dignity versus the good for the whole at stake.

My cell phone rings—yet again. No doubt more reporters wanting some special scoop that I don’t have to give.

I press my fingers to my eyes, wishing I’d never written that letter and never answered that call.

It rings again and I’m of the mind to turn it off for the rest of the day when I see Suri’s number on the screen.

“Hey,” I say.

“You okay?”

“I’m awesome. Never been better. Why would you ask?”

“Well because you’re being chauffeured to who knows where by the MLS while no doubt seething over your life story becoming public fodder.”

“You got my texts, I take it.”

“All fifty of them, yes.” She laughs and for a second, the pressure eases in my chest.

“They know everything about me and it’s all over the place like I’m the story when I’m not.”

“They don’t know everything. Not how we used to sneak in the movies through the back door or how you really, really can’t hold your cheap liquor well. They don’t know about how you like sappy romcoms even though you’d never admit it or how you’ve given everything to those you love simply because your heart is bigger than the ocean. So no, I disagree with you. The media can print all that stuff about your past—about you being an orphan, about you blowing your knee out, about you being Patrick’s protégé—but they don’t know the real you.”

I glance out the tinted windows of the town car and blink away the tears her words just caused. “Thank you,” I whisper.

The jolt of seeing my past blasted all over the internet is one thing. The sudden vulnerability that came as a result was a whole other shock to my system.