Breaking Stars - J. Sterling Page 0,84
sounding happier at the notion.
“That sounds really nice,” I said, meaning it more than she knew. The thought of being with my family was incredibly comforting. “I’ll see you both soon. I miss you.”
We said our good-byes, and I hung up the phone. Reaching for my laptop, I started scrolling through all the false reports and pure guesses being reported as fact as to my whereabouts. I stopped reading the articles after I realized it wasn’t doing me any good. There were only so many lies you could attempt to absorb about yourself before you wanted to run outside and show them all the true meaning of crazy.
Because I hadn’t been seen for weeks, rehab was a natural assumption. Although I didn’t entirely blame the press for that, I completely blamed them for their horrific reasoning for it. The tabloids reported that I couldn’t handle Colin’s infidelity and that I was too embarrassed to show my face in public. They claimed that I’d tried to overdose on pills, and one even quoted me as saying I wanted to “make the pain go away forever.”
The most frustrating part for me was that in all the years of being famous, I’d never once made a spectacle of myself. I’d never handled myself badly or acted like a girl who couldn’t live without her boyfriend. So it pissed me off for everyone to be so quick to believe I was suddenly pathetic, weak, and self-destructive.
Was there no loyalty anymore? Had nothing I’d done counted for anything? Apparently not when it came to selling magazines or online ad space.
A swift knock at my door startled me, causing my breath to quicken. Since the lobby hadn’t called up to inform me that I had a guest, I knew it had to be Quinn.
“Come in,” I shouted from my comfy spot on the sofa. I glanced behind me to see my best friend burst through the door and run in my direction.
“My God, I’ve missed you!” She plopped herself into my lap and wrapped her arms around me, her blond ponytail swishing from side to side.
Squeezing her back, I choked out, “I missed you too. Now get off me.”
She glanced at my laptop screen before reaching over to slam it shut. “Don’t read it. It’s all total horseshit pulled out of thin air.”
“Pretty hurtful horseshit,” I muttered.
Her mouth dropped open. “Paige Agatha Lockwood, did you just swear? Why, I never!” she said in a thick Southern accent.
“I did, but I didn’t enjoy it,” I said with a pout.
“You enjoyed it a little,” she teased, and when I vehemently shook my head in disagreement, she hopped up and said, “I’m grabbing a water. You need anything?”
“I’m good.” I raised my already full water glass in her direction.
“We’re going to talk about all the press and stuff in a minute, but first I’m dying to hear about Tatum and all the red he made you feel,” she shouted from the kitchen as if she were a thousand feet away.
When Quinn mentioned Tatum, my heart seized. I flashed back to the conversation where I told Quinn that Tatum made me feel in color, just like a Taylor Swift song.
“A little louder,” I called out. “I don’t think the people on the street heard you.”
“I said,” she yelled even louder, then laughed at herself as she walked back into the living room. “Sorry, I’ve been an angry wife all day on set, so there’s been a lot of raised voices.”
“Can we not talk about Tatum?” Thinking about our last night together—his lips all over my skin, his strong body on top of mine—I couldn’t handle those feelings right now in addition to everything else. I was certain that if a body could short-circuit and spark out, mine would in this instant.
Quinn plopped onto the other end of the sofa and sipped at her water, eyeing me over the rim of the glass. “But I’ve never heard you talk about someone the way you talked about him. I know you said he made you leave, but you have to know that’s some stupid machismo boy bullshit,” she deduced with little effort.
“It absolutely was. I know it was, but it doesn’t change anything.”
“Meaning?” she asked, her brow furrowed.
“Meaning, I’m not interested in a guy who needs to have a defense mechanism when it comes to me when things get tough. I can’t be pushed away like that. He tried to make me feel like I didn’t matter, like what we did didn’t