I don’t know any Fitz brothers or whoever these journalists are looking for. A lot of celebrities live in Palos Verdes, so this is stupid.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, excuse me.”
“Come on, you can tell us,” another lady with desperate hunger for something I can’t place, flashing in her eyes says, stepping closer to me. “I can give you a hundred if you just tell us if you saw some boys, tall, dark-haired around the hospital.”
Tall and dark-haired…
“You know who we’re talking about,” the woman presses, and then she quickly takes out a crisp Benjamin Franklin and waves it in my face. “Just tell us what you know.”
“I don’t know…”
“Surely you know a little bit of something juicy, like what he’s sick with or maybe if they’re being discharged.”
The guy I just kissed wasn’t sick with anything other than assholeness, but other than that…
“Come on, sweetheart.”
Their voices start buzzing around me as we stand there. I can’t breathe, their questions getting louder and louder.
I suddenly feel claustrophobic. The lights get brighter around me, the faces of the mob getting longer and stranger. I feel faint.
I need out right now.
“Listen!” I shout, my voice uneven and scratchy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about or who you’re looking for.”
They pause for a moment, but the lady gets in my face again, her breath smelling so foul I almost gag.
“But you know something, don’t you?” she presses.
“I don’t know anything other than a boy who has Down syndrome is in there and he’s…”
Gasp and shock moves over the crowd as they all start scrambling to jot down everything I’ve just said while I stand there, dread and something that I can’t place my finger on growing in the pit of my stomach, like acid is burning holes into my guts.
I just messed up.
“One of the Fitz brothers has Down syndrome?” the shouts grow louder, a sickening buzz growing stronger among them. “It has to be a newborn baby. Is it a newborn baby?
“Are Courtney and John still together?”
“Did John father a child with another woman?”
“Did the brothers see the twenty-one-year-old model their father, John Fitzgerald was caught with leaving the Four Seasons last night?”
Each question is like an arrow to my chest, the grim, sick glint in their eyes flashing down at me, making me step back.
“I…”
But before I can finish that, the journalists and reporter’s attention turn to someone who’s standing a few feet behind me.
“Julian!” They shout now, rushing to him, dismissing me. “Julian, is it true that you have another brother and that he has Down syndrome?”
“Julian, why has your family kept your brother a secret all these years?”
“Is your brother a bastard child?”
“Did your mother, Courtney lie about her miscarriage when she first got married to your father, John?”
“Julian, so you’re three in the Fitz household. What does that mean for the heir?”
“What do you think of your family history, Julian what with all the infidelity, the lies, the horrors?”
Slowly, I turn around like I have a ball and chain strapped around both my ankles, my heart pounding so hard in my chest, I think I’m going to pass out as each repulsive question targeted at destroying a family fills the air around us.
I did this.
As soon as our gaze meets, I know without a doubt that whatever we had between us just died a very short death and for as long as I live, I’ll never forget the look in his eyes right now.
I did this.
I’ll never forget the way he made me feel small and passionless.
I did this.
I’ll never forget the words he said.
I did this.
I’ll never forget that I opened my mouth and spilled information that wasn’t mine to spill and that I might have opened a can of worms too big to manage.
I fucking did this.
The noise around us blurs and disappears as we stare at each other. His nostrils flare with pent-up anger, eyes flashing with barely concealed hurt and betrayal. Betrayal that I caused.
And as I stare at him, I notice the way he seems to alter right in front of my eyes.
Gone is the boy that had so many complicated emotions inside him that all translated to overprotective of his family.
Gone is the boy who kissed me just to prove a point.
Gone is the boy who insulted unicorns and rainbows just to make me laugh.
Gone is the boy who I saw a piece of myself I’ve never seen before.
In his place now, I notice the coldness coming over him,