“As crazy as it sounds, I’ll miss my father. At least he cared about me and wanted to make me into a star.”
Her words stun me. How could she still love that monster after the way he abused her?
She goes on. “Not exactly the way I planned my life. At least I’m free to be whoever I want to be now.”
“What about your pregnancy?”
“I lost it the night my mother attacked us. I wouldn’t have kept it, anyway.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. Probably for the best. Bad parenting runs in my genes.” She pauses to stare out the window. “I never thought it would be my mother who’d turn on me. Mothers are supposed to love and protect their daughters, not hate them. I couldn’t help being born, but I couldn’t risk bringing a child into that crazy life.”
“I couldn’t imagine having a baby at our age.” Nor a baby fathered by my own father.
“Perfect little Katie Eaves. I never wanted you to get involved. You were the only true friend I ever had. You were someone I could trust.”
“What will you do now?”
“I’ll most likely move back to LA and try my hand at acting. You should think about joining me.”
“Thanks, but I’m going away to college.”
“Who wants college when you can be a star?”
“Stardom is not in the cards for me, like it is for you.”
“You can get character parts. Walk-on roles. Besides, there’s lots of good colleges out in LA. I can pay your tuition once I get my inheritance. We can even be roomies. Hoes before bros, remember?”
The offer sounds enticing, but I know that I’ll never go anywhere with her, especially after everything that has happened. I realize I don’t know who the real Willow Briggs is. I need normalcy and routine in my life. I never want to live that insane lifestyle again.
“I’m going to be a big star, Katie. You could, too, if you really wanted.”
I laugh a sad laugh. “No thanks.”
“That’s the only life I have ever wanted, and I have done everything in my power to get it,” she says, releasing my hand. “Didn’t you see me on TV? TMZ and Extra covered this whole ordeal. The only surviving child of the once famous Lost ‘n’ You actress, Felicia Briggs, and noted television producer Gil Briggs. I’m even getting movie offers for my story.”
“I have to get back to my room now.”
“How’s Raisin?”
“Okay, I guess. They’re keeping him overnight for observation.”
“Tell him I said hey.”
“Will do.”
“And that amazing dog of his . . . Someone should make a movie about Scout and how he saved everyone’s lives.”
“Yeah, that’d be pretty cool,” I say. “I gotta get going now. G’bye, Willow.”
“Later, Katie Eaves.”
I tiptoe out of her room and return to mine. I slip back into bed, crawl under the sheets, and close my eyes. I can’t wait for Willow to get better and move out to LA. I can’t wait to have my old life back.
* * *
I lay in that hunting camp that horrible night, on that soiled mattress, in the middle of the woods, worried that Gil was still coming for me. Worried that he might kill me, like he had killed Dakota. Only I didn’t realize that it was Felicia who was chasing me and not Gil. She was doing it for him. So he wouldn’t disappear from her life and go to prison. So he would make her a star once again. My head hurt so bad that I couldn’t lift it off that mattress without screaming in agony.
Maybe I was delusional and in the throes of concussion-like symptoms. I hid out in that dilapidated hunting camp, reflecting on what had happened, although time lost all meaning in my paranoid state.
I knew that Drew loved me in a way I could never reciprocate. If I stayed with him, I’d end up like my mother: stuck in a bad relationship, with nowhere to turn. Then I’d never leave Shepherd’s Bay. So no, I decided I would break up with him as soon as I got out of that hunting camp—if I ever got out. Life was too short to have a boyfriend you didn’t love.
My senior year would be defined by what happened to me, as well as by my relationship with Willow. I needed to get through this ordeal and then escape from Shepherd’s Bay and leave all this nastiness behind me. Attend college and get a good education. Land the kind of job that would allow me