Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,10
pausing before she caught up with it again.
She didn’t look around at the houses towering behind their manicured lawns, and it made me study the development through new eyes. I wanted to know what she thought about miniature mansions that were big enough to house more than one family, and probably went unoccupied for months at a time when their important owners were off ruling the one percent.
Had she grown up in a house like one of these? In The Girl in the Yellow Dress, Adley Adair had grown up in a picturesque home in a suburb similar to this one, but meeting the real Adley made me question a lot of the book’s authenticity. Everything else in the book was like reading the truth of your own first love. It was honesty that went deeper than the pages, and called to life something forgotten in my own soul. The book spoke to a forgotten notion of first love and the scars it left behind. That was why it was so popular.
It was impossible not to connect with Cam’s Adley Adair. His words painted the portrait of a delicate ballerina faced with an unimaginable choice. He’d made her so much…more. His character was a thousand times more whole, more real, than the woman beside me.
As hard as I looked, I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of that girl.
The Adley I’d met was hard, like a diamond with none of the sparkling appeal. It bled into everything she was; the way she walked and the stiffness around her mouth when she talked to anyone who wasn’t Cam. It was in her stance, and especially, in her eyes. They were an impenetrable navy, dense and unyielding.
I doubted I’d ever be able to see what Cam had seen in her. Who knew if that girl even existed anymore.
And yet, knowing all that, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I couldn’t stop myself from trying to find the girl in the rough.
“What?” She nervously wiped her mouth like the cause of my examination was leftover food or a stain on her lips.
“Nothing.” I dragged my focus away. There was nothing I could do for the scowl bending my mouth though. “You’re just…unexpected.”
“You keep saying that,” she complained, frowning right back at me.
I couldn’t stop thinking it either. The real problem was deciding whether it was a good or bad thing.
Chapter Three
Adley
I’d been on set for two weeks, and was utterly unimpressed with what Hollywood had to offer. First of all, I really didn’t get what all the fuss was about celebrities. Okay, so I admit that I had a weak moment when first confronted with what some could perceive as perfect male bone structure, but all it took was Declan Davies opening his mouth for my temporary idolization to be cured…completely.
I thought it was really ironic that celebrities had the audacity to bitch and complain about the paparazzi stalking them. From where I was standing, the only person getting victimized was me.
Madeline Little had obviously picked up some tips from her adoring fans over the years, because she was certainly adept at keeping tabs on me. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without her making a surprise appearance, trying to chat me up about my ‘motivations’ and ‘inner struggles’.
My second day on set, she’d actually held the toilet paper hostage in an attempt to get me to talk. Luckily, I always keep tissues in my purse.
Cam thought it was hilarious. He said I deserved it for bailing out on him at the cast and crew party. However, he made it perfectly clear that he didn’t think it was too funny when he’d been left to be the focus of Madeline’s attention all night. She’d ended up getting him to promise to write her a full character analysis of Adley, just so she wouldn’t follow him home at the end of the night.
Thanks to the new assignment, and not to mention all his work apart from The Girl in the Yellow Dress, Cam was mostly MIA throughout my days. Left to fend for myself, I was far less inclined to be amused by his plight. The only times I got to see Cam were on our daily rides to and from work, and occasionally, at lunch. Most days I was stuck eating from the crafts table, on a bench away from the cast and crew.
“Cut!” Georgia Torres yelled, disrupting the scene that had just been playing out under a mass of lights and boom mikes.