Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,105

anymore magazine covers. The quicker I was forgotten by the media, the better it was for everyone.

Standing in front of the room I’d been instructed to go to, I paused, surprised by the emotions pounding in my chest. The curiosity and nervousness I would have expected, but the surge of happiness I felt at the thought of reuniting with Madeline, Alfred, and Fran, I couldn’t have predicted. I’d been so desperate to get away, it had never occurred to me to miss them.

I took a deep breath and reached out to knock. The door was ripped open before I ever made contact.

“Could you have taken any longer? I was about to send Fran to fetch you…Well, come in already! I’ve got a flight in less than six hours, you know. It’d be nice to at least get a little sleep at some point if you’re done meandering in the hallway,” Madeline greeted. With her arms crossed and head tilted to the side, all traces of my mannerisms that she’d picked up over the summer were wiped clean. She was one hundred percent Madeline.

It had been impossible to miss the young starlet in the media the last couple of months. She was everywhere, her celebrity exploding at the simultaneous release of The Girl in the Yellow Dress and her casting in the biggest remake of the century. But seeing her on TV and in ink, didn’t prepare me to be back with her larger-than-life persona.

“It’s good to see you too, Madeline.” I laughed in spite of her brute nature…or maybe it was because of it. Either way, I found myself truly meaning the words.

Her flame-colored hair, which had always seemed to me to be an extension of her personality, had been dyed a stark raven hue. On anyone else it would’ve looked ridiculous, but as I stared at Madeline, I found myself forgetting it had ever been another color. She was as exaggeratedly beautiful as ever, her cat-green eyes peering at me with well-honed contempt.

I couldn’t even pretend to be offended by her anymore, and I felt nothing but oddly twisted affection as I entered the suite.

Fran was next to greet me, slamming into me like a linebacker, but her tackle came in the form of a tight hug. I chuckled at her enthusiasm, fighting off my natural instinct to be uncomfortable at the invasion of personal space.

Madeline scoffed and stepped around us. Walking into the quaint sitting area, she flopped gracefully onto the spacious cream colored couch, somehow contorting her tiny body to take up the whole thing. Alfred loomed silently by the window, alternating between scoping out the street floors below and assessing the room with careful sweeps of his liquid-brown eyes.

“Our Madeline is having a much easier time identifying with her new character, if you can’t tell,” Fran told me, noticing my gaze on Madeline’s lounging form.

Yeah, I had no problem believing Madeline would have all the empathy in the world for self-serving and ambitious Scarlet O’Hara. Fran kept her arm around me, leading us to the loveseat opposite the couch. Even though she was only a few years older than me, there was something motherly about her touch.

“Congratulations on Gone with the Wind,” I said. My heart sped up, and I cursed the reaction. Would there ever come a day that the slightest mention of anything Declan-related didn’t affect me? My brain had made my choice. Why couldn’t my heart respect it? “You deserve it, and I can’t imagine a better Scarlet.”

“Yeah, well, you’re in the minority,” she said sourly. “Everyone else things that the only thing I earned was my right into Declan Davies’ bed… And the sad thing is, they’re kind of right.”

I sucked in a harsh breath. It was like she’d bitch-slapped me before plunging an ice sickle into my heart. My senses shut down, overloaded with the abundance of him.

“Madeline!” Fran barked before casting me a worried look. She squeezed me closer to her side.

“Oh please!” she dismissed, rolling her eyes unconcerned. “Adley knows I’d sooner romance a kangaroo than Davies…I might not have fucked my way to corsets and pantaloons like everyone assumes, but I can’t escape the fact that I never would’ve gotten the part without Declan. Joseph made it clear that I was no Scarlet without his choice as Rhett.”

“How is he?” The words erupted from me like an unexpected sneeze I could do nothing to stop. I didn’t know where it had come from, and deep regret flooded me,