Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,21
were made to smirk, not grin. “Not all of us are beautiful enough to actually get to enjoy high school.”
A hearty cackle disrupted the scene, and it took me a minute to realize I’d been the perpetrator of the crime.
“CUT!” Georgia’s shout was violent as she wheeled around to glare at me.
I was shocked by my own behavior – outraged, really – but it didn’t seem to do a thing to squelch the giggling fit that had just overtaken me. It was all downhill from there. The more everyone looked at me, the harder the laughter was to dissuade. I put my hand over my mouth, trying to suffocate it out of me, but nothing worked until I met Cam’s annoyed brown eyes.
“I’m sorry.” It sobered me more than anything else. “But who do you think you are – Nickolas Sparks? ‘Beautiful enough to actually get to enjoy high school,’ did you seriously write that?”
I blamed it on our past being blasted at me, but for a second he’d just been Cam again in my mind, the same guy who used to take great pleasure in calling me out on all my poor-little-rich-girl melodramas. He hadn’t been a bestselling author whose ego I needed to tiptoe around.
The silence screamed as he stared at me a long moment, his expression caught somewhere between speculative and offended. Even if I didn’t dare look, I knew everyone else on set was breathlessly awaiting his reaction just as I was.
Except I swear I sensed a little disappointment from them when Cam’s laughter lit up the room twice as loud as mine had.
It was the slightest tilt I needed to spiral back into my own amusement, and soon we were clutching at each other, bent at the waist, spilling over with laughter together.
“Excuse me!” Our display was pushing the boundaries of Georgia’s southern belle upbringing, as she kicked up her volume and glared in our direction.
Several times we got it under control only to ruin a perfectly good take. No one was even bothering to hide their annoyance by the time Georgia dismissed us from set for the day.
With our heads hung in shame, and still tittering with unwelcomed giggles, we had just started our walk back to Cam’s parking spot when I felt heat on the back of my neck and looked back over my shoulder to find Declan Davies’ penetrating stare watching our every move. I quickly broke eye contact, disliking the intensity he was using to study us.
This was the most at ease I’d felt with Cam since I’d been in California. It seemed that what we’d been missing all along was what we’d been so good at in the past; laughter. This was our moment, and it had nothing to do with their stupid, little movie, or Madeline, or Georgia, and especially not Declan Davies. I put them all out of my mind, and resolved to enjoy it like it deserved to be enjoyed.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated with sincerity and a smile. Our giggles had trailed off, but the good humor of the situation hadn’t left us, even as we drove back to Cam’s home. “This has all just been really…surreal.”
“It’s ridiculous is what it is!” He agreed as his dimples bloomed. “I can’t believe we both haven’t had a breakdown already. Maybe we should have a long time ago. I feel so much better now…I’ve missed you so much, Ads.”
My fossilizing heart fluttered like it hadn’t done in years at the way he was looking at me. I was seventeen all over again, falling into intrigue with the boy who was an exquisite contradiction.
“Sometimes I forget we started out so normal.” I half-grinned in return, as I made the confession. “Actually I constantly amaze myself with my ability to purposefully not remember anything to do with our relationship.”
He frowned at my comment, and the stormy look that darkened his eyes into the color of mud puddles reappeared. It hadn’t been my intention at all, and, freshly free of the ice that had been stiffening our interactions, I had no qualms about questioning him.
“Not everything was bad, you know,” he felt the same new freedom that I did, not needing my prompt, speaking with gentle intensity that added somberness to the mood, without completely killing it. “I hate the way things turned out just as much as you do. Seeing all this through your eyes makes me see how disgusting it is. It’s like I’ve profited off the same thing that