Wright that Got Away, page 24
“What’s your plan for the night?” I asked, pulling away from Campbell.
Court got a look in his eyes that said dirty, dirty things.
English swatted at him. “I’ll be available if you need me. But you won’t need me.”
“Have fun,” Campbell said.
Then, Campbell whisked me downstairs and into the limo. The anxiety about the gala I’d been holding off all day suddenly hit me again.
“Are you sure we should be doing this?”
Campbell wrapped his fingers with mine. “I want nothing more than to be seen with you.”
“It’s just a lot.”
“I know,” he said. “I know it is. Are you okay with it all?”
“No,” I told him truthfully. “I don’t really know how to react. People on the internet hate me.”
He nodded. “I was worried about that.”
“It’s weird to say I’ve mostly had a positive experience on social media, and now, I can see how it would be debilitating. Why you’re not on it.”
“I wish it weren’t that way for you.”
I shrugged. “Can’t change it now.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he promised.
Even though it felt like a promise he couldn’t possibly keep.
The drive to the Beverly Wilshire was a short one by LA standards. But already, Rodeo Drive was packed with fans and reporters, anxious to see the music celebrities in attendance at the gala that supported music education in local schools. If I got past my anxiety, I was excited to go. I’d been to plenty of things like this in Lubbock, but somehow, it wasn’t quite the same. Okay, not even close to the same as being in Los Angeles, surrounded by celebs.
Campbell took my hand in his as we got into line with the other limos. “This is going to be fun.”
I laughed. “How can you know that?”
“Because I’m here with you. I never thought I’d be here with you.”
“Me either.”
“So, I’m determined to forget the onslaught of online madness and just enjoy the evening with my girlfriend.”
I beamed at that word. I still wasn’t used to hearing it from him. Even in high school, the word wasn’t something we’d really used. Our relationship had always been so secretive. So, maybe this was what we needed to get past all the errors of our past.
“All right, I’ll give it a shot,” I said as he drew me in for a kiss. “I want to have a good time, too. Plus, English prepared me for everything.”
“She’s good like that.”
I nodded in agreement.
Then, we were at the front of the line. A man in a tuxedo and white gloves opened the back door. I took a deep breath before taking his proffered hand and stepping out of the limo. When I’d said English had prepared me for everything, I meant, everything. She’d walked me through a red carpet step by step so that I wouldn’t gape at what I saw in front of me. And still, it was hard not to be awestruck by the beauty of it all.
A long red carpet had been rolled out in front of the famous hotel, leading inside through the arched glass doorways. Either side had been roped off, and reporters waited to speak to the incoming attendees.
Campbell next came out of the limo. He slipped an arm around my waist, giving his best smolder to the cameras that now flashed dramatically. “Ready?” he asked as he pressed a kiss into my hair.
“Ready.”
The red carpet welcomed us with open arms. My smile didn’t even have to be faked. It was exhilarating, and all my earlier fears disappeared. This wasn’t so bad at all. Campbell was charming, and everyone loved every second he gave them. He was still my Campbell, but I could see how he was so much bigger and better in this world. And why he’d prefer to not have to be the person they all expected him to be.
The first reporter pushed a microphone toward us. I recognized him as one of the reporters that English had slipped the questions to. “Campbell, it’s so good to see you out in public with your new girlfriend. So many of our followers have been asking about this mystery woman. We’ve heard the rumor that she’s the ‘I See the Real You’ girl we’ve always wondered about. Can you confirm?”
Campbell laughed, self-effacing. “The mystery woman you speak of is my girlfriend, Blaire.” He squeezed my waist. “We dated in high school, and yes, I wrote ‘I See the Real You’ around the time when we were last together.”
“And with this relationship rekindling, will we get new songs about the lovely Blaire?”
I met Campbell’s gaze, and he winked. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see when the new album releases.”
We continued along to the next reporter I recognized. “Campbell, it’s good to see you out in LA.”
They clapped hands like old friends. English had said that Campbell already had a good relationship with this guy. I could see the camaraderie as they talked.
“Blaire,” he said, turning to me, “we’re glad to see you in LA. About time someone settled down the Campbell Abbey.” Campbell laughed and shook his head, but the guy continued, “We noticed on your social accounts that you were close with the internet sensation Nate King.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Nate and I have been friends for a while.”
“Just friends?” He winked at Campbell. “Sorry, Campbell.”
Campbell arched an eyebrow. “Do you think she’d be here with me now if she was dating someone else?”
“We’re just friends. Nate and Campbell met when he was in town. And as you can see on Nate’s accounts, he’s already congratulated us on our relationship.”
“And how are you handling the talk of Campbell and Nini Verona’s relationship?”
I stumbled on that one. A furrow forming between my brows. We hadn’t discussed this one. That was a name that had come up a couple times while I was around Campbell, but he’d always adamantly denied that they’d ever dated…kind of like I was doing right now with Nate.
Campbell interceded. “Nini and I have never had a relationship. That’s an old rumor after I performed at a fashion show she was in. We won’t be taking any more questions about that.”
We moved away from that reporter, and I leaned over to whisper, “Are you and Nini just friends?”
He shot me a look, and my stomach dropped.
“Oh,” I whispered.
“It was a few weeks right before the tour started.”
I had no room to talk since I’d been dating Nate more recently than that, but I had purposely not thought about how many other girls he’d dated before me. He was a rockstar. The number was likely staggering. And it didn’t matter, did it? He was here with me.
We stopped in front of the next reporter. She wasn’t a person that English had prepped us for. She had the same magazine credentials, but we’d been expecting someone else.
“Do you have a minute, Campbell?” she asked politely.
He glanced at me, and I shrugged. Last one, and then we’d be finished.
The reporter asked a few of the same questions we’d already heard from others. She was on the same script as what English had sent out.
Then, she looked over at me. “Blaire, what do you make of the reports that you were pregnant with Campbell’s baby in high school and had an abortion?”
Ringing.
There was ringing in my ears.
My vision dimmed to nothing.
My stomach plummeted to the concrete.
Suddenly, I was shrinking in on myself and lying on a bed with blood between my legs and tears on my lashes and pain in my abdomen. There was nothing but heartache and a deep aching sadness that I could never recover from. Just pain and pain and pain.
I choked as I remembered my mother driving me to the hospital for my ten-week OB/GYN visit. Ten weeks. Soon, I’d find out if I was having a boy or a girl. A tiny thing was growing inside of me. No one could quite see it yet, but I could. I could feel it. My breasts ached all the time, and I couldn’t stop peeing. I was exhausted and threw up more than I’d ever in my entire life. Even worse than the terrible stomach bug I’d had sophomore year.
I was eighteen and pregnant, against my mother’s expressed wishes. And I wanted this baby. This beautiful baby boy or girl would be mine. The only thing I had left of me and Campbell. He was gone. He was in LA, living his dream. I was here in Lubbock, living a nightmare. But at least I had the baby.
Then, I was in the hospital, getting a standard ultrasound. The doctor paused. Her face fell. She said, “Oh.”
I sat up straighter at the word. Then, I heard the words in a daze. Something about no heartbeat and unviable and miscarriage. Horrible, terrible, disturbing words. I started to cry. My mom stared, frozen, unsure how to comfort me. I wanted Campbell more than anything, but he wasn’t here.
The doctor gave me pills to induce the miscarriage and explained what was coming next. I barely heard them through my sobbing. I was making a scene, but no one faulted me, except my mother, who seemed to be giddy with happiness. She was hardly hiding it either.
The doctor informed me it was common. That fifteen to twenty percent of all pregnancies ended in miscarriage and possibly even more than that if you considered miscarriages before people knew they were pregnant. She tried to make it all sound rational in her soft, careful voice.
I took the medicine and left with my mom. Her words still rang in my ears as I stared forward with red-rimmed eyes and no baby.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset, Marie. This is the best thing that could have happened to you. You have your whole life ahead of you. This is going to make everything so much easier.”
I wanted to vomit, just hearing her say that. As if miscarrying Campbell’s baby was exactly what I should have wanted for myself. When it was the last thing I had ever wanted.
Pamela asked if I needed any help. I gave her the list of things to buy to make the next month more bearable physically. Though nothing could fix it mentally. She dropped me off at the house and then went to the store.
My first instinct was to crawl into bed and cry for another decade. Instead, I called Campbell. I hadn’t spoken to him since the night I’d told him I was pregnant. I never expected him to answer.
“Blaire?” he asked in confusion.
Wherever he was, it was loud. It was a two-hour time difference to LA. He shouldn’t have been anywhere that sounded like a nightclub.
“Hey,” I said weakly.
“What’s up? I’m at work right now, and it’s not a great time.”
“I…” I said, stumbling at the dismissive tone of his voice. “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. Can it wait until I get off work? I’ll call you back.”
“Sure,” I lied. I was going to be bleeding for the next four hours. Passing his baby from my body. What else did I have to do? “Sure. Yeah. Call me back.”
Maybe things would have been different or at least better if he’d called, but he hadn’t. Not that night or the night after that or the night after that. He didn’t call again at all.
The miscarriage was the absolute worst thing that had ever happened to me.
But the one word that I’d never used to describe it, that the doctor hadn’t even used, was abortion.
I’d wanted that baby with every fiber of my being.
I still wanted that baby.
And now, I stood before some asshole reporter, spitting that word in my face for a headline, and all I could do was return to that eighteen-year-old girl who had felt like she was dying. All I could do was retreat.
36
Campbell
Rage filled my chest.
All week, it had been creeping closer and closer to the surface. I’d almost lost it on Michael at the studio. I’d almost come apart at the seams when Blaire was mobbed on Hollywood Boulevard. But now—now—it was here. A fire-breathing dragon like I hadn’t seen in years. Not since I had been in high school and taken it out on my dad for how everything had happened with my mom.
I slapped the camera away from Blaire even though that was breaking rule number one of dealing with the press. “Get the fuck out of her face!”
The reporter took a step back. I’d never made a scene with the press in all my years in the public eye. I’d kept it all carefully put together. The look of shock on her face said she hadn’t expected this to elicit that sort of reaction from me.
It would be the talk of the evening. Fuck if I cared. She was out of line, and she had to fucking know it.
“How dare you,” she began.
“No, how fucking dare you,” I snarled at her.
I turned my back on the rest of the interaction. There were cameras everywhere. And half of them faced the commotion I’d just made. Blaire stood frozen, as if she’d turned to stone at the very question. She’d lost all color in her cheeks, and fear crossed her face.
“Blaire?” I said tentatively, reaching for her.
She jerked backward out of my grasp. Sheer panic hit my stomach. She couldn’t look at me. She didn’t want me to touch her. What had that goddamn question triggered?
I needed to get her out of here. Even if we stayed at the event, I couldn’t have her here, in front of the cameras, a second longer.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I told her soothingly. “Do you want to stay?”
She shook her head. Yeah, I’d expected that.
“Okay. Okay. We’ll go. Let me text the driver to come back around.”
I gently touched her elbow. She flinched but let me direct her away from the rest of the cameras and inside the hotel. Security was tighter inside, and there were no cameras. I could already see everything spiraling out before us. This was going to be on TMZ in minutes.
The driver confirmed a new pickup location, and I shot off a message to English as well as my publicist, Barbara. No one was going to like this. I certainly fucking didn’t.
“The driver is coming around. There’s a side entrance we can take,” I assured her.
There was no response. She just stared off, as if she were caught in some nightmare. Her hands were around her stomach. Honestly, she looked sick.
“Blaire, are you okay?”
Her cerulean gaze met mine, and she swallowed before glancing away and muttering, “No.”
I gritted my teeth. I hated this. I couldn’t do anything to fix this. Everything was a mess. Here we’d thought we were going to control the narrative, and then, fucking somehow, the world had found out that she’d been pregnant. I hadn’t even thought about mentioning that to English. Fuck, we were so stupid.
A few minutes later, the limo pulled up to a side entrance, and I hustled a catatonic Blaire into the backseat. Luckily, no press had gotten wind of our retreat. So, we were in the clear as we drove through Beverly Hills.
English called once we were in the car. “Blaire isn’t answering.”
I glanced at my girlfriend. She’d scooted away from me in the car. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“She isn’t speaking.”
“Oh Christ. Is she okay?”
“No. No, she’s not.”
“Fuck. Okay, I’m heading to the hotel now. We’re about a half hour out. Just stay away from the press and the internet until then.”
“English, what the fuck happened?”
She sighed heavily. “Neither of you thought to tell me she’d been pregnant?”
“It was eight years ago. Only her mom knew. How could I have anticipated that the entire world would find out?” I huffed. “How did they find out?”
“Apparently, a Campbell Soup girl snooped through her medical records. There’s even an actual picture of her file that says she had an abortion roughly eight years ago. Which would have been when you were together or had just broken up.”
“A Campbell Soup girl?” I asked, low and furious.
“Yeah, you have some rabid, boundary-defying fans.”
“I’ll murder them.”
“Let’s not let that get on record.”
“I smacked a camera and cussed out a reporter. I’m already in shit.”
English was silent for a minute. “They must have really pissed you off. You always keep your cool.”
“I know,” I ground out. “Everyone crossed the line with this one.”
“Just take care of our girl, okay? I’ll be there soon to pick up the pieces.”
I said good-bye and then just kept an eye on Blaire as we veered through traffic to a back entrance of The Beverly Hills Hotel. She was still silent and looked like she was holding on by a thread.
We took the private elevator up to our suite, and she immediately swept to the window and stared out with her arms crossed.
“Blaire?”
Her shoulders heaved at the sound of my voice.
“Can we talk about this?”
A small, derisive laugh left her. “Now you want to talk about this?”
I bit my cheek to keep from saying anything stupid. Adrenaline still coursed through my veins. I would not take this out on Blaire. It was the rest of the stupid fucking world that deserved my wrath.
“Yes, I think we should talk about it.”
“Which part, Campbell? The pregnancy you didn’t want or the phone call you never returned?”
I froze at those words. The harsh reality of them. I hadn’t wanted a baby at eighteen. I didn’t know anyone who wanted a baby at eighteen. I’d been wrong to treat her the way I had to follow my dream, but the rest…
“What phone call?”
She choked. Her body tensed. “What phone call?”
The room was quicksand, and I felt myself sinking. I had missed something vital here. And I had no clue what it was.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You left Lubbock, and I called you. You were at work. You promised to call me back.”
I shook my head, trying to remember this. It had been eight years ago, and the details of my first few months in LA were fuzzy. I’d worked in a bar, and they’d had me up at all hours of the day. Not to mention the fact that I’d been drunk a lot. I had no recollection of Blaire ever calling me. I’d thought she had completely cut me off after I left. I’d deserved it.
