That Wasn't in the Script, page 23
I reluctantly nod my head, feeling an imminent well of tears about to spring forth. I bite down on my lip with force to stop them from unleashing. Restlessness overtakes me like a bad Syfy channel movie tsunami. The weight of everything—school, college, Dad, the last twenty-four hours—leaves me in a tailspin. I gulp for air as the pressure takes me under.
Spending time with Rowan forced me into being myself for the first time since coming here and losing everything I cared about. I missed him, of course, but more than that, I missed how I felt when I was with him. Brave and badass and like my future wasn’t silly or uncertain. Things my dad would always tell me, but had stopped believing once he was gone.
Mom instinctively dives like a ninja at the sight of my quivering lip and wraps me in a hug that causes me to melt into her chest and weep.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” Mom strokes my hair and kisses my forehead, rocking me back and forth like a child in need of a lullaby.
“This is so ridiculous!” I muffle into her plain white t-shirt. It smells like sweat and airplane pretzels. “I’m the one who ran off like some stupid teenager!”
Mom pulls me off of her and looks straight into my eyes, gripping my arms tight. “I hate to break it to you, but you are a stupid teenager. This is my job, and frankly, it could be much worse.” She side-eyes the dress again. “Unless it is.”
I chuckle, snuffling up a wad of thick mucus. “No, it’s not.”
She wipes away the teardrops as they continue splashing across my cheeks like fat water balloons. “You know I was kidding about the whole finding trouble thing, right? I’m not against fun but please, never do this to me again. At least send me a text? Or bring an extra charger?”
I gasp for cool air between sobs. “Am I going to be punished?”
“You and Pru are sharing your location on your phones with me for the foreseeable future,” she remarks, “but let’s consider this a first strike. Let’s not go for the other two, hmm?”
I allow the strained gravity of the room to dissipate briefly before speaking again, not wanting to seem the accusatory one when I’d just gotten away with sneaking out. That failing to include all the lying, stealing, and plotting along the way. Had she really not noticed the earrings either?
“Mom.” I sigh heavily. “What are you doing home?”
Now it’s her turn to look like she wants to cry. Mom balls up her blonde hair and flops it onto the top of her head, falling limp onto her shoulders.
“They were even more awful than I remembered as a kid.”
“I could’ve told you that.” Yikes. A little harsh, Josephine.
She leans comfortably into my bed, bracing to tell me the story. “They picked me up from the airport, and we went to dinner. It was awful.”
“How awful?”
“Had my old college boyfriend accidentally run into me at the next table so we could ‘reconnect’ awful.”
I practically curse my grandparents for attempting something so callous. Dad hadn’t even been gone a year, and they were already determined to make their eighteen years of marriage seem like a distant memory.
“Let me guess.” I wipe my nose with my sleeve. “It got worse from there?”
Mom tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, the lines on her face growing deep. “I sat down with them yesterday afternoon and explained what we needed. I told them that you and your sister deserved to get a proper education and shouldn’t be punished for my mistakes. That’s when I realized something.”
“What?”
“That loving your dad wasn’t a mistake, and I shouldn’t have to say I was wrong for it.” Salty tears stream into the corners of Mom’s mouth. “The second my parents reminded me how I’d run my future into the ground by marrying him, I grabbed my bag and rebooked my flight. After that, it wasn’t worth it anymore.”
I knit my eyebrows together, bracing for my next confession. “It’s probably not the time to tell you I quit my job, is it?”
Mom squirms, pinching her eyes shut like she’s just been hit with a BB gun pellet. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”
I rub my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Because I know how much the money helped us.”
“Josephine.” Mom grabs me by the shoulders again, giving me a slight shimmy. “I’m the mother, remember? You chose to help support us. I’m grateful, but we’ll live without it. If anything, you are the one I should be apologizing to.”
I draw back sharply. “For what?”
“For not being a better grown-up.” Her gaze is stern, yet as fragile as I’ve ever seen it. “That you’d ever feel the need to put your goals aside for Pru and me. I know how much UC means to you.”
I reach over and pull one of her hands into mine, giving it a slight squeeze. Rowan’s friendship bracelet lies twisted on my wrist, forcing the corners of my mouth to turn into a mum smile. His confident voice burns in my subconscious with fiery enthusiasm.
“Mom,” I whisper, “I have no idea what my future is supposed to look like, but I know college isn’t going anywhere. And for the record? This single parent thing sucks, but you’re doing a really good job.”
That about does my mother in. Thank god Pru was in her room. Two Bradford women in a sea of pajamas and dirty hair drowning in their own sorrow was enough.
As harrowing as it felt to know we were just as on our own as we were before, there’s a newfound steadiness to Mom’s demeanor. She’s not putting on her brave face and hoping I don’t see through the charade, as she had been for so long. Her shoulders are pinched back with resilience, unshaken in this strange new reality we’ve been forced to accept.
Dad wasn’t coming back, but that didn’t mean we weren’t going to be okay. Accepting his absence wouldn’t remove the pain, but perhaps one day, the thought of him missing birthdays and Christmases and Sunday afternoons wouldn’t hurt as badly as it did today. He wouldn’t want us to miss out on our lives just because his was cut short.
Mom wipes her chin with her wrist, mopping up the tears and tugging at the thread around my wrist. “Your sister caved and gave one to you?”
I give it a spin. “My friend did, actually.”
“The boy?” Mom’s earnest expression turns fresh, playfully lifting her forehead. “Do I get to meet him?”
If you ever attend a DawnCon, I inwardly groan.
My insides ball into a giant knot as I realize in that instant, there was a slim chance I’d ever see Rowan again. At least, outside of a screen. I’d be watching Webstream one day seventy years from now and flip across Dawn Heights. I would point to the image of his face and tell my grandkids all about the time we made out near a dumpster and how great it felt.
“Sure, Grandma,” they’ll say. “Let’s get you to bed.”
The bracelet was all I had left of our time together. The longer I look at it and remembered the way he smiled at me as he walked away, the more my heart shatters into a sharp, disfigured mosaic of scattered fragments.
I shake my head, a loose curl escaping from my bun and bouncing into my eyeball. “I’m not sure I’ll be seeing him again,” I explain. “I don’t know how it would work out.”
Mom chews her upper lip and nods. Confused, I’m sure.
“His loss then.” She winks. “I’m going to go make food. You want food?”
I blot away at the last of my tears and force a smile. “Yes, I’d love food.”
Mom lovingly pats my thigh and gives me another kiss on the head, excusing herself and heading for the kitchen, where nothing good is bound to become of all the slamming pots and pans in the background.
Pru promptly whips her head into my open doorframe, shielding her eyes from the bright sunlight filtering through my window.
“You’re still alive?!” She howls in a hushed tone.
“Yes.” I roll my eyes, waving her inside and silently motioning for her to close the door so Mom won’t hear us.
Pru skips over to my bed and flops onto her stomach next to me, rolling like a log and tipping her glasses down her nose.
“How was the date?” She sings.
“It wasn’t a date,” I retort. “It was an unintentional, personal kidnapping with benefits.”
“A date then.” She rises and folds her legs to match mine, sprawling her ruffled pink skirt like a doily across the sheets.
“You didn’t tell Mom,” I state.
Pru blinks. “You sound surprised.”
“Because you tell Mom everything.”
Pru points a finger at my nose with a threatening flair. An armful of colorful bracelets lines her arm. “I might be a tattletale, but I’m not a snitch. Besides, I owe your boyfriend. Also, did you pierce your ears?!”
I aggressively shush her. “He’s not my boyfriend!” I retaliate with a sour taste in my mouth. “And why do you owe him?”
Pru holds up her phone and reveals Rowan’s verified Instagram page, @itsradler. Seeing his face pop up on the small photo grids causes my heart to thud in a way I wish it didn’t. I nearly pass out when I notice his thirty-six million followers at the top of the page. To list a few: Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift. Who was I kidding by thinking I was magically The One?
“He gave me a shoutout!” Pru announces, tapping on his story.
I rip the phone out of her hands, watching my expression explode in the phone’s reflection. Rowan had posted it moments ago, meaning he’d made it back to the hotel safely. I breathe a burdened sigh of relief.
The story was a screenshot of an account called @pruslooms, with a small tag underneath that read: Help support small business and give her a follow!
“No way!” I beam. “You have an Instagram account?”
Pru takes her phone back with an aggressive shove. “That’s so not the point! And I’m actually offended. I’ve had a secret personal account for years.”
My sister adjusts her glasses and taps around her screen several times till she’s showing me a flood of incoming direct messages. Most of them asking how much the bracelets are, where they can buy them, and if she ships internationally. She was already up to eight thousand followers.
“I told him all the money I made for them was going towards your college tuition.” She lifts my arm and tugs at the bracelet on my wrist. “Not your boyfriend, ehh?”
My jaw lands just shy of the shag rug beneath my bed. Few things in life have rendered me completely speechless, that including the discovery I was accidentally harboring a celebrity in my bedroom. Of all the things Rowan could have done once he was back at the hotel, he decided to promote my sister’s Instagram. If I wasn’t falling for him before this, I certainly was now. Why did love have to feel so wonderfully awful?
Pru looks over her shoulder, making sure Mom’s painted toes aren’t sneakily trying to hide underneath the crack outside my door.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” She rubs her hands together with a hungry smack of her lips. “Please?”
I blink back another round of tears and flop back onto my pillows with a relaxed sigh. Closing my eyes, I smile cunningly.
“Yes, I did get my ears pierced.”
CHAPTER 27
JOSIE
In the week that follows the Halloween weekend from Hell—Hell-o-ween, as Pru has affectionately started to call it—her Instagram receives twelve thousand new orders in the United States alone. To reflect the sudden spike in supply and demand, Pru raises the price of the bracelets from five dollars to twenty-five, raising, no joke, over two-hundred thousand dollars after the cost of supplies and shipping.
“Don’t forget about taxes!” I remind her as I walk with her to school on Friday morning. “They’ll bite you in the butt if you don’t account for them on the front end.”
Pru waves me off, pulling her mesh scarf tight around her neck. “I’ve already talked to my financial advisor about it. It’s being worked out.”
I pause mid-walk. “Financial advisor?!”
She makes a noise in the back of her throat. “You’re not the only one who knows people, Josie.”
Every night that week after homework is spent helping Pru make the bracelets at a breakneck pace. She studies each order meticulously to assure the proper colors have been chosen and that each bracelet is being made according to her perfectionist standards. Mom even spends the few nights she’s not working getting in on the action and braiding till her fingers are numb.
“I still don’t understand how that Dawn Heights guy found you!” Mom tilts her reading glasses and holds two blue-colored balls of yarn under a desk lamp. “Do you have a classmate whose dad is in the movie business or something?!”
My sister and I look at one another across the living room with suspicious glances. I press my lips together to keep myself from laughing. Pru plays it off significantly better than me.
“I guess it’s just one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, Mom!”
With continued sales and the help of Pru’s mysterious financial adviser (Emma’s CPA dad), she and Mom agree to open trust accounts for us with a portion of the money. The rest of it, with Pru and I’s blessing, will go towards paying off the remainder of Dad’s hospital debt, taking a massive burden off of Mom for the foreseeable future.
Once Sunday rolls around, and we’re caught up enough to catch our breath, I reach out to Indio and ask if he’d be willing to meet at Stillwater to discuss our plan. I’d been using bracelet-making as an excuse to put it off. He’d sent me at least thirty texts over the last week asking when we could connect so I could see his pictures.
I wasn’t ready to face the reality of what we were planning to do. I’d sat in front of my computer for hours the night before with a blinking cursor and a blank document meant to be filled with juicy Rowan Adler revelations. Instead, I wound up on Webstream to cringe my way through the entire first season of Dawn Heights so I had an excuse to see his face. Josie from a week ago would have been appalled.
I shiver the entire walk to Stillwater, both from the brisk impending winter and the sheer terror of what I’m about to tell Indio. I spot him at a corner booth making sex eyes at Izzy Ezra, who makes me a latte in a mug with a foam heart on top and asks me to show it to Indio. As if I needed yet another reminder of how alone I was.
Indio smirks as I approach the table, his black fingernails tapping across a large, yellow manilla envelope.
“Let me guess,” he wheezes, “you don’t wanna sell the story?”
I set the cup on the table and shake my heavy down jacket off my shoulders, swinging it over my chair. “How did you know?”
“Babe, I knew the night of the show you weren’t going to go through with it. You don’t have what it takes to be a Martin Bashir. You haven’t sold your soul yet.”
I thud into the chair, sprawling my legs wide onto the floor and blowing my hair off my face. “Are you pissed at me?”
“Surprisingly, no. He ended up helping me out too.” Indio blows a kiss over to Izzy, who catches it and stuffs it into their apron pocket. Ugh.
I shrug. “So, what’s the point of us meeting then?”
“Two reasons. One, I thought you might like to know that Izzy is being promoted to assistant manager, and they’re looking for someone to work the bar. Want a job?”
My mouth forms a perfect O, nearly falling out of my seat. Wide-eyed, I turn towards Izzy, who nonchalantly shrugs and mouths, “I’ll put in a good word!”
“Yes!” I laugh, “I’ll totally put in an application!”
“Great!” Indio slides the envelope over to my side of the table, knocking the latte and destroying the heart. “Second, I thought since we’re both too chicken shit to go through with it, you might like to have these as a souvenir.”
Slowly, I unclasp the envelope and pull out a thin stack of 8x10 photos, some in color and several in black and white—only Indio would try to make paparazzi photos artistic. They’re of Rowan and I wandering around the city, all from a distance and some taken at various hilarious angles.
I pause when I get to one of the photos taken of us inside the tattoo parlor. Indio must’ve shot it from the small portion of the front window that wasn’t tinted. Rowan lies on the chair as the woman injects him with ink. I look at him with an adoring smile I can only look back on now as me fawning over him and not even realizing it. It’s simultaneously embarrassing and devastating.
My mouth goes dry. “Wow.”
Indio points to the photo in my hands. “About this one. Once I saw those photos of him at the block party making the rounds online, you know, the block party where you kicked someone’s ass and ruined Izzy’s show...”
I facepalm. Luckily for me, the face paint I was sporting that night made me virtually unrecognizable in any of the photos that went viral. That still didn’t stop Julian and his idiot friends from being too intimidated to make eye contact with me at school over the last week. My red wedding days were all but over.
“Yes, I remember.”
Indio nods. “I ended up paying this tattoo lady a visit and asked if she’d double-down on that whole, ‘he wasn’t there, he was sick in his hotel room’ bullshit his people were spewing to cover his ass when the pictures got out. She told The Fizz her daughter had met him in the hotel while he looked for ice to bring his fever down. That’s how she got an autograph. They interviewed her and everything.”
“You’re kidding,” I laugh.
Indio glances up at Izzy with a goofy smile. “I owed the kid. And you.”
I point to my chest. “Why me?”
“I might be an ‘art school asshole,’” he uses finger quotes around my description, “but I’m not stupid. You really like him, don’t you?”
I sip the latte and allow the warmth to slide down my throat, melting my frigid bones. “Does it matter now?”
“Maybe not.” He tilts his head and taps the photo. “But you look happy here.”
Pru encouraged me to log into my Instagram for the first time in ages and send Rowan a message a few days after we went our separate ways. I’d almost garnered enough courage to write something long-winded and sappy, but when I went to his account, I quickly learned he had DM’s disabled for users he wasn’t following. And he followed no one. The crushing weight of his celebrity once again reminded me just how out of his league I was.
