Time Out (15 page)

Straight across the living room was another wide opening that led back to the family room. It was equipped with a television set and a long leather couch. My mom and I had spent most of our time together in there because it was the only comfortable seat in the house and it was the only place besides my room where you could find modern technology.

Across from the front door, was a hallway that led further back to a full size kitchen and dining
room.
Looking around at the large framed artwork on the walls and old décor like the faded tapestry on the ground, I wondered how my mom could feel comfortable living in a type of archive.

I knew a part of the reason was because she didn’t have the money to upgrade the place. And the other part was because, like the rest of our neighborhood, we seemed to live in a part of the Burgh which time had literally forgotten.

It was weird knowing so much had changed in my life, and yet here I was standing in this house as though it could have been only yesterday that I planned my escape and left on some crazy mission to stalk a band. 

“I’m sure you’ll find enough clothes to wear in the drawers where you left them,” my mom sighed, bringing me out of my analysis. 

“Thanks,” I smiled and pointed up the steps in the direction of my room before we parted ways. As I climbed the stairs a small voice in the back of my mind reminded me that this was my reality now. I belonged here now because as far as Hawkins was concerned I didn’t belong in his world anymore. I knew he thought he was protecting me, but as I pushed back the door to my room, the emptiness was almost unbearable. The stagnant stale air clung to my lungs as I slowly took in the room.

My mom must not have touched a thing since I left because my bed, which was centered on the wall across the room to my left, was still unmade, like she was waiting for me to come home any day now. The thought alone made me feel overwhelmed with emotion. Why couldn’t I have just told her the truth instead of continuing to run from her? I wondered as I crossed the threshold of my door into the small space.

My room had two half size dressers; one to the left of the door and one across from the door along the wall to the right. My fingers grazed along the top of one of them where I had left my graduation commencement program. God—it felt like a lifetime ago, I realized as I leafed through it and then tossed it to the side again.

Looking up at the bulletin board overtop of the dresser, I snatched up a picture of Riley and me at
Kennywood
Amusement Park on a day that we decided to ditch school. Riley’s familiar face was the only thing that comforted me as I came to sit down on the edge of my bed. This couldn’t be my life, I thought with another glance around the room. It was too… settled and
quiet
, I sighed with the realization. Yes, I might be safe here, but at what cost?

Chapter
T
en

Later that night, I didn’t know what to say to my mom as we sat down for a spaghetti dinner. The only sounds that could be heard were from my cell beeping every couple minutes from calls and text that Hawkins was sending but I wasn’t answering and the silverware clanking off our plates as we continued to eat in silence.

“Is it supposed to storm?” my mom finally asked.

“No, why?”
I felt my face pinch with the question since it had been an unusually bright day, even for the Burgh.

“I thought I saw lightning,” she went to shrug it off when suddenly I saw a flash of light through the corner of my eye and another flash quickly followed it, but I didn’t hear any thunder.

“Oh my god,” I realized with a sickening kind of dread in the pit of my stomach. The flashes of light weren’t from a lightning storm; they were from the cameras of the paparazzi outside our dining room window.

“Mom, get down,” I hissed as I quickly ducked for cover under the table; out of the way of the shot. My heart was racing inside my chest from the sudden breach of privacy.  

“Who are those men?” My mom stayed frozen in her seat as I quickly worked my way over on my knees to the window and yanked the curtains shut. 

It might as well have been thundering and lightning because once my mom finally found her feet again, we both raced from window to window to shut the curtains in the same mad rush as if we had left the windows down in the middle of a rain storm.

I didn’t know if it was legal for the paparazzi to be scattered throughout our yard and around our house, but they probably figured that they could get away with it for now. It wasn’t like I was the famous one in the relationship who had security for this type of stuff.

Ten minutes later, my mom and I found ourselves both winded from the experience with our butts on the floor and our backs to the couch in front of our bay window in the living room. Even with the curtains drawn tightly shut, I could see flashes of lights go off outside through the cracks to the side of the curtains like they were trying to catch any image they could. It was enough to even weird
me
out, and I thought I had seen a thing or two by now.  

For the first time since I had arrived home, my mom showed some real affection toward me by taking my hand into hers and squeezing it.

“They don’t show you this part in the magazines,” she gasped; partly from being still winded from the experience of running around the house and partly from being afraid like me.

“No, no they don’t,” I smiled over at her weakly; wishing that she didn’t have to experience this with me. 

“How did they find out where I was so quickly?” I asked out loud when it suddenly dawned on me.

“Lizzie,” I growled as I reached for my cell that, fortunately for me, I still had in my jean pocket.

“What are the paparazzi doing at my house?” I sent the text to Lizzie’s cell.

“Good, they’re there,” she texted back like she had been anticipating this moment. “Now remember to look cool and indifferent. Someone has an image to keep up.”

“You know he dumped me right?” I reminded her.

“He didn’t dump you, it’s Hawkins. He has a martyr complex. And we need this opportunity to show Gwyneth that none of this got to you. Now remember - no occasion’s too small to look your best,” she continued before I could text back and then sent another text at lightning speed. “I know you left all your clothes here so I’m going to be emailing you a cheat sheet of photographs from magazine clippings of outfits that any girl, yes even
you
, can create from the basic things you have in your closet.”

“I highly doubt that,” I mumbled to myself when another text popped up. 

“That bitch won’t know what hit her, when you look confident and hot, while he literally cries himself to sleep every night.”

“Wait—what?” I asked because that part actually caught my attention. Did Hawkins miss me?

“Nothing, not important—now remember, don’t directly acknowledge them.”

“I think it’s too late for that,” I sighed to myself with the memory of my mom and me frantically running around the house so we could yank the curtains shut.  

“Am I great PR person or what?” the next text popped up.

Groaning to myself, she quickly replied before I could, “You can thank me later…bye!”

“Who was that?” my mom asked bringing my focus back to the two of us; hiding out on the living room floor.

“The less you know the better,” I sighed as I tightened my hand around hers and squeezed it.

Chapter
Eleven

Maybe the less I knew was better for me too, because when I woke up the next morning, feeling barricaded in my house because the paparazzi were literally camped outside on my front lawn, I made the mistake of turning on the TV. I never considered myself lucky, but I couldn’t remember doing anything worth deserving this kind of bad Karma. There on the 37inch flat screen was my face blown up to fill the screen.

“I guess its official, J.T. Hawkins and Joie Hall
have
broken up for good.”

It suddenly felt as if I walked in on a conversation where people were talking behind my back, only problem was they just kept talking and for a second I was glued to the screen unable to turn it off.

“And now there are rumors that he’s been crying his eyes out on his ex-fiancé shoulder to get him through this difficult time.”

When they showed a picture of Hawkins, Gwyneth, and Warren heading into a hotel together, it was my worst nightmare come true. I knew they were reading more into the picture than was actually going on with Warren being in the bunch, but it still succeeded at setting my teeth on edge. What if Gwyneth was moving in on Hawkins now that I was gone?

“Poor Hawkins,” the newscaster added sarcastically bringing my focus back to the television set. “Life must be so tough.”

“I know,” another guy in the group added. “It’s like dude—why did you leave her in the first place? She’s gorgeous.”

Finally my body caught up with my mind as I turned the television set off.

“Well—that was a mistake,” I mumbled to myself as I fell back onto my bed. Grabbing up my cell phone from the nightstand by my bed, I ignored the over 25 messages from Hawkins and decided to text Riley.

“I’m depressed. The paparazzo is holding me prisoner in my own house, and according to TMZ Hawkins is moving onto Gwyneth.”

“You think you’re depressed, you should see Hawkins. At least you shower when you’re depressed. If he doesn’t shave soon, he’s going to start to look like the Unabomber. And I don’t see how he could have possibly moved on when he hasn’t even left his room except to take the stage every night.”

“Are you sure, because they showed a picture of him going into a hotel with her?” I asked since Hawkins appeared to look his normal sexy handsome self in the picture that they showed.

“I share the same tour bus with him, I think I would know. That picture must be old.”

“Thank you, I needed to hear that. Well—not that he’s depressed, but that he’s not moving on.”

“It’s cool. I’m here for you.”

A text from Lizzie suddenly popped up on my smart
phone,
probably because she was sitting right there next to Riley on the tour bus.

“Did you look at the email I sent you of the different ways to style your clothes yet? And what the hell is this shit on Yahoo’s website? You looked pasty white and scared.”

“They ambushed us at dinner and I was scared for my mom!”

“Do I sound like I care? If you want Hawkins not to move onto Gwyneth then you’ll fix it!”

Grrrrr
!

“What do you expect me to do, get all dressed up just to go get the mail?”

“That’s exactly what I expect for you to do, so chop, chop.
But
not before you check that email I sent you!”

“Fine—bye,” I sent the text with a huff and glanced across the room at my laptop.

I slid out of my bed and crossed the room to my desk. On my way there, I made a small detour over to my window that faced the front of the house. I peeked from behind the curtains to steal a glance at the paparazzi down below.

I would have thought I was Angelina Jolie on the red carpet the day of the Oscars by the packed crowd of men below. As if they had been studying the house, waiting for this moment to finally present itself, someone noticed me through the high powered zoom lens of their camera and took a shot causing me to quickly slap the curtain shut. Going to get the mail suddenly felt like a much bigger deal than I had anticipated.

But then I remembered what they had said about Gwyneth and Hawkins on TMZ, and even though the picture wasn’t current, it was enough for me to take Lizzie seriously.

Minutes later, I found myself scrolling down the pictures on the email she had sent me. One picture had a girl dressed in a ‘summer scarf’ which never made sense to me because…well it was
summer
. I continued to scroll down, hoping Lizzie could give me something to work with, but another one was of a girl dressed in a tan jumpsuit and I thought,
really
? This was something every girl could find in her closet?