“GERONIMO!”
There was a huge splash and then a beefy guy with more tattoos than I could comprehend popped up through the surface of the lake.
“That was awesome!” I shouted, throwing my arms in the air as the crowd on the rocky beach cheered. I lost my balance and staggered a couple of steps sideways, into Frederick’s arm.
“You are drunk again, Cecilia Montgomery,” he said, as I giggled.
“Not drunk,” I said. “Tipsy.”
“I don’t know this word . . . tipsy,” he replied, taking a swig of his beer.
“It means a tiny bit drunk,” I said, holding my thumb and finger about a centimeter apart in front of his handsome face.
He smirked, and was about to say something else, when Mr. Tattoo emerged from the lake right in front of us, his boxer briefs clinging everywhere. I blushed and looked away as he sluiced water from his face with both hands.
“You going, Franco?” he asked.
“Franco?” I repeated.
“This is my new Tennessee nickname,” Frederick said with a good-natured smile. “Cecilia, meet Cox. He is the captain of my football team.”
“Pleasure’s mine,” Cox said, looking me up and down. I said nothing. How do you respond to something like that? Then he glanced over at Frederick again. “You’re up.”
Over on the tire swing, a girl screamed and then landed flat on her back in the water. It looked really painful. The crowd “ooohed” in sympathy, then cheered when she came up, gasping for air.
“I do not feel like getting wet tonight,” Frederick said.
“You do, and you will.” Cox locked a tattooed arm around Frederick’s neck—it looked like a colorful side of beef—and dragged him toward the tire swing. I glanced around for Duncan, but he was nowhere to be found, so I hustled after them. “It’s no big deal, Franco. It’s just a swing. Two-year-olds can do it.”
“I’m not afraid, if that is what you think,” Frederick said. He put his beer down and looked at me. “I will do it if you will do it.”
“This again?” I said, throwing up my palms. “Sheesh, Frederick, I’m not your crutch.”
“No. But everything is more fun with you, Cecilia Montgomery.”
“Awww!” A couple of girls nearby put their hands to their hearts.
Frederick stripped off his T-shirt. “We will go together.”
Another girl swung far out over the water and dropped in gracefully, making a tiny splash. When she emerged, everyone applauded and someone shouted, “The Russian judge gives it a ten!”
Laughter all around.
It looked like fun. And, well, tire-swinging into a lake was something I’d never done. I could check it off the list. Not that I had an actual list, but if I did, this was the type of thing that would be on it.
“Okay, fine. We’ll go together.”
I slipped out of my sundress, glad I was wearing one of my more modest bra and panty sets, and Frederick and I strode over to the swing. I received a few catcalls, of course, but nothing too horrible, and I imagined what Jasper would think if he saw me now—giving him a mental middle finger. I climbed onto one side of the swing and Frederick stayed on his feet to swing us out. He gave a tug on the rope. The branch bowed a bit and I heard a creak.
“We have a doubler!” Cox shouted, and more cheers went up.
“Is a doubler a thing?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Frederick replied with a smile.
“On the count of three,” Cox shouted. “You ready? One!” The crowd counted down with him. There were raised beer cups and half-dressed people everywhere and they sort of swam in my vision like they were doing the wave. Which I’m pretty sure they weren’t.
“Two!”
I held on tight. My stomach wobbled. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. And maybe I was a tad more drunk than tipsy.
“Three!”
Frederick pulled me back, then gave a running start. My heart swooped as we flew out over the lake. I looked down and realized how high up we were just half a second before Frederick suddenly let go and splashed below me.
“Let go!” someone shouted.
The trees around me were a blur.
“Let go before you swing back!”
But I was already swinging back. The crowd was rushing at me. I had about two seconds before I slammed into Cox’s face and fell in an embarrassing heap on the ground. With a cry, I finally released the tire and fell. But what was rushing up at me wasn’t deep water. In fact, I could see the tiny rocks beneath the surface.
My cry became a scream. I hit the water and the ground simultaneously, and I heard my arm crack just seconds before I felt the excruciating pain.
* * *
As soon as I woke up, I knew I wasn’t in my room. Maybe it was the smell—antiseptic mixed with floral air freshener. Or maybe it was the scratchy weave of the blanket beneath my fingers. Or it could have been the fact that my mother was sitting in a chair five feet away, scowling at me.
I turned my head and the back of my skull radiated pain. For a half second the parking lot light beyond the window danced and swayed. I heard the sound of gathering voices and realized it was coming from outside.
The vultures were circling again. I wondered how long it had taken them to hear about my broken arm. Someone at the party had probably live-tweeted the whole event.
“Cecilia,” my mother said.
Tears stung my eyes. I went to roll onto my side, but I couldn’t. My left arm was in a cast. An involuntary cry escaped my lips.
“What is it? Does something hurt?” my mother asked, coming around the bed.
The concern on her face was so unfamiliar, I felt like I was having a fever dream. Maybe I was. Maybe they’d pumped so many painkillers into me that I was hallucinating.
“M’fine,” I mumbled. My mouth tasted foul. “Is there water?”
My mother picked up a pink plastic pitcher, poured water into a plastic cup, and held it out to me. I shimmied up in my bed until I was semi-upright, and took the drink. Nothing had ever tasted so perfect.
“Do you remember what happened?” she asked. She was wearing the same light gray suit she’d worn to dinner, only the skirt was wrinkled. I’d never seen her wrinkled before.
“Yes,” I said, wincing at the memory of the ground rushing up toward me. “Why? Do I have amnesia?”
My mother snorted. “No. You do not have amnesia. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of how stupid you’ve been this evening.”
I tried to sit up a little farther and winced as my skull cracked again. “Yes, I’m aware. Can I go home now?”
“No, you may not go home.” She straightened her suit jacket and huffed. “You have a concussion and your arm is broken in two places. They want to keep you overnight for observation. If I had my way, they’d keep you indefinitely.”
“Of course they would. New state, new prison.”
My mother’s green eyes flashed. “You see, this is why I kept you cloistered away all that time!” she snapped. “To save you from becoming this.”
“This?” I asked, my face flushed. “I thought you were protecting me from the outside world.”
“Yes, and as an added bonus, I never had to worry about you making ridiculous and idiotic decisions!” she shot back. “I never had to worry about you. Now, as you keep helpfully pointing out, you’re an adult, and I’m worrying about you all the time!”
She paused, and her chest heaved with each breath. Her twisted logic hung in the air between us.
“You’re not worried about me,” I muttered finally. “You’re worried about how this is all going to reflect on you.”
My mother drew up to her full height. Her lips pressed into a thin line. “If that’s what you think, Cecilia, then we have nothing more to talk about.”
She grabbed her Louis Vuitton purse and stalked out. A few minutes later, the murmur outside grew to a roar and cameras flashed. I heard a car peel out and knew my mother was gone.
Silent tears leaked out the corners of my eyes as I leaned back against the pillow. My head throbbed. My arm felt like dead weight and the skin was incredibly tight, like it was bracing for the pain that would return once whatever was in my system wore off.
I couldn’t believe I’d broken my arm. I’d never broken a bone before in my life. Definitely not something I wanted to cross off the list.
Was my mom serious? Had she really kept me locked away and out of the public eye for this long so that I wouldn’t rebel? So that I couldn’t? If so, she was even more messed up than I’d originally thought.
“Hey.”
I looked up, startled, and flinched in pain again. And then my heart all but stopped. Jasper was standing in my doorway.
He looked gorgeous, as always. Blond hair tousled, light stubble on his cheeks, white shirt tucked into perfectly distressed jeans. I didn’t even want to know what I looked like. I turned toward the window, where the ruckus caused by my mother’s departure was just dying down. The pain in my skull moved to my temples. Maybe I hadn’t been given any painkillers after all.
“Cecilia, are you okay?” Jasper asked.
He walked around the bed and into my view, tugging a chair away from the wall to sit at my bedside. He reached for my hand—my good hand—but I tucked it under the blankets. I felt like an idiot. And I was also pissed. All I could see when I looked at him was his lips plastered on some other girl’s face. I just wanted him to go away.
“Wow. It must be bad if you won’t even hold my hand.”
I swallowed, which was damn near impossible. There was a jagged rock inside my throat causing tears to prickle behind my eyes.
“Jasper, I really can’t right now.”
“Really can’t what?” Jasper asked. “I know we haven’t spoken today and after last night . . . but, Lia, you’re hurt.”
“Yeah, I broke my arm, but that doesn’t change anything,” I said, glaring at him.
My heart throbbed, trying to make me smile or frown or cry—anything that would take the sting out of what I just said, but I refused.
“Look, I’m sorry if I made you feel used or whatever—”
“Or whatever?” I shot back, and scoffed.
He went wide-eyed—incredulous. “But you have to know that was never what I meant.”
I did know that. Or maybe I didn’t. I wasn’t sure what I knew anymore. Except for the fact that Evan Meyer saw me as a publicity boon. And he was with Jasper way more than I was these days. Who knew what sort of crap he was whispering in Jasper’s ear. Maybe he’d put Jasper up to kissing that girl. Maybe all of it was for publicity. Maybe it was all fake.
But it didn’t look fake, and it definitely didn’t feel fake.
Jasper took a deep breath. This time when he took my fingers, I let him. Only because I was tired and it seemed silly to try to play keep-away in my current state.
“I’m going to be down in Austin for a few days. Maybe you should come with me?” he said hopefully. “You wouldn’t even have to go to any of the shows or have your picture taken at all. We could just hang out in the hotel . . . order room service . . .”
Oh, so now I was his kept woman. The words were on the top of my tongue, but I bit them back. He was trying. And part of me wanted to say yes to him. Those two days we’d spent in Nashville together on the record label’s dime—holed up in a nice hotel with no one to bother us—were two of the best days of my life.
But things were different now. He was famous. I was famous. There was no way we could go anywhere without anyone bothering us. I was sure if we were together, Evan Meyer would find a way to exploit it. And then, there were the girls. Girls I didn’t want to bring up because I wasn’t sure my ego could take another hit.
“I can’t,” I said. “I have work. And there’s so much to do with the gala.”
And I was starting over from scratch, without a single good idea or even a clue how to begin.
“C’mon.” Jasper gave me his most charming smile. “Just a coupla days? I’m sure Tammy will understand. And who cares about your mom?”
Something inside me snapped.
“I care,” I said. “I care about my life and my family and yeah, even my work. You do remember that I’m doing all this so I can get into design school—so that I can stay in Sweetbriar. This stuff actually matters to me—to my future. I don’t have time to run off and be your groupie girlfriend.”
Jasper’s face went hard. He dropped my hand and stood up.
“Fine. You’re clearly exhausted,” he said. “So I’m just going to chalk that one up to you being tired and on painkillers.”
“Whatever,” I said.
“God, Lia. I’m trying, okay? But if you keep acting like this, then I—”
“What?” I asked. “Then you what?”
He took a step back and started for the door. “Never mind. Let’s just talk about this when I get back.”
“No. You know what? I think you should enjoy your little tour without any strings attached,” I said.
What? What was I saying?
“Excuse me?” Jasper asked.
“You heard me,” I said. “Go. Go have fun with all your fans. Post whatever the hell Evan wants you to post on Instagram.”
“Is that what this is about? My Instagram feed? I don’t even control that thing anymore. Evan has some intern taking care of it.”
“So you’re saying that wasn’t you kissing some random girl last night?”
Jasper’s face was the color of ripe eggplant. But he wasn’t denying it. How could he? The photo had thousands of likes.
“That girl basically threw herself at me, Lia,” he said finally. “And I didn’t know that picture had gone up. I—”
“Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? All those people know I’m your girlfriend and then they see that and I—”
“I’m sorry, Lia, okay? I’ll have them take it down.”
Great. So they’ll take that picture down. But how long before another girl “threw herself” at him? How long before an even worse picture showed up? I knew firsthand how one stupid moment could be memorialized forever—how it could hurt people. And I didn’t want to keep getting hurt.
“Just forget it, Jasper. I’m done.”
Done. I’d said the word “done.” Maybe Jasper was right. Maybe I was too hopped up on painkillers.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Lia, you do realize that I wouldn’t even have to be doing half this stuff if it wasn’t for your mother.”
“My mother didn’t make you kiss that girl!”
“I just told you I didn’t kiss her. She kissed me!”
“But what about the next girl and the next? I don’t want to spend my life wondering what you’re doing and with whom and when I’m gonna be blindsided by another photo. I can’t do it. Not anymore.”
“I’m sorry, just to be clear, you’re breaking up with me?” Jasper asked, grasping the plastic bar at the end of my bed and squeezing.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice breaking. “I am.”
“Well, I don’t accept.” He stood up straight and crossed his arms over his chest.
“You . . . what?”
“I don’t accept,” he repeated. “You and me. This. Isn’t over. I’ll talk to you when I get back.”
With that, he turned and walked out of the room.
“We’re broken up!” I shouted after him.
“No, we’re not!” came the muffled reply.
And then, I was totally alone.