Addie was in America for weeks, but I wouldn’t have had time to see her even if she had been in London. We were deep into rehearsals for the Royal Albert Hall gig on New Year’s Eve, our first full show in the public eye. I was scared I was going to forget all the choreography, accidentally move around onstage like always and find myself blocking a camera angle at midnight. When I thought back to last New Year’s Eve, at a house party at Ellie’s before I’d even applied for the academy, it felt like a million years ago.
Sam was like a different person and I realised the toll that the endless promotion had taken on him. For him, playing music was a need, as essential as breathing. Tish came to our rehearsals and watched on with pride from the wings. Richie was still partying late every night, but Carter stayed home, keeping his promise to me.
Addie’s messages to me from the States were friendly but not flirty, and she never mentioned what we’d talked about in my bedroom – or the kiss we’d shared there. When she told me she was meeting up with Valentina Salazar for coffee, I tried not to feel disappointed. Of course she would want to see her ex, even though she obviously had unresolved feelings for her. It wasn’t like I had any claim on her. It would have been unfair of me to expect anything when I was still with Carter anyway. So I texted back cheerfully, wishing her luck, and tried not to think about her in a coffee shop, sitting across from a supermodel. I resolved to tell her about Carter as soon as she got back.
I didn’t tell Carter about the kiss with Addie in my room, either; there was no point in mentioning it, especially now she was acting more like a friend. I told myself that I had been scared of losing another friend after my fight with Phoenix, and Carter had been in hospital, and that our kiss had only happened because I was emotional and confused. I tried hard to believe it.
A few days before Christmas, after a long day of rehearsals, I met Dad and Jack at the airport. Dad looked disorientated and I realised it was more than a decade since he’d last taken a long-haul flight, back when he’d visited his cousins in Italy. He held me so tight in the arrivals hall that I had to tell him to let me go. When he pulled away, his eyes were wet.
Outside our apartment, glittering baubles hung from the telegraph poles. As our cab pulled into the kerb, photographers scattered like a flock of pigeons.
‘What’s going on?’ Dad asked. I tried to play it cool, but I knew something big had happened.
Amir was inside, and after he’d introduced himself to Dad and Jack he wordlessly handed me a newspaper with a front page photo of me and Carter, curled up together at our rehearsal at the Royal Albert, his mouth on my forehead. The angle suggested it was shot from the stage.
Humiliation pricked me all over. Carter and I had been sneaking kisses backstage, or touching fingers briefly in an interview, and over time he’d become bolder, less patient when I shrugged him off in public. Deep down I had always known we would get caught. That was part of the thrill. But this wasn’t just pictures of me being kissed by my boyfriend in a newspaper; as far as the world was concerned, it was pictures of me being kissed by someone who wasn’t my boyfriend in a newspaper. Phoenix’s angry words echoed in my head: It’s not like you. Well, now the whole world thought it was like me.
I didn’t know what I’d say to Addie. I’d told her she could trust me, in those early weeks before we had even become friends, and certainly before it had developed into anything more, and she’d said, ‘Yeah, I think I can.’ There was no way that she’d think that now.
Amir hit the roof. ‘If you’d just told me this was happening we could’ve played the whole thing out! You and Addie could’ve split up quietly, wishing each other all the best, like it had just run its course. Then we’d do a few interviews where you and Carter hold hands, a nice photo shoot. “Perennial Single Girl Finds Love In Her Own Backyard.” This isn’t the way to do it.’
I pulled my knees up to my chest and folded my arms around myself. Dad stood in the kitchen, slack-jawed with jet lag, as this man he’d only just met tore into his daughter. I was relieved that Jack had already gone to sleep in the spare room, exhausted from the flight. Sam went briskly to close his bedroom door so we didn’t wake Tish.
‘Of course you had to take it out of my hands,’ Amir went on. ‘Is it really so much to ask that for once you acknowledge that I know more about this industry than you do? If you’d just told me this was going on, we could have come up with the perfect moment to launch Brand Liliarter – maybe onstage at the Supernovas, if you still get a nomination after this.’
‘Why wouldn’t we get a nomination after this?’ said Sam. ‘Surely what’s happening in Liliana’s personal life shouldn’t affect that?’
Amir exploded. ‘She’s cheating on the most beloved pop star in the world and you think they’ll turn a blind eye? How long has this been going on?’
There was silence, then Carter shrugged and admitted the truth. ‘Since Paris.’
‘So you’ve been smart enough to keep it under wraps for – what – nearly three months? What made you suddenly think this was safe?’
I finally snapped. ‘I was rinsed and it was late, and I guess I just let down my guard,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think anyone would be taking photos.’
‘So what happens now?’ Carter said. ‘I mean, we didn’t plan it, but it’s done now, right?’
Something in his voice made me wonder whether he had planned it. He didn’t seem at all surprised.
Amir threw up his hands. ‘The only option is to try to convince Jen it’s a great move for Addie’s career. If we’re lucky, she might overlook the catastrophe it poses for your own.’
‘Well, it was going to come out at some point,’ Carter said. He pressed me against him, but I didn’t feel any better. ‘At least we don’t have to lie anymore.’
Amir pointed at me. ‘You need to call Addie,’ he said. ‘The least you can do is pay her the courtesy of telling her yourself.’
My hand trembled as I closed the door to my bedroom and pressed ‘call’. I sat on the bed where Addie had kissed me a couple of weeks ago and waited for her to answer. How was I going to explain this? My mind raced through the options: to say that Amir had insisted on secrecy, or that Carter hadn’t wanted anyone to know, or that the relationship had only evolved in the last couple of weeks, while she’d been in the States? But as soon as she answered, I knew I had to tell the truth.
‘Lily?’ she said, sounding groggy. I hadn’t checked the time difference: I’d probably woken her up.
‘Um, hi,’ I said. ‘Sorry to wake you. There’s no good way to ... I mean … there are some photos today. Of me, uh … kissing my boyfriend.’
There was a crushing second, just long enough for me to wonder whether she was so upset that she’d hung up, but then she said, ‘Boyfriend.’ She sounded cool, but then she was practised in defensive calmness. ‘Who is it? Someone I know?’
‘No. Well, maybe. It’s Carter.’
‘Your guitarist? The one who’s always on the internet stumbling out of MudDragon? Were you trying to humiliate me?’
‘I didn’t …’ I started, but the words stuck in my mouth like Fantales. I couldn’t say anything without sounding defensive. ‘I’m really sorry.’ It sounded totally inadequate.
‘But you said we’d talk when I got back from the States,’ she said. There was a second, as if she needed time to absorb it, and then she added in a strangled voice, ‘Everyone’s going to think I’m such an idiot.’
‘No they won’t. They’ll just think I was cheating on you,’ I said miserably. ‘And Amir says it’ll be great for your career,’ I added, trying to rescue the situation. ‘Maybe you can do some interviews about it, and people will think you’re heartbroken.’
There was a pause. I looked up at the poster of Iggy above my bed, waiting for her to lose it at me. But she didn’t seem angry. ‘Lily, I’m not talking about our professional relationship. I’m talking about our personal relationship,’ she said, and I felt like I’d been winded.
‘I thought we were friends,’ she continued. ‘Maybe I thought we could be something more than that, one day – I don’t know. It feels stupid to admit it now. But I thought you saw me as an actual person, not someone you could use to get where you wanted and drop when I was no longer useful.’ I went to apologise again, but she spoke over me, her voice hard. ‘I let my guard down with you. But I guess I should’ve known better.’
Carter had said, ‘At least we don’t have to lie anymore,’ but I didn’t feel any better being honest. I was embarrassed and tired and full of deep, dark shame – and above everything, I felt the loss of Addie, with all her defences and vulnerabilities and her fake hair, who’d held my hand in my bedroom and kissed me without an audience, whose lips were so soft.
•
Photographers camped outside our building for days, waiting for a glimpse of me, so I stayed home over Christmas. Gossip columns devoted inches to my break-up with Addie, holding it as evidence that the Perennial Single Girl couldn’t commit to a serious relationship. Sometimes it felt as if it was all happening to someone else, and sometimes it hurt so much I could barely breathe. I didn’t check my socials. They would only be full of overwrought threats from her fans, furious I’d broken her heart. I would have been one of those fans once, indignant on her behalf. A part of me still was.
But the worst thing was the look in Dad’s eyes when I told him the whole story. He tried to stay positive over Christmas, sending Jack to Tesco for supplies, roasting a duck and making the traditional pavlova for the boys, but I knew he was disappointed in me. I was disappointed in myself.
‘You’re still seeing this Carter fellow, then?’ he said on Christmas Day as he carved the duck.
I stopped stirring the gravy on the stove. He knew the answer and I was already humiliated enough.
‘And he makes you happy?’
I didn’t know how to answer that. Carter certainly made me something, but I didn’t think it was something I could admit to my dad.
‘Or at least, you’d rather be with him than Addie?’
‘Addie and I were never …’ I started, but I couldn’t finish the sentence, and he nodded as if he had expected this.
Quietly, he said, ‘I wish I could learn your lessons for you, patatina, but this might be one of those times you have to figure it out yourself.’
Addie gave long, serious interviews where she talked about always having a lot of respect for me and didn’t mention Carter. Her graciousness made it hurt more, and probably made me look even worse in the public eye. I stopped watching after the first few and tried to distract myself with rehearsals for the New Year’s Eve concert. Public opinion had turned against us, and a lot of Addie’s fans were threatening to hate-watch the gig. If we wanted to prove everyone wrong, we needed to knock it out of the park.
The only good thing about it was that Carter seemed delighted. I didn’t know if it was because he didn’t have to lie anymore, or because he finally had me to himself, and I didn’t have the energy to ask. Every night he tried to get me to come out with him, but I was scared photos of us together would just give the press more ammunition and I didn’t want to run into any of Addie’s furious fans. We stayed home and Richie went out without us.
Sales of ‘Stargirl’ went through the roof.