| |
“I’M BEING BITTEN!” we heard Lexi call out in horror as we rushed toward the bedroom. “For God’s sake, somebody help me! I’m covered in bugs!”
“Oh, that you are, hunty,” I heard Pepper say in a casual voice as Hunter and I slammed into the room, where three cameramen already were covering the scene. “Just like a smart girl caught in a fire, you’ve already stopped, dropped, and rolled onto the floor, Lexi, so my advice to you now is that you better start rolling even harder. Because just so you know, you have hundreds of earwigs biting your ass. Oh, and by the looks of it? They’ve also attached themselves to your face, your arms, your legs, and probably even your saggy little tits, as well as your overused, STD-ridden coochie.”
“Pepper,” I said as I locked eyes with her. “What have you done?”
“Julia, come on,” she said with a shrug and a sigh as she walked over to her bed and stepped into her slippers. “Obvi, you’ve seen by Lexi—otherwise known as the insect-ridden mess flopping about on the floor—exactly what I’ve done. So, just step the hell off so I can continue to capture this moment for my thirsty social media peeps. Because what you and Hunter already know is that this shit is going to be television gold. After what this bitch pulled on me and my mother today? I’m going all in right now.”
And she had.
As the other girls clamored into the room after hearing the commotion, a few of them yelped in shock when they saw that not only was the entirety of Lexi’s body swarming with biting insects—but that her bed and the floor was alive with bugs as well. As Pepper took photo after photo of Lexi’s plight, she started to stomp the floor around her so she could crush whatever insects were coming her way before they could bite her as well.
She’s thought of everything . . . I thought in horror.
“I’m in pain!” Lexi cried out as she twisted violently around on the floor while trying to swat off as many of the earwigs as she could. And then she just glared at Hunter and me. “Why are you motherfuckers just standing there? Help me, for Christ’s sake! I could die from this!”
“Please,” Pepper said. “Do you really think I’m that stupid, Lexi? Naturally, the bugs are a biting nuisance, because, I mean, obvi, they’re meant to be. And, yes, you will turn into a welted mess after they’ve had their way with you. But they aren’t poisonous. Because, you know, I’m smart like that. When I went to the pet store earlier today to seek out food for my new, um, pet iguana, I asked all sorts of questions. I made certain that whatever they gave me wasn’t poisonous because I didn’t want anything poisonous in my bedroom, and after being given a handful of choices, I decided to go with the earwigs—because they looked super nasty to me. I mean, their pincers are literally attached to you, for God’s sake. How sick is that? Pretty sick, if you ask me. But I can tell you this, girl—if I hadn’t been guided by the boys running that store? I probably would have gone with the damned fire ants, and your ass probably would be dead right now.”
At that moment, Pepper’s plan became clear to me. When Lexi had hopped into bed for the night, she’d unwillingly tossed herself into a nest of bugs, which right now were biting her everywhere. They were heated, they were angry, and my God, as I watched them swarm her body, they were in full attack mode.
I turned to Hunter, who was swiftly removing his T-shirt, likely to swipe the bugs off Lexi and kill them before they could do more harm to her. But when his shirt came off? Oh, hell, I hadn’t seen him shirtless yet, but I was seeing him shirtless now, and he was so buff, cut, and lightly hairy in the best of ways, it was a challenge for me to focus on what I needed to focus on right now—Lexi’s pathetic plight!
Since she also was a bitch, I couldn’t help but take a moment to lust after Hunter. Because with his shirt off, Hunter was beyond masculine, so all I could do was just stare openly at him for a minute before I cleared my throat and got my head on straight. I mean, Lexi was literally being bitten by hundreds of bugs and writhing at my feet, for God’s sake.
Girl, you need to step up to the plate and help her!
“Do you need my help?” I asked him.
“With what?” he said as he arched his eyebrow at me.
Oh, shit, he totally just caught me drooling over him . . .
“With Lexi,” I said. “I mean, what else?”
“We’ll discuss that at another time. But right now? No. I need you to stand back because I can’t allow the bugs to attack you.”
“They’re biting me everywhere!” Lexi shouted as she slapped her hands against her face, arms, legs, and the rest of her body. “Why is everyone just standing there? Why isn’t anyone helping me!”
Behind me, Jinx cut swiftly in front of Hunter before he could act and rushed toward Lexi.
“We’ll kill them!” she said triumphantly, as she raised her fists above her head. “Come on, girls! No matter what it takes, we need to Wonder Woman up, we need to do Lexi proud, and together? We need to swat these bugs down until all of them are dead!”
“Jinx, they’re biting me everywhere!” Lexi whimpered.
“I can see that,” Jinx said. “But the girls and I are going to fix it even if apparently no one on staff will, since they’re more interested in ratings than your safety!”
“I’m here to help,” Celina said as she brushed past me.
“Me too,” Angelina said as she joined the other girls. “But, Lexi, I need you to listen to me right now. I know you can’t see what’s happening to you, but the bugs have literally attached themselves to you. To kill them, we’re going to need to be super aggressive. This isn’t going to be easy on you. Are you prepared for that?”
“JUST FUCKING KILL THEM!” Lexi moaned.
“Let’s slap them dead!” Jinx said. “Come on, girls. Let’s do this shit, because what Pepper has pulled tonight? It’s total bullshit!”
“They’re biting my face!” Lexi said. “To hell with Pepper! Kill them!”
And then, after the girls delivered several harsh slaps across Lexi’s face in an effort to crush the earwigs, a stunned Lexi looked up at them in shock and awe as the girls started to slap the rest of her body stupid, all while the bugs continued to rove over her—and bite her.
“They’re under her tank,” Celina said as she peeked beneath it. “And my God, they’ve attached themselves to her nipples! Jinx, pull off her tank!”
“When has Janx ever pulled off anything?” Pepper said as she filmed the mayhem with her iPhone. “I mean, come on—her name is Janx, for God’s sake. If breathing wasn’t an involuntary motion, she would have been dead at birth.”
“Go to hell, Pepper!” Jinx said.
When Celina lifted Lexi’s tank, my hand flew to my mouth, because Lexi’s neck, breasts, nipples, and her torso were indeed covered with bugs that were actively biting her.
This needs to end now, I thought.
“Hunter,” I said. “Stop this.”
“Now, they’re on me!” Celina interrupted as she staggered back against one of the bedroom’s walls. “They’re on my feet—and my legs! They’re biting me now! Somebody help me!”
“Me too!” Jinx screamed out after she slapped Lexi hard across the face again, in an effort to kill one of the bugs that was biting her. “Why the hell isn’t anyone helping us?”
“Why don’t we all just call it what it is?” Pepper said in a smooth, measured voice as she continued to video all that was unraveling in front of her. “It’s karma, ladies. Today, Lexi chose to shame and humiliate my mother when she’s at her most frightened and vulnerable. She knew in her gut what my mother had to be going through, and yet she still was cold enough to make her issues public to the world. Lexi, dear, did you really think I’d allow you to do that to my mother without retaliating? Were you so naïve as to think I wouldn’t punch back even harder?”
She paused to stamp down on the bugs approaching her.
“You deserve everything you’re experiencing right now, Lexi,” she said. “And guess what, sweetie? As you know, I’ve already posted the first part of your ruin on Instagram, and because of that, we both know that reactions to those photos are blowing up as I speak. And now there’s the video I’m shooting of you, which soon will go live. Sure, I can’t share the bits where your floppy tits are exposed, but let me ask you now, you sorry assed bitch. When it comes to today, who won in the end? Oh, look, everyone—I think that might have been me . . .”
“Ladies,” Hunter said as he moved toward Lexi. “Step aside, remove whatever earwigs have attached themselves to you, and let me help Lexi.”
“So, now you’re going to help me, Hunter?” Lexi shouted at him in pain and rage. “I mean, seriously? This is the moment when you’re going to man up and help me?”
“Lexi, I have been helping you,” he said as he moved toward her with his T-shirt in his hand. “Now, take my hand, stand up, and move toward the bathroom and away from your bed. I need you to step into the shower so we can get the rest of these bugs off you.”
“So you can feel my tits?” she shot at him.
“Let me take care of this,” I said before Hunter could respond. “Give me your T-shirt, Hunter.”
“As if I want your hands on me,” Lexi said to me.
I held up my hands and just looked at her.
“Choose what you want, Lexi,” I said to her. “You either can continue to be bitten by the bugs, or I can help you remove them from you in the shower while the crew vacuums up whatever bugs are left. It’s your choice, because hear me on this. You are not my client, you are not my responsibility, I owe you nothing—but I am willing to help you right now. Whether I do so or not is up to you. So, choose.”
“What choice do I have?” she said. “They’re still biting me everywhere!”
“Either give me permission to help you or not.”
“Permission fucking granted!”
“Then, get into the shower so we can remove them all. We’ll swipe them off your body, they’ll go down the drain, then all of this will be behind us,” I said. “Now, move!”
In need but also in frustration, she reached out her hand to me, and when she did? I saw that there were dozens of earwigs attached to her flesh. Even though I feared that they’d likely bite me, I took hold of her hand, I pulled her to her feet, and hurried her toward the bathroom. When we stepped inside, I turned on the shower, directed her to take off her shorts, and even though I was fully clothed, I got into the shower with her and used Hunter’s T-shirt to remove the rest of the bugs from her.
“You’re tearing them off me!” she said. “It hurts!”
“Just stand as steady as you can,” I said as I started to scrub them off her. “If we act swiftly, this should go quickly. If I miss a spot, tell me where, and I’ll tend to it.”
After I’d washed Lexi’s extremities, I asked her to use the T-shirt on the more personal parts of her body to make certain that all of the bugs were gone. When she was finished, she dropped the T-shirt onto the floor, where dozens upon dozens of bugs were swirling down the drain. Some of them were dead, but most of them were still alive.
“Are we good?” I asked as the water rained down on us.
As Lexi inspected her body—which was riddled with swollen welts—she took a deep breath before she nodded at me.
“I think we’ve gotten them all,” she said under the running water.
“Think or know?”
Again, she looked over her body.
“No, I think they’re gone.”
“Let’s make certain. Turn for me.”
Reluctantly, she did so, and when I agreed that she was in the clear, I turned off the water. I reached behind me for a large white towel, then I handed it to her so she could cover herself. When she did, I grabbed a towel for myself, stepped out of the shower, and started to dry myself off as Lexi did the same.
“We need new clothing for you,” I said.
“I can take care of that on my own, Julia.”
“Fine,” I said. “Take care of yourself. And good luck, Lexi—may this day be a lesson to you. But please hear me when I say this. I know that after what Pepper did to you tonight, your instinct will be to escalate things, but why go there? We’ve all just seen what Pepper is capable of. If you go in harder with her, how do you think she’s going to react? You and I both know that whatever she decides will only be worse for you.”
As she stood naked in front of me, Lexi simply clocked me with a glance, and when she spoke to me again, it was with a threatening tone in her voice.
“Not if I truly shut her down,” she said defiantly. “Not if I make her frightened to death of me.”
“But that’s the thing,” I said to her. “Pepper isn’t scared of you or anyone else on this show. For reasons that go far beyond her issues with her mother, Pepper is one of the toughest, strongest young women I know. And because of that, there is no way in hell that she’s going to allow you to win this war. So, why not just bury the hatchet with her now, and be done with this bullshit? For your own sake!”
“Julia, I’ll do whatever the hell I want,” Lexi said to me. “Thanks for getting in the shower with me and helping me out and all, but as you freely pointed out, you don’t represent me, you don’t guide me, and you never, ever will speak for me. And just so you know? I also have a brand that I need to serve up hard to my social media followers. Do you really think I can just walk away from this moment with my head hanging in shame? Oh, hell no. Because if I did that? I’d lose face with them, which I’ll never allow.”
“That’s your choice,” I said as I shook out my wet hair in the bathroom mirror while I continued to towel it off. “You can do whatever the hell you want, but here’s the piece of advice I’m going to leave you with tonight, Lexi. You can listen to it, or you can be a fool and ignore it. That decision is on you. But at least when I leave this bathroom, I’ll know that I can say in my heart that I’ve tried my best to school you when it comes to Pepper—and what she’s capable of doing to you. If only so my own conscience is clear.”
I dropped my towel at my feet and turned to face her, and when I did, I saw her standing in the corner of the shower, with her own towel held up in front of her as she shivered.
Was she shivering because she was cold, wet, and exposed? Or was she shivering because Pepper had completely unnerved her with her ruthlessness? Whatever the case, I knew that I’d just done Lexi a solid. I’d warned her against Pepper. Whether she took that warning to heart was on her. Because if she came after Pepper again after tonight?
God only knows what Pepper will do to her . . .
And because of that, I felt a weird kind of responsibility toward her. So, before I left the bathroom, I straightened my back and put my hands on my hips.
“Do you want to listen to what else I have to say to you, or am I just wasting my time?”
“You can say whatever you want to me, Julia,” she said with fire in her eyes. “Whether I’ll listen to you is up to me and not you, isn’t it?”
“In fact, it is.”
“Then say what you want to say.”
“Fine, Lexi, let me leave you with this. If Pepper continues to win time and time again against you, you will continue to lose face with your social media followers—and how is that going to look for you? Worse, how will it affect your brand? Because after what Pepper did to you tonight, we both know that she’s in this to win. I mean, come on, Lexi—do you really want to continue to be socially gutted by her? Because that’s exactly what she pulled off tonight, and that’s exactly what she’ll do to you going forward should you continue to try to shove her into a corner. What I hope you understand is that what Pepper did to you tonight is going to go viral, particularly when Pepper’s video of you flipping around on the floor hits the internet. So, here’s the thing, girl—entertainment reporters will cover what happened today. They already know that, in the cruelest and most public of ways, you outed her mother as an alcoholic fighting for her sobriety and her life in rehab. And because of that? It’s not Pepper who’s going to be seen as the mean girl here. That is going to be you, because people are going to feel for Pepper after the dirty way you trolled her and her mother today. You’ll see—society and social media will side with Pepper for fighting back against you. If you really are worried about your brand—which you should be—I’d be seriously worried about what you’ve stupidly set into motion for yourself after what you did to Pepper today. Because in this world, Lexi? When a child stands up to protect a troubled parent, as Pepper did when it comes to her mother? That trumps everything. When someone comes swinging at them, as you did with Pepper, the child of the troubled parent wins every time. You can mark my words on that.”
When I was finished with her, I turned back to the mirror and saw nothing but ruin. My hair was a wet mess, my makeup was running down my face, and my damp clothes clung so close to my body, they revealed too much of it for my taste. I took a few tissues from a tissue holder to clean up my runny mascara, but since I didn’t have my handbag with me, I couldn’t fix the damage. So, to hell with it. Everyone—especially Hunter—was about to see me stripped bare and raw, which after tonight, is exactly how I felt inside. But I was so worked up right now, I seriously didn’t care how anyone saw me. To hell with it all.
Take me as I am, I thought as I glanced at myself in the mirror again. Or don’t, because after tonight? I could give a damn.
“Julia,” Lexi said to me from the shower.
I looked over at her before I left the room.
“What, Lexi?”
“How do I turn this around with Pepper?”
“After what you did to her today? I’m not sure you can do anything.”
“There has to be something,” she said. “What would you do if you were in my shoes?”
“Lexi, if I told you what to do, I’d only undermine the show. It’s called The Terrible Teens for a reason, so however you choose to handle Pepper now or in the future is up to you. When I was trying to help you in the shower, I probably shouldn’t have shared my thoughts with you. In fact, if Hunter knew that I’d even gone there, he’d probably be furious with me. So? I have nothing more to say. It’s now up to you to decide how you move forward with Pepper. You two will never be friends, but that doesn’t mean you two can’t make amends.”
When I said that, all I could do was shake my head at her.
“But is that even possible at this point?” I asked. “Lexi, you are so jealous of Pepper’s money and fame, I don’t think you’re even capable of making amends with her. But you’re young. I get it. Everything in your world is about who’s more popular, especially when it comes to social media. So, why don’t you just do whatever the hell you want when it comes to Pepper. Because right now?”
I paused before I walked toward the door.
“I’m officially out of this, when it comes to assisting you. So, you know, good luck with everything that follows in the wake of this horror show you’ve created—and whatever stupid shit you might pull next. Because if you misjudge this situation, Lexi, you are seriously going to need all the help you can get to save your career—not to mention your goddamned brand—especially if people start to peg you as the mean girl you really are. Because when and if they do—which might have already happened after what you pulled today . . .” I lifted my arms at my sides. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know that if they do come to believe that you really are a mean girl? The stink of your reputation will be the end of your career the moment you exit this show.”
