Overexposed

by Amelia Oliver

  Boarding the ESM helicopter on the rooftop, I buckle in and put the ear cans on. Grabbing my phone I shoot Seth a text that I'll be back late tonight or tomorrow, sliding my phone back in my purse before he replies because I’m in work mode.

  As soon as she see’s me at her door, Izzy grabs me in a hug that nearly cracks my ribs. We sit down in her massive modern house, where I swear to God everything is white and I'm afraid to touch anything. We have a glass of wine as we sit on her white overstuffed couch and I give her advice, professional and personal. It’s a tough call on what she should do, but I tell her to follow her gut and before our glasses are empty she's asking me to sit off camera as she films a response to upload, addressing all the drama. After that, she insists she does my make-up and videos it for the vlog also. It’s fun, and although I don't wear much make up, I still enjoy it and pick up some tips I’ll use again. We end up drinking rum and cokes, ordering Lebanese and ordering clothes for her next haul online.

  The next morning, I wake up with cotton mouth, tangled in pyjamas Izzy gave me to wear and check my phone for the first time since I arrived.

  Seth:

  Okay babe, have a safe trip.

  Seth:

  I know you're busy, but call me when you can.

  I rub my eyes and type back. I’ll admit my unplanned trip has been a welcome distraction from my reality, and seeing his texts now, I acknowledge I missed Seth and am happy that he’s carrying on normally after our drama.

  Me:

  Morning, you awake?

  I set my phone on my chest and begin to drift back to sleep when it begins to ring.

  "Hi," I whisper.

  "Hi," he rushes out and the tone had me checking the time on the bedside table, because he sounds very chipper and alert.

  "You seem happy."

  "I am, I have the best girl, and...you ready?"

  I smile at his girl comment and lick my lips. "Yes, I'm ready."

  "Oh Bubs, your voice is so sexy in the morning––”

  "Seth! Focus," I laugh.

  "I got an audition with Christopher Page."

  My jaw pops open and I sit up, "Oh my God, that's awesome, Seth!" I smile. "When is it?"

  "Tuesday. I'm supposed to head out to San Francisco."

  "I'm so proud of you, I knew you could do it!" And I wish we were together so I could kiss him madly.

  "Come with me," he says softly.

  “Maybe, I think I might be a distraction, don’t you?” I ask.

  “Only in the best way,” he tells me.

  “We’ll see.”

  “How long are you staying?” he asks.

  “Not sure, just woke up and I’ll have to see when I can get the helicopter back out here, it’s Sunday so I’m not sure.”

  “Okay, well let me know if you’re back tonight, we can grab dinner or something.”

  We end the call and I feel a little heartache at saying goodbye. Even though I feel like everything is fine between us, there’s still that rawness that comes from having a fight. The time away I felt was well needed, but I also would’ve loved to have stayed the weekend together to reconnect. As predicted, the helicopter doesn’t fly on Sunday and I price how expensive it would be to get an Uber back, and yeah, no.

  Izzy doesn’t mind if I stay, but she has a party for some launch and I’ll be on my own tonight. I order some takeout and take a shower, watching movies on Izzy’s massive television. Several times I call Seth to see if he wants to run lines for his audition, but he doesn’t answer, I text him the message and still nothing. My mind drifts to what he could be doing, since he should be at home because he promised he’d do low profile for a while. Even though he hasn’t in a long time, I still can’t but help wonder if he’s gone out partying or drinking. The urge to call Jackie is niggling at me, but I can’t be paranoid, I need to have faith in Seth to make good decisions. I then feel a little comforted realizing that he’s probably just skating in the basement and doesn’t have or hear his phone.

  I head back in the helicopter bright and early Monday morning, my phone’s dead since I didn’t pack a charger and had fallen asleep before I’d realized it was about to die last night. Since I’m landing at the ESM office, I can check my computer for any messages and charge it there before heading over to Seth’s. I’m so early, the office is practically empty and I’m happy since I’m in the same outfit I was wearing on Saturday. My office computer is on and as soon as I enter, I hear alerts pinging from the speakers. I begin wondering which client of mine is in the headlines, since I have alerts on for all of them on their names in all social media outlets.

  “All right, all right,” I say to my computer as I press the button to wake-up the screen and sit in the desk chair.

  HOT COUPLE ALERT:

  BACK TOGETHER AGAIN

  Love Reignites Between Old Flames Claudia and Seth!

  Photo after photo appears and I check the date. Last night! Last night when he knew I was out of town, and when I couldn’t get a hold of him. He was with her! Ignoring the stories attached, because my brain can’t process the words when it’s already working overtime to make sense of the pictures, I click through image after image. If a picture tells a thousand words, these are fucking saying plenty. They’re obviously at dinner, the restaurant looks intimate, and so do they. Close together, cosy, Claudia is smiling happily, and there is certainly nothing that say’s Seth despises the woman. Her hand is reaching for his cheek for fuck sake!

  My blood boils, and my feelings of doubt from Friday all come back. The feeling that I shouldn’t have so easily taken his word about what happened between them at the mall, or about his blow-up with the paps as he left. It dawns on me then, like a bolt of lightening I get the whole bigger picture, and I feel like I’ve been played. It was bullshit. It was all bullshit! How convenient that after months of nothing happening, months of rejections, he - and apparently Claudia, who I’m now sure was in on it with him - have a blow up and suddenly he gets a meeting with an industry up and comer. Coincidence? No, I don’t think so. I mean, he said it himself at breakfast; they’d use one another to get press, to get attention. So now that he has an audition, they what? Go out to dinner to celebrate? Drum up a little more press for the masses? Announce they are fucking back together??? Jesus, and what was all that shit about the fake pregnancy – was it just his cover for why he would only have sex with me with a condom?

  With my insides a frenzy, emotions and anger flaring, I somehow drive home and make it there in one piece, because I was more focused on my thoughts than my safety. I don’t know what I want to do, but going home seems like a good idea, even if I then just decide I want to erase the last chunk of my life and ever meeting Seth fucking Mitchell. Digging in my purse for my keys, I look up when I sense someone there in the hallway with me and feel my rage boil when I see him standing just outside my door.

  “I don’t have anything to say to you,” I state, walking up and attempting to slide my key in the lock.

  “Stop, just listen to me,” he says.

  “No.”

  “Are you fucking serious? Did nothing we talked about before mean anything to you?”

  “Clearly, it didn’t mean anything to you, if any of it was even true,” I tell him, muttering the last part before looking over and nailing him with my eyes.

  He looks just as mad as me, but that’s bullshit, because what the fuck does he have a right to be mad about?

  “You’re so fucking scared,” he says, crossing his arms and watching as I open my door and step inside.

  “Of getting my heart broken? Yes, I am. But I’d rather it be now than six months from now when the next drama explodes, and you’re at the center of––”

  “You think after what I told you, that I was really, willing out with her?” he asks, his face morphing into disgust.

  “Seth, I realize that your need for attention has no boundaries and honestly I don’t even know if I believe what you said about you two…all I know is,
you’re perfect for each other. You obviously love having your names in the headlines more than actually loving anyone.”

  With that, I begin to close the door, and I’m not surprised when his hand stops it. Looking up at him through the gap in the door, I see my words have wounded him, and for a moment I feel I’ve gone too far, but no, I can’t care that he’s hurt, because I am too.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” he asks quietly.

  “Is there a problem? Do I need to call the police?” I hear a voice come from down the hall.

  “Want him to call the cops, Seth? Give you some more publicity?”

  My words have him stepping back, freeing the door and allowing me to close it. Turning the deadbolt, I lean my forehead against the wood and close my eyes to stop the burning. I’ve never felt my heart shatter until this moment, felt everything in me become bitter and hard, just like that. I don’t want him to know he’s hurt me, that he ever even had that power.

  “I was out with Jackie, we went to dinner when I didn’t hear from you. She got up to take a piss and next thing I know, Claudia’s sitting beside me, at the same moment I realize flashes are coming from outside the window of the restaurant. I don’t care if you believe me, but that is the fucking truth.”

  Because I just can’t anymore, I back up and retreat to my bedroom, his voice still speaking as I curl into my bed and let the tears fall.

  CHAPTER 14

  Seth

  Standing with my forehead against Piper’s closed door, gutted like a fish, I continue giving her the truth about the previous night’s shit storm. I tell her I was at dinner with Jackie, that Claudia ambushed me the moment Jack stepped away from the table. How I was instantly suspicious, and had known something was going on when Claudia appeared out of nowhere, like she’d been waiting for her moment. She’d been saccharine sweet, trying to instigate affectionate touches, all of which I’d rejected at every turn – when, boom - pap flashbulbs. I tell Piper how shocked I was as the front window of Zeppo had lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, and I watched horrified as Claudia smiled and coyly reached for my cheek like she was the happiest person on the planet. That the conniving cunt just cannot stand to see me happy, but more to the point, that it’s she who needs the chaos of what we once were to keep her name up in the fake lights of famous for being famous bullshit she craves.

  I tell Piper all of this through her door knowing full well that my stubborn girl would have long ago walked away. Scared, proud, obstinate - I see Piper for all of who she is and love every single piece of her. I get why, with her family history, the last thing she wants is a relationship that plays out in the media, but it’s just been made very clear to me that she doesn’t believe that it’s something I don’t want either. In fact, I’m now very clear that while I see all the pieces of Piper, she still doesn’t see me at all. After all this time with me, she still doesn’t trust who I am. And that recognition is like a hot blade in my chest.

  “Look buddy, I can see you’re in a world of shit here, but you can’t be yelling at Ms. Quinn through her door. She made her choice when she locked it and left you out in the hallway. So are you leaving, or am I calling the cops?”

  Spinning around towards the droll voice to my left, I eye up nosey neighbor guy. About to verbally rip his head off and shit down his neck for being such a fucking prat, Piper’s words play back through my mind.

  “Want them to call the cops, Seth? Give you some more publicity?”

  Fuck, already bleeding, her final jab had stuck the knife in further. While I get that she said it full of emotions she was struggling to deal with, that comment was aimed to hurt me. And she didn’t miss.

  Swallowing a ball of bile the size of a fist, I simply shake my head at nosey neighbour, turn and walk away. I walk away from the hurt that’s riding me, and I walk away from the woman I saw as my future. A future she obviously doesn’t see with me. God, it hurts. In the raw and exposed middle of my soul, it hurts.

  The shock of what’s just happened is shifting again, and in its place is the familiar thrum of anger. What’s the fucking point in trying to get through to Piper? Nosey neighbour was right; she did just make her choice. And that choice very clearly was to not believe in me. Why fight to give my everything to someone who evidently doesn’t believe in my anything? Trust, love, belief, any relationship is doomed without them.

  The second the doors close on the elevator car, I push the car park level, and let out a pained roar, throwing a fist into the image reflected back at me in the shiny walls of the interior. I am so fucking tired of all this shite. Tired of pushing and fighting past what people see when they look at me, when they read about me. Tired of trying to chase my dream, tired of the rejection and the constant knockbacks.

  After the fake pregnancy drama with Claudia, I couldn’t have given a fuck about any of it, and in the process became exactly who every one already thought I was. It was easier to do that than deal with the hurt of suddenly having something I’d never known I’d actually wanted, ripped away from me.

  It would be so easy to do that again now, to give up and simply be the version of Seth Mitchell it seems everyone still expects me to be. However, in an irony that is so not lost on me, being with Piper has made me expect more of myself. Even when it’s clear she no longer does. Reigning in my anger, I shake out my smarting like a fucker fist, take big deep breaths, and wait for the elevator to come to a stop.

  Walking to my car, I know exactly where I need to go.

  I just hope she’s home.

  * * *

  Leaving Joan’s, I’m much more in control of my anger and I’m determined to not repeat my prior mistakes when it comes to how I deal with shit. Looks like at twenty-seven, I’ve finally grown the fuck up. Seth Mitchell reaching out to his bloody therapist rather than a bourbon bottle – who would’ve seen that coming?

  Talking it through with Joan, having her ask me those annoying fucking questions that I bloody well know she knows the answer to - but she waits until I get there on my own - it helps. And I did get there on my own, eventually. After an hour of therapy disguised as talking, I’m reminded that I’d happily escaped into the role of ‘arsehole Seth’ in the past because not only didn’t I care about me, I especially didn’t care about Claudia. Or what my behaviour and choices were reflecting on either of us.

  I do however fucking care about Piper. I care so much it’s tearing at me. Even though she’s done with me, there is no way I’m going to crap on all she’s done up to this point, to disrespect her by behaving like she undoubtedly thinks I’m going to.

  Being at Joan’s helped me with my anger, but I wouldn’t let her near my pain. She probed a little, trying in her way to get me to open up, but I shut her down. Right now that feeling is just too raw. I’m not ready for her to help me deal with Piper ending our relationship, even though Joan clearly realised that it had happened.

  I want to own that pain. Holding on to it reminds me that for a short time, Piper was mine, that she was my girl, and that I didn’t imagine the whole thing. Piper was always too good for me; I know that, but being with her made me want to be better, and not just for her, but for myself too.

  I’m close to being back at the mansion, when my phone starts ringing through the car’s Bluetooth. My heart gallops in my chest with the hope that it’s Bubble, that she’s calling to tell me that she wants to talk, but my brain knows better. Looking at the display screen in the dashboard only confirms it.

  “Rash, what’s up?” I answer, after hitting the connect button on the steering wheel of the black Bugatti Veyron I’m driving.

  “Seth, hey. How are you holding up?”

  Agent yes, but Ronald Ashton is also a friend. When he asks me this I know it’s not out of some sense of obligation to appear to give a shite about his client, he genuinely wants to know.

  “Alive. Something from your tone however tells me that you’re about to test that condition.”

  “Probably. Is Piper wit
h you? I can’t get a hold of her?”

  The ball of bile is back in my throat, and seeing a turnout up ahead on the winding canyon road, I pull over, bringing the sleek sports car to a stop. Shifting into neutral, I leave the engine running.

  “Umm, no. She’s…um. Well, she’s no longer… What I mean is… Christ, Rash, I’m no longer Piper’s client. In fact, I’m no longer Piper’s anything.”

  The words finally make their way out from my mouth, feeling like they’ve lacerated my tongue in the process.

  “Oh God, Seth, shit. I’m so sorry. Is this because of Cla––”

  “Yeah.” I cut him off, mostly because I’m done talking about her. That toxic bitch has taken up enough of my life already. “Anyway, so Piper doesn’t need to know stuff relating to me anymore. What was it you were calling about?”

  “Fuck. I’m really sorry Seth, but I just heard from an assistant in Christopher Page’s office.” He pauses, and I know in my bones what is coming. Doesn’t make it any easier to hear.

  “Motherfucking bollocks,” I whisper through gritted teeth. Running both my hands across my face, I press my fingertips into my closed eyes, before putting my hands back on the wheel. “Just tell me Rash.”

  “Seth, they’re withdrawing your audition invitation. The official line was that Christopher has decided to go another way with the role.”