Spiral

by Jacqueline Levine

I squint and cock my head. “Okay? Why would I not be okay?” I look around and then down at my bruised hand, kind of surprised she would even notice. The swelling is gone, and it’s just a little marked up.

  “It’s no big deal, thanks though. Just a little bruised.”

  Now she looks confused and follows my gaze to my purpled knuckles. “Oh, yeah, I heard you were in a fight.” There’s a long awkward pause. “I meant about Cherie.”

  My heart stops. “What about her?”

  Her mouth twists to the side. “You know, your breakup and everything. That must be really hard.”

  I feel my eyes grow wide. I stare at her for several seconds, trying to find the right words to say, wondering how she knows anything about any of what happened other than the fight in the nightclub.

  I say slowly, “We didn’t breakup…we weren’t dating.”

  “Oh.” She forces a smile and nods, as if she is certain I’m either delusional or lying to her. But she still tries to be polite. “Okay, well, good luck with whatever is going on.”

  I watch her turn to the front, and curiosity eats away at me with every quiet second that passes. I notice a few other girls in class turning to look back at me, and even a few guys stare in my direction. Now that I look at their suspicious expressions, I can tell they’re not thinking I’m a badass at all. What does everyone know that I don’t?

  “Um, Jen?” Her head turns slightly. “What did you hear exactly?”

  She swivels, a sparkle in her eyes now that I’m willing to entertain the gossip. She does her best to not look too excited to share. “Well, there was this article about a phone call between you two on Dirterazzi, and I read the site sometimes, so I saw it. I don’t believe everything they say, you know, but then it was on the news this morning, too. Like, the real news. So, I just wanted to say sorry.”

  “Wait a second – a phone call?” I can’t be sure I heard her over my roaring pulse. All I can think is, How does anyone know about the phone call?

  Jen nods.

  “Dirterazzi.com?” I clarify, immediately drawing out my phone from my pocket. “How do you spell it?”

  Her eyes narrow as I start to type the site into my search bar. She spells it and peers over the top of my desk to my phone. “Don’t you ever look at that site? I mean, they’re always talking about you – wouldn’t you want to know what they say?”

  I shake my head and meet her gaze. “No.” My voice grows as cold as my stare. “Because they’re all lies.”

  She gets the hint and backs off. “Right.”

  At the front of the room, the teacher begins roll call, and Jen seems grateful for the excuse to turn away from me. I’m equally grateful for the chance to look for this article without her breathing down my neck.

  I don’t have to scroll far; it’s the first story at the top of the webpage, titled, “Breaking Up IS Hard to Do.” I swallow hard. My eyes scan the article quickly as I tune in and out of class, listening for my name to be called.

  Cherie Belle has finally put the kibosh on her on-again, off-again relationship with Jack Hansen after a nightclub melee brought out his ultra-violent streak. A very reliable source close to Cherie confirmed to Dirterazzi reporter Derek Santos that the couple is officially done.

  “Cherie just wants to be in a good, safe place right now with people she trusts,” says the source. “She needs to be surrounded by positive energy.”

  And in a phone conversation overheard by our source, Cherie told Jack just that. Our source tells us that, even though Hansen sounded very distraught, admitted to loving her, and even threatened to wait for her to get home, Cherie made it clear she needed space from him. Dirterazzi obtained a recording of the conversation, and while we’re not at liberty to share it all, some excerpts from Cherie’s end include:

  “We can’t talk anymore.”

  “I think it’s best we just stay apart.”

  “I just want to be surrounded by positive people.”

  “This is how it has to be, and I hope you can appreciate my boundaries.”

  Her words are right there, in black and white, and they echo in my ears as if she is saying them to me all over again.

  “Hansen? Jack Hansen?” my teacher calls. I look up and see everyone has turned to look back at me. I can barely breathe.

  “Here,” I choke out, casually sliding my phone under the desk’s top until he moves on to the next name on the list. When I’m sure no one is looking, I pull it back out and finish the article.

  Our source tells us that Cherie is happy with her decision to pull away from Hansen, feeling the relationship was nothing more than a temporary distraction from the deaths of her parents. Cherie’s manager, Carl Schwartz is determined to keep the two apart and feels she will be able to get the space she needs from Hansen once she goes on tour promoting her film, This Side of Sunny, later this month. Of course, she will have to go home eventually, and there’s no telling what will happen once she’s living under the same roof with Hansen. Something tells us this is not over…stay tuned!

  I stare hard at the words below the article and swallow the lump that’s building in my throat. Related articles. I don’t want to know, do I? I don’t really want to see all of the things they’ve said and, more likely, made up about me. My finger hovers over the underlined link as I try to convince myself I don’t want to look. It’s like opening Pandora’s box.

  But I should know, I tell myself. I should know what the world thinks they know, right? I don’t waste another second and press the Related Articles link.

  A list of headlines using Cherie’s name pops up, and it’s organized in chronological order, dating back to before my mom and Jim were even married. At first, it’s just harmless articles about Cherie as a new face of the Kidz Channel, then a few articles speculating about her and Caz as they’re photographed leaving a restaurant together. Suddenly, the headlines become bold and capitalized.

  EXCLUSIVE: CHERIE BELLE’S PARENTS KILLED IN TRAGIC CRASH ORPHAN CHERIE BROKEN-HEARTED OVER PARENTS’ DEATHS CHERIE BELLE BURIES PARENTS

  WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO LITTLE ORPHAN CHERIE?

  Then, I see the very first kernel of gossip that made the world believe I had any significance in Cherie’s life. As I continue to read, it becomes clear that this single kernel popped into a whole batch of new articles and curiosity about her and, even stranger, me.

  WHO IS CHERIE’S MYSTERY MAN?

  CHERIE BELLE’S NEW LOVE AFFAIR: A ROMANTIC COMEDY

  YOU DON’T KNOW JACK: JUST WHO IS JACK HANSEN?

  AND CHERIE’S GUARDIANS ARE…

  CHERIE BELLE: CAZ FARRELL COMMENTS ON HER RUMORED

  LOVE AFFAIR

  CHERIE BELLE RETIRING FROM ACTING?

  JACK HANSEN AND CHERIE BELLE REPORTEDLY NOT SPEAKING

  AFTER MAJOR FALLOUT

  CHERIE BELLE COZIES UP TO CAZ FARRELL AT NEW YEAR’S PARTY,

  GETS WASTED! JACK HANSEN NO WHERE IN SIGHT

  MISERY LOVES COMPANY: CHERIE BELLE MOVES BACK TO LA PAD

  WITH NEW GUARDIANS AND JACK…AWKWARD!

  UNDERAGE CHERIE BELLE SPOTTED IN NIGHTCLUBS

  BOOTY CALL: CHERIE’S LATE NIGHT TRYSTS WITH JACK HANSEN

  DRUGS, BOOZE, AND SEX: IS CHERIE BELLE A TRAINWRECK IN

  MOTION?

  CHERIE BELLE OUT FOR ASSISTANT’S 25th BIRTHDAY PARTY: NO

  BOYS ALLOWED!

  CHERIE BELLE: WITNESS CLAIMS SHE TOOK ECSTASY

  FIGHT CLUB! JACK HANSEN AND DOMINICK FURST THROW

  DOWN OVER CHERIE

  AND CHERIE’S KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMANI ARMOR IS…

  Each article I read is more and more accurate, depicting everything that’s happened between us and everything she’s done in the past two months. But how would the media know so much? Did they have spy cameras in my old house? Have they been listening in on our conversations in my room?

  I shove my phone into my pocket and lean back in my chair. I try to follow along and take notes from the board, but I keep wandering
in and out of a stupor, so numb that the pencil barely stays upright in my hand.

  The reporters know everything. They even knew about our whole conversation last night – every last detail. But who would tell them? I don’t want to believe that Cherie allowed them to find out, but I can’t help picturing that sleaze ball Derek sitting next to her with a voice recorder in one hand, listening in on our phone conversation, as she spewed those cold lines at me.

  I’m sick to my stomach, growing colder and colder as if someone lowered the thermostat to 30 degrees. I hug my arms around my chest and do everything I can to just make it through class, promising myself that I’ll go home the second it’s over.

  It doesn’t matter, though. I won’t be able to escape this invasion of my privacy the way I escape the twins or my mom. I can’t just go for a run or drive to get away from something that is all over the news, all over the internet. I can deny it, but who would believe me? When I don’t go to the premier tonight, and when Cherie, or someone very close to her, is sharing physical evidence, there’s no way I can deny any of this.

  I see the cars of photographers following me in the rearview mirror as I drive through the streets of Hollywood Hills to get home. I drive a little faster, trying to lose them, but they are skilled and relentless, staying so close to my bumper that they will definitely hit me if I have to slam on my brakes. Every light I just barely make they glide right under just to stay on my tail. I merge in and out of traffic and stop only if I really have to.

  There’s a crowd of them, too, outside the gates of the house waiting for me when I get there. I move through the cluster at a snail’s pace as they snap their pictures and shout questions at me. I keep my windows up and blare music to drown them out, thankful for the sunglasses that hide my eyes from them. The gate that closes behind me and keeps them at bay gives me a great deal of satisfaction. Of course, no one is home to see any of this or help me by stopping them.

  The minute I get inside my room, I drop onto my bed and put my head in my hands. I don’t know what to think or what to do. Instinct tells me to run; to pack my bags and get the hell out of this house and this state. I know I can’t do that, though. Where would I go, especially now, without being recognized? I’ve been on the front page of newspapers and magazines. I wouldn’t get too far before my mom found me because the photographers will find me first.

  I pull out my phone and look one more time at the page of articles about Cherie. I find the headline that says “YOU DON’T KNOW JACK: JUST WHO IS JACK HANSEN?” I know I shouldn’t do it, but the curiosity eats away at me and I have to read it. I have to know just what they think they know about me.

  I’m not sure what the word misogynist means, so I look it up, growing more and more horrified as the definition flows into synonyms.

  Hates women, mistrusts women, mistreats women. I know it’s not true, but I’m apparently the only person who believes that. If there’s anything I have ever tried to be, it’s not my father, and yet all I am in the eyes of others is his shadow.

  I fall back against my pillow and stare at my ceiling. Betrayed by Josh. Betrayed by Cherie. Betrayed by Mom. I’m exhausted, but my adrenaline is pumping so hard through my veins that I can’t possibly sleep. My mind spins with scenarios of disappearing and various escape routes, none of which seem plausible.

  Maybe the media was right; maybe Cherie and I are just a match made in haste; two dumb, lonely kids clinging to each other because they thought they had no one else.

  But Cherie doesn’t need me; she has plenty of people. Cherie’s loved and wanted and protected, and I’m the only one who doesn’t have anyone in his corner.

  CHAPTER 36

  I stumble through the rest of the week with a routine built around dodging my family and my classmates, all who have the same tired, awful questions I heard a thousand times when my father left.

  “Are you okay?”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Is all of that stuff about you true?”

  And Frank, my oldest friend in the books, even he doesn’t know any better than to ask, “Have you spoken to Cherie at all?” in his texts.

  Mica hovers here and there, telling people to give me space and privately checking in on me the way a good friend would, without mentioning her. Years ago, I would have told him to back off. If he pushed, I would have punched him. This time, I don’t even have the strength to look at him.

  Cherie. Even when she’s not here, I can’t get her out of my head or escape the constant, nagging need to know where she is and what she’s doing. I’ve turned to watching the news, even checking that damn website, Dirterazzi, every night, just to find some kernel of information about where she is or if she’s okay. I feel like nothing more than an obsessed fan because everyone around us has done a great job keeping us apart and pretending nothing ever happened between her and me.

  Mom brings dinner to my room every night. She knows there is no convincing me to come out of my room. I don’t let her in, but I hear her place the ceramic plate down on the concrete outside and knock softly. When I don’t answer, she sighs and pads away softly, and I watch her from the window, waiting until she’s gone to retrieve the plate. I keep waiting for her to bring Britney as some kind of incentive to open my door, but she comes solo each time, which means either Britney doesn’t want to come or Mom’s not that desperate to see me.

  It’s now Thursday, and four days ago, the night of the premier, was the last time I’d heard anything about Cherie. As I watched her parade up and down the red carpet, looking beautiful and innocent in her gown, flanked by my family and her handlers, I realized that maybe I was the problem all along in Cherie’s life. Maybe I enabled her by keeping the drinking and the drugs a secret from my mother. It’s possible everything Cherie said about me wanting her around, needing her company as much as she needed mine, was true. At the premier, she looked happy and healthy and sober, and she has managed to stay out of the news since. I can really only blame myself because Carl is maintaining his end of his promise and keeping Cherie out of the nightclubs and the tabloids.

  I still can’t rid myself of the gnawing feeling that she isn’t safe, though. Someone very close to her had to be telling Dirterazzi all of that stuff about us. What if that person is keeping her from me? What if that Derek guy is stalking her, or someone else – didn’t Jim say she has stalkers? At night, I lie awake, watching my door, praying she will come home to me, sick inside that anything could happen to her and I’m not there to protect her. I spend a lot of the time scolding myself for letting her get away, for running that day when I should have stood by her side and told my mom the truth. No matter what it cost me to tell my mom what was really going on with her, and between us, it would have been less painful than this.

  Then I spend some time wondering if that would have made a difference. Cherie might not even care. Maybe she doesn’t even think of me half as much as I think of her. I should never have left myself so wide open to yet another person who could just walk out of my life without a single look back over their shoulder. When will I learn? No one in, no one out. That’s how it has to be.

  Then, sometimes, that darker part of my psyche that I can’t close the door on anymore wonders if the world wouldn’t be better off without me. My father didn’t love me. Cherie’s moved on just fine as if I never existed, just like Dad. Hell, Britney doesn’t even seem to need me anymore. I doubt I matter much to anyone right now.

  That’s the part that I’ve spent a long time shutting out, the part that wonders if I have any real value left in this world. I used to be able to pretend I did because I had to take care of Britney and Brenton. But now…well, now I’m just Jack. I don’t deserve my father’s last name, and I don’t belong to anyone else, so why am I here?

  Sometimes I craft my own Dirterazzi articles in my head:

  EXCLUSIVE: JACK HANSEN FOUND DEAD, DROWNED IN CHERIE BELLE’S POOL, APPARENT SUICIDE

  JACK HANSEN OVERDOSES ON MOTHER’S ANTIDEPRE
SSION MEDICATION, LEAVES LOVE NOTE FOR CHERIE BELLE

  JACK HANSEN DISAPPEARS, NO ONE CARES WHERE

  CHAPTER 37

  It’s nearly three o’clock in the morning on Friday when my cell phone begins ringing beside my head. I jerk upright in bed and look over at the clock before fumbling to find my phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Jack? Jack, it’s Claudia.”

  I hang up the phone and thrust it under my pillow. Seconds after I lie back down, it’s ringing beneath my head.

  “What?”

  “Please, don’t hang up, please…please just listen!”

  I hear urgency and sniffling, and I sit up. Those two things are never good. “What is it?”

  “We’re at some guy’s house. We need you to come get us.”

  “Are you kidding me? No way!”

  “Jack, please?” she begs with the same urgency. “Cherie invited us to some party and, well,

  it’s getting weird here.”

  “Cherie?” I tilt my head and listen closely. “What do you mean? Where is she?”

  “She’s drunk, and I don’t know…the guys here…we just don’t feel safe.”

  Now my nerves are heightened. I shouldn’t be worried for the twins, but I can’t help it, especially knowing Cherie is involved. “Where are you?”

  “I’m not really sure,” she replies.

  “Put Chloe on!” I bark. I need to speak to the smarter of the two.

  But she’s clearly wasted. “Jack!” she sings into the phone. “Ommigod, are you coming to get us?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Um, I think we’re at Caz’s beach house in Santa Monica.”

  “WHAT?” I sit up in renewed alarm. “What are you doing there? It’s three in the morning!”

  “No, really?” She is genuinely surprised. I can hear her pull the phone from her ear to look at the time. Somehow, she hangs up on me.

  “Chloe? Chloe!” I growl at the phone and redial.

  She laughs into the phone when she answers. “Hey, sorry ‘bout that! So are you coming? We have school tomorrow, and I’m tired.”