Unlike Any Other (Unexpected Book 1)

by Claudia Burgoa

  In showbiz, they might always be friends or enemies who pretend in front of the cameras to be the hottest couple. That’s number three.

  Four: a hoax to…

  “What is he talking about, Dad?” I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.

  “We heard that you were ‘kind of getting close,’ Porter’s words.” He tilts his head and leans his body against the wall opposite of me. “I didn’t think he was the right guy for you, sweetie.”

  Tell me about it, I want to say. Talking about a little too late.

  “Kind of?” I squeak and blink my eyes rapidly as I try to assimilate what he said. It doesn’t sound like much, but ‘kind of’… we lived together for three years.

  “We…” I growl nonsense.

  “We know what’s best for you, AJ.” Dad rakes a hand through his hair. “Trust me on that one.”

  If they had taken a little time to find out more about me. If they had paid more attention… they would’ve learned that… there was no use in telling him about the if’s when things had already happened.

  “The magazine on top of the dining table of your house.” I stand up and walk toward the big windows hoping the big ocean swallows me as I learn my parents had a hand in those pictures. “It hit a nail inside my heart, Dad. Looking at that, it felt as if…”

  …everything we had had been a bunch of lies. My already wounded heart wilted.

  I turn around to face him.

  “It doesn’t matter, you helped him construct those lies. The same lies I lived with while growing up with you,” my voice loses memento and strength. I don’t know what he believes I had with Porter, or he might think I had some juvenile crush on him. It doesn’t matter. I’m not about to tell him anything. “As I stared at those magazines, the pictures… Then you two—my own parents lashing out at my nonsense and…”

  I lean on the desk before my knees give out, the hurt is overtaking my body and I have no idea how much longer I’ll be able to stay standing.

  My limbs feel light, my head dizzy, and overall I am numb.

  “I needed my parents,” I blurt out. “You have no idea how much I needed you that day and for so long after that night. That’s why I went to see you… All that stuff was sensitive, the tabloids and the hidden truth drove me insane. If I saw those things in the state I was in… he knew I was in a bad place. Why did he do it?”

  A heavy sigh leaves my body and the pain in the center of it increases.

  “Those pictures were there at your house.” I lift my gaze to Dad. “In fact, he was there too. That night I lost everything. Porter didn’t say a thing to you, he remained quiet. He let you think I was crazy. I was lost and hurt and… What’s wrong with you, with him?”

  “What was he supposed to tell me, Ainsley Janine?” Dad raises his voice.

  I shake my head because there’s no use in continuing. To tell him how much I… and then he—Porter—finished burying the remains of who I was months later.

  That’s it, Porter must have been looking out for his career, to save himself and not lose my parents’ respect and love.

  To think I still want to protect him… I’m such an idiot.

  My brain is trying to work all this out as I only have a few drops of blood after my heart bled out.

  “AJ?”

  “Nothing, Dad, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore.”

  My brothers stare at me, then look back at Dad, and thankfully neither one says a word.

  “I should be mad at you, for playing God with my own life.” I point to Dad. “For years we lived in the middle of nowhere with so many lies entwined together serving as our protective dome. In the end, you didn’t protect anyone, even your marriage broke. You two only ended up protecting your careers.”

  Dad lowers his head, releases his arms, and shakes his head.

  “I can’t believe it,” I tell Dad, taking a few steps towards him.

  Enraged with my father and swimming in adrenaline, I find the strength to continue and confront him. My finger accuses him of the betrayal to his family as some light dawns on me.

  “You chose your career too, didn’t you?” Fire ignites my voice and keeps my body steady. “That’s why you said earlier that love isn’t all. The perfect love, the three children, the home you built isn’t as important, is it? Was it mutual or did you get an ultimatum and chose to leave? That’s your pattern, Dad, choosing fame. Have you listened to your story?”

  “I like what I do,” he responds. “That’s who I am, Ainse. I’m not even sixty, why should I retire?”

  “Retiring?” I squawk. “Stopping that fake publicity doesn’t mean retirement. Come on, you have a production company. You can write, direct and produce your own shit, and do what you love without hurting the ones you love.”

  Dad’s brows draw closer, his face tightens, and his blue eyes avoid contact with mine.

  “You two are so alike.” I head to the door, not knowing where or how to deal with this for the moment. “Porter and you, Dad. Your priorities are screwed up when it comes to family, to the ones who love you. Our stories ended the same way—yours and mine. A selfish bastard decided that his career mattered the most.”

  My tone becomes a flat line; I have no more energy for this, for him.

  “In this case, that’ll be you.”

  “AJ, don’t you dare talk to me like that,” he says. “I’m your father.”

  “No, Gabriel, you’re anything but that at the moment. Where is the man who raised me?” Then I turn to my brothers. “Sorry, I tried, I really tried. You can keep being neutral, Switzerland or whatever. I can’t deal with them… maybe just him. I’m heading home to find out the other side of the story.”

  JC surprises me by standing up and getting in Dad’s face.

  “Is she right? Did you take off because you chose your career?”

  Dad closes his eyes and slightly bows his head. We all take that as a yes, and the three of us form a united front marching out of the library.

  2015

  Ainsley isn’t screaming; her silent disappointment is worse than the scene she made three years ago.

  “You are a couple of liars who care more about your fame than your own children!” she screamed as she rushed out of the house.

  Before I lose her for another three years or forever—along with her brothers, I follow behind.

  “I thought you said you wanted the story?”

  She stops but doesn’t turn around. Her two bodyguards do though. Their flaring nostrils and pinching expressions say everything I need to know.

  They hate me.

  “Please, AJ, you three are the only thing I have left.”

  She pivots and stares at me for a long time, her green eyes darker than usual with a red shadow around them, a sign she’s angry.

  “What would you do if I asked you to release a statement that you already have three grown children?”

  I suck in deep breaths of air forcing myself to calm down because that’s… I no longer would be the most eligible bachelor.

  The hot actor who has a girlfriend for a few months and continues his single life…

  I’ve lived a big lie.

  I’ve never actually dated those girls, only paid them with a few stocks and some fame of their own.

  “At the end of the day, Dad,” AJ twists one of her long delicate fingers inside my bleeding wound. I grimace. “All those people who idolize you have no idea what makes you tick, what makes you laugh, and what makes you love.”

  Almost the same words I heard a few months ago, and they have the same effect: pain, a tight squeeze of my heart as my stomach clenches.

  “We, your family, love the real you, the human with defects.” Her watery eyes stare at me. “No amount of Photoshop and makeup will erase all those wrinkles, wrinkles we love. Your fans only
care about the actor, not the person, not the guy I call, Dad.”

  “If I had the opportunity to choose between my child and the fame,” she speaks up. “There’s no contest, your children matter the most, Gabriel. You don’t ever want to lose a child, that’s an unconceivable pain you never want to go through. Think about it.”

  In other circumstances, I’d tell her that I’m Dad, not Gabriel. That we aren’t in public to address me by my first name, but a wave of pain takes hold of my chest, and my hand flies to my left side as I gasp for air. Air that doesn’t make it all the way through my lungs. Beads of sweat begin to form on my forehead, and my lungs scream for some air flow.

  The pain in my chest intensifies; whatever or whoever is gripping it, is tightening it harder. Another tremendous wave of pain strikes, and my legs lose all the strength in them. My chest feels as if an entire brick wall hit me and keeps pressing it.

  My head explodes as I lose the strength of my legs. My body crumples to the floor, and the thud it makes ripples through my entire body.

  My head.

  The images of my family, the family I don’t want to lose flashes through my mind.

  Taking the three babies out of the hospital and heading home with our bundles of joy. Their first steps. How AJ would pull her brothers down trying to stand up. MJ crawling faster than we could walk behind him. JC banging the piano before he could talk.

  I’m lightheaded, losing consciousness but I can still hear them.

  “Call 9-1-1,” I hear one of the boys yell.

  “Dad.” Ainse’s voice is the last sound I make out. “Please don’t leave me.”

  The beeping sound of machines disturbs me from my slumber. There are monitors on my left side with cables snaking all around my arms and chest. Needles connect to a tube that goes to a plastic bag filled with liquid. After I’m done conducting an inventory of my body, I scan the room. I take in the white walls and my children at the foot of the bed staring at me.

  “What happened?” my groggy voice asks.

  “A full-blown panic attack,” JC responds. “They ran a few tests and your arteries are clogged. They want to run some more tests. Something about you being an old model and needing an oil change, some replacements parts. You know, the usual—at your age.”

  Leave it to my child to give me a bunch of crap when they are nervous. AJ moves from the frontline and slides to the side of my bed, kisses my forehead, and then shakes her head.

  “You scared the crap out of me—of us—Dad,” she sighs. “The doctor says that you must be under a lot of stress. They want to keep you overnight to make sure you don’t have a concussion. You hit your head pretty hard when you fell down. They’re going to ask you a bunch of questions and make sure you know where and who you are. You might as well continue with the story… a way to keep that brain of yours working.”

  JC and MJ join her and also kiss my forehead before the three stare at me, looking like they did at bedtime when they were about six, hopeful for a good story before they went to sleep. My children, shit, and to think that for a moment I thought I had died and would never see my family again.

  “Let me have a drink of water first,” I say. My throat feels full of feathers. After AJ hands me a cup of ice water and I take a few sips, I finally ask her, “Where was I?”

  “Hmm, I think at the part where you were living at Christian’s home while searching for a new agent.”

  1987

  ... Christian had offered to introduce me to a few big shots in showbiz. I declined his offer because the guy was crazy and I could only imagine the kind of connections he had. Plus, I wanted to make it on my own.

  While searching for an agent and trying to find a role that I liked, I contacted my old modeling agency. They took me right away and I was able to shoot a few commercials that kept me going while Perdition, the independent movie I had invested in, premiered.

  The big room with the piano in the middle became one of my favorite spots in the house and since I paid my monthly rent, I asked Christian if I could add a few bookcases to the room.

  “Yes,” he said. “Just don’t forget that when you have the money, you’re buying the house. As a matter of fact, you can do whatever you want with the house right now with the condition that you’ll buy it, as is.”

  He was adamant about selling because the place was far too big and made him feel alone. I offered to leave the house so he could sell it, but he wanted it to stay with someone who would appreciate it. Gradually the room filled with bookshelves and books, and I liked to be there while I worked on my portfolio or wrote my short stories.

  There were times I’d work while he played one of his various instruments.

  One day, Christian barged into the room dressed in a suit.

  “Did I miss the memo?” I asked him.

  Maybe he had a party or an award event that he didn’t mention.

  “Memo?”

  “You’re dressed up.” I pointed at him.

  “Ah, the monkey suit.” He glanced at himself and shook his head. “Yes, well, I have some big wig party to attend.”

  He stared at me with a thoughtful frown.

  “Do you own a suit?”

  I cocked my head and arched a quizzical brow. Christian’s unpredictability impressed me at times and other times scared me. Like when he decided to drive to Vegas in the middle of the night because he couldn’t sleep. Or down to Mexico because he wanted to watch the sun set before heading to bed.

  “Of course you own a suit, I mean a fancy suit,” he specified.

  “I do, but—”

  “You should come,” he suggested without letting me get a word in edgewise. “These are the parties that make me want to drink all that champagne the waiters waltz around the room with for the guests. The best way to numb myself as people try to sing my songs.”

  I blurted out a laugh, but he didn’t join in.

  “I’m not kidding; they do it off tune and make me want to punch them in the face.” His hands transformed into fists. “Or at least recommend some singing lessons before they continue shattering my eardrums. Some even put on a front trying to sound like a badass just to please me. I need babysitting, please, be a friend.”

  “You’ll be fine,” I assured him, waving my hand toward the door so he could vacate the room and leave me the house for the night.

  “No, I won’t.” He glared at me. “Please come with me. No one from my band is going—they hate to give away money. Bet by the end of the night, you score some girl… the future Mrs. Colt or is it still Colthurst? Nah, I don’t give a shit.”

  A party wasn’t my plan for the night. The now homebody—Christian—didn’t like to be out of his home unless it was absolutely necessary.

  “I’ll go.” I rubbed my brows. “But you’re not allowed to wake me up in the middle of the night for another crazy trip.”

  “Yeah, yeah, go hurry. We’re running late and I hate to be late.”

  I went to the party that ended up being a charity ball. There were a lot of directors, producers, screenwriters, and many celebrities there to support cancer research. I made a mental note to thank my agency for scoring me an Armani suit a few months ago.

  Even with the expensive suit, I looked under-dressed compared to the men who wore tuxedos and expensive watches. Along with the big chandeliers dangling from the ceilings, the golden plated silverware and the women who sported expensive diamonds. The buffet table had caviar, escargots, sushi, and other delicatessens that were trending at the time.

  The boy from Albany wanted to escape as he wasn’t dressed for the occasion or knew much about the expensive menu they offered.

  I found the silver lining as each step I took, I met a new director or producer, screenwriters who shared their vision about the next space movie they were making or something even worse.

  I wanted to
be a part of everything: write the next blockbuster, direct it, produce it, and act in it. I wanted it all.

  Fame.

  That day it became my only goal. The few guests who weren’t celebrities gawked at the stars with admiration, love, and respect.

  I wanted that.

  That night I found my agent, Jerry Williams. In less than a week, he had lined up two auditions for me. One was a role in a new romcom, The Price of Love. I auditioned for the male lead. A rich college student who falls for the smart girl working as a waitress to pay for her college tuition. It didn’t have much action, but they had already cast the female lead—Abby Ritz.

  We hadn’t spoken to each other since she watched movies with Christian.

  The man whose romantic code was: if it isn’t serious, it doesn’t count; you can sleep with the girl.

  Abby had sounded like the perfect complement to my future, and I hoped this time it would happen.

  A few hours after my audition, Jerry called me, “It went well, boy. The director and producers are impressed with you.”

  I got the part. Impressed? I doubt it since I only read a few lines. My physique matched their needs. Attractive, tall, blond, and blue-eyed male.

  “They’ll courier the script tomorrow,” he continued. “The producers are wondering about you and Abby, it’ll be great for the ratings if the two of you date.”

  A strange request, which I’d happily oblige to as long as she agreed. Who wouldn’t want to date the green-eyed, petite, curvy girl? I liked the idea, but I doubted she’d agreed to it.

  1987

  One night, as I paced back and forth in the library, I repeated each line. I experimented with voice tones, hand gestures and all kinds of facial expressions to fit what I read.

  “I always hoped to be with a woman as special as you,” I pressed my hands to my heart as the script indicated.

  A chuckle startled me and when I looked toward the door; I found Christian’s body shaking. His green eyes crinkling in laughter.