I leaned against the doorframe, monotone. “Are you asking me on a date?”
“I wouldn’t call it a date, exactly, but we have to travel in pairs when we’re out in public. Prevail! policy, so nobody sneaks off to an internet café or asks a stranger to borrow their phone,” he said. “No arcade games, either. You know, screens…”
We looked at each other in silence. I let my gaze drop to his jeans, and the thumb that was so near to his zipper.
“Why wait? We could have a date right now,” I said.
I barely registered the look of surprise on his face as I grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled him into my room. The heavy door slammed shut behind him.
It was true, what I’d told him a moment ago. I didn’t feel like talking.
My fingers deftly undid the first two buttons of my flannel ensemble.
Thom’s baby blues went wide and it was nice to have rendered him speechless.
I tugged his hand forward and placed it around my waist. Tilted my head up toward his and gave him a soft kiss.
He froze. “Isn’t this…against the rules? I’ve been here longer than anyone, and I’m pretty sure that, uh, there’s no fraternization.”
“‘Against the rules’?” I mocked. “Look at these beds. They’re enormous. It’s practically an invitation.” I kissed him again, and teased his bottom lip with my tongue. He tasted like an after-dinner mint, with a hint of chocolate.
Thom glanced nervously behind him. “The room doesn’t have a lock.”
“You could always push me up against the door. That’ll keep people out,” I suggested. I licked my lips, enjoying the flavor I stole from him. “And I can be quick.”
“…I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
I opened the remaining buttons of my top.
He watched my every movement. I could feel his hot, fluorescent gaze on my pale skin.
“Is there a Mrs. Thom?” I asked.
“What? No. But there’s a—”
“Then what’s the problem?”
I tried to lift his T-shirt off but he gripped both my wrists in his hand, halting my progress.
“Is that what you like?” I whispered. “I can be down with that.” Wrists still pinned together, I climbed his body and curled one of my legs around his hip. I wanted him to know how certain I was, how much I’d like for him to help me forget all about the phone call with J. J.
I reached for his zipper, letting my fingers brush against his denim-clad hardness.
“Oh,” I murmured appreciatively. “You’ll do nicely.”
“I’ll ‘do’?” he repeated.
“Hmm?” I asked dreamily.
He pulled away.
“So if Ryan or someone had shown up tonight instead, you’d have invited him in?”
“Who’s Ryan?” I racked my brain. “Do you mean Wikipedia Avenger? Yeah, no. He’s crazy.”
“The people here have names, you know. You’ve been here long enough to know them.”
“I know your name. Don’t you want to hear how it sounds on my lips when you’re—”
He shook his head. Squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry. This doesn’t feel right.”
“We’re never going to see each other again. You leave in, what, three days? Don’t worry, I’m not going to come after you, I’m not going to look you up—”
“That sort of makes it worse.”
He bent over, scooped up my flannel top, and handed it to me without looking me in the eyes.
“Get some rest,” he said, and walked out the door.
Alone again, the tears I’d been holding in since the phone call filled my eyes and sluiced down my cheeks. I brought the flannel to my face and cried hard for a few minutes, the kind of crying where you make noises you don’t recognize, noises that don’t correspond to words or sense or logic. The only thing left to do was feel the pain in its entirety and hope I could move through it.
After I exhausted myself and fell, limp, on the bed, my thoughts cohered into a damning realization:
I almost had unprotected sex with a stranger in rehab.
There was a term for that, according to Melody: Rehab Roulette.
After Mel crashed her Mercedes into the Beverly Center nine years ago, she’d dried out at a drug and alcohol treatment center and engaged in Rehab Roulette with a few different guys. (This was during a break from her latest contractual fauxmance.) Upon release, she spent the entirety of her pregnancy scare at my parents’ house in San Diego, hiding from the paps. Renee and I bought her pregnancy tests and stayed up watching ’80s movies and talking until the wee hours. No one knew the location of the “halfway house” she’d retreated to or the fact that a select handful of her peers used it whenever they were in trouble. (Which was frequently. Suburban anonymity cured a variety of fame-related ailments.)
When she’d had her fill, she took a helicopter back to LA.
Back to live-in chefs, masseuses, personal assistants, and stylists.
“You’re so lucky, Holly,” she told me once, in her oblivious way. “You don’t have to worry about how you look, or what you do, or what you wear, because nobody cares.”
For all I knew, J. J. had already told her I was in treatment. For all I knew, he’d already texted everyone, and they were all “smh” over it, because what was more pathetic than somebody who wasn’t rich having rich-people problems? What was more pathetic than Holly Danner, former nanny and failed writer, acting like her behavior even mattered?
Texting the others didn’t sound like J. J., though. He always knew how to keep a secret. Especially when the secret was me.
Having wrung myself dry emotionally, I slipped a fingertip between my legs to test out my slickness. There was an ache to go with it, that empty feeling that ballooned inside me when I thought I was going to get laid. Without Thom or anyone else to fill up the emptiness, that ache felt like rejection and neediness. Yup, miserable and horny. Gee, why did Thom possibly turn me down?
Maybe Thom was right about child stars never growing up. None of my relationships lasted long, apart from J. J. And that relationship had been conducted in short bursts that happened to be repeated many, many times.
I wish I’d had the wherewithal to bitch him out on the phone.
You don’t get to do this anymore, I should have said. You’re not allowed to pop back into my life as though it were on pause, waiting for you to give it meaning.
You may think losing your virginity to a pop star would be all sexy slow-mo, soft lighting, and pristine, tangled sheets. Instead it was confusion and soreness and tenderness and laughter, breaks for water, a leg cramp or two, and more love than a hundred lovesick puppies could muster. My parents had maintained it was puppy love but I knew it was the real thing, intense and authentic and painful, like a mixtape with only one song on it. A song that dared you to prove your devotion by listening to each possible version (a cappella, instrumental, and EDM remixes), over and over, both sides. A song designed to slowly drive you mad.
Our first time was in London over Christmas. We were seventeen. He was touring with OffBeat for their first album. The group’s manager, Pamela, had corralled the boys together in Texas, but they lived and worked in pop-friendly Europe for several years while they honed their sound and experimented with different group members before debuting Stateside. She flew me out a few times to make up for the fact that J. J. couldn’t travel home and escort me to Renee’s wedding. You might think that was an extravagant apology—a trip to Merry Old on Christmas break, all expenses paid, a hotel on Marylebone Street, the Covent Garden Christmas tree, ice skating at Somerset House, Victorian funfair rides at Kew, glamour shopping at Harrods—but in my teenage brain, grudges were nurtured not assuaged. I was still pissed I’d be flying solo as maid of honor the following month, when Renee said her vows at Camp Pendleton with Ian, her marine fiancé.
Our reunion was passionate, and for the first time we didn’t stop at kissing. We were both nervous. I bled. More than was expected; I’d gott
en my period early. It looked like a crime scene. The white satin sheets were smeared with red; like the pure white snow outside, dotted with red holiday lights; or the thick clotted cream speckled with raspberry jam on the scones we ate at the Three Wishes café.
Afterward, we clung to each other, sticky and sated and shaking in our small, love-wrecked bodies. I twisted my fingers around the damp tuft of hair on the small of his back. It felt like it belonged to me and no one else.
When he spoke, he was solemn and earnest: “If we go to hell, it’ll be worth it.”
I thought it was the most romantic thing anyone would ever say to me.
In a weird way, I still did. He truly believed he would burn in eternal hellfire because of what we’d done with our bodies and hearts. That was intoxicating to a teenage girl. It made me feel powerful. But it was something else, too: the beginning of guilt trips and emotional manipulation I endured for years to come. Hot-and-cold running J. J.
When I returned to San Diego, he cut off all contact for a week, including on New Year’s Eve when I rang him about twenty times in desperation.
When he finally returned my call, the long-distance echo messed with our ability to hear one another as he tried to explain his guilt-fueled absence.
He had sinned. He had allowed himself to be led astray.
“But it’s okay since we love each other,” I told him. I should’ve known there was no argument he couldn’t bat away; he’d been going to church twice a week since birth.
“True love waits, Holly,” he said between tears.
(“What did he mean?” I asked Renee at three in the morning, my voice hoarse from crying. We did a lot of crying, J. J. and me. “Was he saying he wasn’t in love with me? That if it was true love we would have waited? Or was he saying he was in love with me, and that’s why we were supposed to have waited?”)
As though a bookish seventeen-year-old girl who’d tap-danced her way onto a TV show and now only tap-danced to the fridge, who still slept with a stuffed animal and came in first at Speech Camp, was a temptress. A siren.
To blame.
Unlike J. J., I didn’t need to die to experience hell. I was already there. Every time he boarded a plane, or sent a postcard, or cut a phone call short from some exotic locale while I stayed behind, was hell. Being separated from him was hell, like functioning with half a heart, only nobody else could see what was missing, so they couldn’t understand why I was mopey all the time. To be fair, most of our breakups over the years were due to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, or poor communication—nothing that couldn’t have been fixed by maturation or simply staying in the same city for a while. When our final breakup came, five years ago, there was no mistaking our reasons for saying goodbye. The relief was palpable; just in time for my thirty-first birthday, our breakup gave me a freedom I hadn’t experienced since I was eleven, right before I landed a role on Diego and the Lion’s Den.
I didn’t confuse freedom with happiness. But it was still freedom.
Until today.
I pushed my hips into the mattress, determined to get off if only to prove he couldn’t hurt me anymore. My movements sped up and I allowed myself a small, muffled cry.
I didn’t want to but I thought of Thom, and how, the first time we talked, he said, “I very much doubt that” in a low, knowing voice when I told him I was “Nobody.” And I was so full of shame for thinking about him and so full of anger toward him for acting as though he might be interested and then leaving me wanting that I covered my face with a pillow and screamed into it until my throat felt rubbed raw with sandpaper.
15
Reddit/AMA
[mehcrocs]: which of the boys in BeatOff are gay
[HollyD]: What a clever nickname. Never heard that one before. *rolls eyes*
[mehcrocs] come on don’t play dumb what about this from 2004: (source: Gossip Blinders)
“Overheard at an industry cocktail party: ‘Try marketing a teenybopper group to girls’ parents when at least one of them is in the closet and one of them is stoned 24/7.’ Okay, Blinders, which member(s) of this popular band are Lyin’?”
Lyin’ = lion = Lion’s den, obviously
So?????
[HollyD]: I can’t and won’t speak to anyone’s sexuality but there are a staggering number of fanfics out there for every type of fan, so go nuts
* * *
I kept to myself the next few days. Lisa thought I was depressed, which I was, but mainly I was avoiding Thom. If I missed more than three group sessions, though, I’d be out of the program.
At one thirty-seven a.m. of the third day, I was banging on the vending machine to release the Tato Skins I didn’t even like when footsteps pattered behind me.
Alarmed, I turned to see who it was. Phew. Only Popaholic.
A part of me was disappointed. A part of me thought he’d find me here, like last time, and we’d walk the quiet halls together.
“I can’t believe Thom’s leaving tomorrow,” she remarked, stifling a yawn.
“I know. Hey, do you know why he was here?” I asked, succumbing to my own yawn and hoping the action made me sound ambivalent and casual.
Don’t let it be 4chan.
Don’t let it be men’s rights.
Neither of those fit him, of course. He was too chivalrous. The way he reassured InstaMom—I mean, Marjorie (see, Thom? I know people’s names)—that she shouldn’t berate herself for not measuring up to other people’s photos had been kind, albeit wrapped up in arrogance.
Also, if he’d been a 4channer or men’s rights activist, he probably would’ve taken me up on my cringe-worthy offer. And then doxed me and posted revenge porn of me topless in my granny pajamas.
Popaholic jabbed her finger on the button for a Diet Coke. “I’m surprised you don’t know, given how much you two linger after group.”
I fisted a bunch of Tato Skins in my mouth. The vile powder clung to my lips and fingertips. “He kept things pretty close to the vest.”
She pulled her can of soda from the slot and popped the tab. “I don’t know the details, I just know it was bad.”
My pulse jumped. “Oh? In what way?”
She sipped and considered my question. “We’re all afraid we ruined our lives in some way, but he actually did. Lost his kid…”
“He has a kid?” I was stunned. Had he tried to tell me? Had I been too self-involved to listen?
“Yeah, his son’s living somewhere else while he gets help. He’s been counting the seconds until he can leave. Before you showed up, we had a running bet he’d take off in the middle of the night.”
16
A ritual commemorated Thom’s last day. It was optional, so I watched from my bedroom window, on the ground floor, like a coward. I had a straight view of the courtyard, where everyone gathered to release forty-two balloons, one for each day of his stay, symbolizing, I dunno, letting go of his journey. At one point, he looked in the direction of my room and I crept back into the shadows.
When the last balloon disappeared, Lisa handed him his phone and the group stared at it hungrily. I feared Wikipedia Avenger (Bryan? Ryan?) would lunge for it. To my surprise, Thom didn’t boot it up in front of the others. He slid it in his back pocket and walked inside the building. Maybe the treatment had worked. I couldn’t imagine being so blasé about having my phone back; I would have been flaunting that shit. But for now at least, it didn’t seem to have any sort of hold over him.
I pressed my ear against the door so I could hear what they all said in the hallway. Today’s breakfast was apparently fiesta eggs with avocado and salsa (dammit, my favorite), and then Marjorie announced she was heading off to her fifteen minutes of screentime. I was only a day away from joining her, which you would think would make me happy, but instead made me grind my teeth with impatience.
As I waited for everyone to go their separate ways, I re-read the postcard I’d gotten from Lainey and Renee yesterday. Lisa had slipped it under my door, along with a note remindin
g me I couldn’t skip any more sessions if I wanted to stay in the program. The instant Thom left today, I’d rejoin every activity.
The postcard depicted a carnival-looking place in Brussels called Bruparck! (“Aunt Holly, we are both at places with exclamation points in their names,” Lainey wrote in her small, messy handwriting.) Renee’s part of the message admitted that Lainey was homesick, so they’d visited an amusement park with a Cineplex so they could watch an American movie. Only, the movie had subtitles in three different languages (German, Flemish, and French), which took up more than half the screen, so it was hard to watch.
Surely enough time had passed that it was safe for me to emerge. If I was quick enough, maybe I could snag some of those fiesta eggs.
I cautiously twisted the knob, counted to three, and pushed the door open. Thom waited for me on the other side.
“Woah.” I jumped back.
“Sorry, just came to say goodbye.” He held up his duffel bag, looking chagrined.
“I’m the one who should apologize,” I said, briefly meeting his eyes. For the first time since I’d met him, his hair was combed and parted. Of course. He was finally going home to his son.
“It’s okay.”
My instinct, when faced with an awkward situation, was to make jokes. “Are you by any chance a devout evangelical? Because I get it, more than you know.”
“No, I’m not religious, and before you ask, I’m not gay, either.”
“You weren’t repulsed by me in the abstract, you were repulsed by me, specifically. Glad we cleared that up.”
“I wasn’t repulsed.”
I held up a hand to stop the onslaught of embarrassment. “You don’t have to explain.”
“It sort of sounds like you want me to, though,” he pointed out.
“I asked one question. I wasn’t demanding a play-by-play.” The end!
“Okay, no more talking. Only typing.” He handed me his phone.
“What are you…?” Was this a peace offering? Was he smuggling me a screen? OH MY GOD. I slid my thumb across the lock bar. Where did I even BEGIN? Email? Reddit? Definitely email. Only a psychopath would go to Reddit first. “Real people” from “life” should get priority. But Reddit might have new questions. Questions only I can answer.
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