“You just basically admitted that you did,” I retort.
“Well, can you blame me?” he asks, trying so hard not to laugh. “Do you really not see even the smallest bit of humor in this?”
“I might in a few years,” I say, smirking.
“Well, I’ll give you that,” he says. He tightens his arms around my waist. “I just want you to know we’re good. And by the way, you don’t need to stuff your bras or bikini tops. They’re great the way they are.”
“Yeah, but—“ I was about to say, “but nothing fits,” but Gio’s a boy. He won’t understand. “Thanks, Gio,” I say simply. He leans down to kiss me briefly.
“I have to get back, but I’ll text you later.”
“Okay,” I say. “By the way, how’s Ana doing?”
“She went out in Cass’s Jag to get you something as soon as you left,” Gio says. The red convertible Jag is Cass’s spare car, and she gave Ana and I each a key and said we can use it in case of an emergency. “Don’t ask me what it is, I have no clue.”
“Well, okay,” I say, smiling because I know exactly what she’s getting me. It’s what I always want when I’ve been sick or I’ve been through something hard—a giant bag of corn puffs and a pint of chocolate ice cream. Not sure why it’s taking her an hour to get it, but I should have known I could count on my Ana. “Text you later,” I tell Gio, and he kisses me one more time before walking downstairs.
Ten minutes after he leaves, Ana comes up and opens my door without knocking. She’s carrying a big bag of stuff from the grocery store and some knives and spoons. “Sorry that took so long,” Ana says. “Weird that a grocery store would be so busy at this time of night. Then I got lost on the way back.”
“Ana, you are an angel sent from heaven.” She lays the bag down on my bed, and not only are there corn puffs and ice cream, but she also got us chocolate hazelnut spread and vanilla wafers, my other favorite weird combination. There are two sodas in there, too. “Are you trying to fatten me up?” I ask, grinning.
“No,” she says, “although, that may be an unintended benefit.” She giggles as I throw my arms around her in a hug.
“I’m so sorry I ruined your conversation with smart girl,” I say into her ear.
“It’s okay, she asked for my number before I left,” Ana says. I can hear the smile in her voice.
“What?!” I yank back and stare at her, trying to picture my BFF with a billionaire prodigy and barely succeeding. “Ana, are you serious?!” Ana is positively radiant as she smiles and nods. “Girl! I’m a little jealous!!”
Ana giggles. “Thanks, love. So, JR and junk food?”
“JR and junk food.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Morning comes, and I don’t wake up until 11:30 AM. The only reason I wake up then is because Dad bursts into my room with a picture on his phone and a massive scowl on his face. I rub my eyes sleepily as I sit up and try to make sense of what’s going on.
“Do you know what this is, Madison Daley?” Uh-oh. When he uses my full name, that’s when I know I’m in trouble.
I look at his phone as he holds it up in front of my face, and I am instantly horrified. It’s a picture of me in the pool after my swimsuit flipped down. “Daddy, I… I can explain—“
“Explain what? That you went to a party without even telling me? That you decided to go naked in front of a bunch of high school guys? I really thought you were better than this!” He’s yelling now, and his nostrils are flaring. He looks so disappointed in me. “Someone posted this on the internet, and now everyone is looking at it and talking about you! What do you have to say for yourself?”
Now he lets me talk, after he kicks me when I’m down and makes a million assumptions. “Everyone?” I ask, my voice hoarse with tears. I should have known… Social media makes it possible for someone to humiliate you in front of the whole world in a nanosecond. Now I really won’t be able to show my face in LA again. “Dad, listen, it was an ac—“
“Don’t bother. I would ground you, but I doubt it would do any good.” He turns on his heels and exits the room. Ana slept in my bed last night, and she sits up after he leaves, looking sleepy and confused.
“What’s going on?” she asks, yawning. I can’t reply… I start to sob. My crying wakes her up completely. “Mads, what’s wrong?”
“Someone took a picture of me in the pool and now it’s all over the internet. I…” Hiccup. “I might as well be dead.”
“Oh my God…” Ana puts her arms around me. “Mads, I’m so sorry. Who posted it?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know… but whoever they are, I hate them.”
Ana nods. “Me too. What kind of sick person does that?”
“Now Dad hates me,” I say, crying even harder. “He… he wouldn’t even let me explain.”
“Shhh…” Ana starts stroking my hair, which she knows has a calming effect on me. “Mike will calm down and everything will be okay, don’t worry.”
Sniffing, I ask, “Can we get out of here?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thirty minutes later, Ana and I leave in the Jag, with Cass’s permission, to go to Griffith Park and hike up to the Hollywood sign. As we’re hiking up Mount Lee, I am once again amazed at how vastly different California and Kentucky are, landscape-wise. CA is basically a dry dustbowl, and KY is a lush, green oasis in comparison. That’s one of the few things I’m starting to miss… the land, Nana, and the horses.
“Almost there,” Ana says, breathing a little heavily as she trudges up the mountain in front of me. She doesn’t live on a farm, so she’s not quite as used to physical activity as I am.
“Come on, Ann, you can do it. Push through the pain,” I tease her.
Ana grins down at me. “Shut up.”
We get to the top of Mount Lee, and both of us gaze upon the giant white letters in awe for a minute before deciding to take some pictures in front of it. Ana strikes several poses in front of the sign first. This kind of thing happens a lot with us: Ana practicing her modeling, and making me be the photographer.
After she’s done, she immediately insists on taking pictures of me in front of the Hollywood sign next. I protest strongly, since my hair is disheveled a bit from the hike and I wasn’t smart enough to put any makeup on before we left.
“You look great!” Ana assures me. “Stop being so paranoid!”
“But Gio might see it,” I complain, knowing Ana all too well. Any photos she takes of me automatically end up on Facebook.
“If he’s worth a damn, he’ll still think you’re gorgeous,” she points out to me, and I don’t have an argument for that one. I grant her a few awkwardly posed pics in front of the sign before we sit down on the mountain near it.
I lay my head down on Ana’s shoulder as we stare out at the expanse before us. From the top of the mountain, you can see a lot of LA, dusted in a fine layer of smog. The area directly in front of us is mostly comprised of neighborhoods, but then in the distance you can see some taller buildings, and sapphire-blue Lake Hollywood is over to the right.
“Thank you so much,” Ana says, laying her head on top of mine. “For bringing me here… for being my friend.”
I pull my arm through the crook of her elbow and link arms with her. “Thank you for being my friend. I don’t know what I would do without you.” There’s a moment of contented silence, and then my curiosity gets the better of me. “Hey, Ann, can I ask you something?”
“Yeah?”
“When did you know you were a lesbian?”
She starts giggling nervously. “Um… God, it’s going to make things so weird if I tell you…”
“No it won’t, I promise,” I say, suspecting I already know the answer. “I just want to know.”
Ana clears her throat. “Um… you know how I said I first realized it when I was twelve?” I nod, and she continues, “Well, that was the year I realized I had a crush on you.”
I smile. “Aww! Really?�
�
“Yeah,” she says. “Your butt started getting bigger and rounder, and I tried not to look at it, but I just couldn’t stop staring.” I remember that. I stopped wearing a certain pair of jeans at that point because I thought there was something wrong with them. “I tried to fight against it, but finally I just had to admit that I didn’t like boys that way, and I never would.”
“Ana, I’m so flattered, you have no idea,” I say, hugging against her. “That really made my day.”
“I still think you’re sexy as hell,” she says, “but I know you’re straight, and I’m totally cool with that. We’re amazing as friends, and I think it should stay that way.”
“But I guess you really enjoyed letting me get dressed in front of you all these years, huh?” I tease, nudging her.
Ana never blushes, but right now she looks like she might. “Stop,” she says, laughing.
My phone buzzes, and I pull it out of my messenger bag.
Gio: Where are you?? Are you ok??
“Aww, Gio’s worried about me,” I say. “Can I call him real quick?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ana says. I tap Gio’s contact and call him.
He picks up immediately. “Hello?”
“Hey Gio, it’s Madness,” I say.
“Hey, where are you?”
“I’m at Griffith Park with Ana, and I’m fine,” I say.
“Oh, good,” Gio says. “I saw the stuff online and got really worried when you weren’t at home.”
I smile a little. How cute is this? “Thanks for caring. I’m just getting some BFF therapy right now.” I swallow a little. “By the way, uh… exactly how bad is the post? I only saw it for like, a second.”
“It’s… um… it’s bad,” Gio says reluctantly.
My stomach drops, and I grab onto Ana. “How bad?”
“Some gossip websites are posting it, and… Well, let’s just say, you’re trending.”
Hammer. Meet. Chest. “Oh, my God…” The tears are burning my eyes again.
“They found out who you are, and they’re calling you a party girl. I’m so sorry, Mads. Cass and I trying to figure out who posted it first so your dad can file a lawsuit.”
“Lawsuit?”
“Yeah, for emotional distress,” Gio says. “Cass told me he’s already looking into it. I’m not sure who at my party would do a thing like this to a person they don’t even know, but they’re going to pay for this. We’ll get ‘em, bae. Don’t worry.”
I fall into Ana in shock, starting to see black spots. Ana didn’t hear what he said. “What’s going on?” she asks.
“I’ll let you talk to Ana,” Gio says. “Talk to you soon.”
“Bye…” I hang up the phone, and everything goes black.
Chapter 6
“Mads! Mads, wake up! Please!” Ana’s crying over me as the world starts coming back again.
“Ugh…” I groan. She helps me sit up, and I rub my forehead. “Gah, what happened?”
“You were talking on the phone to Gio,” Ana reminds me, still worried. “You said something about a lawsuit, and then you passed out. What is going on??”
“Uh…” It all comes back to me. “Well, Ana, you know that picture of me Dad showed us early this morning?”
“Yeah?”
I turn and look at her with a what-have-I-done expression. “I think the president has seen it by now.” After her initial shocked reaction, we take our phones and Google search my name, and the results pour in:
“Basket Baby Madison Daley returns the way she left us… in her birthday suit.”
“M.A.D.’s daughter is back, and she’s ready to party!”
“Curious about what M.A.D.’s daughter looks like now?”
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree… M.A.D.’s daughter is as wild as he was!”
I click on that last link, just to see what Dad did that was comparable to what everyone thinks I did. There are tons of photos in the article of Dad partying it up in clubs, bars, and house parties, dancing with near-naked women and drinking and doing drugs until he was shitfaced. “So having your swimsuit fall down at a party is the same or worse than all of this? Horseshit!” I yell, and I throw the phone down on the mountain in anger. Ana keeps it from tumbling down the slope in front of us with her foot, and I pull my knees up to my chest and bury my face in my legs.
She’s still reading the articles on her phone. “Mads… don’t look at the comments on these articles,” she says in a thick voice. “There are some horrible people in this world.”
“What? What are they saying?” I lift my head up and try to look at her phone.
Ana keeps it away from me and shakes her head. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
I take the phone from her in spite of her protests, and I feel sick to my stomach as I read comments like:
“What a whore…”
“Where are her boobs?”
“Her father must be so proud…”
“We missed out on 16 years of W3 for THIS?”
My tears come back in a rush. “Ana, this is a nightmare… Please wake me up…”
“I wish I could,” Ana says.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We drive back home, and when I open the front door, Dad is in the entry way on the phone with a lawyer. They talk about some legal-sounding stuff that I don’t understand for a minute, and then Dad hangs up and sees me. I half-expected him to still be angry, but he immediately scoops me up in his arms and presses me to his chest. “Thank God you’re alright,” he says in a broken voice.
We grip each other for a long moment, and I almost start crying again at the feeling of his arms around me. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going to find the person who did this to you,” Dad half-whispers, “and then we’re going to make them pay.”
“Dad… money is not going to fix this,” I say, pulling back. “It’s not like people can un-see the picture.”
“That’s not the point,” Dad says. “The point is that whoever took your picture and posted it committed a sexual offense. We have to make sure that whoever it is never does it again.” A sexual offense… I hadn’t even thought of it that way. “But, listen,” he continues, “Gio came over and told me everything. I am so sorry for yelling earlier—“
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, pulling into him again. “Just hold me. Please.” I feel like a scared little girl once again as my father holds me in his arms.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Later that evening, I’m lying in my bed, and everyone else is downstairs having dinner. I haven’t been eating, and I haven’t been crying much… I haven’t really been doing anything but listening to the sounds of random TV shows and staring out the window. It’s getting close to sunset now, and the direct sunlight coming in through the window gets too bright for me, so I turn over.
A knock comes at the door. I pull the covers over my head, not wanting to be seen by anyone. “Come in.”
“Hey,” Gio says, and I groan.
“Hey… Look, no offense, but I really don’t want to see anyone right now…”
“I understand. I just wanted to bring you something. I guess I’ll just set it on the nightstand and go.” I hear the clank of glass on the wooden nightstand, and I pull the comforter back a little bit to take a peek. It’s a single purple rose in a water-filled vase.
I pull the comforter back all the way and sit up to look at it, and then at him. “Gio, it’s beautiful,” I say, smiling a little.
“I figured purple was your favorite color besides black,” he says. “Glad you like it.”
I can now add “observant” to the list of qualities I like about this guy. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Guess I’ll see you later.” He turns around to walk out the door.
“Hey, wait,” I say, and he turns back around. “You don’t have to go.”
Gio smiles a little and comes back to sit next to me on the bed. “You doing okay?�
��
Sighing, I say, “No, not really. I feel… well, I don’t really feel anything. I’m just—“
“Numb,” Gio completes my sentence. “Like feeling anything at all would be just too much to handle.”
“Exactly,” I say, amazed at how easily he got that.
“Believe me, I know how that is,” he says, looking into my eyes. “I’ve been in the news a few times myself, and people said horrible things about me, too. You just have to realize that they’re not the ones who really matter. If your family and friends know the truth, and are supporting you, you’re doing good.”
“And the crazy-handsome actor next door. He helps, too,” I add, grinning at him. Gio smiles back. “Thanks for caring, Gio.”
“Why wouldn’t I care?” Gio asks.
I shrug. “I dunno, maybe because you just met me five days ago?”
“You don’t have to know someone for long to care about them,” Gio says. “I knew you were different the moment I saw you.”
I giggle a little bit. “BS alert.”
His eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What?”
“You thought I was Raven the moment you saw me,” I remind him. “That line does not apply to our situation. You failed the BS scan, sir.”
My heart melts anew over Gio’s adorable laugh and dimples. “I’m no good with the lines, am I?”
“Nope, not in the slightest. You’re lucky you’re cute.”
Gio just smiles at me for a few seconds, and then he asks me, “Hey, uh… do you want to go see something pretty and not upsetting at all?”
“That might be a nice change of pace,” I say. “However, I’m scared shitless to go out in public right now.”
“If anyone says a word to you, I’ll punch their ass out,” Gio promises. “You have my word.”
I smile and look down. “Well… alright then.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gio takes me to Santa Monica in his steel grey 2014 Maserati. As he drives there, he tells me, “The radio’s all yours tonight. Pick a station, any station.”
“Okay,” I say. I scan the stations, and then I stop when I hear a familiar song. “Hey, they’re playing W3!”
Diary of a Rocker's Kid (D.O.R.K. Book 1) Page 8