by Claire, Ava
WHISPER
Ava Claire
Copyright © 2014
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
Ten Years Ago
The sun shone through sheer curtains, making Jenna’s blonde hair glitter. The messy, golden strands stuck out every which way. When she smiled at me before scrambling to find her shoe, my heart swelled in my chest.
Jenna stood tall before me in her mismatched sandals, dirty Outer Banks t-shirt, and flowered leggings. I was sure my heart would burst from my ribcage. She didn’t care about any of the things Mom forced down our throats. I smiled down at her, wanting to remember her this way. Before she cared about stuff like shoes and makeup and hair and what other people thought of her. Before she became me.
I pulled her in for a hug, pressing a kiss on top of her greasy, unwashed head. I didn’t even mind.
She peered up at me strangely and I covered the tender moment with a cough. “Ready to go? I want to—”
“Mia!”
Mom’s voice sawed through the moment, but I struggled to ignore her. We were home now. Here, I was just Mia. I wasn’t struggling actress Mia. Or the next big thing (according to my mother) Mia.
She’d been parading me from casting call to casting call, starting from our house in Eastern North Carolina all the way to Los Angeles. If I had to grin as she loudly proclaimed that I was the most talented one in the room then proceeded to lose her shit when I wasn’t chosen another time, I would lose my shit. I just wanted to be a kid. I just wanted to hang out with the little sister I’d hardly seen in the past few months.
Most of my friends could barely tolerate their younger siblings, but I loved Jenna. She marched to the beat of her own drum and looked at the world in such a beautiful, innocent way. There weren’t any kids in our neighborhood, so it was just the two of us and we spent the lazy summer afternoons exploring the woods behind our house. Jenna’s imagination built castles with moats and fire breathing dragons; we accepted top-secret spy missions from some faraway Queen. Sometimes we even went on an African safari. Jenna was four years younger but when we played, I shed my eleven-year-old self. I went to a place where there were no tables lined with people staring right through me as they abruptly called for the next girl. A place where I didn’t have to watch my mother’s face go from animated and excited to crestfallen and devastated.
“Mia!” Mom’s voice was louder now. Approaching pissed off.
I hated how Jenna flinched, her bright blue eyes going round. “We don’t have to go, Mia.”
I forced a smile. “Of course we do, silly! I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Almost on cue, the bedroom door swung open and all the happiness was ripped from the room. I turned toward my mother’s angry face. I’d seen pictures, so I knew that once upon a time she was pretty, but now she just looked irritated all the time. Her tanning bed orange skin was pulled tightly over bone and when she smiled, it never reached her gray eyes. Her hair was naturally brown, like mine, but she had it bleached religiously and it made her look as false as her perfect white teeth.
“Mia, I’ve been calling you!” Mom didn’t even acknowledge Jenna, had barely said two words to her since we’d been home. “You know I don’t like to be ignored.”
Her skin was the color of tangerines, she had on so much makeup that it literally looked like she was wearing a mask, and she topped it off with a bright pink velour jumpsuit with the word ‘Juicy’ stamped on her butt. Coupled with her nasal voice and tendency to invade people’s personal space, you couldn’t ignore my mother if you tried.
I gave her a wilting glare. “What is it, Mom?”
Her icy eyes flashed, but she let it slide, clapping her hands together with glee. “I have the best news – we got a callback from Candy Cereals!”
We’d packed so many casting calls into our three day Hollywood trip that all the companies blurred into a Technicolor ball of misery.
Mom raised her voice several octaves, mimicking the voice of a breathy little girl. “‘You can’t just have one bite’!”
I grimaced, remembering my least favorite audition. They made me wear a stupid dress and hat, and the man at the center of the table gave me the creeps. He couldn’t stop licking his lips as he watched me.
“So I got a callback? That’s good, right?” I asked, feigning naiveté.
“Good?” Mom frowned with disapproval. “It’s great, Mia! This is your big break!”
I knew I should be happy. We’d been making these trips as far back as I could remember. But dread knotted my stomach. It was the same dread that gnawed at me while I sat in the waiting room, ticking off the seconds until my name was called for an audition.
This wasn’t my big break. This was falling down a rabbit hole I’d never climb back out of.
I looked down at Jenna, unable to bear my mother’s joy for one more second. Jenna was beaming up at me. So proud.
Her big blue eyes cut over to Mom. I didn’t miss the fact that her smile had dimmed slightly. “Can I go, Mama?”
Mom shifted her gaze to my sister with an impatient eye roll. “Don’t be silly, Jenna. This is work, not a vacation. Besides, you’re going on your own adventure.”
Jenna’s face brightened. “I am?”
“You’ll be spending your summer vacation at the Wells Home.”
I frowned. That name sounded familiar. I tried to place it, gathering pieces of memories. Glossy pamphlets rushed to mind and when it all clicked together, I saw red. “You’re not sending Jenna to fat camp!”
Jenna’s face fell and my heart splintered into a million tiny pieces. I’d give anything to take the F word back. Mom had all but said the word herself: soft, chunky, healthy, plump. The synonyms bounced off Jenna, but ‘fat’ pierced right through her childlike bubble. She knew what that word meant.
I kneeled down to Jenna’s level. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“Of course she does.” Mom scoffed like that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. She turned on her heels, refusing to entertain my insolence for one more second. “You’re not unpacked yet, are you? Be ready to go in ten minutes.”
I was fuming, glaring at the spot she had stood at long after she was gone. The idea of running away raced through my mind, but Jenna darting to her closet and lugging out her suitcase put an end to that train of thought. I’d never leave her.
Never.
I gave Dad a lackluster hug, then slid into the passenger seat of our beat up minivan. I inherited his olive skin and sky blue eyes, but that’s where our similarities ended. He let Mom walk all over him. He did her bidding without question. I wanted to shake him, tell him that Jenna was special; that she deserved to be a kid and not be carted off to some stupid fat camp. But he just smiled and robotically gave me a peck on my forehead.
“
Ready to go?” Mom asked rhetorically, starting the minivan. Ready or not, we were headed back on the road. Hurtling toward her destiny for me.
I cast a final look at Jenna’s room. Her face was pressed against the glass. Even smushed and distorted, I saw the spark in her eyes. Something innocent and precious that would be snuffed out the next time I saw her.
*
Now
Music was the blood in my veins. It vaulted me forward on my mega high stilettos that in hindsight were a bad idea. The bass rippled over me like the chiffon fabric that weaved around my body. It vibrated through my blood at a frequency so high that I could barely walk or see straight. Or maybe that was the booze. Or the happy pills I took. Or maybe the happy pills and the booze.
Scott Clayton, my right hand man, was beside me, steering me toward the entrance. I was in heels and he still towered above me. His shaggy blond hair made women long to run their fingers through it. It was especially wavy tonight.
I reached up and pushed it out of his eyes.
“You coming on to me?” he grinned down at me.
“Oh yeah,” I wiggled my eyebrows. First off, I was the wrong gender to have a chance with Scott, and I was missing the GI Joe-esque muscles that drove him crazy.
I teetered and he righted me, holding my face in his hands. “Did we overdo it, love?”
I leered up at him, his face glowing with concern beneath the street lights. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were concerned.” I’d meant it as a joke, but there was a bitter edge that sharpened his jaw as he crossed his blazer-clad arms.
“You’re never going to forgive me for the hospital, are you?”
I wanted to say no, to stick to my guns. Nearly a month ago, I’d...accidentally taken one too many pills. Instead of being my friend, the guy that I met who had punched a paparazzo for harassing me, he flirted with the paps shamelessly.
He lured them with lies about how he’d been urging me to get help for my addiction. That we connected while he was declining a role in my last blockbuster. The truth was he came to this town to make it big as a movie star, but he couldn’t act if his life depended on it...or so I thought. With the cameras flashing, paparazzi hungry for scraps of what was going on with me, he fed them a dish full of bullshit worthy of the big screen.
He claimed he was my long-suffering friend, trying to lead me away from my party girl ways. What he conveniently left out was that the hardest drug I’d ever done before I met him was weed. He was the one who introduced me to the possibilities ranging from amps to quaaludes. He wasn’t the angel on my shoulder. He was the devil that I succumbed to every time.
I narrowed my eyes, a wave of sobriety standing me up straight. What was I doing here anyway? As soon as I read his text earlier tonight, everything in me said it was a bad idea. Especially since the latest drama with my mother and Jenna had hit an all time low. And even if I’d avoided anything harder than vodka, I knew that alcohol led to my inhibitions relaxing, and the lines that kept me on the straight and narrow blurred. But when he told me he wanted to take me out and apologize for being a douche, I’d folded. My inner circle of friends had gotten smaller and smaller since Carolina, California ended, and he wasn’t that good an actor. Maybe he really was sorry.
My vision tumbled and when I blinked my eyes for clarity, I realized I’d bypassed security and we were being shepherded into the VIP section.
I pushed the warning signs away. Tonight was about fun. New beginnings. I painted a smile on my lips as interested eyes turned in our direction. The camera flashes meant someone important was making an entrance. Echo Nightclub was a notorious hangout for celebrities who wanted to be seen. But no one darted over to ask for my autograph. No one slid up with plans to be my BFF for the night. They squinted past me in the dim light. I used to have to travel with two bodyguards when I went out. Now it looked like the hulking man Echo provided for its elite clientele was unnecessary.
Every day you're not in the studio, movie, music, whatever, your stock drops. If you don't make some changes, you'll be nothing, Mia.
My mother's words screamed louder than the club mix, and I leaned into Scott. I wasn't nearly drunk enough to handle any of this. He put his arm around me, giving me the comfort I craved.
We were whisked to the VIP area. I tried to not take it personally when I learned that they let some reality star and her entourage into the exclusive section. It should have been reserved for people with fame that lasted longer than five minutes.
After two more shots and a couple of selfies, I felt the tears building in my eyes. This used to be fun. I used to get so blitzed that I couldn’t remember what way was up. Tonight was just torture. I didn’t belong here any more, but playing good at home was just as maddening.
Scott innocently sipped his cocktail. “You've been so quiet tonight, love. What's on your mind?”
My fingers shook as I strummed them through my dark brown hair. I was a triple threat – actor, dancer, singer – but at the moment, I felt something that I used to claim I wanted. I felt invisible. Apparently, it sucked.
I sucked on my bottom lip and rounded my blue eyes pointedly. He knew the gesture. I played up the coy, but I was really asking for something I promised I was done with. Something that would take me to a place where I felt nothing but warmth and light.
He didn't make it easy on me. He batted his eyes, with a smirk yanking at one side of his mouth. “Yes?”
I leaned in, my lips brushing his ear. “Do you have anything?”
The smile was full on now. Teeth sharp and glittering white. “Never leave home without my drugstore. But I thought—”
“Just give me something,” I snapped. What I didn't say was he could drop the whole concerned act. If he was really concerned, he'd say no even if he was carrying. My conscience dug its talon-like fingertips in my chest. He's no good. You don't belong here. You should have just called Leila after—
He shook two pills into my hand. Tiny white squares.
“One if you want a buzz. Two if you want to get fucked up.”
The music heightened and I threw the pills back with my sixth shot of the night.
Bottoms up.
CHAPTER TWO
Mia!
My eyelids won't flutter. I winced as I tried to open them, swallowing. My mouth is bone dry and filled with cotton. I wanted to stay asleep, to stay in the bliss of the darkness. Away from what I was sure would be one hell of a lecture. I entertained the idea of just lying here on the—
My back cried out in agony, the haze of sleep losing its grip on me. I was thrust headfirst into consciousness, whether I refused to open my eyes or not...and my back felt like someone had come after me with a cheese grater.
The voice wasn't coming from the end of a tunnel. It was coming from above me. And it was pissed.
“I know you're not asleep, Mia. And I'm not going anywhere until you explain what happened last night.”
Last night.
I nearly groaned when the fragments of the night flitted across my consciousness. Scott's text. Me downing several gulps of wine before I answered and told him I'd go out with him. Finishing said bottle of wine and nearly opening a second when he showed up with a bottle of vodka. Shots in the car, me drinking 75% of it all by myself. Awkwardness. And then gulping back two tiny pills that were supposed to take my pain away.
The morning after, everything in me ached from my scalp down to my ankles. Those damn shoes.
When I finally opened my eyes to see who my in-person wake up call was, I wished I could shut them again. I’d hoped it was my mom, finding me passed out on the floor. Clothes all rumpled, smoke scented mess, hair a bird’s nest of knots and tangles, and face smeared with drool, makeup, and regret.
But it was Leila Montgomery. My publicist – and the number I should have called when I was tempted by Scott last night.
Leila was about my height, 5’7, but she loomed over me with a shadow that made me gulp. Her curly dark brown hair was
pulled into a bun on top of her head, and I had a perfect view of just how disappointed she was in me. Her dark brown eyes were narrowed in displeasure, her nostrils flared, and her lips were pulled back into a snarl. “What were you thinking, Mia?”
I covered my face, shame setting me on fire. “I know. I know.”
She didn’t back down. “If you know, why were you sleeping on the floor of your bedroom? Why did I wake up to pictures of you staggering on the sidewalk? Smiling so drunkenly at the camera that it made me cringe? Why did I see that douchebag Scott winking at the camera beside you?”
“Scott,” I hissed. Another memory hit me, a stinging blow that made me bite my lip to keep from crying out. In the memory, I was giggling hysterically, slobbering like a dog. Scott didn’t even help me out of the cab even though cameras were right outside, bulbs flashing in the dark as I nearly crashed to the cement. The doorman hustled to help me and I remembered looking over his shoulder, the brake lights of the cab shining as brightly as the stars in the sky.
A knot swelled in my throat and I turned my head to the side. I couldn’t stand the pity in Leila’s eyes. “He left me. Fucking asshole.”
She could have said, ‘Well, duh’ or any variation of, but she didn’t say anything. I tilted my head back in her direction, studying her. Her hair wasn’t pulled into a bun as much as a messy ponytail with wiry curls escaping from her clip. Her shirt and jeans were wrinkled, like she’d pulled them on in a hurry. Matched with her gaze and the flush in her cheeks, I confirmed the fact that I’d hung out with the wrong person last night.
I pulled myself up with a wince, my body berating me for last night. Mercilessly. “You look like crap.”
The tiniest smile drifted across her lips. “You’re one to talk.” She gave me a final once over and darted from the room. She came back with a glass of water. I expected her to chuck it at me. Drench me back to common sense. I jumped when she offered it to me instead.
She quirked an eyebrow. “It’s just a glass of water, Mia.”
My eyes welled with tears as I shook my head. It was so much more than a glass of water. It was the true friendship I’d always wanted. I didn’t believe no strings attached existed for people like me. “You can’t just –” I dropped my head back in my hands, sobs ripping through me, shredding my attempts at pretending I had it together.