No one here notices me. Or at least they don’t care. I take my hat off and shake my hair out. I hike my carry-on higher on my shoulder and take the familiar route out to the left and down the stairs to baggage claim.
I stop on the landing and look below me, expecting to see a driver that Sandy said she would arrange. But instead I see Rainer.
He looks a little tired, but I know it’s something only I can see. He’s still his usual movie-star stunning, and he’s holding a sign that says PG in big pink magic marker.
I walk the stairs slowly. When I get to him, I pause. “I thought they were sending a car,” I say.
He shrugs. “Didn’t feel like the right welcome.”
We look at each other, the night air cooling around us.
“Should we get your bags?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
We go over to the carousel. I just have one duffel, packed to the brim with things I’m sure will ultimately end up in Alexis’s room.
I point it out to Rainer, and he slings it over his shoulder. “After you,” he says.
Kahului Airport is open, and as we cross over to the parking lot, to Rainer’s neon-blue convertible, I look up to see the palm trees swaying and the stars sparkling above us. It’s almost enough for me to forget where Rainer and I are, what has happened. Almost.
“It hasn’t changed,” I whisper.
“No,” Rainer says. “It hasn’t.”
But we have. We drive in silence with the top down. The familiar landscape waxes and wanes around us. I can’t wait to see everything in the light of day tomorrow.
We pull up to the condos. We rented the same ones as last time. Right in Wailea, right by the ocean.
My key is at the front desk, along with a way-too-big flower bouquet from Amanda. “Would you like us to bring it to your room?” the desk girl asks.
“No,” I say. “They’re yours.”
We make our way to my condo, Rainer still hauling the duffel behind me. He stops at the door and I pull out the key, sliding it in and waiting for the click. He follows me inside.
“Where should I drop this?” he asks.
“Anywhere,” I say. “It doesn’t matter.”
I take it in. The bedroom is to the right, and then the hallway spills into the living room and beyond that, the balcony. The shades are up and the sliding doors have been opened, allowing for the most delicious trade breeze. My feet on the hardwood floor feel cool and steady.
Rainer puts the bag in the bedroom and then comes and stands next to me.
There are so many memories here. Morning coffee on the terrace, ordering sushi, running lines on the sofa. I think of the two of us, how good we were. Or how good we seemed.
I feel Rainer’s hand reach out and touch me lightly between my shoulder blades. “I need to say something,” he tells me.
“I know,” I say. “But I need to say something first.” I step back from his reach and over to the couch. He follows.
“Okay,” he says. “Shoot.”
I cross my feet underneath me. Rainer puts a hand on the back of the couch. I take a deep breath. “Rainer, I know what we had was real—I’m not an idiot. I was there, too. I know you love me, just like I love you.” I see relief in his eyes. It shines so bright, I think they might blow a fuse. “But it doesn’t change what happened. You lied to me. You came after me not because of how you felt but because of orders you were given. What does it say about us, our relationship, that you couldn’t even be honest with me?”
“I didn’t think it mattered,” Rainer says. “Who cares how we got together, if we’re together now?”
“Because,” I say. “Our life isn’t pretend. We’re not chess pieces to be moved around at the world’s will. I don’t want my private life to be some kind of public fantasy.”
“It’s not. We’re not.”
“I think we are. Being with you made me feel protected, but it also made me feel scared. And I’m not saying this to hurt you, but it’s the truth. It’s so much. It’s too much, Rainer. Sometimes being with you, being that couple, made me feel like I didn’t know who I was.”
Rainer runs his palm up and down the back of the sofa.
“These last few months, away from you—it’s been scary, but it has also felt good. I want to be able to do stuff on my own and not feel like I need you by my side. I don’t want us to be together because we need each other. I want us to be together because we want each other. As Rainer and Paige, not Noah and August.”
Rainer nods. He doesn’t say anything.
“I haven’t been fair to you,” I say. “I punished you for keeping me at arm’s length and not thinking I could handle things when I gave you no reason to believe I could. I took no responsibility for myself. I left it all up to you. I don’t want to be that girl anymore.”
I get quiet, and Rainer’s eyes study my face. “Can I say something now?” he asks.
I nod.
“I was wrong,” he says. “But not for following my dad’s advice. Honestly, Paige, telling me to go after you might have been the one good thing my father has ever done. I was wrong to think you had to be protected. I’ve just seen fame destroy people. And I didn’t want you to end up like Britney. I didn’t want you to fall and not have me there to catch you.” Rainer swallows. “But you’re stronger than I gave you credit for, and I want you to be. What kind of guy would I be if I didn’t want you to be everything you are? Look, Paige, I don’t want to make this harder for you. If you say we’re done, then that’s your choice, and I’ll respect it. But I also need you to know I haven’t taken myself out of the running.”
I look up at him. His blue eyes are so clear and bright. The hope stings me. Burns me right at the heart.
“I still want to be with you,” he says simply. “Now, on our terms. I just need you to know that.”
He looks down at me and smiles. That dazzling, megawatt, movie-star smile. And then he kisses me. It happens in a split second. Blink, his lips are on mine.
It has been so long since we’ve kissed, but I remember him perfectly. He’s so familiar to me here, now—back on Maui, where we know how to be together. My body remembers him. He presses a hand gently against the back of my head, tangles his fingers in my hair. And then, just as quickly as he began, he pulls back, touching his forehead to mine. “There is a lot of good here,” he says. I feel his breath on my cheek. His eyelashes tickle my face.
“I know,” I whisper.
I think about that advice people are always giving out—follow your heart. What they forget to tell you is that your heart can want many things at once. It can want love and romance and friendship all at the same time. It can feel betrayed and compelled. It can feel swollen and broken. Our hearts are big. There is room in there to hold a lot. There is room in there to hold two people.
We don’t waste any time getting started on rehearsals. Late nights, early mornings. Working with green screens and harnesses and animatronic plants. This is what our training was for, but it’s still a steep learning curve here, on set. We’re suspended from ropes fifty feet in the air. It’s terrifying, but pretty awesome. Our stunts in Locked seemed massive, but like any good franchise, they just keep upping the stakes.
Alfonso is exacting. There is no room for mistakes. Every second is scheduled. Wyatt was passionate, incredibly demanding, but Alfonso’s method is totally different. He gives us more free rein. He doesn’t talk through scenes with us; he just expects us to know. Some of the time we do, but other times I find myself missing Wyatt’s direction. Even if more often than not he was screaming it.
I can tell Rainer and Jordan feel it, too.
The three of us are trying our best, but to me we feel like planets orbiting around each other, never fully coming in contact. Alfonso encourages what he calls a “spotlessly professional” atmosphere, so for the most part, their tension goes unnoticed, played off as method acting on the parts of Ed and Noah.
We’re rehearsing a fight scene four days in. Ed and Noah are
having it out. It’s a scene from later in the book, almost at the end, but we’re shooting it early. Alfonso is with us on the soundstage, and Jessica stands next to him. I figured she would follow Wyatt onto his next project, but she’s back with us. When I asked her about it, she shrugged and said it felt like something she needed to see through. It’s nice to have her here. It makes things on set feel way more normal.
“I trusted you,” Jordan says. “And you betrayed me.”
“You betrayed me years ago, Ed,” Rainer says. “When you told me I shouldn’t be with her, that it had to be you. I listened to you. And all along, all you had were your own interests at heart.”
“No,” Jordan says. “I had hers.”
The press loves to talk about how real life is imitating fiction, how we’ve become our characters, stuck in this love triangle. I think, in a strange way, we’ve believed it, too. Rainer wasn’t the only one who went in search of real life to imitate fiction. We’re all guilty of it.
On the first movie, I was afraid of not being able to be August. After Locked came out, I was afraid of not being able to be Paige the Movie Star. To live up to everyone’s expectations. But standing here watching them, I begin to see that we’ve been drinking way too much Kool-Aid. We’re not our characters. Jordan isn’t Ed, and Rainer isn’t Noah. Not even close.
And perhaps most important, I’m not August.
I’m Paige Townsen. And I’m not choosing between Rainer and Jordan for the rest of my life, because I’m eighteen. I’m not supernatural; I’m human. And most likely I will fall in love again, maybe even a few times. August thinks that the choice between Ed and Noah is the last one she’ll ever make. It’s forever. But this isn’t about forever. Jake was right—it’s about now. And right now I don’t want this fiction to be our reality. Not anymore.
Alfonso calls break, and Jordan goes to grab his phone. I see him looking at Rainer and me, and then he jogs over.
“Hey, we have to get on Skype,” he says.
Rainer swigs some water out of a Save the Whales jug Jake gave him. “What?”
“Alexis is doing that school visit for Do Something,” I remind him. “We told her we’d join in.”
“Oh right,” Rainer says. “What’s she doing with them again?”
“Ambassador for anti-bullying,” Jordan says.
“Fine,” Rainer says, more to me. His tone is frayed, and I feel my pulse lurch. The last thing we need is a fight before we have to video broadcast ourselves to millions of people.
“Come on,” I say. “We made a promise.”
“The three of us?” Rainer asks.
Jordan glances at me. “Yeah. It’s only ten minutes.”
Rainer snaps closed the top of his water bottle. “For Alexis, sure.”
I follow them back up to the condos, but instead of making a left when we get to the lobby, we make a right. I’ve never been on this side of the condos before. I’ve never been to Jordan’s room before.
He leads us up a side staircase and then around to the left. He pops the door open, and I walk in, Rainer behind.
Jordan’s condo faces half out to the water, and half to the mountains. You can see all the way up the hills here—hills that I know disappear into Haleakala.
Rainer flops himself down on the couch. Jordan switches on his laptop. I take a seat on the coffee table, across from them.
“I’m dialing in,” Jordan says.
They both look right at me. “Okay,” I say.
Rainer gestures to the space between him and Jordan. “You’re probably going to need to come sit here.”
I smooth down my hair. “Yeah,” I say. “Sure.” The couch isn’t giant, and my knee brushes Jordan’s. I put my hands on my thighs and keep them there.
The screen shows the three of us. I look down at the little box with our picture, and then a woman’s face appears.
“Oh my goodness,” she says. “You’re never going to believe who just came to join us.”
She steps back to reveal a fully packed auditorium, and the kids go wild. Whooping and screaming.
“We’re calling you from Hawaii,” Rainer says. He waves and slings an arm over the back of the couch. “We miss you, Alexis!”
Alexis is standing at a podium on the stage, wearing the same T-shirt she gave me but altered in such a way that it looks wildly flattering on her. She waves at us. “Hey, friends!”
“How is it going?” Jordan asks. I see her beam back at him. “We can’t wait for you to get here.”
“Is anyone else jealous these guys have spent all day on the beach?” Alexis asks the students.
“We’re working,” I say.
Alexis winks at me. “You guys want to hang out while I talk?”
More yelling. Rainer leans forward. “We’ll stick around if you guys stop screaming!”
The students freak out even more, and I’m reminded of the impact Rainer has on people. Even here, in Jordan’s living room, from thousands of miles away, he has command of the audience.
“Do your thing,” I say. “We’re not going anywhere.”
Alexis looks at us, and out of the corner of my eye I catch Jordan give her a quick thumbs-up. She takes a deep breath. I can feel her energy, even through the screen. She seems nervous. I’ve never seen Alexis nervous before.
“I’m here today to talk about bullying. I joined with Do Something about six months ago, and I had planned to speak today, as I have many times before, about kindness in schools and treating each other with respect. I was going to tell you about how it gets better after high school, and I want to be clear all of that is true… but there’s something I need to say first.”
Confused, I look at Jordan, but his eyes are fixed to the screen.
“I’m gay,” Alexis says.
I blink, and feel Rainer shift next to me. I know they’re watching us—not just the students, but the world, that this clip will be everywhere. I can’t react with surprise, which might register as unkindness. And I could never be unkind to Alexis, who now I realize is braver and more selfless than I ever knew before.
She looks down at the podium, and I see her brush a hand against the back of her head. I want to reach through the screen and take her hand. Stand with her. I know now why she wanted us to call in. She wanted us to be here, and that fact alone makes me feel the most intense, true love for her.
Alexis inhales, ready to continue, except she is silenced. Because the entire auditorium has broken out into a chorus of shouts and cheers and applause. It is more deafening than anything I have heard before. Louder than our premiere. But it doesn’t feel scary or burdensome or panic-inducing. This collective expression feels like love. And I know Alexis feels it, too, because all at once her head is up and she is beaming.
“Yeah,” she says, nodding. “I’m a gay woman.” More screaming. It sounds so freaking beautiful, I start doing it myself.
“Thank you,” she says. She holds up her hand for people to quiet down. “I wasn’t going to say anything. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to come out. I live my life in such a public way, and frankly, I don’t think my sexuality is anyone’s business. It doesn’t affect my job.”
People are clapping maniacally.
“But.” Alexis holds up her hand and tosses her hair. She’s back to working the crowd. “I realized that I was starting to live a lie. And I don’t want any of you to think there is anything wrong with being, openly and proudly, who you are.”
At this people go nuts. Rainer and Jordan next to me are whooping and clapping. I find that I have tears rolling down my face.
“These are my friends,” Alexis says. “And I guarantee you it does not make one single difference to them who I decide to date.”
She looks at us, and Rainer leans forward. “Not true,” he tells her through the screen. “We do care, because we want you to be happy. And Alexis? Goddamn, we’re proud.”
I look at Jordan. He has tears in his eyes. “I love you, A,” he says.
Even though we’re on Skype, I know she’s looking right at me. She has been so brave. And I can’t help but think, as she cocks an eyebrow at me, that she’s challenging me to be the same.
I blow her a kiss. She turns back to the auditorium. And then she keeps speaking. She talks about truth and integrity, and kindness. And leading with your heart—no matter how “off the path” it may take you.
“The thing about life,” she says, “is that sometimes the roads that seem impossible just have some rocks in your way. They’re not boulders; they’re just rocks. You can move them. You are strong enough.” She finishes with this: “I will help you lift them.”
We hang up with promises of seeing her soon. The last thing I see is Alexis being enveloped in a huge hug by students.
Once we close the computer, the three of us are quiet. No one moves. And I suddenly realize it’s not their job to say anything—it’s mine. Alexis stood up in front of the world and told us who she is. She spoke her truth. Now it’s my turn.
I flip myself around onto the coffee table so I’m facing them. Jordan is looking at the floor, but Rainer is looking right at me.
“She’s amazing,” I say.
They both nod.
“She had mentioned she might—” Jordan says. “Pretty epic.”
“How long have you known?” I ask Jordan.
He shrugs. “Forever, I guess. I still had a thing for her, though.”
To my complete surprise, Rainer laughs. I see the slight edge of a smile on Jordan’s lips, too.
“I have to tell you guys something,” I say.
Rainer sits back and crosses a foot over his leg. Jordan is still avoiding my gaze.
“I know I’ve been selfish, inexcusably so. You were right, Rainer. This isn’t fair. And I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you both through.” I take a deep breath. I just say it. “Which is why I won’t choose.”
At this Rainer and Jordan both look at me. What I see there is a mix of so many emotions, it makes me feel dizzy. “If it means giving one of you up, and you giving up each other, then I won’t do it.”
I see Jordan look up at Rainer and then fall silent again. Rainer leans forward. “Paige,” he says, gently. “No one is going anywhere.”
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