The crowd started screaming, and my entire body got goose bumps. Ryne pulled me into a hug and whispered, “Faith and I have known since your Vegas audition that none of us had a chance. It’s been great getting to share a stage. Congratulations.” He then made a subtle exit off stage as we both had rehearsed, and a microphone was rushed to my hand in order for me to sing.
Connor turned to me and pretended to wipe away a tear, then wrapped an arm around me and stated, “Well, Billie Bishop, it looks like it’s time for us to hear that beautiful song again.” He started to leave but stopped abruptly when he saw Zach barge on stage, the Marine team close behind.
“Zach?” I asked, shocked.
“Sorry everyone for the interruption, but I’ve got something serious to ask,” he told the audience. I was surprised to see that he was mic’d. He then turned to face me. “Billie, I know life is changing for both of us. I know you won this competition and are about to start the celebrity lifestyle that you’ve always deserved. But I want to be there for the best and worst moments, whether you’re a celebrity or a small-town girl. I don’t want you standing in a room alone with strangers ever again without me. You’re the most important person to me. So I want to ask you to spend the rest of your life with me.” He then got down on one knee, pulled out a little blue box from his pocket, and opened it. I couldn’t even look at the box. I just kept staring at Zach’s face. “Billie Bishop, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“What are you doing?” I whispered, trying to turn my back to the audience. I felt a single tear fall across my cheek.
“I’m proposing,” Zach murmured nervously.
“On national television? Have you lost your mind?” I stared at the backstage staff, unable to look directly at him any longer without tears falling down my face.
“I was going to tell you. This was always in the works. You were going to be proposed to at the end of this show. You wouldn’t listen. You’ve turned into another one of Jax Bone’s groupies, and you deserve better than that,” he replied, raking a hand through his hair.
My gaze darted to Jax in his judging chair. The lights from the stage made me unable to see his eyes or read his body language. I was too far away. I had no idea if what Zach was telling me was the truth.
“So you bought a ring? To what, beat him to the punch? You thought that would make things better? If it was you embarrassing me on stage, then it’s all okay?”
“The show bought the ring. It was in Jax’s dressing room.” The audience gasped. “It’s a sapphire, and it matches your eyes. Can you just look at it? If you hate it, I’ll get a different one. A better one.”
“No. I can’t. Just because some show is buying me an engagement ring doesn’t make any of this okay.”
“It was him or me, and I wanted it to be me. Billie, choose me,” Zach pleaded, his voice shaking. “I’ve loved you our entire lives. I know I promised to give you time to think about us, but I also already knew I would be asking this question one day, I just needed to speed up my timeline if I wanted to be the first one to do it. Billie, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I want that life to start now. I want to forsake all others and my dreams if it means I get to be a part of yours.”
“You didn’t think we needed to date first?” I hissed back.
“We went to prom together,” Zach murmured, causing the seven thousand audience members to sigh in unison.
“As friends,” I snapped, and he flinched.
“We’ve slow danced to your favorite songs,” he continued.
“As friends, Zach,” I repeated, my heart ripping just a little more as I watched him flinch again.
“We’ve kissed,” he returned adamantly. “And it wasn’t as friends.”
“You kissed me,” I reminded him and watched his heart break.
“Marry me, Billie,” Zach pleaded, and the audience gasped. “I dare you to.”
And with those words, my heart broke.
I stood frozen, the spotlight blinding me. I shut my eyes to stop the pounding in my head. I desperately wanted to run and hide from everyone’s eager facial expressions.
I willed the band to start playing again.
“So are you going to answer the boy?” Russell asked from the judges’ bench, chuckling.
I turned to stare at them in confusion.
Is no one going to stop this from happening?
“Maybe she needs to hear him repeat the question.” Claudia laughed. “Girl’s having a big night.”
The most beautiful guy I’d ever met, inside and out, touched my shoulder and, for the second time this evening, looked deeply into my eyes and asked softly, “Billie Bishop, will you make me the happiest man in the world and marry me?”
If only I felt more than friendship.
“I’m so sorry. This is the first dare I can’t agree to, Zach,” I replied before I ran off the stage.
I pushed past assistants and camera operators, running through the halls of the theater as quickly as my feet would carry me. Brian and Corey followed, but when I reached my dressing room, I demanded they give me space and wait in the hallway. I closed the door behind me, collapsed on the floor, and let the tears flow. The sweet scent that filled the room from the bouquets of flowers was a harsh reminder of what tonight was meant to represent.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. As the tears kept running down my cheeks, I started doubting my actions. Did I just give up my best friend for a competition? Did I just end an eighteen-year relationship for a guy I’ve known for less than six months? I considered fixing my face and returning to the stage and saying yes.
A future without Zach was unimaginable.
My eyes became like leaking taps; no matter how many times I rubbed them, they kept dripping and covering my cheeks in streaks of water. I tried to squeeze them closed and saw Zach’s devastated face again.
This wasn’t just some guy. Zach was the person in my life who had been there for and supported me through everything. I never thought of him romantically; he was like my twin, a part of myself that I neither questioned nor fantasized about. He just was. If my blood had boiled or butterflies appeared when we held hands at least once during our time together, I might have been able to say yes. After all, I knew a future together would be one filled with unwavering support.
I decided I needed to go find him and discuss my decision. Maybe I had been too hasty.
When a knock sounded on my dressing room door, I sighed in relief. This was why I always felt like he was my twin, my other half. He always knew my mind before I said a word.
“Just a few more minutes,” I begged, trying to wipe away the mascara that had smudged beneath my eyes.
When the door cracked open and Cindy slipped through, I couldn’t fight the weight of disappointment that landed on my chest. He’s not coming after me.
“Look, I know they probably need me back on stage, but I can’t yet,” I muttered, the tears falling again. “This evening has just been so overwhelming. If you could go back to whoever sent you and tell them I look like a mess…. They wouldn’t even want me on stage right now. If they could give me five minutes, I should be able to pull myself together.” The weight on my heart become heavier.
When Cindy let out a high-pitched laugh, I couldn’t help but blink twice. “You know what I find amusing about this whole situation?” she rasped out. Her voice was deeper than I had ever heard before. “Even now as you trample on more lives and hearts, you’re still playing the victim. It’s almost entertaining.”
“Huh?” I looked at the blonde pixie, who had always been smiling and helping everyone, now standing in front of me with venom seeping from her eyes. She leaned back against the door, barricading me in, wearing her usual denim skirt and her white-blonde hair neatly braided down her back. When she jerked and moved closer to me, I instinctively stood and took a step back.
Gone was the sweet intern, and in her place was a psychopath. “I mean, look at you. Cryi
ng and hysterical. You just won the damn competition and a good-looking guy proposed to you in front of thousands, yet you’re acting like you just got evicted from your damn home.” Before I could respond, I felt the sharp slap of her palm across my cheek. “Always the bitch.”
The force of her hand had my face whipping to the side. “What the f*ck?” I yelled, touching my cheek.
Cindy just kept ranting. “You destroy lives. You’re like a brain cancer, infecting people’s minds and slowly killing their dreams. I’ve watched it. First Connor, then Ryne, then Zach. No doubt Jax will be next. Every guy just can’t wait to fall in front of you, and you just step all over them to get what you want. God, I was pissed when Faith got hurt instead of you. It took me weeks to plan that.”
She took a step toward me, and that time I moved to meet her. The shock of the evening had worn off, and I was ready to throw my own punches. “It was you,” I hissed. “You’ve been sending me notes trying to scare me. You tampered with my wardrobe and put Faith in the hospital trying to get to me. What is wrong with you?” I pushed her backward. All this time I had been imagining some forty-year-old muscleman coming after me but it was this five-foot-nothing nobody. I wouldn’t even need Brian or Corey to intervene. I could handle this girl.
She laughed hysterically before her eyes narrowed to slits. “You think something’s wrong with me. I’m the only one in this whole damn place who isn’t blinded by your f*cking tits.” Her eyes spewed crazy as she sneered.
The sting of my cheek couldn’t compete with the boiling anger that stirred inside of me. “You’re so done. I haven’t destroyed any lives, but you can bet I will use any power this show might have given me to destroy yours. You need to get the hell out of my dressing room and probably the state before I tell everyone what you’ve done. Faith deserved to be here, but you don’t,” I spat, acid dripping from my tongue. I took another step forward, ready to push my way through her to the exit, when she pulled out a knife.
The light glinted over the sharp silver blade and disappeared into the thick black handle. The anger coursing through my body froze. I had grown up my whole life listening to my mother warn me about her kitchen knives. The stories of accidentally cut arteries flashed through my mind.
“Not so tough now, are you? I’ll have you know that before you came along, it was going to be my year. Connor had promised me he’d do everything he could to pull some strings and get me on the show. And if you hadn’t ruined his career and gotten him on probation, everyone in that audience would be talking about me right now.” She grabbed my wrist and let the blade hover an inch away from my skin. “I’ve been picturing this moment for quite some time. At first I was going to use a gun, but I decided I wanted to make you bleed slowly for every dollar Connor and I lost.”
“You d-don’t really want to do th-this,” I stuttered out, fear suddenly creeping inside of me. I tried to jerk my arm away, but she tightened her grip. “I haven’t done anything to Connor Graves. I barely talk to the guy, I promise.”
She moved the knife up my arm and pressed it into my skin until blood welled to the surface. “Don’t waste your lies on me. Everyone thinks you’re so sweet and innocent. The small-town girl who auditioned all alone and caught the eye of Jax Bone,” Cindy murmured softly. “They didn’t realize it was you trying to seduce every guy in the room like you’re this virginal goddess. Of course Connor took the bait, but he got punished for suggesting you weren’t as virtuous as you pretended to be.” I tried to lean backward, but she pulled me forward once more. “You keep moving, I’ll push it in harder and we won’t get to chat anymore. It would be a shame for you to not know why you’re being punished.”
I exhaled a shaky breath. “I’m listening. Connor said something during my audition and it’s my fault,” I clarified, trying to calm the crazy out of her.
“He predicted that you’d be jumping into someone’s bed, and they told him they wouldn’t be renewing his damn contract,” she growled. “You set out to destroy him and me.”
I felt the pressure of the knife deepen and watched her smile.
The pain and seeping blood pissed me off. She wasn’t going to listen to reason. And if she was going to keep cutting me, I needed to start making her work a little harder. “Bless your heart, you think I care at all about you,” I drawled and watched her eyes flare. I braced my body to fight her.
“Cindy, I need you in my office—” Connor said as he stuck his head in the door. His eyes bulged when he saw the knife in her hand. “Cin, what the f*ck are you doing right now?”
His entry distracted her enough that she loosened her grip and I yanked my arm away. The edge of the blade dragged along my skin, but I was able to move backward. The farther I got away from her, the better I felt. I tried to look around the room for anything that could be turned into a weapon.
Cindy hissed. “There are two of us now. You won’t get past us both. You aren’t leaving this room alive.”
The reality of her words made a knot form in the pit of my stomach.
“Cin, what are you talking about?” Connor cried, staring at the blood running down my arm.
Cindy rolled her eyes and shut the dressing room door.
“Connor, stop making noise before someone hears you. I don’t want you ruining what we’ve talked about for months. I’m finally teaching the wannabee a lesson,” she replied, waving the knife around, demonstrating that she was a total lunatic. If she had been teetering on the edge of sanity before, the b*tch had just completely fallen off.
I watched Connor stare at her and the knife in horror. “Where did you even get the knife from? There’s security everywhere.”
“I stole it from the caterers upstairs. They’ve prepared a whole after-party for the newly crowned superstar. And it should have been for us,” she screeched. “It isn’t fair, and I won’t just sit around and talk about it anymore. She needs to know how it feels. How she screwed up our chances. She should lose her dreams like we lost ours.”
Connor looked at her French braid and snarling mouth with critical eyes before slowly concealing the emotions that had been running across his face. He sighed dramatically. “Cindy, you could cut me with that damn thing if you keep waving it around. Put the knife down,” he scolded as if talking to a toddler. I was shocked when I saw her pause and lower the knife a fraction. I was even more shocked when I watched Connor change his body language as if posing on camera and tell her, “You’re about to make us both look bad, and you’ll be as bad as she is if you cost me my sponsor deals. It’s like you don’t love me at all.”
Cindy gasped. I tried not to snort. “You can’t mean that, Gravey train,” Cindy pleaded. “You know I would never hurt your face.” She looked to me with evil in her eyes and muttered, “And I’d never do anything that would risk our futures. Once this b*tch is cut up, we’ll be free to live our lives again without problems.”
I watched his eyes widen again and then adjust as if unfazed. “You can’t do that, Cindy,” he replied calmly.
I wanted to cheer but kept my mouth closed and prayed that she’d listen to him.
“What do you mean, ‘you can’t do that, Cindy’?” she mocked. “This is the only way she’ll learn. We both agreed she’s a sneaky slut.”
I wanted to intervene, to ask what the hell I was supposed to learn by bleeding to death. But Connor seemed to have a scheme, and because the only weapons I could see in this room at my disposal were my finale Christian Louboutin heels, I figured he was my best shot.
“Are you on something?” he asked carefully. “What did you take? I’m worried about your health. Should I rush you to the hospital? This isn’t a thought-out strategy, and you’re smarter than this.”
“Drugs? Smarter?” Cindy scoffed. “You think I need drugs to want to cut up this rock star groupie? I just want to take back what she stole.” She waved the knife at my face. “There is no more time for planning. I’ve been smart and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere. Now we act.”
“How do you think she should be punished?” Cindy growled. “I doubt it would be enough. You should just block the door and I’ll hurt the pop princess.”
“You’re forgetting that I don’t care about her, but I care about you,” Connor crooned. Cindy paused her antics and smiled. I wanted to puke. Connor continued seductively. “If Billie goes out unscathed, she’ll be able to go back on stage and tell everyone about your actions. You’ll be famous tonight, because millions are tuned in for the finale. Everyone will want to see photos of you and of us. It’ll make your career. They’ll find those videos you made online for your channel. Now you just need to let the public come to you. I don’t care about her. I just want you to get the fame you deserve.”
I watched Cindy hesitate, then lower the knife and ponder the idea. “My video channel is good,” she muttered. “I just need more people to look at it and notice me.”
“Exactly” Connor continued. “But if you cut up her face or body, she goes in an ambulance. They keep her locked up and she never tells our story. And it could take months for your name to be released. You hurt her and she also won’t tell them how fierce you looked holding that knife or the awesome way you look in your denim skirt.”
“You’ll tell them?” Cindy asked me skeptically.
I nodded slowly, afraid that if I spoke even a single word, the strange trance Connor seemed to have over her would be broken.
“See, Cin-Cin? We need to focus on us and our future. Now, babe, just give me the knife and let Billie go on stage,” Connor encouraged. I held my breath.
“Her arm is bleeding,” she said cheerfully. “They’ll notice that and even ask about me. I guess that’s enough for today.”
“Babe, you’re exactly right,” Connor agreed, reaching for the knife.
“Where should we be when she announces it onstage?” she asked eagerly, looking at herself in the mirror and fluffing her hair.
Childish Dreams Page 21