His confession brought tears to my eyes. That was truly the mark of a mother, and at long last I knew without a doubt that I had one. I turned to Griffin. “And what about Angus?”
He shrugged. “The window hasn’t entirely closed on his opportunity to replace you if he decides to do so.” The thought made my stomach sink. I had paid in blood and tears for that song. It was just as much a part of me as anything I had ever written.
“I guess there will be other songs,” I said, trying my best to feign indifference.
Griffin softened. “Of course there will be other songs. But there’s nothing to say you won’t keep this one. You Yanks are way more uptight about these kinds of things than we are. You really need to stop making problems where there aren’t any, love.”
I gave him a small, grateful smile. “I guess this means we’re doing this, then.”
Iris rose to her feet. “I’ll get to the office and work on some strategies. When do you expect to drop the video?”
“The last thing I want to do is ambush Shelby. I want to give her the video and she can do whatever she wants with it. But as soon as Coy and Eddie figure out what I’ve done, it’s open season.”
She nodded and then gave me a big hug. “You’re doing the right thing,” she whispered in my ear as she kissed my cheek. “As long as you live under this cloud of ‘will-they-won’t-they,’ you’ll never be out from under their control.”
I nodded. I knew she was right. I worried about what it would do for my career once the bomb finally dropped, but I eager to get out from under its shadow. Everything I
built for myself until then was simply a fragile house of cards that someone else could destroy at any moment. I was risking undeniable humiliation, but those who would hate me would likely do so without anything I purposefully did to give them their ammunition.
If anything, this past year had taught me that.
Once Iris departed, Jacob turned to me. “I know where Shelby is going to be, if you want to talk to her privately.”
“Not sure how private it’s going to be with Eddie hanging around her neck like the albatross that he is.”
Jacob shook his head. “Eddie left early this morning to DC with Papa Goddard. From what little I’ve seen, he really doesn’t spend that much time with her unless the press is involved. He’s glued to Coy’s side. Like any true opportunist, he knows where the money and the power are.”
My face screwed into a scowl. “And I’m sure Coy is overjoyed to have a ‘real man’ to pass his legacy onto. He’s a tried and true misogynist.”
“He’s an equal opportunity bigot,” Jacob quipped. “Have you seen his new campaign to protect the ‘sanctity’ of marriage?”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
Jacob shook his head. “He’s been courting his huge anti-gay crusader whose ministry promises to get rid of any pesky homosexual urges through its reparative ‘therapy’ program. And that guy is the biggest queen I ever saw, despite being married with an entire troupe of foster kids. I worry about every boy that gets placed in their care.”
“Is anyone what they seem to be?” I asked.
“Nope,” he cheerfully offered as he kissed me on the tip of my nose. “Welcome to the club.”
I laughed. He really was a perfect addition to our little band of misfits. We
even laughed about how his name was so similar to his new lover’s. I dubbed them the Nuevo Coreys, which had stuck.
I rode with Jacob to the studio. Jace had wanted to come, but this was something I felt like I needed to do on my own. If Jace had his way, that tape would have been released a year ago, before I willingly enlisted into the marriage from hell with Eddie Nix. That would have spared everyone, especially Shelby. Jace’s ambiguous
single status let her fall head over heels in love with someone who wasn’t free to love her back.
And these were my lies that put her in such a vulnerable position.
I could have told her at any point, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to trust her like she had trusted me. I had called her my friend, while lying to her and withholding the true intimacy she needed but had always been deprived. I understood how fragile she was, how vulnerable she was, and really how sick she was… but I had selfishly put my own needs first. She didn’t deserve that.
Only I could make things right.
But I was shaking in my shoes as I walked into the studio. I found her easily as she struggled through her recording process. I could tell by the tumbler beside her on a stool that she was detoxing again with her lemon/maple concoction. No doubt she was trying to keep up her perfect appearance now that her father had made her perfection the cornerstone of his campaign.
I could tell by her pallor that she was struggling
to stay upright. We had walked this road together during the taping of
Fierce
, when she was my partner in crime to lose those unsightly bumps and bulges prior to show time. We had a wardrobe to fit into, hers far more revealing and forgiving than mine. She could go for days without eating anything substantial just to battle the ongoing war with cellulite. I knew that she would resort to a candy bar before she passed out from hunger and malnutrition, just to keep all the questions at bay. It was another desperate attempt to starve herself so she could ditch those meager ounces between perfection and total, abject failure.
The world judged
us as polar opposites, based on nothing more than our contrasting outer appearances. She was sweet and wholesome and ideal because she fit into the physical mold of what society considered attractive. I, on the other hand, was “alternative” and threatening because I didn’t. I finally saw it for the first time that my single, “I’m Not Sorry,” had nothing to do with winning the man of my dreams. It was my anthem, thumbing my nose at the “rules” that society had set up and we had all reinforced, even though the rules were complete and total horseshit. When it was all said and done, if you dug deeper behind her manic exercising and her endless dieting, how Shelby saw her body and how I saw mine were one in the same.
Neither one of us considered ourselves
good enough because we weren’t perfect. She was just better at hiding it from everyone else.
I
t was such a laughable concept. I didn’t have to apologize for being different. I didn’t have to apologize for being me.
I only had one thing for which I need
ed to apologize, and that was why I was there in that New York studio, waiting to catch Shelby’s eye.
She stopped singing the moment she saw me. I was afraid she might have me thrown out before we could talk, but she emerged from the studio to face me herself. She nodded to the staff, w
hich left her reluctantly alone with me in the control room. “Surprised to see you here,” she said before she sucked more of her detox water from her tumbler. “Come to congratulate me?” she asked as she flashed the sizable ring on her left hand.
It was a stunning piece of jewelry, but I saw it for what it was: her prison sentence.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then why are you here?” she demanded softly.
“I owe you an apology, Shelby,” I forced through my constricted throat. “You deserved a better friend than I ever was to you.”
She chortled as she walked over to the stool. I could tell how shaky she was, even though she had become quite adept at hiding it for the world. “You got something right at least.”
“I know I’m the last person you want to see…”
“Two for two,” she interrupted without looking at me.
“But there’s something I think you need to know about Eddie.”
Her eyes met mine. “I know everything I need to know about Eddie.”
“You think so?” I asked as I withdrew the DVD I had recently burned. I had kept the video file with me on my computer, in case I ever found the courage to give it to her. Whether I was ready or not, today was that day. She said nothing as I placed the DVD into the computer disk drive and cued up the security tape from our Las Vegas stint of the
Fierce
tour. And I knew she would recognize it the minute the image appeared on the screen.
Eddie was drunk in my makeup chair as I entered the room.
“
Who were you fucking this time
?” he had asked me through the mirror.
“
Why do you care
?” I had shot back.
He spun around in the chair. “
I told you before. You’re my greatest investment. Until I move on up to Shelby, that is
.”
The video showed me crossing my arms in front of me. “
What makes you think she’d put up with half of your shit? You can’t blackmail her into marriage like you did me
.”
I turned to face Shelby, assuming this revelation would be enough to at least stun her into paying attention. Instead she
defiantly tipped her chin. “He already told me that you’d try to play the victim,” she dismissed. “You’d say anything as long as you can get what you want.”
I sighed as I fast-forwarded to the confrontation after my performance, which I had cut short
that night, invoking Eddie’s wrath in the process.
“
What the fuck was that
?” he had demanded.
“
What do you care as long as you get my money
?” I had shot back.
He grabbed me by the arm. “
You’re going to ruin everything, you stupid cunt
.” I pushed him away, telling him to let me go. He responded by saying, “
Oh, no. I’m never letting you go. I thought I made that perfectly clear
.”
The tape showed in vivid detail how he had thrust me toward the makeup chair. I lost my balance went down with the chair in a loud crash. He grinned over me as I cowered below him, watching in horror as he released the zipper on his jeans. The video showed Jace burst into the room and yank Eddie backward until he crashed against the opposite wall.
“
What the fuck, Chief
?” Eddie slurred as he straightened up.
I turned away from the
confrontation; living through it once was enough. Instead I concentrated on Shelby’s expression as she watched Jace finally give Eddie the comeuppance he so deserved.
“
You let me out of here or I swear to Christ I will release every goddamn video of you fucking that fat piece of shit
,” Eddie had demanded.
“
No, you won’t
,” Jace told him after laying him flat. Jace pointed toward the camera positioned in the corner of the room. “
Because the second you do, I’ll release a video tape of my own. A tape that shows you for the con artist you are. You never loved Jordi. You wanted to leech off of her fame and diminish her light. But you couldn’t. Not for long. And not anymore
.”
I turned
off the video. Shelby was quiet as I turned back to face her. “Eddie compiled a video of Jace and me from when we met and fell in love at the
Fierce
mansion. He’s been holding it over my head ever since. He forced me into a marriage with him, threatening that if he released that video it would wreck our careers, thanks to a morality clause in our contracts. He never loved me, Shelby. It was all an act. Just like what Marianne did when she flew to L.A. to ‘manage’ my career. These were people who only noticed me when it served them best. It never had anything to do with me. And now he’s trying to do it to you.”
Shelby stood. “You’re never going to be happy until you destroy every good thing that happens to me, are you?”
“Eddie is the worst thing that could happen to you, Shelby. You may not see it now, but he’s evil. He doesn’t give a shit about you or anyone else.”
“Funny,” she quipped as she took another sip from her tumbler, holding it to her mouth with trembling hands. “He says the same thing about you.”
“I figured as much,” I replied flatly. “Which is why I needed to show you this video? To prove to you that he’s not some misunderstood white knight with a broken heart.”
“You ever think that he treated you poorly because you deserved it?” she challenged. “He may not be perfect but he was willing to
drop everything, even his football career, to be there for you. And you let him, way before any mysterious ‘sex tape.’ You used him, Jordi. To give you some kind of credibility after you ditched your family to run away to Los Angeles. He told me you never even told your mother or your friends where you were going. You just vanished, conveniently after a big birthday party to honor you. And you never contacted them again until it was in your benefit to do so.”
I sighed. Her accusations hurt even though I knew it was all a huge misinterpretation of the facts. “Did he also tell you that he
tanked his first year of college football? He was waiting for any opportunity to drop his football career before it dropped him. That’s why he raced to L.A. to leech off my spotlight. And he’s right. I left Iowa without letting anyone know. What he didn’t tell you was why. He showed up, wanting some birthday nookie in the back seat of his car, the only place he could force himself to be around me, and I found my best friend’s charm bracelet on the floorboard. She said no, so he settled for me. I realized then and there that I had spent a childhood loving a boy who didn’t exist. So I got the fuck out of there. And I never contacted him after that. The only reason I went back home at all was at the insistence of the
Fierce
producers. And guess who was already there, working over my mom… Marianne… by telling her we were inseparable teen sweethearts when it was a big, fat lie? ”