"It was a setup." I'd barely made it through the door after hours spent running around to get here, and this was mom's greeting."What're you talking about, mom? What was a setup?""This whole thing, everything. It was all a setup." Being here in front of her, I saw that the panic in her voice was nothing compared to the fear in her eyes.My mom has this habit of pacing back and forth, waving her arms around frantically when she's stressed. She was doing that now only at warped speed. For a minute, I almost thought she was on something, but this wasn't that look. I know what mom looks like high, and this wasn't it.She kept rambling about lies and conspiracies and blaming herself for believing the wrong people, and I still didn't know what she was talking about. I was too tired and, frankly, freaked out myself to have the patience she obviously needed."You're not making any sense, mom. Now stop pacing and tell me what the hell is going on .""Your marriage, your wife, her family, the
Well, what do you know, life does go on. A little change of scenery and a new and exciting project that takes up most, if not all, of your time, and well, you stop caring too much about what's being said. You'd think after weeks had gone by that the Ryder thing would've died down, but nope.It only seems to have opened up the proverbial can of worms all over again. To make matters worse, no one has seen hide nor hair of him since then, which has prompted everyone and their mother to stalk me around town as if expecting him to pop up any minute.Thankfully I've been too busy for all this nonsense. My agent seems to think I had acquired superpowers since my last breakdown because I find myself having to turn down offers left and right when there was hardly ever anything to choose from before. Granted, I was doing a pretty good rendition of a corpse back then, but still.Instead of griping about it, I decided to be thankful for all of it, but I'm still going to pick and choose what I want
"Sydney, come over; bring food and ice cream. I just returned today and haven't been downstairs to check the fridge, so I'm not sure what we have down there.""I'm on my way." I hung up and turned up Elastic Heart, which I'd had on repeat for the last half hour.Sydney turned up about an hour or so later, but I was caught up in working on the ditty that had popped into my head after reading some of the crap online and didn't really notice the time. We exchanged hugs and small talk about what we'd both been up to since we last met before getting down to business."I guess you saw.""I saw, but you know, I don't believe half of what these things say. Since I was away for so long and you were here, why don't you tell me what's really been going on.""Actually, it's pretty accurate since it all played out online. Though the original post was taken down, someone screenshotted and reposted it, and all hell broke loose.""Yeah, I was afraid of that. I was hoping it was another one of those th
Why was I so worried about doing this, and why did it take me so long? I had a blast. Well, except for the paparazzi that came out in droves. Tonight, they kinda reminded me of the hyenas that were after Mufasa's body. I tend to get a bit over dramatic when I'm pressed.True to his word, Evan was the perfect gentleman, and he seemed genuinely happy with my company. We laughed, we talked, we shared cute little stories, and by the end of it, I was wondering why I couldn't feel anything for him beyond the friendship I was willing to offer.He's such a nice guy, something of a rarity in this town, not to mention hot, but I couldn't even dredge up a tingle for the poor guy. It's like parts of me had gone numb, and others had stopped living altogether. But I did have fun, so much so that I reached for his hand to thank him as we left the establishment."Thanks, Evan, this was great; I had an awesome time." Of course, the cameras caught that moment, and I almost panicked when I saw the flash
She wants to write songs about goodbye; let's show her how that's gonna go down. And since she used music to get her message to me, there's no better way for me to do it than to answer her with a song. Only, I doubt she's going to like my answer.I picked up paper and pen and got to work, but I was too pissed off to see straight, let alone write anything of any substance. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the song right, and my frustration kept growing. I kept writing and rewriting it to get the words just right. It's been hours since I started, and I've spent that time vacillating between being happy that she still remembered our codes and being pissed that she was using it to tell me goodbye.I couldn't even enjoy the fact that she was talking to me, albeit through song, but at least she was acknowledging my existence. The girl hasn't spoken to me once in five years. And the two times she'd graced me with her presence in the same vicinity, she'd looked right through me.So,
"My dad is going to contact you soon. He's going to make it appear that you two are working on a movie together. He's gonna make it appear that that's where you've been for the past couple of months. The story's going to be that he wanted to clean you up before offering you the project.""I still don't see how that's going to work. Your family only works with the best. I've never acted a day in my life. Besides, my reputation doesn't mesh with the clean-cut actors and actresses he usually works with.""Don't worry about it. My dad already has a press release ready to go out about the project you'd be working on. As to your reputation in the past, everyone knows my dad's image and that this is something he would do, so it shouldn't be a hard sell.""As to why you disappeared, that too is something he would do. He would clean you up first before he ever puts you in front of one of his cameras. So that's the story you're going to go with. You don't have to do anything; just wait until aft
Oh sh*t, there is no freaking way kids did this. There was a whole shitstorm playing out on social media in such a way that even I had never seen before, and I have been at the wrong end of a social media blitz many times in the past. It was a well-orchestrated attack, or maybe I could see it because I'd been forewarned and knew what was going on.These kids, if they really were kids, surprised even me, and I was given a heads up about what was coming, but they'd gone in a whole other direction than I'd expected. I thought Janie, Noel, and Nicole were their targets, at least that's what I was led to believe, but they went straight for the head of the snake. They went after Mary, something I would've shook in my boots to do even if I had an army behind me. The woman is vicious, and she has some kind of power over the elite in L.A. that transcends anything anyone could imagine who's not a part of it. I guess it helps that these kids, whoever they are, aren't part of the Hollywood elite
"Are you shitting me? Is this real?" I kept looking back and forth from my phone screen to Sydney, who was sitting next to me on my bed, digging into a tub of ice cream like the world was coming to an end. She had the biggest smile on her face that had been there since she walked in half an hour ago."It's real girlfriend. I'd like to find this MengeLiNi person and give them a reward; they came prepared. I hear Mary and her demon spawn are catching their ass trying to do damage control, but I don't see how they're going to come back from this.""But how does this person know all of this?""I don't know, but the receipts don't lie. Maybe it's someone close to them; who knows? They screw over friend and foe alike, and they must've pissed off someone by not paying them or any one of the other underhanded things they're known for, but people were always too scared to say out loud. Whatever it is, whoever it is, I am here for it."I wasn't sure how to feel about any of this. I'd taken some