CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
SKYLAR
AS MUCH AS I WANT TO PULL MYSELF TOGETHER AND SIT THROUGH breakfast with the kids, I can’t. Even though I’m calmer, I still feel like I can’t catch my breath. Every exhale hurts. Every inhale feels too shallow to keep me upright.
I step out of West’s arms and press a hand to his chest, almost pushing him away. “I just wanna sit. I don’t know…by the lake. You go be with your kids.”
West scoffs before tugging my hand off and linking his fingers through mine. “I’m not leaving you,” he grits out before popping his head into the house. “You guys good with cereal? Ollie, can I get you to help your sister?
Let’s pivot. I’ll make breakfast for dinner.”
“Yup” and “Okay!” filter back out to us, and their little voices put another sharp dent in my armor. I can’t look at them. West leads me down to the
water, and it hits me… They’re going to find out.
His kids are going to find out. His nice, normal parents. The friends, the acquaintances I’ve made here. They’re going to see the most personal parts of me and there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it.
Shame pelts me from every direction. It’s heavy on my chest, on my shoulders, in my gut. I have no idea how they got out. All I know is that everyone will see them. Everyone will share them. They will never be truly scrubbed from the internet. Photos I took for fun and intended with love have
been sullied.
And I feel dirty.
It feels like the safety of the bubble I’ve created here is—poof—gone in
an instant. I felt different in Rose Hill, reborn. Like I could be a new version of myself and the world would keep turning.
But this is proof that I can be a new version of myself, but I’ll never really escape the old version. That Skylar, and everything she comes with, will poison the water, no matter how far I swim.
Before I know it, we’re at the log where Ollie and I like to sit together.
Ollie.
“Fuck,” I whisper, feeling my heart crack from corner to corner. A fat tear rolls down my cheek.
How will he see me now? How will he see me five years from now? How will I look him in the eye? And Emmy? What am I supposed to tell her about the world? About fame? About being a woman in this day and age?
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I breathe out, dread and panic setting in.
I’m right back where I started when I got to this town—paralyzed by knowing I don’t belong to myself. Nothing is mine; everything I do is for
mass consumption.
Even when I don’t want it to be.
West’s palms land on my shoulders, and he gently presses, seating me on the log. I feel wooden, like a Barbie whose legs you can bend.
He stays close but doesn’t invade my space.
From the corner of my eye, I see West, elbows propped on his thick fucking thighs, tattooed fingers linked, tossing nervous glances my way. I keep my gaze fixed on the water. Facing him feels like too much.
“What can I do?”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
I hear the low rumble in his throat and watch his fingers tense and flex like he’s imagining hitting someone. But that’s the thing about this situation —he can’t fight me out of this mess. The man whose inclination has been to protect me from the beginning can’t protect me from this.
I’m sure it’s killing him. But the worst part is… “I did this to myself.”
I can hear his teeth grind as he shakes his head. He reaches for me, drags me into his lap, and holds me close. “Skylar, don’t say that. You didn’t share them on the internet.”
“If I’d been thinking straight, I’d have considered the possibility that this could happen. Things like this happen to people like me.”
“Doesn’t make it your fault.”
I roll my lips together. It sure feels like my fault. The guilt is almost as
crushing as the embarrassment.
“What did Ford say?”
My laugh is tearful. Poor, sweet Ford. His big, bleeding heart was not cut out for delivering news like this. He sounded choked up at first, and then… venomous. “He said he was going to spare no expense scrubbing the internet and finding where they came from.”
West nods now. “Don’t doubt it. He’s the type who would.”
“It won’t make a difference, West.”
He sighs, but there’s a pained moan in it. A little peek of heavy emotion that’s pushed its way through. Then he holds me tighter. “I’m so fucking sorry someone did this to you.”
I smile sadly, still staring at the water. Too humiliated to even face the
man I love.
“Me too.”
In an attempt to prove to myself that everything is fine, I decide to leave the property on Monday morning to get Cherry a restock on her dwindling birdseed. West left me—hesitantly—to go to work. And I’m not about to make him run my errands on top of everything else that he’s already done.
I’m not that pathetic.
In fact, I tell myself I’m wearing the Sparkly Turquoise Unicorns hat because I’m a fan of the team and not because I’m hoping to hide under the brim. And the aviator sunglasses? They are just because it’s sunny.
Downtown Rose Hill is quiet right now and I convince myself everything will be fine. I haven’t looked at my phone. I did briefly check my inbox, but all I saw were requests for comments and emails from my dad and my agent explaining how we can use this publicity in a positive way. I closed it pretty quickly after reading that.
I tug the door to the pet food store open and stride inside, dropping my head as the bell above jingles. I definitely don’t need to be announced by a bell right now. That’s too much for me, even in this moment of bravery.
My eyes scan the shelves and land on the brand Cherry likes best. Every
other type has caused her to dump the feed all over the bottom of her cage before shouting, “Hate it!”
“There it is,” I mumble to myself in relief as I slide it off the shelf. I’m feeling more at ease about my foray out into the world as I turn at the end of the aisle to head back to the front till.
But the foray turns to shit when I come face-to-face with Bree in the cat food section.
I offer her a muted smile and hustle past, but her words bring me to a
screeching halt.
“I love him, you know.”
I turn, shoulders tense, arms wrapped tightly around the bag of seed. “Oh- kay.” I enunciate the word carefully.
Bree sighs, and when I chance a look at her face, I see no trace of venom, just a brow crinkled by concern.
“I know I must be the villain in your story, but I’m not trying to be. I just love him. I’ve always loved him. And I had a shot. Until you.”
It’s tough to cover my wince. I know what it’s like to love West, and a part of me is sad for her. To love him and lose him would be…unthinkable.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you love him?” she presses, her pretty, dark eyes so earnest.
It feels like an incredibly personal question, but I answer anyway. “I do.”
Hurt flashes across her features, and her eyes fall for a moment before lifting back to mine. “You’re going to hurt him, and you probably won’t even mean to do it. His kids? His family? That’s sacred to him. He protects his family at all costs. And as sorry as I am for what’s happened to you this week, you have to know it’s not only going to blow back on you. It’s going to blow back on him.”
My breathing stops as Bree digs a finger into a worry I hadn’t made sense of myself. I’ve spent forty-eight hours reeling. My anxiety spiral has only just gotten started.
“It’s going to blow back on those kids.”
Bam. A bullet right to the heart. Him and his kids.
I lick my lips, eyes flicking away. I don’t know what to say.
You’re right is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t want to give her that type of satisfaction.
“I’m not trying to be…” She runs a hand through her hair and shifts like she’s finally realized how fucking bizarre this conversation is. “Ha, you
know. It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t like me either if I were you. I’m just looking out for them. And if you love him enough to let him go, I could still make him happy. He could be happy.”
I gaze into her shrink-wrapped eyes. Yes, I should hate her, but mostly I hate how right she is. How she’s given a voice to one of my deepest fears.
And I especially hate that my chest is so tight that I can’t breathe in enough air to say something cutting or eloquent.
All I do is nod, pay for my birdseed, and walk out the front door.
Right into the waiting lenses of several paparazzi.