It makes me wonder if I really know anything at all.
Chapter Thirteen
Nothing
I push against the door to my apartment and meet resistance — it sticks in the frame, like something’s blocking it from swinging open. A forceful bump of my hip jars it wide enough for me to squeeze through, and I step over the threshold onto the mountain of papers that have been jamming my entryway. My eyes bug out as I see literally hundreds of business cards, media release forms, and contact sheets mixed in with a pile of mail several times its normal size, and at least six newspapers.
What the hell?
I’ve gotten more mail in the past two days of dodging my apartment than I have in the two full years I’ve lived in this building. Slamming the door closed behind me, I drop into a crouch and begin digging through the mess. Evidently, the reporters found a way inside the complex — or they bribed my neighbors to do their dirty work for them — because my apartment is starting to look like something out of an episode ofHoarders: The Early Years. There’s so much paperwork, I can’t even see my entry mat. A cursory glance tells me most of it contains contact information and interview requests for different talk shows, radio spots, and primetime sit-downs, all requesting an exclusive. All wanting a piece of the Gemma Summers story.
Don’t hold your breath, leeches.
The newspapers, all of which seem to feature front-page stories about me or Chase, or meandChase, are a bit tattered, likely from being shoved roughly through the thin mail slot in my door, but I catch sight of a bright blue sticky-note fused to the front ofThe Boston Globeand peel it off. I have to squint to read the shaky, sloping cursive scrawled across the tiny turquoise square.
Gemma dear,
I’ve been collecting these since this whole shenanigan started! GotThe Times,The Globe,The Herald, andThe Wall Street Journal. Thought you’d want them. Don’t worry, I kept a bunch of copies for myself — well, only the sections about you, I used the rest to line the litter boxes. Oh, and feel free to bring your new man by to meet Bigelow anytime! He looks like a cat person.
Mrs. Hendrickson, 1C
I let the note flutter to the floor as a hysterical giggle bubbles up from my stomach and bursts from my throat. This whole thing — the reporters, the attention, the hiding out from my own apartment — hasn’t really fazed me until this point. But there’s something about the image of Chase Croft, in his billion-dollar clothes, crouched down on Mrs. Hendrickson’s musty carpeting, playing with her giant tabby cat, that sends me careening right over the edge.
I collapse back against my door, sitting amidst a pile of papers I’ll never read and strangers’ phone numbers I’ll never use, and laugh until tears are glossing over my eyes and I can barely pull a breath into my lungs.
***
It’s strange to be back in my apartment after essentially living at Chrissy and Mark’s for the past two days. Everything at their place is white, glossy, and pristine — the polar opposite of my space, which is dripping in different colors, patterns, and textures.
The apartment is cramped, but it has high ceilings, which lends the illusion of more space than I actually have, and there’s only one window, but it’s big and west-facing, so it lets all the mid-afternoon sunshine pour in. My floors are a hodgepodge of wood — oak and maple, dark and light — with one section blending straight into another with little rhyme or reason. I’ve got a red couch, a blue refrigerator, and not a single cup that matches in all my cabinets. There’s a funky, asymmetrical coffee table I found at a flea market plunked in front of the sofa, and instead of a television, I have one full wall covered in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, every nook and cranny jammed with my favorite, well-worn paperbacks. The rest of my wall space is covered in oil canvases — some complete, some half-finished, all my own handiwork.
It’s a mess.
I love every square inch of it.
After I’ve gathered up the papers by the door and tossed them in the recycling bin in my pathetically small kitchen, I head straight for my bedroom. Really, it’s less a room than a closet, separated from the rest of the apartment by glass-paned French doors. My queen-sized bed takes up almost the entire space, with a peacock green duvet and decorative blue and red feathered throw pillows. There’s no room for a dresser, so I got creative when I first moved in and suspended a horizontal ladder from my ceiling along the far wall. My colorful wardrobe hangs from the rungs like some kind of strange piece of modern art you’d find at a hipster gallery in the Theater District.
Artsy but functional.
I collapse face-first on my bed and fall into a restless sleep, in such a stupor after the emotional day — and the two glasses of wine I chugged — I almost forget to set my alarm. If I’m late for work tomorrow, especially after I ducked out early this afternoon, Estelle will either fire me or kill me — which would just be the cherry on top of an already fantastic week.
At the very least, I suppose I can be thankful that the reporters seem to have given up their quest. When Shelby dropped me off on her way home from Mark and Chrissy’s, I fully expected I’d have to sneak through the back alley, as I had this morning. It was a welcome surprise to find the camped-out news vans had gone home for the night, and the front stairs of my walkup clear for the first time since the story broke.
See, Gemma? It’s already blowing over — soon, that kiss with Chase Croft will be a distant memory. You’ll probably never see him again.
For some reason, the words I meant to be reassuring only seem to upset me more as I drift off to sleep.
***
The sound of my phone buzzing pulls me back into consciousness.
This is becoming an unfortunate habit.
Without opening my eyes, I throw out a hand and grope for my cell on the nightstand. As soon as my fingers close around the glittery, plastic shell of my three-generations-old iPhone, I yank it beneath the covers and click it on, peering at the too-bright, spiderweb-cracked glass through slivered eyes.
It’s not even seven, and there’s already a text message lighting up my screen.
Chrissy: You should see this.