Twenty
Hayden
I call and call with no answer. When I try again, I’m blocked. I try his email and any other outlet to him that I can. When I show up to his apartment, no one answers the door. I keep trying anyway, and the last time I stopped by, a neighbor came out, telling me he no longer lives there.
How can I show him the truth when he won’t give me the chance to? All it took was me looking over the footage my camera caught the last two days we were there. The only people to enter Sterling’s dressing room those last couple of days were me, Sterling, and Justin. I was fucking livid when I saw the asshole moving his camera and looking around as he did it. Why, is the real question?
Was it jealousy? Did he want to be the one flooding the front of magazines and online headlines instead? He wasn’t that great an actor, so he was wasting his time if that was the case. Sterling didn’t hold him back. He held himself back. Or was it something else?
I look in the rearview mirror, watching Sterling leave a coffee shop with two guards following him and paparazzi being told to step back.
He’s getting out of his house again. It’s taken him weeks to go anywhere, while taking me only days to find out where he moved to. It was only twenty minutes away from his old place. He can’t stand to be away from his family. I want to believe he stayed for other reasons too, but I’d rather hear it from his lips than assume.
I drive away when his driver does, going in the opposite direction to return to my house. When I do, I pace the living room and then the basement while one of our movies plays. If he won’t listen to me, I’ll give him no choice but to. I’ll make him hear me out. I didn’t want it to come to this but he’s giving me no choice. I open the storm room hiding behind a black curtain, tugging on the metal chains and shackles on the wall.
I don’t know if I’ll need them, but they’ll be there in case I do. Or maybe when Sterling finally sees reason, they can be one of his new props. My lips curl into a smile and I lift my phone, bringing up an app showing Sterling sitting alone in his living room, staring at a blank TV screen.
I touch my phone and swipe a finger over his face. “Don’t worry, my little idol. You’ll have something worth watching again soon. You and I both will.”
Twenty-one
Sterling
My head hurts, and my vision blurs when I peel my heavy lids apart. As the red room with plastic-lined floor comes into focus, my pulse beats in my ears and I sit up, feeling around me, my hands coming into contact with a remote. I hold it up and scan the room again. I’m all alone. The room is empty, all except for a camera resting on a tripod in the corner and a TV.
Where the fuck am I?
There’s a note attached to the corner of the flat screen anchored to the wall. It reads “watch me.”
Aiming the remote to the center, I hit play. My face moves closer, eyes widening when Justin appears on the screen. He’s looking behind him the whole time, sinking into himself as hereaches for a camera behind a light fixture. My breaths stick to the back of my throat, cutting like glass.
What is this? Where did it come from? “Hello?” I call out, feeling smaller when no one comes and I remain alone in the big room.
I go back to watching the video, knots forming in my stomach when I see Justin take my dildo out of my drawer and smell it. What the fuck?
I already knew the guy was a creep based on past interactions, but I wanted to keep blocking them out. I wanted to forget their existence. Others making me feel bad about liking the same sex wasn’t my main reason for staying in the closet, and neither was my career being on the line. I wanted them to be the only reason, though, so they’re all I’d let myself think about every time I’d try to push Hayden away.
Hayden.
I blamed the wrong person. I chastised him, blocked his number and pushed him out of my life. It was never him. He was telling the truth. He hasn’t been honest about other things, though. Would he have been if I’d asked about them?
The movie ends and the door behind me creaks open. I turn around and Hayden is standing behind me, carrying a black bag. Did he bring me here?
“I didn’t want to do things this way, but you gave me no choice.”
“What the fuck is this, Hayden?” I slam a hand on the ground and try to stand, but whatever he drugged me with hasn’t fully left my system yet. Where even are we? I don’t recognize this room. Does he have another house somewhere?
“I had to show you the truth. You wouldn’t talk to me or let me anywhere near you.”
“So you fucking kidnapped me?” I rub my aching eyes.
“I had to. You needed to know it wasn’t me. That I was telling the truth.”
“There are other ways you could have gone about it. This.” I gesture around the room. “Isn’t it.”
“It felt like it was the only way.”
“Wait.” I look at the TV again and back at him. “How did you even get that? Were you with him?”