Toxic

Chapter Thirty-Five

The truth really does set you free — but what they don’t tell you is the process hurts like hell. —Wes M.

Saylor

I felt my mouth drop open as the mask fell completely away from Gabe — or rather, Ashton’s — face. His eyes, those blue eyes, and his dark hair. Mortified, I wanted to cover my face with my hands. I’d told him he’d look better blond — because his natural color? A honey blond, that for years, people swore couldn’t even be copied… He was my generation’s version of the perfect Ken Doll. Everything about him was worshipped, revered as though he was some sort of god. It had been devastating when he abandoned the industry and fell off the face of the planet.

Girls full on wept for months.

There were reports that he’d died of a drug overdose, or worse yet, committed suicide after his famous girlfriend was killed in a tragic skiing accident.

All lies.

Every last one.

Princess.

My knees buckled beneath me as the lies swarmed around the room, stealing the oxygen my body so desperately needed.

“Hey.” Kiersten knelt down by my side and pulled me into her arms. I’d met her what? Three times? And I clung to her like she was my mom. Like she would protect me.

“Y-you aren’t cousins?” I pointed between him and Lisa, my stomach getting sicker. Funny, how I’d thought he and Kiersten had a thing. So was it Lisa all along?

Not only was he engaged to a fiancée who — surprise! — wasn’t dead. But the girl he’d been introducing as his cousin was—

“Holy crap!” Kiersten yelled in my left ear. “Lisa, you could have told me. I would have… understood.”

“I know.” Lisa shrugged. “I did it for Ashton, not me.”

Who was she?

I struggled to remember my fourteen-year-old self, to visualize my old room littered with teen magazines.

“Melanie Faye.” I choked on the name.

Lisa’s face went from pasty white to deathly gray in less than three seconds. She gave a firm nod as fresh tears streamed down her face. “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. And I — I just wanted to help Ashton. I loved him. I was so jealous at first, and then when everything happened. I couldn’t abandon him.”

“She found me…” Gabe said in a low voice. “After I tried to overdose.”

“It was my idea.” Lisa looked down at the ground. “To run away. To leave our lives behind and start fresh, especially when we found out Kimmy was going to make it. The world that used to be so fun and shiny had become our own personal hell.”

Melanie Faye had been mentioned in magazines only because she’d been Ashton’s best friend. People always said they were dating but no one had ever actually confirmed it as truth. They had grown up next door to one another. She was a model; he was a triple threat Hollywood heart-throb. A match made in heaven.

I used to want to be her.

Because at fourteen I’d been obsessed with all things Ashton Hyde.

Fantastic.

“I, um…” I pushed away from the floor. “I need to go.”

Without looking back, I ran out of the restaurant, my chest heaving with exertion as my feet pounded against the pavement.

“Wait!” Gabe yelled from behind me.

I lifted my left hand mid-air, waving him off, pushing him away as I reached for the car door with my right, my breathing ragged. I couldn’t look at him. I just… couldn’t. I felt betrayed. Lied to. All I’d asked for was truth, and he’d given me lies.

A part of me understood the need to protect himself.

But I wasn’t one of those friends. The ones that you gave a sliver to while you sucked them dry.

That wasn’t friendship.

“What?” My voice cracked. “What more could you possibly say?”

“You promised.”

“Excuse me?” I turned in a flash, ready to slap the crap out of him when he stalked toward me.

I backed up out of total self-preservation. I didn’t trust my emotions around him, not when it was like staring at three different people. Was he Ashton, the famous actor and pop star? Was he Gabe, the wounded bird that just needed someone to talk to? Or was he Parker, the broken fiancé?

Gabe’s eyes were wild. “I can’t lose you. I can’t.”

“Funny.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Because I’ve already lost you. I lost Gabe. I never knew Parker. And now I’m losing Ashton all over again. I wonder how much more I can lose — before I’m empty.”

“Saylor—”

“I asked for truth. You gave me lies.”

“When?” He pulled me against his chest. “When did I lie to you?”

My mind searched for situations where he’d out right lied… and I came up with nothing. Absolutely nothing, except for one thing. “Your name.”

“I told you,” he muttered, his lips nearly touching mine, “I told you there were things I kept hidden — is this it then? You’re rejecting me?”

“Me?” I tried to jerk free. “Reject you? No, Gabe. That’s like saying I’m setting a caged bird free without ever being given the bird in the first place. What we had wasn’t real. You can’t base what we had on truth when nothing was actually real. God…” I started shaking. “I was falling for you. Falling for you, Gabe! How do you think that makes me feel? Do you even know who you are?”

“No.” He sighed. “I guess that’s the problem when you spend four years trying to forget.”

We stood in silence. So many words rushed through my head, things I could say that wouldn’t actually make anything better because at the end of the day, our worlds should have never collided in the first place.

“Saylor,” he pleaded. “Let me make it up to you. Let me tell you the truth — can I have one chance, one chance to come clean?”

“Why would I give you this chance?” I slowly pried myself free. “When you haven’t even made up for the tears you caused the first time? Why in the hell would I give you the opportunity to cause more?”

Gabe stared at me for a few minutes, his shoulders slumped. He nodded slowly.

And then he walked away.

He walked away.

And a part of me hated him for it. Because for once in my life I understood what it meant to be at a crossroads where someone either chooses you or them.

He didn’t choose me.

I was alone.

Just how I started.

Only now, I realized how lonely I actually was.

I wiped away a few more stray tears and got into my car. Rain started pounding against the windshield as I drove toward campus.

My life wasn’t over.

So why did it feel like it?