Catch My Breath (39 page)

“The guys just spent a lot of time crammed into a bus together. Everyone just needed a breather. They’re still the best of friends.”

You heard it here first!

—CS

D
ANNY
cringed every time he left the house, every time he saw another article about him and Chelsea all loved up, about Elliot out drinking with people Danny didn’t even know. They slept with only a wall between them, a few inches of wood and plaster, but Danny felt like they were living in different universes. Other than a few polite words here and there, they didn’t even speak. He was afraid Elliot would actually move out. In a way it might be a relief from all the raging awkwardness, but Danny didn’t want it. He didn’t want the chance to win Elliot back to slip even further from his grasp. Danny wasn’t trying all that hard. He didn’t know what to do. But he wanted it every single damn day. So many nights he’d stood outside Elliot’s bedroom door, ready to open it, go in, wrap his arms around Elliot, and demand they work it out. The one time he got the courage to do it, Elliot wasn’t even there.

Danny didn’t want to think about where he might have gone. He knew the tabloids were full of crap, but they were the only source he had lately on Elliot other than Reece’s tersely worded and often slurry texts. He was scared for Elliot. It still hurt every damn day.

E
LLIOT
hid a lot. Los Angeles was big, and there were a surprising number of places he could go and not be seen whenever the paps had managed to spot him one too many times. He ditched the press as much as he could. They did their job blowing up every night out anyway to make it seem ten times crazier than it really was, so he figured he was giving them enough ammunition to work with.

He went out to Reece’s pretty regularly, when the air in the city and their house got too weird, or sometimes he crashed on Chris’s couch when he couldn’t take the knowledge that Danny was on the other side of the wall. Alone. He knew he should move out. He had plenty of money for his own place, but living in their sparse second bedroom was weird enough. Elliot couldn’t bring himself to leave Danny completely. It would probably be for the best if he moved out and never looked back. Too bad he’d never been that smart.

Elliot spent one lonely Wednesday in September wandering around on Venice Beach. He realized that if his life were normal, if things had gone the way he’d planned since he was a kid, he’d be starting his sophomore year in college. Sometimes he wondered if it was too late to go back. He wanted to take a lot of things back. Probably too late for all of them. A few people noticed him, but all they did was wave. Elliot waved back. He was glad none of them wanted to talk. It seemed as if that’s what his life had become—people who wanted something from him, something to sell, a story that most likely was untrue, his face on a tabloid to bring in readers. Elliot hated it. He was still grateful for the good parts, but he missed being him. Half the time, he didn’t feel like himself anymore. Or even like he knew who that was supposed to be.

E
LLIOT
’
S
mom called that night, worried after a new slew of magazine articles showed him drunk and stumbling out of a club with Chris, who’d been out on tour the same time they were. He wished he could tell her that was a lie like all the girls were. It wasn’t.

“Hey, Ma,” he said when he picked up the phone.

“Baby, I’m worried about you. What’s been going on? I’ve barely heard from you since you guys got back from the tour. You don’t look good.”

Elliot shrugged, even though she couldn’t see him. He knew his mother scoured the papers for news of him. She never read the articles, but the pictures told enough of a story for her. “Things aren’t so great. I’m sure you can tell.”

“Yes, I can. You look awful. Come home, darling. I miss you, and I think you need some time away from all of that.”

“Are you sure?” He was so tired he barely even protested. “I don’t want any of the press to find your house.”

“They won’t. Just pack your car up and head out at night. The paparazzi won’t come out this far.”

It wasn’t a hard choice. He felt like he was spiraling around in circles. Home sounded like paradise. “Okay. I’ll come.”

“
Tonight
.”

“Yes, Mom. Tonight.” Elliot wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.

Elliot promised to call his mom when he hit the road, and packed a duffel of clothes to last him a few days. He had to be back in a week for an appearance, but until then it would be good to see his family again. Most of his friends had already gone back to school, but he didn’t mind not seeing them. It felt weird, anyway, whenever he was around them. They didn’t know how to treat him like Elliot anymore, and he was something else to them entirely. A stranger.

The drive home was therapeutic. It was quiet and dark. Elliot didn’t even bother to turn the radio on. He’d gotten all the way there before he realized nobody in LA even knew where he was. He texted Chris and Reece and let them know. He thought he should probably tell Danny. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, though. They didn’t really talk, other than awkward exchanges about buying new milk for tea and coffee, but he couldn’t move out of the house either. Elliot knew how dumb that was. He didn’t know what to do about it.

His mom greeted him with a big hug and a snack, just as she always did. “How long can you stay?” she asked.

“A few days. I have to be back in the city for that movie premiere thing by Saturday for sure. And we’re in development meetings early next week.”

“What’s a development meeting?” she asked.

Elliot wasn’t quite sure. “I guess I’ll find out?”

T
HAT
first night was quiet. He ate his snack and watched movies with his parents. Neither of them asked him about Danny or the tabloids, which was good because Elliot didn’t want to answer. He didn’t
have
answers. It was really, really nice just to be quiet. His old bedroom felt tiny compared to both of the bedrooms in the big Spanish-style beach house he and Danny shared. He slept on his little twin that still had a plaid comforter in his high-school colors and a throw with his name embroidered on it. The pictures on the wall seemed like they were from another life, a life lived by someone he didn’t even know anymore. Even his smile was different.

Elliot thought he’d learned how to fake a believable smile. He hadn’t.

Sometime in the middle of the night, he woke up. His phone was flashing.

Are you ok? Where are you?

Danny. Reece and Chris must’ve felt weird telling Danny where he’d gone. Elliot knew he called Reece and Chris to check up on him sometimes when he wasn’t home, to make sure he was with a friend and fine. He wished Danny wouldn’t do that. The caring made Elliot’s chest feel as if it were ripping apart slowly.

At my mom’s house. Fine. Sorry I didn’t say where I went.

He wanted to say so much more, or maybe nothing at all. He wanted to go back in time to the beginning and relive the good times again, fall in love, feel that giddy fire all over again. As unhappy as he was, Elliot never wanted to take those days back. They were the best he’d ever had.

Glad you’re safe. Give your mom a hug for me.

Jesus. Danny must’ve had his phone by him so he could hear it buzz with Elliot’s reply. Was there anything that didn’t make him feel awful? He flopped back into his pillows and sighed. He dragged his laptop up and typed in “Delly.” Might as well have typed in “torture.” There was picture after picture of him, of Danny. They did everything the girls always said they’d done. All the staring, the walking close, the loving glances. He saw himself falling in love right there in the pictures and video stills. Elliot even saw it in the later pictures, when they’d started being careful. Love. Clear as day. Even after he and Danny were over.

There was a picture from a fashion show Static attended a few weeks before, all decked out in tuxes, looking nothing like the five gangly boys who’d met at all those months ago at the record studio. He clicked on the link to see the picture full sized. Elliot hadn’t been prepared for all the comments.

FFS just kiss each other, you want to!….

Look at Danny’s face. He still loves Elliot so much….

Ouch, They break my heart….

Beautiful couple of the year….

I know they’re still in love.

Elliot didn’t even realize he’d started crying.
Why am I doing this to myself?

He slammed his laptop shut and tossed it onto the carpeted floor, buried his face in his pillow, and tried to forget. Too bad nobody told him you can’t forget something that’s still around you every single day. For the millionth time, Elliot vowed to look for his own place. For the millionth time, he realized he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Y
OU
ready for breakfast, El?” His mom poked her head in the door.

“What time is it?” Elliot asked. It felt like dawn. He’d barely slept at all.

“Nearly noon. I let you sleep for a long time. You must be so tired.”

Elliot felt like crap. “I think I’m coming down with something.” Either that or his head just ached from crying over Danny. Again.

His mom sat down on the side of his bed. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I wish I knew what to say.” Elliot was quiet for a long time after that. “Nothing feels right anymore. I don’t know where I belong.”

“You’ll always belong here,” she said quietly.

“I don’t feel like I do.” Elliot gestured at the pictures on his old bulletin board. “I’m not that guy anymore. I haven’t been for a long time.”

“You’ll
always
belong here. But you’re right. That person’s a kid, and you’re not one anymore. You had to grow up, sweetie. Far too fast.”

“I hate that you see all that stuff about me. So much of it is done with camera angles and complete fabrication.”

“Are you drinking?” she asked.

“No more than any other guy my age. Probably less, actually. They just don’t have paps following them to frat parties.”

“Fair enough. Drugs?”

It had been tempting a few times. To swallow one of the many pills offered to him and forget everything for a few carefree hours. But he hadn’t. “No. No drugs.”

“Good. You’re too smart for that. Danny?” Anna Price didn’t beat around the bush. She and Reece had a lot in common when it came to that.

“Can we not talk about Danny, please?”

His mom was stubborn. “I think you need to, and I also think it’s hard to talk to the other boys about him because he’s their friend too.”

Elliot put his head in his mom’s lap, and she petted his hair just like she had when he was little. He felt a bit silly, a grown man in his mom’s lap, but it was nice. Weirdly enough, it helped.

“I miss him, Mom. I just don’t know how to make it work. It was so much pressure trying to be someone I’m not.”

“Do you think he wants to make it work?”

Elliot knew the answer to that. At least he knew what the answer used to be. “I think he does. He did at the end of the tour. We haven’t talked really since we’ve been back. I sleep at Chris’s a lot.”

“Maybe you and he need to sit down and figure all of this out. You know I talk to him sometimes too? He’s not happy either, El. I know he doesn’t want to say much to me because I’m your mother, but I hear it in his voice. He’s worried about you. He misses you.”

“I’m really okay, Mom. I promise I am. I’m not happy, but I’m not in danger.”

“Talk to Danny. If nothing else, you two need to be friends again. You’re too close just to let it go.”

Elliot knew that. He also knew he’d promised Danny after the last concert that they’d still be there for each other. He just wished he knew how to do it.

“W
E
WANT
you to go to the
Deep Black
premiere with Georgia Dixon,” Rebecca told him over the phone the night before he was set to head back to LA from his parents’ house.

“No.”

“It wasn’t really a question.”

“I’m still giving you an answer. You’ve got your articles, you’ve got Danny with Chelsea, you’ve even got him and I broken up. You’re not making me date some vapid celebrity.”

Elliot realized how awful that sounded. As far as the whole world knew,
he
was a vapid celebrity with expensive party habits too. The one that would make his image complete was to be connected with someone just like him. Elliot cringed.

“It won’t be much. Just a premiere here, maybe a dinner or two, some articles….” Elliot was pretty sure he heard Rebecca cringe as well.

“That doesn’t sound like one movie premiere. That’s sounding like Danny and Chelsea part two. I won’t participate.”

“You have to, Elliot.” Rebecca sighed. “Promotional appearances are part of your contract. This one just includes Miss Dixon.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Elliot sighed noisily. “Why? Isn’t the rest of it enough for you?”

“This will be good publicity. Static’s still new. She’s been a superstar since puberty.”

“If that’s all this is about, then Reece or Webb could be good publicity with her too,” Elliot countered. “And they’re actually interested in women.”

“Reece and Webb don’t garner as much attention as you do. Plus, she’s taller than both of them. You two will photograph better together.”

Elliot sincerely wanted to say fuck it and walk away from it all. “I hate this.”

“I know. But you’ll do it?” Rebecca must’ve taken his silence as a grudging yes. “Good. I’ll have a meeting with her manager early Saturday. We’ll set up the logistics. Story is, you two have been seeing each other quietly for a couple of weeks, okay? You don’t even need to comment. Just hold her hand and smile.”

Elliot felt like he was going to puke. It wasn’t the girl, even though she’d never been on his list of favorite celebrities. She just looked boring and a touch bitchy to be honest. It was the fact that even when their managers had gotten every damn thing they wanted, even when his personal life was in shambles, they still asked for more. More publicity, more time, more flashing smiles to earn more money.