HDU (7 page)

“You don’t need to! You can just be famous for being
famous,” Ian said brightly, though he lowered his voice halfway through the
sentence as if suddenly embarrassed.
 
His eyes darted around sheepishly and landed out the window before
continuing.
 
“I always figured if
my film career didn’t pan out, I’d settle for being that.
 
Famous for being famous.
 
Maybe do a reality show or… I don’t
know.
 
Just so
some
one would still want my life.”
 
He peered up at Amanda from beneath his long eyelashes.
 
“Judging me, yet?” he joked.

Amanda smiled.
 
“Not at all.
 
I’ve felt that
way before too.
 
Because of
Megan.”
  

“You just want to do better than her.”

“Yeah.”

“Same.
 
But don’t worry,” Ian said, vibrant again.
 
He pushed his sleeves back up and shook the hair from his face
to look her in the eye.
 
“All we
have to do is find our own success and just avoid them while we’re doing
it.
 
Because they’re our poison.”

Amanda laughed.
 
“Okay.
 
I’ve got the second
part down.”

“Good.
 
Well
I’ll see you tomorrow, then.
 
B.J’s
Diner?”

“L.J’s Diner.
 
You can look up the address and how to get there online,” Amanda
said.
 
She had offered to pick him
up, but he insisted on calling a car.
 

“I’ll look it up tomorrow.
 
I’m passing out once I get to my room.”

“I’ll remind you,” Amanda laughed, zipping up his
backpack before he stumbled out the passenger side.
 
She watched him promptly trip on nothing.
 
The silhouette of his wobbly long legs
looked cartoonish as he returned to his feet.
 
“Maybe you should text me once you get up to your room, so I
know that you made it,” she called after him, immediately cringing at herself.
 
Her father still made her notify him
whenever she arrived at a given destination.
 

“You’re funny,” Ian said.
 
“But I will.
 
For you, Pretty.”

“Ha.
 
Thanks, bud.”

Amanda waited in the car until her phone vibrated in
her hand with Ian’s text.
 
She laughed
at his drunken typos, giggling to herself intermittently throughout her car
ride home.

~

It wasn’t until the next morning that Amanda saw the
article on HDU about Natalie Bell.
  
She couldn’t even delete the post because it had
already garnered over a hundred fifty comments.
 
She could only hope that she might be able to talk some
sense into Ian.

“Amanda Bree Nathan,” her mother snapped from the
kitchen as she headed for the door.
 
“I need a word.”

Amanda’s shoulders slumped as she turned around,
feeling like a kid again.
 
“I lost
track of time last night.
 
I said I
was sorry.”
 

“I don’t remember hearing about this Ian before.”

“I told you about him,” Amanda lied.
 
“We were friends in St. Louis.
 
Before he moved back to New York.”

“New York?” her mother wrinkled her nose.
 
Amanda nodded.
 
“You’re dating.”

“Mom, no.”

“The neighbors heard the car pulling in at 3AM.
 
You’re giving them more fuel for the
fire.”

Amanda sighed and glanced at the clock on the
microwave.
 
“I don’t care.”

“Well maybe you’re not just embarrassing
yourself.
 
Did you care to think of
that?”

Amanda sighed.
 
“Actually, no. I’m running too late to think about that.”

“Then go,” her mother huffed, turning her back.
 
“I just had some good news for you, but
I guess you don’t
care
.”

Amanda paused in front of the doorway again,
exasperated.
 
“What?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise for everyone, but
Alice couldn’t resist telling me.
 
I think she needed a location for the welcome back shindig.
 
Her house is just too small.”

“Mom.
 
What are you talking about.”

“I thought it’d give you a boost, Mandy.
 
Bring you out of your funk,” her mother
explained, brightening.
 
“Megan’s
coming home tomorrow.
 
She’ll be
here until Tuesday.”

- Chapter 3 -

Amanda sat in her car outside of L.J’s Diner, waiting
for confirmation that Ian was inside before she dared to enter.
 
Also, she needed a moment to dry her
tears of panic.
 
She felt stupid
for crying over Megan, but the news of her return made her feel suddenly
mortified.
 
She had hoped that by
the next time she saw Megan, she would have done something with her life.
 
Something good, so that she would feel
confident carrying a conversation with her, to prove just how perfectly fine
she was.
 
If anything, having a
mere job would help.

But she had nothing.
 
Three months later, she was still mourning over their
friendship and the fact that she couldn’t live in her own town anymore.
 
Even her own mother seemed to be on
Megan’s side, too tickled by her upcoming visit to pay attention to the one
truth among the rumors – that the girl had stolen her daughter’s
boyfriend.
 
But perhaps that aspect
of the story hadn’t even made it out.
 
Tandy Mueller would never spin anything against Megan.

Finally, Amanda’s phone vibrated.
 
Ian’s text had arrived to free her of
her own thoughts.

i’m inside.
back booth against the window.

Amanda dried her eyes as best as she could before
exiting the car.
 
It was supposed
to have been a fun day, a day for her to parade around town with her New Yorker
friend, confusing everybody half to death.
 
But now she was full of gloom and she knew Ian would be too,
for his own separate reasons.

Ding-ding-ding-ding!
She ignored the eyes that bore into her upon walking in, though she cursed the
stupid chime that rang every time the door opened.
 
A Merit diner
would
install an obnoxious device to announce every person’s arrival.
 
Quickly, Amanda spotted Ian in the back
booth.
 
It was clear that before
their eyes had gone to her, the entire diner had been staring at Ian.
 
He sat shrunken against the wall while
drinking a black coffee, his hood up over his head and his eyes shaded by Ray
Bans.
 

“Hey,” she said breathlessly upon sitting down.
 
Ian sat up straight when he saw her.

“Are you okay?” he frowned.

Amanda wiped hastily at her face, drying her cheeks
of remaining tears.
 
“I’m okay, are
you okay?”

He shook his head “no,” peering over his shoulder at
their spectators before tightening the drawstrings on his hood.
 
“And I’m starting to understand why it
might suck to be famous in a place like this.”

“What, the staring? This is them being polite.”

Ian clucked disapprovingly.
 
“Here.
 
Don’t
let them see you like that.”
 
He
took off his sunglasses and handed them over.
 
Amanda’s eyes widened at the sight of his.
 

“Were you crying?” she blurted.

He rubbed his face with both hands.
 
“Just take the glasses, Amanda.”

“Okay,” she obliged, taking them from him and putting
them on.
 
She glanced into the
mirrored wall and managed a true smile.
 
She had seen the same wayfarer frames on many a celebrity, and she
couldn’t help but feel slightly glamorous while wearing them.

“They look good on you,” Ian said.
 
“You should keep them.”

Amanda laughed.
 
“You’re crazy.”

“I’m also serious.
 
They’re yours.”

Amanda grinned, taking off the tortoise shell shades
to admire them.
 
But suddenly, her
smile dropped and she looked up at Ian with fear.
 
“Why are you giving me these?” she asked warily.
 
She had once read that when a person was
suicidal, they started giving away personal belongings.
 
To her embarrassment, Ian read her mind
immediately.

“I told you I wouldn’t off myself, you nut,” he
actually laughed.
 

“You said you’d do something drastic if she became a
B-lister and now – “

“I know,” he cut her off.
 
“Now I just have to get my shit together even faster than I
thought.
 
That’s all.”

“Well, good, you have a plan.
 
No need to be upset then,” Amanda said,
trying to stay positive.
 
He
snorted.

“I wouldn’t call it a plan, just a realization.
 
Here.”
 
He pushed his coffee towards her along with the cream that
he hadn’t used.
 
“Drink some so we
can both wake up and try to be functioning human beings.”

Amanda shook her head.
 
“I don’t really drink coffee,” she said.
 
“And I don’t see myself functioning
anytime soon.
 
Megan's coming to
town tomorrow.
 
She’s staying till Tuesday.
 
I just found out this morning.”

Ian’s eyes widened, fully green in the sunlight.
 
“Why?”

“Because my life is awesome,” Amanda answered
bitterly.
 
“There goes my plan of
avoiding her until I’m successful.”
 

To her disappointment, Ian heaved a sigh and buried
his head in his arms.
 
She had
hoped that he would say something inspiring, but apparently they were both out
of hopeful words.
 
The feeling made
her eyes well up with tears again.
 
She put the sunglasses back on her face.
 
 

“You can still avoid her.
 
Stay with me at my hotel.
 
I’ll book you your own room.”

Amanda shook her head.
 
“I can’t.
 
We’re
having a party for her at my house and everyone’s so excited to see her.
 
She makes them happy just by being her
perfect self.”
 
Amanda reached for
the coffee, taking a sip of it black.
 
For some reason, it tasted like nothing.
 
“I make everyone happy by being a mess.
 
It’s sad.”
 
Tears rolled down her cheeks again.
 
Amanda let a woeful hiccup escape her
lips even though she felt guilty for making Ian panic.
 
He was apparently one of those boys that
didn’t know what to do when a girl started crying.

“Look… stop.
 
Here.”
 
He took off his grey
hoodie and handed it to her, leaving himself in a red plaid button-down.
 
“Put the hood over your head.
 
It’ll cover your face better.”

Amanda laughed through her tears.
 
“It’s okay, I’ve just about embarrassed
myself to the fullest in this town.
 
Might as well go all the way.”

“I don’t want you to,” Ian said, draping the garment
around her shoulders.
 
“There has
to be something we can do.”

“About what?”

“Being useless, because we’re
not
.
 
I just need to
think of what we can do and who can help us.”
 
Ian wrung his hands, his brow furrowed as he racked his
brain.
 
“My uncle is a stunt
coordinator for all the big action movies in Hollywood, but I’m not sure what
favor I could ask from him.
 
And I
guess he’s not really my uncle.”
 
Off Amanda’s confusion, he explained, “We’re family friends.
 
But I don’t think my parents talk to him
anymore.
 
Well, I wouldn’t
know.
 
They don’t talk to me much
either.”

Amanda blinked, processing the information.
 
It was essentially all useless for
their purposes.
 

“Well… there might be something,” she felt herself
saying.
 
She had been dying to tell
him, but it seemed far too dangerous.

“What?” Ian immediately asked, his eyes utterly
desperate.

God, am I
really about to tell him this?
Amanda chewed on her lips as she felt the
story about Liam Brody threatening to spill.
 
She tried to reason with herself.
 
Ian’s not in the right
mindset to handle this news.
 
He’ll
want to do something crazy.
 
Don’t
tell him, Amanda.
 
Just don’t.

She told him.
 
Rapidly and as quietly as possible, she relayed every detail of her
exchange with Liam Brody.
 
It was
like a weight off her shoulder and a breath of fresh air.
 
She took such pleasure in Ian’s
reaction, watching his face go from shock to disbelief, back to shock, then
finally jubilation.