Not in the Script (39 page)

What a mistake it would have been to lose Jake for this.

I finally have her attention. “Whatever. It all started with that
Mountain Home
role, which should've been mine, and you know it,” she says. “If I hadn't been sick the day of the audition, I would've easily beaten you out for the part.”

I want to scream, “That was six years ago! Get over it!” Instead, I glance at the photo of my smiling best friend on the wall, then look back to the girl in front of me.

“You're living the life that should've been
mine
,” she says, but I'm already leaving the room, desperate to talk to Jake. “And you've loved every minute of rubbing it in my face!”

She slams my bedroom door, and I stand in the hall, fuming. I have plenty to rub in her face, so if this is the end anyway, why not? Shouldn't I just open that door and tell her how Jake and I kiss until we run out of breath, and how he wants me, not her?

Rachel is the one who opens the door again. “And about that
bombshell
: you also lied to me about Jake having a girlfriend, and I asked you about that at least three thousand times.”

I don't even blink. “Yep.”

“Yep, what? Are you admitting that you lied to me?”

“About three thousand times,” I say.

Rachel huffs and her eyes narrow. “How long have they been together?”

“Officially, since last Friday,” I say, at last feeling the weight of the moment. “Unofficially, since Labor Day.”

“Labor Day?” she asks, and I can see the wheels turning. “Why … didn't you tell me?”

My mind races through the details—all the waiting, struggling against what I wanted so badly, making Jake feel like he was my last priority. “Honestly, Rachel, I can't even explain it to myself now, so I won't even try to justify it to you.”

“Fine! I'll never forgive you anyway!” Rachel bellows. “Just tell me who she is.”

I head toward the stairs. “It doesn't matter anymore.”

“Whoever coined the term ‘drama queen' must've met Rachel,” Devin tells me after dropping the girls off at Emma's. He stayed with me last night, along with my mom. “What's her damage?”

“Show business,” I reply. “Sorry about the weird day.”

My mom has been on her own and has probably inspected every inch of my condo to make sure I'm not living like a pig. I had a cleaner come a few days ago, but there's no way I'll admit that. Laundry is as far as my domestic skills go.

I had set Mom up with every
Star Trek
movie ever made, so I expect the sights and sounds of blasting lasers to hit me when I open my front door. Instead, Devin and I find a gloomy, silent living room, with only a paused image of an entertainment reporter on my big screen. My mom is just as still as the reporter is, so I race across the room. “You okay?”

“Yes … I'm, well …”

I lean over to look into her eyes. “Are you dizzy? Does your head hurt?” I reach for my cell, ready to dial 9-1-1.

“No, Jake. This isn't about me.” She motions to my TV, and Devin and I turn to the screen again. “I was watching coverage of the premiere, and … goodness, I'm not sure how to …” She glances at Devin.

“It's okay, he can hear it.” I think I know what's going on now. It's a total Mom thing to freak out about. “What did they say? That I'm a crappy actor?”

Mom touches the remote on her leg. “They had nothing but praise for you, Jake, which is wonderful. But … I don't know how to approach this without assuming too much, or—” I grab the remote and start the StarTV news from the beginning. “Jake,” Mom says, “maybe I should tell you about it first. It might not be what it seems, especially considering—”

It's too late. The same plastic, bottled blonde who interviewed us on the red carpet opens the news segment with, “Rumors of a
Bremma
reconciliation are definitely true, my friends. At last night's premiere of
Coyote Hills
, two of its stars, Brett Crawford and Emma Taylor, celebrated the long-awaited debut in a stolen moment together.”

As the reporter goes on, video footage takes over the screen. It shows Brett and Emma, alone in a white room with trees. Emma is in her red dress and Brett in his suit. They must've gone off together during the party … while I danced with Rachel?

The video has a strange glare to it, as if a camera took the footage from outside a window. The reporter's voice turns to static in my ears when the shot changes and Brett and Emma are now …
standing toe to toe. Then I hear nothing at all, feel nothing but blood pulsing through my veins … they're kissing.

The view is straight on. Their lips aren't just touching, they're locked.

I think of Brett chasing Emma down the hall, and him saying that he couldn't give her enough of what she wanted. So
this
hadn't been enough for her?

The reporter continues to narrate the scene, play by play. “Emma Taylor was so swept off her feet that she dropped her plate of cookies. How adorable! Brett must be great with those famous lips, huh? I wonder what sort of treat they have planned for their upcoming hiatus. More cookies, perhaps?” The reporter laughs as if she's a comic genius. “Whatever these two cook up, it's always delicious! We'll keep you posted! As for—”

I keep watching in a state of stupor until Devin takes away the remote. The screen goes black, but I still stare at it. The only light in the room is from a small lamp. “Jake,” Mom says, “I'm sure there's an explanation. They've been doing all this silly publicity, and perhaps—”

I shake my head. “It wasn't publicity. It was real.” I don't know what to grab first. “Let's just … get you home, okay?”

“Devin, would you mind driving me back to Phoenix when you're ready?” Mom asks. “I think Jake should stay here and sort this out.”

“Look, Mom,” I snap. “Emma's liked Brett
forever
—you heard Rachel today, right, Devin? She's even told me that herself. But she explained everything else away: a bad camera angle, a clueless onlooker who said they were all over each other. Because, you know, stories like that get attention, sell papers, create buzz.”

Both my mom and Devin try to calm me down, make sense of it all, but they could've just as well been talking to solid rock. I help my mom into Devin's car, haul her suitcase and wheelchair out, grab the bag I already had packed for Phoenix, and take off.

Who knows where I'll go? Anywhere is better than here.

Jake's voice mail picks up on the first ring, so I keep calling as I walk over to his condo—still in pajamas, because I can't return to my bedroom with Rachel in there—but his car is already gone. I go back to my town house, figuring Jake's phone is probably dead after our long day at Old Tucson Studios. He'll eventually notice on his way to Phoenix.

I call or text every few minutes until I drift off on my couch.

When I force my eyes open in the morning, Rachel's hot-pink luggage is just a few feet away from me. My home phone rings and I sit straight up—I only get calls on that line from Jake and the front gate. I stand to answer but hear Rachel pick up in the kitchen. “Actually, this is Emma's … um, guest,” she says. “Yeah, I called a taxi. Tell him I'll be out in a few minutes.”

I don't hear anything else for thirty seconds or so. Finally, there's a sniff, and I sink back onto the sofa. I don't want to get into another fight. The cruel words just need to stop.

Rachel enters the living room with her eyes as red and swollen as mine were when I woke up yesterday. “It's you, isn't it?” she says, followed by another sniff. Her voice is raw, surrendering. The fight is over. Everything is over. “
You
are Jake's girlfriend.”

“Yeah,” is all I say. There's no use telling her that our first kiss was only a week ago. Because, really, we've been together a lot longer than that.

Rachel sits on my blankets that are heaped on the sofa. “I knew it would happen, Emma, that Jake would fall for you. Every guy does. But I thought if you and Brett were dating, it might at least buy me some time to get here—to show Jake I was perfect for him. But you kept saying that you
didn't
like Brett anymore, so I … I tried to convince you that you should.”

My breaths are shallow as Rachel sits and cries beside me. Everything I think of saying sounds so cliché:
I didn't mean for this to happen; I fought it; I didn't want to hurt you
. What good are those words now? I can finally see the real Rachel again—the girl I grew up with, dreaming of stardom and how great it would be to fall in love. We just happened to have the same dream, and fall for the same guy.

And I got both.

“This isn't just about Jake,” Rachel sobs. “I mean, yeah, I'm totally mad that you lied to me, but there's so much more. You just don't get it. My Twitter followers don't care about my photography—they want to hear about
you
. For six years now, it's felt like people have only wanted to be my friend because I know
you
. I've lost track of how many guys have flirted with me, then dropped the line, ‘So, can you hook me up with Emma?' I hate it. It's humiliating.”

“I wish you didn't feel that way, Rachel,” I say, my anger completely gone. “Because it couldn't possibly be true about
everyone
. But this was the talk we should've had last night—in fact, we should've had it a long time ago.”

Rachel nods. “I'm sorry about what I said last night.”

“Me too,” I tell her, then have to force myself to go on. “The problem is, there's some truth to what we both said, and we don't have just a few easy issues to work through.”

“Right,” she replies. “I'm sure it's gonna take a while, but at least we got it all out.”

I stand and peek through the blinds; Rachel's taxi is here.

“You'll be a big star,” I say, my throat tight. I finally find the courage to turn back and face her. She's making sure her suitcases are fully zipped. “And I'll
always
be your very biggest fan. But I think we should … not be so close for a while.”