Child Star: Part 2 Page 6

  “Thank you having me, Stephanie. To say I’m shaken would be an understatement,” I said, frowning as I folded my hands together on her table.

  “Can you please walk me through what happened? I mean, we see it clear as day on tape. Describe it in your own words if you can.”

  Being an actor was great at a time like this. All of those years of training on how to give an emotional performance that resonated with viewers came to the forefront of my mind.

  Biting my lip, I glanced down, making them wait before I spoke. “I…sorry. Oh, god.”

  “No. No. Please take your time,” she said, handing me a few tissues.

  “As you know, Mr. Mallory was celebrating his birthday at his mansion. He was an old family friend of my mother’s, and everything was going fine. Noah and I planned on leaving. I just needed to go the bathroom. I entered the wrong room and…” I paused, taking a breath, “and everything went south so fast. I kept trying to push him away. Mentally I knew no one would be able to hear me over the music and conversation downstairs. The rougher he became, the more desperate I was to get away. I really thought there was no saving me when Noah pulled him off me.”

  “Did you tell this to the police?”

  I nodded, my hands brushing up to my neck. “I sat in a room, explaining it over and over again to some officer by the name of Osborne. My neck still had marks on it. He kept wondering why I was in Mr. Mallory’s study. I felt like he wasn’t listening or didn’t care.”

  “And Mr. Sloan?” Stephanie pressed on.

  “They locked him up and threw away the key. Not even a few hours later, I was listening to MKLM 97.5 on my way to an appointment, and they were tearing him apart, calling him everything from a screwed up child star to an idiot for ‘picking’ a fight with the Ray Mallory, who I quickly found out is pretty much a god here.”

  “What do you mean by ‘god’?”

  I shrugged. “I was told pretty quickly by natives to Chicago that I didn’t want to make an enemy of Mr. Mallory. He even called me.”

  “He called you? When and what for?”

  “Yesterday morning, to apologize. But he never said what for. He also made it clear that I wasn’t anything to him.”

  “You are an Oscar-winning actress and grew up as probably one of the most beloved child stars in the country, and he said you were nothing?”

  I gripped the cup of water they had given me. “I know. Growing up and being told you are something and having one person tear that down instantly was painful. What scared me more was the fact that even with all the influence and recourse I had, I was still treated like no one by the Chicago Police Department and Mr. Mallory himself, which made me wonder: what if this wasn’t happening to me? What if this was just some normal girl? What would become of her and her boyfriend if they were in that same situation?”

  She paused and leaned in, “So you and Mr. Sloan are involved romantically?”

  “Yes,” I said, looking directly into the camera, especially for my mother. “I love him unconditionally.”

  Chapter Seven

  Noah

  “You just going to lay there all day?”

  Shifting onto my side, I saw Henry standing at the door and grinning like he won the lottery. The same cop who had made it his mission to piss me off stood beside him with his head down. Smirking, I sat up, stepping back into my shoes and grabbing my jacket. Henry took a step to the side and paused in the doorway to fix the collar of my shirt.

  “Officer Dacosta,” I said¸ reading his silver nametag. “Henry, you should remember that name.”

  “Already have.”

  The bastard glared, and his jaw tensed as I nodded to him and walked down the hall. There was a shift in the air. I could feel it bluntly. When they first arrested me, they sat me in the corner and pretended I didn’t exist, purposely talking loudly, calling me the “stupid motherfucker messin’ with Mallory.” Now, you would think I had a gun to their heads—not one of them stepped in our paths or even spoke.

  “We need you to sign for this, Mr. Sloan.” The officer behind the desk stood when I reached him.

  My eyebrow raised as I took the pen to sign. “It’s ‘Mr. Sloan’ now? And here I was getting used to being that called ‘that motherfucker.’”

  He didn’t say anything as he handed me a plastic bag of the possessions they had taken from me. A Fendi watch, my smartphone, my wallet, an unopened pack of cigarettes, and watermelon-flavored gum.

  “What happened?” I asked Henry as I opened the bag, taking my watch out first.

  “Amelia,” he answered, and I couldn’t fight the smile spreading across my face. “I have no idea how, but she dropped a nuclear bomb in Mallory’s lap this afternoon.”

  Thata girl.

  “Where is she?”

  “The press are waiting outside, so Austin decided that she would come out the moment you step out and meet you halfway. Apparently we can’t waste this opportunity. Amelia agreed, though.”

  I rolled my eyes at that. Leave it to Austin to already have a media plan set in motion. Whatever. At this point, I didn’t care. I just wanted to get the hell out of this godforsaken place.

  “Shades?” Henry offered. I shook my head, handing him my jacket. The closer I got to the front door, the louder the voices became.

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when the doors slid open. The first thing that blinded me was the sunlight. I had gotten so used to the dim lighting in the jail that I actually had to bring my hand over my eyes to see. But when my vision cleared, even in the midst of the vast sea of photographers and cameras, I could spot her perfectly. Beside her were Daniel, Austin, Ollie, and some blonde woman I didn’t know.

  She bit her lips as her eyes glazed over with tears she refused to let fall. I made it halfway down the stairs before she ran up and leaped onto me.

  “Miss me?” I laughed, wrapping my arms around her. God I missed her. Inhaling deeply, I held on just a little bit tighter, never wanting to let go. She separated from me just enough for me to kiss her, right there on the steps of the police station, with every goddamn person’s eyes on us. It was short-lived when we all heard the sirens of the police cruisers that pulled up right in front the car she came in.

  An officer stepped out, this time opening the back of the squad car to reveal none other than Ray Mallory, his hands cuffed behind his back and a scowl glued on his bruised face. His nose was still taped.

  Amelia, hopping off of me and back to the ground, stuck to my side as she turned to face him.

  There were two officers on either side of him as the press scrambled to rearrange themselves to get his photo, and when he got close enough to us, Amelia stood with her head high.

  “Bye-bye, birdie,” she said to him, and they shared a look I didn’t understand.

  “Now is your chance to escape,” Ollie said, opening the door to the car as the cameras all focused on Mr. Mallory.

  Letting her in first, I slid in behind her, and only after the door closed beside me did I release the deep breath I was holding. I pulled her back into my arms. She sat on my lap, my arms around her waist and her head resting on my chest. Austin sat up front next to Daniel, and I was sure Ollie stayed back to answer any further questions.

  “I have so much I want to say,” she whispered to me, but I could tell she wasn’t alright. She looked as though she hadn’t slept or eaten since the night everything happened, and I was certain that was the case.

  “Tell me later. Rest now, okay? I’m not going anywhere. You made sure of that.” Words couldn’t even begin convey how grateful I was to her.

  “I’m a badass, aren’t I?” she asked.

  Snickering, I nodded. “Yes, Amelia London, you are a total badass.”

  That smile, the one she had on her face right now, it gave me life. Slowly, her breathing evened out, and she drifted off in my arms, giving in to her exhaustion. I took a small sense of pride in that—she couldn’t rest until she helped me. That was the type of wom
an I had.

  “Sir, you should hear this,” Austin said, turning up the radio.

  “Here at MKLM 97.5, we are only humans,” a stern voice spoke out. “And as humans, we make mistakes. All we can do afterward is apologize and hope to make amends. Yesterday on our broadcast, we made a few derogatory remarks about actor Noah Sloan, about which Amelia London rightly called us out on NQB News this afternoon. Both Rachel and I sincerely offer our apologies to both Mr. Sloan and Ms. London. Not only did we rush to judgment, but we may have further added difficulty to your situation. This will serve as a reminder to us, and hopefully to others, not to judge until all the facts are out.”

  “I would like to also applaud Mr. Sloan for his quick action and thoroughly stepping up to protect a woman in need, with no concern for himself. And I want to applaud Ms. London as well, for her to get in front of this so publicly so soon after it happened. She’s a really strong woman. Like Riley said, we do apologize for adding fuel to the fire.”

  “What did she do?” I asked Austin, knowing at this point a bomb could go off and Amelia would sleep right through it.

  “She managed to get tapes of the incident and gave them to NQB News along with doing a sit-down interview. It’s been playing on loop ever since. The governor was the one who called personally to have you released and have all the charges dropped right afterward. I’m not sure how she did it, but she did, and my phone won’t stop ringing.”

  As if on cue, his phone rang again, and he smiled at it.

  “It’s like Christmas,” he winked, answering the call. “Hello. Yes, this is Noah Sloan’s manager. With whom am I speaking?” He paused. “The Hollywood Chronicle? Catharine, is that you? I see you finally remembered my number.”

  At least one of us was enjoying this.

  Resting against the seat, I watched her until my eyes grew too heavy to stay open anymore, and I drifted off.

  Freedom—you never know how much you love it until someone tries to take it away.

  ***

  Her fever wasn’t budging. Her cheeks were red and her breathing was a lot more staggered than it was in the car. Rolling up my sleeves, I sat up on the edge of the bed, lightly shaking her awake.

  “Amelia…Amelia,” I whispered.

  “Urgh,” she groaned, her face bunching together, one of her eyes peeking opening. “Noah?”

  “Hey, sleepyhead.”

  Licking her lips, she tried to look around.

  “Where are we?”

  “Back at the hotel,” I responded. “Can you sit up?”

  She nodded, but when she tried, she instantly reached up to touch her forehead. Her body hunched forward.

  “Here,” I said, handing her some aspirin along with water.

  “Thanks.” She drank deeply. “How long have I been out?”

  “Nine hours.”

  “Nine hours? What?” She made a move to get up, but I grabbed her arms and held her in place, laying her back against the pillows.

  “You need to rest...and eat.” I lifted the tray of food I had left on the bedside table and placed it in front of her. “Tomato soup, a turkey-ham sandwich on white bread with no cheese or crust, with a side of oranges and vanilla caramel tea.”

  She looked up at me, her mouth parted slightly.

  “Why are you looking at me like that? Eat,” I said, lifting the spoon to her lips. She didn’t look away from me as she opened her mouth and allowed me to feed her.

  “You remembered my comfort food,” she said, opening her lips for another bite.

  “This is hardly your comfort food. If you weren’t sick, you’d want a bag of chocolate-covered kettle corn with a Sprite and a double hamburger from Uncle Saul’s.”

  A wicked grin spread across her lips, her whole face brightening, “That sounds amazing!”

  Of course. I snickered, shaking my head at her. “Again, you’re sick—”

  “It a small headache. I’ve had worse…”

  She looked surprised when I showed her the temperature.

  “Anything over 101 degrees isn’t small, Amelia. Right now, you don’t have anywhere to be but this bed until you get better.”

  “Ollie would beg to differ,” she sighed, reaching for the sandwich.

  “Not this time. He agreed that you’ve had a rough couple days.”

  She frowned, swallowing the small bite she had taken, then focusing on me. I wished I hadn’t brought it up. The smile she’d had only a second earlier disappeared from her face.

  “If I had a rough couple of days, what about you? You’re always so worried about me—”

  “You worry about me, and I’ll worry about you. That’s how we work. Right now, I’m the one who’s fine. You, on the other hand,” I said, giving her a look as she pouted, taking the spoon from me. She ate a couple bites of soup before pausing, the spoon hovering over her lips.

  “I think it was my mom,” she whispered, her head drooping. “All of this. I don’t know how yet, but I know it was her.”

  “Amelia—”

  “And if I’m right, then I really don’t have a mother. She’s just a monster sharing my last name. The things Ray said…he was obsessed with me, and it’s not a new obsession, either. He’s a pig, and she tried to feed me to him.” The spoon dropped from her hand, and for the first time since all of this happened, she cried. All I could do was move the tray over and hold her in my arms.

  “If you hadn’t come—”

  “But I did.” Thank God I did.

  We had gotten over one hurdle, but this wasn’t over yet.

  It didn’t take long for her to cry herself back to sleep. I was grateful she got something into her stomach, but I wished she had eaten more. Taking the tray, I got up off the bed, pulling the sheets back over her.

  Closing the door behind me, I made my way to the kitchen, my hands beginning to shake the more I thought about the situation, until I finally lost it, throwing the goddamn tray right into the wall. The glass and plates shattered on impact, the leftovers splattering everywhere. Falling back onto the cabinet and clenching my jaw, I tried my best to ignore the shakes as they overtook my body again.

  “Noah?”

  Austin came in from the balcony, the phone still up to his ear. Upon seeing me, he hung up quickly, reaching into his bag to get my pills.

  “No, I’m fine.” I didn’t want to be so dependent on those goddamn things.

  “Noah, you’ve gone days without taking it. We aren’t doing this again,” he said, pouring them into my hand. Knowing I wasn’t going to bother with water, he made no moves to get me any as I threw the pills into my mouth and sank to the ground.

  “You can’t allow yourself to get riled up like this—”

  “I don’t have choice!” I snapped, breathing deeply. “While I’m shaking on every fucking floor in the city, she’s alone, trying to save me. I need to get riled up. I need to be…I need to be better than this, Austin. I gotta be.”

  Running my hand through my hair, I tried not to think of it, but I would never get the picture of her struggling in Mallory’s hands out of my head. “If I was one second late. If I hadn’t been so annoyed that she was taking too long and wanted to leave…she would have...”

  “But you were there. You saved her,” Austin reassured me.

  “I got myself thrown in jail with no contingency plan, so she didn’t sleep or eat until she got me out. I feel useless, Austin. I keep asking myself, am I really the best person for her? She’s the best person for me, but if I only make her life more complicated—”

  “You’ll leave. Didn’t you do that already?” He leaned on the counter. “If I were you, I’d spend just as much time with her as you did apart, and then decide.”

  “So get back to you in a decade, then,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  A decade of Amelia. I wasn’t a fortune teller, but I was sure that would involve us spending most nights alternating between work, sex, and Netflix. Every once in a while, we might do something
crazy like socialize with other human beings. We’d fight at least once day, and she’d probably always ask me why I loved her, like it was something I had a choice about.

  Sounds like paradise.

  “I want to do something for her. The studio gave us the day off tomorrow, right?”

  “You could ask the studio for anything at this point, and they’d give it to you. They almost screwed themselves with that board meeting. Add that to Amelia’s ‘if he goes, I go’ speech.”

  “She went?”

  He nodded, and I threw my head back, laughing. I was always one step behind this woman. I’d probably never stop chasing after her.

  Amelia

  What was that?

  Rubbing, then brushing, and finally smacking whatever it was tickling my nose, I rolled over.

  “A … me … lia,” a soft voice sang.

  I knew that voice.

  “A milli.”

  I knew that voice, too.

  My eyes snapped open when they started to jump on the bed. There were two pair of brown eyes, both staring down at me.

  “Mayko? Antigone?” I didn’t even bother sitting up, because they each grabbed one of my arms, pulling me from the bed.

  “Miss us?” They wrapped their arms around me, still jumping and forcing me to jump with them.

  “Oh my God, guys!” I laughed, holding them. “How are you here?”

  “You boyfriend whom you love unconditionally flew us out since you have a free day today,” Antigone replied, allowing herself to fall back onto the bed. “Aww, this is nice! Don’t mind me.”

  “You know they have sex on these sheets, right?” Mayko paused, crossing her arms.

  Antigone, trying to keep a straight face, said, “I’m sure they change them.”

  Mayko spoke up. “Well, not after last night—”

  “Eww!” She jumped off, rubbing her back as Mayko and I broke out into a fit of laugher.