The song was amazing.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Shivers?

I smile at the screen.

I’ll need an in-person performance first before I can confirm any shivering.

Done. Done. Done. And…oh crap. King is here. I gotta run. But we’re meeting later today and I’m singing this to u.

Now that sends shivers down my spine that have little to do with Oak’s music and everything to do with Oak. I play the song again and listen to him tell me that he’s lived a short time but it feels too long, how nobody can see through the mask he shows to the world. And how, despite everything he’s seen and done, he’s still lonely. The vision of his future is a cold, shapeless fog.

And isn’t that how I feel? In my family, lost without my parents, wondering what my next step in life is?

But unlike him, I’ve never laid myself out there like that—confessing my wrongs, pleading for forgiveness, admitting my ignorance. I’ve never taken off my mask and made myself this vulnerable in front of someone else. Not even W. Or maybe especially not W.

Paisley bursts into my room, jolting me from my thoughts. She’s dressed for work, and I’m surprised she’s still home. The twins already left for school.

“Have you seen this?” she asks grimly, holding out her phone.

“Seen what?”

Her cheeks are bright red, and I can see that she’s struggling to…to what? Keep her anger in check?

“Just read it.”

I catch the phone she tosses me. When I look at the screen, I instantly feel all the color drain from my face.

The ex’s response to Oakley Ford’s apology: “Enjoy my sloppy seconds!”

“Oh, my God,” I whisper, sick to my stomach. “This…can’t be real.”

It can’t be. W would never say something like that, and especially not to a reporter. He signed an NDA that forbids him from…crap, from saying anything about my fake relationship with Oak. As far as I can recall, the agreement didn’t say he couldn’t talk about Oak in general.

But this awful comment…It’s not even about Oak. It’s about me. I’m the sloppy seconds. How could he do this?

“Paisley.”

She eyes me in concern. “What is it?”

“Can you give me a minute? I need to call W.” I’m amazed by how calm I sound.

“Sure. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

She closes the door quietly but I’m not paying any attention. This is a mistake, I decide. Something a blogger made up to gather hits. W and I might be over, but he’d never call me a slut to the national media.

“What part of ‘I’m done with you’ didn’t you understand?” he snaps into the phone without even a hello.

I gasp into the phone. Did he really just say that?

“Don’t worry,” I snap back, fighting to contain my anger. “This won’t take long.”

“You’ve got five seconds before I hang up.”

Sickness swirls in my belly. How on earth did it come to this? W used to love me. How could he speak to me so cruelly and viciously? Did our relationship mean nothing to him?

“Did you talk to the press this morning?” I demand, and a part of me prays he’ll deny it. Or, in the very least, that whatever he said was taken out of context.

W is silent for a beat. Then he bursts out with, “Yeah, I did! What the hell else was I supposed to do? I’ve had reporters hanging around the dorm for a week now. Today a guy showed up outside my psych lecture hall asking me to comment on that jackass’s apology. I’m supposed to say nothing?”

I stand up and clench the phone tight in my fist. “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do!”

“Tough shit. He can say stuff about me and I can’t say anything back? That apology was a joke—he didn’t mean it. He was just trying to look good to the reporters. You said so yourself. It’s all about his image. What about mine?”

“What about mine?” I screech. “You called me sloppy seconds! You pretty much told the entire country I was a slut! How could you do that?”

There’s another pause. W clears his throat. “I didn’t call you a slut. But…I’m sorry I said what I did, okay? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

I swallow a lump of pain. This is the difference between W and Oak. When he publicly apologized for trash-talking W, Oak meant it. He was open and honest about his mistake, even if it meant making himself vulnerable.

Whereas W won’t even tell me the truth when we’re alone. He did mean to hurt me. He meant to hurt me more than he meant to hurt Oakley, otherwise his comment wouldn’t have been about what a whore I am. It would have been something like Oakley Ford’s music sucks and he doesn’t know how anyone would want to date a washed-up pop star.

“Whatever, W,” I mumble. “I guess the two years we were together didn’t mean anything to you.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” he shouts in my ear. “I’m not the one who threw our relationship away. You did that. You’re the one who took a job that hurt us. You’re the one who made out with that asshole. You’re the one who lied to me about giving the agency my tape. You, Vaughn!”

A wave of exhaustion crashes over me. I can’t do this anymore. Not again.

But W isn’t done twisting the knife deeper. “We’re not going out anymore. I don’t owe you shit, and I can talk to whoever I want and say whatever I want about you.” Heavy breathing echoes on the line. “Stop calling me. I don’t want to see your name on my phone anymore. Actually, I’m deleting your number, how about that?”

My bottom lip starts trembling. No. I refuse to cry over him again.

“By the way, I saw those Instagram pictures of you and your has-been boyfriend—sweet and cozy and boring, huh, V? Made me even happier that I dumped your boring ass.” He laughs harshly. “Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, I did get laid on Valentine’s Day. And I enjoyed every goddamn second of it.”

With that final stab of the knife, my ex-boyfriend hangs up on me.

27

HIM

1doodlebug1 @OakleyFord_stanNo1 her ex is a loser

OakleyFord_stanNo1 @1doodlebug1 yeah but did it sound like she was cheating on him? He’s cute.

1doodlebug1 @OakleyFord_stanNo1 maybe? But who wouldn’t throw over a normal for Oakley Ford?

Vaughn’s a mess, and it’s killing me to see her torn up over some asshole who never loved her more than he loved himself. She showed up at the studio about twenty minutes ago with swollen eyes and a red nose. When I brought her into the sound room, the guys scattered immediately, Luke muttering something about crying girls being bad juju.

“I can’t believe he said all those horrible things to me. And he made it sound like the two years we went out were some kind of torture for him!” She peers up at me with big, sad eyes. “I always tried to be his perfect girlfriend. I never argued with him. When he wanted to go to prom in the limo and I couldn’t afford it, I didn’t make a fuss that he chose to ride around with his friends for an hour pre-gaming. When Paisley got premiere tickets for Last Superhero II and W couldn’t go, I stayed home. When she wanted to treat us all to Disneyland and W thought it was childish, I stayed home with him. I always chose him because he was there when I needed him.”

Oh, Christ. So that’s why she wasted so much time with the douche bag. Her parents’ deaths left her with a big gaping hole in her heart and she filled that hole with W. And she stayed with him so she could keep telling herself all those missed times with her family were worth it because she loved W. Even when she probably stopped loving him a long time ago.

I put my arm around her, drawing her close to my body, not sure of what to say. I don’t have a lot of experience with comforting people. Not only have I not had a real girlfriend in forever, but I don’t remember the last time a friend came to me with a problem.

Her hands curl into the cotton of my T-shirt and she practically climbs onto my lap as she cries. Part of me wishes I could take back my public apology to W. He clearly didn’t deserve it, but mostly I wish I could soak Vaughn’s pain up like my T-shirt is soaking up her tears.