“I don’t think she’s lucky at all,” I say, shrugging. “She’d say I was the lucky one.”

“Sometimes these things can be complicated,” she says kindly, and then she steps toward me and pulls me into a hug. My eyes fill with involuntary tears, even as I’m thinking how ironic it is that Emilia is the one to try to help me, after everything that’s happened. As she hugs me, I realize how horrified Able would be to know that she was even here, let alone that we had been talking about him. Maybe they will even argue about it on the phone later, and Able will become cold and withdrawn when the fight doesn’t unfold exactly how he wants it to. Maybe, without even meaning to, I have somehow started to infect his family the same way he’s infected mine. And that’s when the thought that has been fluttering in my chest since I arrived back in LA breaks through the darkness, soaring high above me before settling back inside my skin, reborn.

    I am the only one in this situation with nothing to lose.

I pull away from the hug under the pretense of checking on the eggs, which are now hard at the edges, curling and brown. I watch the smoke start to pour off the pan, and then I turn back to Emilia, finally meeting her eyes with my own.

“I think you’re right,” I say slowly. “By the way, next time you speak to Able, please tell him I said hi.”

* * *

? ? ?

Once Emilia has left, I turn my phone back on to call Nathan. Unexpectedly his assistant patches me straight through and he answers, albeit begrudgingly and sounding just one breath away from telling me he’s in a meeting.

“Look—John Hamilton called a couple of weeks ago about a space movie—could we see what that’s about?” I ask quickly, trying to lace my voice with the perfect mix of gratitude and authority, always a delicate balance when dealing with an egomaniac.

Nathan pauses, then he sighs heavily. “I’ll look into it, but I wouldn’t hold your breath. John Hamilton isn’t the kind of person who waits around.”

“I’m sure he isn’t but, honestly, Nathan, I’ll put the work in. I promise. I’ll audition, or do whatever I need to do to get that part.”

“Okay, Grace. That’s good to hear, I guess,” he says, and that’s when I know I can wear him down if I really want to. I just have to play it perfectly.

“Thanks, Nathan, you’ve always understood me better than anyone.”

“For my sins,” he says, and, if I’m not mistaken, I think I can hear a touch of warmth in his voice.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The paparazzi shots of me running across Pacific Coast Highway are, by all accounts, disastrous. My hair is greasy and clumped together, and my clothes are stained and sweat marked. There is a feral look in my eyes that I don’t recognize as I streak across the road, my back curved like a hunted animal. I look so deranged that they would almost be funny if I didn’t have to swear forty times to Laurel that I hadn’t completely lost my mind, and if Nathan hadn’t called me to say only “John Hamilton is out” before hanging up on me.

My publicist, Nan, also rang me when she saw the coverage, and she strongly advised me to release a statement saying I was seeking treatment for exhaustion, brought on by my back-to-back work schedule since I was fourteen. I refused and she quit on the spot, sounding resigned, as if she’d tried every other possible option but I still just refused to play the game. In reality, exhaustion is a cheap excuse, and she would have known that. Everyone knows that it is a euphemism for a drug problem or an eating disorder, afforded only to those privileged enough to have access to a publicist who can barter and lie on their behalf. No, Nan’s resignation had more to do with the fact that when I was in demand, she had to work overtime to cover up my transgressions, and that her life would be a lot easier without me now that I’m not. She knew I would never agree to the statement; she just wanted a way out that wouldn’t be her fault. I don’t resent her for any of it. Conversely I actually envy her if she is able to justify her actions to herself in this way.

Esme is the one who shows me the pictures on her phone, over iced tea on my porch one morning while Blake is at therapy. She’s created a whole album of the coverage, and one of the headlines accompanying the pictures was “Crazed and On the Run,” which Esme seems to find amusing. She also makes sure to highlight an anonymous tell-all from an alleged former friend of mine, claiming she personally saw me rail an eight-ball of coke alone at a party a couple of years ago. My “friend” ended her statement by saying that even then she could tell I was running from my demons. How poetic.

“So what exactly were you running from?” Esme asks once I’ve read the piece, and because she’s still a kid, I’m worried that she actually wants an answer.

“It was really hot,” I say.

Two teenage boys are skating up and down the path below my porch, practicing tricks on their skateboards. The younger one falls off, skinning his knees as his friend howls with laughter. I try not to notice that the kid is limping slightly when he pretends to be fine, because I don’t want to have to feel sorry for him too. Esme is staring at them, too, but she frowns when I catch her.

“Shall we?” I say, pointing to the water. I’ve promised to go swimming with Esme, but it’s still too chilly to even be outside, let alone in the water. I imagine this is what having children is like, always having to do something you’d really rather not in order to not let them down.

“Not yet,” Esme says tersely, shooting another glance at the skateboarders, who are now practicing flips over a piece of driftwood.

“Why are you staring at them?” Esme hisses, borderline hysterical. She’s being so dramatic that I have to try not to smile.

“Do you like one of them?” I ask, unsure of the correct terminology because I missed out on all of this. Esme lets out an anguished sound, and I somehow manage not to point out that she’s actually drawing more attention to herself.

“All right, it’s okay,” I say. “Let’s talk about something else.”

We sit in silence for a few moments, and I’m about to start discussing global warming or something when Esme speaks again. She has been quietly fuming, her fingers curled into fists on her lap. “Do you even have any friends? Because you’re always by yourself.”

“Wow,” I respond, only slightly offended because it’s the sort of thing I would ask.

“It’s weirder because you’re famous.”

“I do have friends,” I say, thinking about Dylan. “It just gets more complicated as you get older.”

Esme opens her mouth, but I shoot her a warning look and she closes it again.

“Everything gets more complicated as you get older,” she says, sounding wiser than her years for once. I think she wants to say something else, so I wait out the uncomfortable pause that follows.

“The girls at school don’t speak to me anymore,” she says, shifting in the lawn chair.

“What?”

“Do you mean ‘what’ or ‘why’?” she asks, but I can tell she’s upset from the way she pulls at the piece of hair falling just in front of her right ear. When she was a kid, she used to twist it so hard that it stopped growing, and for a while she just had this strange mod-style sideburn on one side. I didn’t realize she still did it, and a quiet fury that anybody could hurt this person takes hold of me, surprising in its force.

“I liked this guy so I hooked up with him at a party, then he changed his mind about me and told everyone, and now they think I’m a slut.”

Esme scrolls through something on her phone, frowning. “And now he goes out with my ex–best friend so none of my friends are allowed to speak to me anymore.”

“Is your friend hooking up with him now?”

“Of course,” Esme replies witheringly.

“So why isn’t she a slut?”

“Because they’re committed,” Esme says mechanically, without a trace of irony.

“That’s stupid,” I say stupidly.

“It’s how it works, Grace. I don’t expect you to understand the nuances of teenage dating.”

“Come on, Esme. This is serious,” I say, and Esme folds her arms across her chest. I remember what I said to her about the bad guys winning, and try not to wince.

“Was he also the guy you sent the nude to?” I ask quietly.

“It was fake,” Esme says, and even though my sister is partly, mostly, still a stranger to me, I think I can tell that she’s lying by the way her eyes dart instantly down to the ground. “But everyone still reposts it all the time, and they write disgusting things on anything I share, even when it’s, like, literally a photo of me holding a lizard.”

“Right,” I say slowly, out of my depth and sort of wishing I’d never asked. “You know, I’m not sure you’re supposed to hold lizards.”