Chapter Thirty-Three

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Leaving the festival is like a scene out of my own personal nightmare. Paisley and Sawyer weren't exaggerating about the number of people gathered at the security fence, watching the bus and waiting for me to emerge. I remind myself not to be intimidated and that I deal with crowds all the time. Some of them probably just want to know if I'm okay, since their last glimpse of me was when I was unconscious and being carried away.

I'm behind Mom when I do step off the bus, using her as a shield. They see me anyway. It isn't that they're fanatical, shrieking at me, or pushing at the barrier or anything. The people here are remarkably respectful and polite, or they are now that the surprise of me being here has worn off. The part that makes it a nightmare is being recognized on sight without my wigs or makeup, when this wasn't the case as recently as two hours ago. The sea of phones pointed in my direction only adds to this.

Photos and videos of me getting off the bus will be online in a few minutes, taken from every angle, and these will make me even more recognizable to people when I'm not wearing a wig and stage makeup. Videos of me passing out earlier are probably already all over the place. Having a way to go about my life without being recognized was something I valued above many things, and Bowie took that from me today. Of all the spiteful and cruel ways he could have lashed out for whatever reason he felt he needed to, he chose destroying my personal peace and security.

"Just keep walking," Mom says. She must be able to sense how hard this is hitting me.

An entourage of security and local police officers help us get to the Jeep. I don't know who called in the police escorts, or if they were already on event duty in case something required their presence, but I'm grateful for them. With their assistance, Mom is able to drive out of the parking lot without other vehicles following us. There were cars behind us when we headed for the exit, but the officers took up traffic duty in the lot and had everyone stop until we were on our way. It gives us a head start.

A skill Mom has developed from life in L.A. with a famous daughter is how to detect someone tailing us, and how to lose people who are. We've dodged the paparazzi before, and she puts her observation skills into action now so we don't lead someone out to the lake. I can't believe she has to do this out here, but then, there's a lot about today that's been surreal.

Music from Mom's phone fills the vehicle while she navigates down a few side streets and doubles back, and then takes us to a street I recognize. She hasn't said much since coming to get me, other than checking to make sure I'm okay. But I know her as well as she knows me, which means I can read her moods at a glance. She's angry, that's for sure, and not at me. Her hunched shoulders tell me she's stewing about something.

All this quiet from her makes me nervous. Maybe it's because I expected a deluge of questions, beginning with why I was at the festival in the first place. She hasn't asked me that yet, and she hasn't said a word about the fallout.

"How bad is it?" I finally ask. "Is what happened all over the place online?"

"I don't know yet." Mom keeps her eyes on the road. "I left as soon as Sawyer called me, so I haven't had a chance to check."

I nod, even though I'm positive she knows more than she's owning up to. I heard her phone's text messages chime a few times before she switched it to silent, and it's a safe bet the messages have been piling up since then.

"Did you see Hunter on your way in?" I ask. It would be nice if she did and has some insight into his mood.

"No. I expected him to be with you when I got there, actually." There's an unspoken question in her words.

"He got kicked out after trying to fight Bowie."

"It's a shame I wasn't there to help him," Mom mumbles under her breath.

Neither of us says much after that. I'm tempted to ask if we can switch from the music on her phone to the radio, but I don't know how well I'll handle it if I hear a news headline about me. My nerves are shot, both from what Bowie did and from what Hunter said to me before leaving the bus.

The rest of the drive is the definition of slow agony. I want to hop out of the Jeep and find Hunter as soon as we pull up in front of our cottage, but Mom reminds me it's close to dinner time and to give the Grays a chance to cook and eat without interruption. It's her way of telling me to give it a minute and that she isn't ready for me to be out of her sight just yet.

I don't know what to do with myself, so I say something about wanting to lie down and escape to my bedroom. Having a nap or relaxing is impossible, though, and so I pace the floor while thinking about what I'll say to Hunter when I see him. He was upset, but we have to be okay if he went after Bowie. Sawyer seemed to think so, but I'll only continue torturing myself with worry until I can confirm it for myself.

My pacing leads me to my bedroom window. Looking out at the lake may provide some temporary calm. But a flash of color in the trees near the shore catches my attention first, and I focus in on it. There's movement, then a human arm and a familiar blue shirt become visible. It's Hunter.

Mom might want me under cottage arrest for a couple of hours, but there's no way it's happening when Hunter is right there. I'd like to avoid an argument with her, though, and I can't get to the door without her knowing about it. That leaves my bedroom window. The veranda is right below it, so it's not like I'll have a perilous drop if I use it to escape through.

I scan my bedroom, looking for something to stand on, and decide the night table is the best option. After removing what's on top of it, I push the table under the window, careful to make as little noise as possible. It takes me a couple of minutes to remove the screen from the window, and then I'm wriggling my way outside and praying Mom doesn't hear me or decide to swing by my bedroom while I'm gone.

By the time I make it down the veranda steps and to the grass in front of the cottage, I'm running on adrenaline and the hope that this day will get better before the sun sets tonight. I practically sprint toward Hunter, who is fully visible now. He has his camera raised up to his eyes, and he's facing away from me.

I try to make noise as I approach, so I don't startle him. He keeps his back to me, giving no sign that he's aware of my presence.

"Hey. Can we talk?" My voice sounds small and nervous. It reflects how I feel.

Hunter doesn't say anything. He keeps the camera pointed at a tree branch, waiting for something I can't see.

"Please?" I try again. "I can tell you're upset, and you might be as angry with me as Sawyer said you were with Bowie. I'd like to clear the air."

He lowers the camera and turns around, and my spirits sink even lower when I take in his stony expression. "You scared away the bird I was trying to photograph." His voice is monotone and dull. It's not the response I was hoping for, but at least he's talking to me and acknowledged that I'm here.

"I'm sorry." I wish there was a way I could connect my brain to his so he would understand how much I mean this.

"About the bird?" he asks. We both know my apology isn't about the bird, and that I also told him I was sorry when we were on the bus. His question is just another warning that we're a long way from where we were this afternoon, before the festival.

"About the bird and about today," I reply.

"How about for lying to me since the day I met you?"

"I didn't lie to you." Hunter's eyes widen at this, and I hurry to speak again. "Okay, I did bend the truth a couple of times and I omitted a few things. And yes, I'm sorry about that, too. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you or make you feel lied to."

"It's a little late for that." He fiddles with his camera lens as he says this, and I presume it's to avoid looking at me. "I can't wrap my head around what's happening right now. Video from the festival is all over the place, and total strangers are trying to figure out who I am. My friends are blowing up my phone with questions, and I can't answer them because I don't even know who you are."

"You know who I am." I touch his arm, hoping the contact will remind him of all we share that has nothing to do with a name or stage persona, but he shrugs my hand away.

"Do I, Cayden?" He emphasizes my name, and I wince at how he says it. The two syllables have never sounded so sarcastic or cold.

"Please don't call me that," I say quietly.

"It's your name, isn't it?"

"The only people who call me Cayden are my fans, my record label, the media, and people who don't know me well. Everyone I'm close to calls me Deni."

"Right. Everyone you're close to. We aren't really close, though, are we?"

He can't mean that. "What are you talking about? Of course we are."

"No," he tells me. "If we were close, I would have known before today that a lot of people call you Cayden. I would have known you lied when you said Deni was short for Denise. And I definitely would have known I was taking you to a music festival being headlined by your celebrity scumbag of an ex-boyfriend and probably would have gone with mini-golf instead. The people I'm close to don't hide things from me, and the ones who've tried to have been cut out of my life pretty fast."

It doesn't take psychic abilities to realize he's talking about Trinity and Landon. "It isn't fair to compare this to being cheated on," I protest.

"You're right. Concealing a whole part of your life and who you are while stringing me along absolutely puts you on higher moral ground."

"I have never strung you along, and please don't act like I was. How I feel about you has always been real." My voice gets louder with each sentence I speak. "I had reasons for not telling you sooner, and part of it was to keep you, me, my mom, and your family safe."

"Safe?" he fires back. "From what? That doesn't make sense."

"From other people who might try to finish what the person who set off a bomb at my concert started, by coming after me. If my fans getting killed is anything to go by, the people near me are also fair game. You were there when I heard the news on the radio. Imagine if I had come out here this summer and told everyone I met that I'm Cayden Indigo. If my location had gotten out, it could have put all of us in danger. We could be in danger right now because of what happened today."

Hunter considers my argument, but then he shakes his head. "No one said you had to tell everyone who you are, but I don't get what made you think you couldn't trust me."

"I do trust you," I insist. "I've always trusted you. I didn't tell you because I was afraid of what could happen if we slipped up and said something around Paisley that clued her in."

He bristles at this. His expression was stony before, but now his face is a thundercloud. "Are you saying you don't trust my sister to keep a secret, even when it's life or death on the line? That's insulting to her and to me. She might be celebrity-obsessed, but she isn't stupid or morally bankrupt."

"I know she isn't. I was being overly cautious from a place of fear, and there's no other reason I can give you for that." I swallow the lump rising in my throat and pray I can get a few more words out before the tears pricking at my eyes spill over and I lose what little composure I have left. "I promise my intentions were good, and I wish I could change the choices I made but I can't. All I can do is try to fix this."

"I don't know if you can fix this."

His words hang in the air. He stares straight at me now, and the different contortions his face goes through make it impossible to tell if he's struggling with keeping his anger in check or if he's trying not to cry.

"Wh--" I start to say, and then stop. I was going to ask him what he means, but I don't want to hear the answer.

"Relationships are about trust," he continues. "Make all the excuses you want, but if you couldn't trust me enough to tell me something this important before someone else forced your hand, then that says more than you ever could. I think it's better for both of us if we end this conversation here and don't hang out for a while, because I have nothing else to say."

He turns on his heel and begins walking away. By the time I process this and what he said, he's already halfway to his cottage.

"Hunter!" I yell after him, but he doesn't glance back at me. In fact, he gives no indication that he heard me at all.

I didn't think there was anything left in me to shatter after that night at The Domino, but it turns out there is. As I watch Hunter put distance between us by choice, my heart breaks all over again.


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