“Your mom was pretty freaked out about the whole emancipation thing, so Garrett was a little hazy on his explanation. You’ll get all the paperwork and account information tomorrow on the plane, so if you want to tell them the value of it, you can do it then.”

“Do you think it will it be enough? Pay for school, buy a car and gas and insurance and stuff, maybe get pedicures once in a while?”

James chuckles. “Yeah, I think it will cover that.”

“Hey, wait a minute. So you know all the details?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re chicken to tell her, aren’t you?”

He laughs. “Actually, I am. Garrett has the privilege of explaining it all to your mother. So I’ll call Wong’s and place an order,” he nods his head at the kitchen table, “and you go take control of your fake life.”

As I sit down, Mom says, “How about you’re an orphan, but your parents had some life insurance money, and your executor didn’t want to deal with you, so he sent you to boarding school?”

“No,” I say. “Come up with something cool.”

“You got kicked out of your last school, and you’ve been in rehab?” Tommy asks. “Isn’t rehab kinda cool these days?”

“Definitely no rehab. That would mean I couldn’t party. But maybe I got kicked out of my last school. Can I get kicked out for something cool? I could pretend to be a bad-ass trouble maker!”

“What would be cool?” Millie asks.

Mom says emphatically, “No, on the bad girl. No getting kicked out of school. I don’t want you to start there with a bad reputation.”

“Oh, I know!” Millie says excitedly. “How about you got pregnant, had a baby, and your parents made you give it up?”

“Millie, this is not your prime time soap opera. Next are you going to suggest I killed my mom because of it and buried her body in the backyard?”

Millie laughs. “That was a storyline on my show, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was. I need to be normal. And do I look like I just had a baby? Do I want boys to think I’m easy? Is that what you want? Tommy? Mom?”

Mom mutters, “No. This is harder than I thought it would be.”

Mr. Moran states. “You want close to the truth. We could go closer to the truth. Your father died in a plane crash . . .”

I stand up, knocking my Red Bull all over the table. “Don’t even say that! You guys suck. I’ll make up my own backstory. You’re all freaking fired.”

My fake lives.

7:30pm

I run out the door, down to the beach, and drop myself into the sand. Three of the security guys, including James, are on my heels.

“You know you aren’t allowed out here by yourself,” James yells at me.

“I’m pretty sure since you’re all following me, I’m not by myself.”

He drops into the sand next to me. “I can’t imagine having to deal with all this at your age. I know they treat you like an adult, but you’re still a kid, and I’m sure it’s scary.”

“I feel like I was cast in some bad horror movie. It seems like it can’t possibly be real.”

“Don’t let yourself think that for one second. No matter what you do from now on, this always has to be in the back of your mind. It has to influence everything you tell people, every decision you make. Got it?”

I sigh because I know he’s right. “I’ve got it. So do you have any ideas for my backstory?”

“I agree with keeping it close to the truth and keeping it simple. You’ve traveled the world with your mom and stepdad and were tutored. You recently lived in L.A. Your parents decided to move, you didn’t want to go with, so they shipped you off to boarding school. Or maybe you decided to go on your own because you didn’t want to go with them. Depends on whether or not you wanna pretend to be pissed at your parents.”

“I like that. They moved to France. I didn’t want to go with. It’s simple, and I can be me, just without my famous parents.” I laugh. “And we don’t have to kill anyone off.”

“Everyone is really upset, Keatyn. They’re trying not to show it.”

“I know.” I swallow hard. “I’m pretty upset myself, and I feel really bad about Cush. What if you went and talked to him? What if I sent him a letter?”

“What would I tell him?”

“I don’t know. That I’m sorry. That I won’t be at school with him this year. That I’m sorry I told him I loved him and then just ditched him.”

“You told him you loved him? When was that? I thought you loved Brook?”

“I did. I do. I don’t know.”

“It’s been almost a week already. I’m sure he’s figured out you’re not calling.”

“I know you’re right. I just feel really bad.”

“You’d feel worse if he started posting on Facebook that he knew you were okay. If he told friends that he’d heard from you, and Vincent went after him. Keep him safe and in the dark. Also, Brook texted me and wanted to know if he could see you tonight. I ordered enough food for an army. Why don’t we have him come down?”

“Okay.” I get up, look around at the beach, and see the couple that lives a few houses down. I watch the guy take off his shirt and images of Vincent come flashing back. Of him taking off his shirt, of him grabbing my wrist with his strong hand. “I, um, I need to go back inside now. I kinda feel sick.”

“Keatyn, look at me. What’s wrong?”

My breathing gets heavy, my hands start to shake, and I feel like I’m going to cry, or puke. I can’t decide.

In between deep breaths, I say, “It’s just the first time I’ve been out here. I was fine when I was looking at the ocean, but then that guy took off his shirt. It reminded me.”

James grabs my arm. “Let’s get you back inside.”

Brooklyn showed up about the time the food did. The Chinese restaurant we ordered from is his favorite too and he ate a lot, his appetite obviously not hindered in any way. I pick at the sweet and spicy chicken, rice, and lettuce wraps that I put on my plate. I push the food around a little to make it look like I ate more than I did. What little appetite I had got ruined on the beach.

“You need to eat,” he says.

I pick up a couple grains of rice and put them in my mouth. “I am eating.”

Brooklyn grabs our plates and takes off toward my bedroom. “Come on.”

I follow him for lack of a better plan.

He sets our plates on my bed and motions for me to sit. We sit cross-legged on my bed like we’ve done so many times before. Brooklyn smiles at me, stabs a piece of chicken with his fork, and holds it up to my mouth, so I take a bite. Then he loads up the fork with rice and holds it up to my mouth. I try to eat it, but I bump the fork and the rice goes scattering back down on our plates.

We both start laughing.

“I should probably feed myself. So are you all packed and ready to go? Are you nervous?”

“Yeah, a little. At least we went there this summer, and I feel like I know my way around a little. That should help.” He stops talking and touches my face. “I had an amazing summer, Keats. I know things are really messed up with us, but I meant everything I said. I love you. I probably always will.”

“I meant it too.”

“I got excited when I learned I had sponsors. I thought you’d support me. That you’d be here, I’d be off competing, but that we’d still see each other, still be together. I really hadn’t thought it through. Like the logistics of it. I was thinking all about me and my dreams.”

“I know. It’s okay. With everything that’s happened, it’s probably best for you to be gone anyway.”

“I don’t want us to lose touch. You’re my best friend, Keats, and that part of our relationship means a lot to me. I’ve been trying to make sense of all this. What you said the other day about me liking part of you. You’re kind of right about that, and it’s not fair to you. You need a guy that appreciates everything about you. Not just the surfer girl that I love.”

“You know what’s funny? Mr. Moran suggested this school when I was trying to talk Mom and Tommy into letting me go to high school.”

“Really? Maybe fate intervened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe there’s someone there that you’re supposed to meet. Maybe you chose the wrong path back then, and fate is fixing it now.”

“Brooklyn, fate is when you miss your flight and end up on the next one sitting next to the guy you’re destined to be with. Fate is when your alarm doesn’t go off, and you avoid a pile up on the highway. Fate does not almost get you kidnapped.”

“Maybe it does. You didn’t get kidnapped, and now you’re going where you were supposed to go in the first place. Maybe the guy of your dreams is waiting there for you.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I’m pretty sure neither one of us knows what we want, Keats. That’s the problem.”

“As in, you don’t know what we are. You haven’t known all summer, have you?”

“I’m sorry. I really do care about you, and I do love you. I guess I’m just not ready for a relationship.”

He gives me a kiss. It’s a goodbye kiss, not a we’ll-be-together-again-someday kiss. Even though I broke up with him, the kiss makes me sad, so I change the subject. “So, there’s a table full of actors sitting around out there trying to write a script for my fake life.”

He laughs. “They come up with anything good?”

“Let’s get high, then I’ll tell you all about my fake lives.”

“Let’s not.” He moves our plates onto my desk, pulls me into his arms, and falls onto the bed with me. “Just tell me.”

“They wanted to make me poor, an orphan, or a scholarship student. Seriously? At a private school like that? They might as well have made me a leper. Then—let’s see—I just got out of rehab; I got kicked out of another boarding school; oh, I got pregnant, had a baby, and gave it up for adoption. Then Mr. Moran suggested my dad just died, and I got pissed off and walked out. I sounded like a little bitchy starlet throwing my script down and marching off the set going, I demand a rewrite. If it weren’t so horrifying, it would be almost comical.”

“So you still need a story?”

“Actually, no. James helped me figure it out. He said I should keep it as close to the truth as possible.”

“So, who are you, Keats Monroe?”

I hug him tightly. “I’m going to miss you terribly.”

“I’m going to miss you too, but I was thinking about what you said about wishing you could make real friends. In a weird way, you wished for this. Going away to a place where no one knows who you are. The experience might be good for you.”

“My grandma always says, Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. I never understood her point until now.”

“So I get to surf, see if I’m as good as I think I am. And you get to make friends, where no one knows who you are. You get to figure out who you really are. So what’s your backstory?”

“I’ve traveled the world, been tutored. I love to surf, play soccer, and dance. And we lived in L.A. for the last couple of years.”

“Oh, that’s good. It’s all true. So why boarding school? Especially your junior year?”

“Mom and Stepdad decided to live in France. I didn’t want to go, but they wouldn’t let me stay in L.A. alone, so they shipped me off to boarding school, and I’m not happy about it.” I give him my pout face. Then I say, “Or I am happy about it,” and give him my biggest smile.

“You know you’re a natural when it comes to acting. I think that’s why sometimes you aren’t sure who you are. It’s so easy for you to play different roles.” He runs his hand slowly down my arm and looks longingly into my eyes. “Can we pretend that tonight you’re still you, and I’m waiting for you on the beach?”

Thursday, August 25th

Everyone will love you.

5am

Brooklyn left at three this morning.

Last night.

I don’t even know what last night was.

I guess it was just mostly saying goodbye.

He wanted to pretend I was still me, the old me. But I’m not the same me anymore.

And I’m not in love with him anymore.

I knew in Europe that it wasn’t going to work out, but I didn’t want to admit it.

I kept lying to myself, because once again, I had some stupid script of my perfect dream life imagined in my head. The kind of life where Brooklyn and I would live happily on a beach somewhere. Probably the kind of script no boy could ever live up to. The kind of script I could never live up to.

Brooklyn was right about one thing.

Life is messy.

And I know that I shouldn’t have kissed him. I know that I shouldn’t have slept with him.

But I did.

Is it so bad that I wanted to have one night where I could pretend it was still summer, and my life hadn’t been turned completely upside down?

Afterwards he tried to be sweet. “I love you, Keats. Even if it’s just as friends.”

“So where does the sex fit in?” I asked.

“With the love,” he said.

“You make it sound so simple. It’s just not that simple.” Because we all know now. It is not that simple.

“Yeah, it is. You complicate it by trying to make it fit into a box, so you can update your Facebook status. A relationship should be defined by your feelings not by a status.”