With a forced grin, I turned and stated loudly, “¿Oye, corazon, es que te estas secando las uñas? ¡Porque ya mismo me quedo sin costillas!” I rubbed my left ribcage to illustrate my words. Tom hovered nearby with a grim look on his face.
As soon as she opened her mouth, I knew I should have known better than to attempt to disarm a drunk Latina with a few smartass comments. Coño. She was Dominican. “¡Oh, oh! ¡Ere› tu que estas tomando to› este espacio con tu blanquito!” she spat.
Now, why did she have to go and play the race card? Poor Tom stood next to me completely unaware of this girl’s vocal disdain for the presence of a blanquito—even one as good-looking as he. If she only knew what she was saying . . . what an idiot. Sure enough, the flare lying dormant in my throat rose to barrel out of my mouth with uncontrolled vigor. A dragon spitting fire . . . ya gotta love a pissed off Puerto Rican.
“¡Mejor blanquito que borracho!” There! Take that! I’ll take my blanquito over your drunk-ass anyday!
I heard a muted groan emit from Tom’s throat as the Dominican girl’s well-muscled boyfriend stepped forward to glare down at me threateningly.
“¿Quien esta borracho? ¡E› que a la carajito esta le gusta hablai›!” he slurred.
The fool called me a bitch! Oh, hell no! I advanced towards him and raised my index finger to his face while trying to harness my wrath behind eyes squinted in fury. Before I could utter a word, Tom had stepped between the inebriated mammoth and me.
“Oy, you two . . .” he began in a calming tone. He placed his palm against the guy’s huge chest warningly. Ugh. This was not good.
At the unwanted presence of Tom’s hand on his chest, a roar emitted from the mammoth’s lips. “¡Mira, flaco ‹e mierda!”
Before I could yank Tom to safety, the mammoth’s hand reared back and shot forward to connect with Tom’s nose in a resounding crack. He landed on the floor into a jumble of legs.
“BLOODY HELL!” Tom screeched as he clutched his nose between his hands. Blood spurted from underneath his chin. My sight flashed red with rage.
Before I had a chance to pounce on the mammoth and begin beating the ever-loving crap out of him, the security guards yanked him towards the door with his loudly protesting girlfriend in tow. I crouched down and tried to pry Tom’s hands away from his face to ascertain the damage.
“Fuck!” he shouted as I unwittingly jarred his nose once more.
“I’m so sorry!” I cried. “I think it might be broken. We need to go.”
I grabbed his elbow in an attempt to hoist all six feet of him back into a standing position. A guy watching on the periphery came forward to mercifully assist. Before anyone realized whom the broken nose belonged to, I yanked Tom towards the exit in a fluster.
His eyes were blurry and squeezed shut in the pain that accompanies a nose thrashing, so I dug into his pockets to retrieve the keys to his car. I took a deep breath after shoving him into the passenger seat. God, please help me drive this thing! I pushed the key into the ignition and listened to it turn over with a roar.
A muffled groan of pain echoed from behind his hands. “He broke my bloody nose,” he muttered acerbically.
“Tilt your head back! Do you have any tissues?” I said with extreme concern. My brow was creased with worry as I scrounged around the car for some Kleenex. After finding a handful in the glove compartment, I pressed them to Tom’s face.
When he removed his hands, I saw that his nose had begun to swell grotesquely. Stifling a gasp, I bit my lower lip in horrified awareness. “Uh . . . I think we need to go to a hospital.”
“You think?” He cocked his left eyebrow at me humorlessly and grimaced at the effect the motion had on his nose. The tissues stuffed onto his face became spotted with blood.
I put the car into Drive. “Where do I go?”
“iPhone.” He leaned forward so I could pry his phone from his back pocket.
“I don’t know how to use this thing!”
“You’d better sort it out! I certainly can’t do it!” he groaned once more.
“There’s no need to be snippy!”
“I’m sorry. I must have been mistaking myself for someone with a broken nose!” he shouted. I could see a spark of annoyed humor flash in his eyes.
“Pansy.” I fumbled once more until I was able to reach the Menu part of the phone.
“There’s a mapping function in the Apps.” His tone was muffled under his hands and many layers of tissues.
“Why the hell are there so many things on this phone?” I demanded as I flipped through what appeared to be hundreds of Applications.
“Christ, I’m bleeding to death with each passing second!” he moaned exaggeratedly.
Soon, I was pressing my foot down to the floor on the accelerator as I tried to coax the car to move as quickly as possible towards our destination. The Mercedes lumbered obstinately onward like a battered tank.
Approximately one hour later, we were behind a hospital curtain in the emergency room waiting for a doctor to give us directions on how to mitigate the pain and swelling. Tom sat on the edge of the hospital bed with a cool compress against his face and stared at me through narrowed eyes that warred with varying degrees of irritation and amusement.
“You just had to pick a fight, didn’t you, Cristina?”
I pursed my lips together and lowered my gaze stubbornly. “I don’t do well with people when they’re disrespectful.”
“Pick your battles, love. Next time, I’d prefer if you didn’t pick one with a man twice my size.”
“You didn’t have to get involved. I had things under control . . . for the most part,” I murmured as an element of shame clouded my tone.
He jutted his lower lip forward mockingly and then exhaled. “Only a total wanker stands by and lets a drunken fool threaten his girl.”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled at him as I reached up to brush back his hair and check on the swelling.
“I’m sorry, Tom. I wasn’t thinking. I’ve gotten used to watching out for myself . . . and I didn’t think about what that would mean for you in this situation.”
The right side of his lips curved upward slightly. “I’d like to watch out for you too, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” I said in a small voice.
“So . . . do me a favor next time and look out for me as well.” He chuckled good-naturedly as he gestured towards his bruised nose.
I leaned forward to press a light kiss to the compress.
“I’ll do my best,” I said with a grin.
We returned to his apartment at nearly three in the morning. After administering all of the pain meds the doctor prescribed, I took a seat on a disgusting-looking futon in Tom’s bedroom.
“Seriously, you don’t have to play Florence Nightingale,” Tom murmured from his bed.
“You wish. I just want to make sure that you’re okay before I go to sleep.”
He groaned inwardly. “God, I think this is the worst headache I’ve had in a while. He smacked me with a club, not a hand!”
“This futon smells gross.”
He chuckled. “I was thrashed today on account of you, and I’m completely knackered. Let’s not say anything about the futon, eh?”
I laughed with quiet amusement. “This may be totally inappropriate given the fact that your nose is broken and you’re hopped up on drugs . . . but I had a really good time this weekend.”
He smiled with a bemused expression on his face. The bruises surrounding his nose were beginning to turn interesting shades of purple and green. “It didn’t go exactly like I planned, but . . . I’m glad you had a good time.” He yawned quickly before refocusing his gaze on me. I saw the faintest sign of a grimace cross his features right after he yawned.
I studied his battered face again and frowned in frustration. “I wish there were something I could do to make you feel better.”
He smirked at me knowingly. “I can think of a few things you could do. . . .”
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I grabbed the pillow at the end of the futon and swung it towards his feet. “Again . . . you wish.”
He laughed outright. “Honestly, you walked right into that one.” He stopped chortling long enough to narrow his eyes in utter seriousness. “You do realize . . . I’m completely falling for you.”
I inhaled sharply as he stared at me with an intense expression that caused adrenaline to course through my body. I pulled my knees under my chin to bide some time. The response of my heart never gave my mind a chance. “You do realize . . . I’ve already fallen for you.”
“I’m not staying here tonight. When I come back on Sunday, you won’t be here. Take whatever you think is yours.”
His eyes narrowed as he watched my world unravel with the gaze of a detached observer. “Don’t worry. You’ll find someone else. You’re very easy to like.”
He turned around quickly and walked down the shadowy hallway towards the door. I forced my feet to stay glued to the carpet.
Please Ryan! Don’t do this to me! Don’t destroy us!
Alone another heart-wrenching time with my anguish, I fell to the floor and dug my nails into the carpet to prevent them from clawing at my skin. Cold. Dark. Suffocating. Again, as I attempted to pry my fingers from the pilings, I felt a warmth emanating from the foyer. I tried to shift my gaze towards it and saw the light glow brighter than before . . . it reminded me of a candle flickering faintly in the wind, but refusing to go out.
The vision blurred. . . .
I breathed in swiftly to stop the pounding of my heart as I opened my eyes in Tom’s shadowy bedroom. My legs were cramped from their odd angle on the futon, but I didn’t want to risk the action of stretching them out and waking him in the process. I also didn’t want to draw any attention to myself as the tears coursed mercilessly down my cheeks with no chance of ceasing anytime soon. Frustrated, I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to stop the pain in my core from inhabiting all of my soul as it usually did. Carefully, I turned around on the futon and buried my face into it, bad smell be damned. My shoulders shook minutely with the force of the soundless sobs.
Wracked with the concentration of remaining quiet, my senses did not initially pick up on the movement around me. I felt warm hands push aside the hair cloaking my face. Soft fingers wiped at the tears, unbidden. Soon, strong arms moved under my knees and behind my neck to lift me from the futon. Blessedly, no words punctuated the silence. I was lowered into the bed, and the same sinewy arms wrapped around me like a cocoon. The scent of sandalwood and maple syrup filled my nostrils . . . the steady tears of only moments before began to fall intermittently. Lips pressed against my temple and below my ear. I hid my face in the cotton T-shirt in front of me and breathed with a semblance of normalcy. Sometimes, the strongest words are the ones left unsaid.
We were awakened to the harsh light of day by the screaming cell phone near Tom’s head.
“Hello?” he groaned. The swelling had diminished, but the ghastly bruising marred his features with stains reminiscent of an eggplant.
“Christ. Are you serious?” His eyebrows furrowed with aggravation.
“I didn’t call you because it was after one in morning!” he continued.
His teeth snapped together angrily as he listened to the ranting female voice on the other end of the phone.
“Fine. It wasn’t done with the intention of causing you trouble, Melissa.”
“I understand. No, I’m not mad. I just . . . she’s not ready for this.”
“No. Thank you. It’s fine. The doctor said the bruising would be gone in about a week.”
“Do whatever you need to do. Thanks. I’ll call you later.”
He lowered the phone from his ear and turned to look at me with a strange expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked hoarsely.
Deep in thought, he shifted his mouth to one side and brushed his thumb across my chapped lips.
“It’s all over the net.”
“What?” I muttered in confusion.
“Someone took pictures of us in the hospital, Cris. There are pictures of you with me all over the internet.” He kept stroking my face soothingly with a look of grim acceptance and tacit concern.
My mind processed his words slowly . . . and a gasp of shocked comprehension filled the air.
“Holy shit,” I whispered in horror.
Chapter Eleven
I never really paid attention to blogs or gossip before. I knew myself very well, and I had a tendency to exhibit obsessive behavior when it came to outlets for wasting time. My Facebook FarmTown in its heyday was a thing of glory. Thus, I attempted to temper these propensities by refusing to indulge them unnecessarily. Hana Fateri followed gossip rags and the blogosphere with a fervor that made me jokingly refer to her as the female reincarnate of William Randolph Hearst. Whenever I wanted to know who dumped whom and who was seen with whom, all I had to do was ask her. I knew that if I allowed myself to humor these inclinations, I would spend way too many precious moments scouring the net for cheaper versions of Emmy Rossum’s sweater or Jessica Alba’s jeans . . . whatever struck my fancy at that moment. I cut it off at the pass by never giving it a chance.
Little did I know that “yellow journalism” was more in vogue than I ever would have imagined.
Tom warned me: “Don’t look at the net. Ignore it. If you don’t, you’ll get sucked down a black hole of shite and then it’s impossible to surface for air.”
Silly rabbit. . . .
I’d like to take a moment to share a few of the standout news blurbs accompanied by grainy photographs (obviously taken with a cell phone) that shot across the World Wide Web with the speed and ferocity of a forest fire. I never thought I’d come to a place where I felt relieved at being referred to as nothing more than an “Unidentified Companion.”
Page Six: “Reigning British Heartthrob Tom seen in hospital at 2am with unnamed Latina. Could he be off the market? Horror of horrors!” Perez Hilton: “Sexy Tom Sucker-Punched? Seen in the ER with as-yet unknown goldigger girl. The bitch better not have ruined that beautiful face!”
LaineyGossip: “Brooding Eurotrash Actor Bitch-Slapped by Nameless Famewhore. Pictures taken of the cub in the hospital nursing his wounds while the lioness watches from the sidelines. Does anyone know who she is? I have cookies.”
People’s StarTracks: “Bloody Nose? Rising star Thomas Abramson seen in hospital with unidentified female companion. Treated for nose injury that forces the hunk to cancel several photo shoots and appearances.”
I’m guessing I don’t need to further iterate how craptastic this was. The entire plane ride home, I kept mentally replaying that throatily crooned line from Amy Winehouse’s song “Me and Mr. Jones”: “What kind of fuckery is this?”
The worst development of technology and “blogsip” was the advent of the public’s facility to comment in real-time on the “news.”
Let’s just say that “famewhore” and “goldigger” were some of the less virulent comments made about me by the fawning masses claiming to “love” Tom. I was truly thankful that they had yet to learn my name or anything of import beyond my existence. How could they hate me that much based on a few pictures? Why did everyone assume I was the one who hit him? Whatever happened to responsible journalism?
And now . . . for the cherry on the crapbomb sundae:
From: Melissa T. Nash
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: Cris Pereira [email protected]>
Date: Mon, May 18, 2009 at 9:28 AM
Subject: (no subject)
Cristina,
I hope this message finds you reasonably well. I do not have an endless supply of time, so I think it would serve us both if I get straight to the point.
Thus far, I have managed to loosely conceal your identity from the press. I did not necessarily do this as a service to you—given our past encounters, I know you will appreciate my candor. It will not be possible to
stave off the media for an extended period of time, especially if you insist on publicly broadcasting your relationship with Thomas.
In most careers, it should not matter what an individual chooses to do in their own time. Unfortunately, this luxury is not given to those in Thomas’s industry. At the moment, public interest is high in what he is doing in all facets of his life. His affiliation with you may produce far-reaching ramifications, and it is difficult to anticipate if they will have anything but negative repercussions—for both of you.
Given the incident from this past weekend, and its ever-growing consequences, I can only assume that you would be willing to assist me in my attempts to keep your relationship as private as possible.
As distasteful as it might seem for you to take my advice on these matters, I can assure you that I share it with the dual purpose of preventing public relations nightmares like the one from this weekend from occurring again and moving Thomas’s career forward in the best manner possible. I would prefer that he remain “single” in the eyes of the entertainment industry. He is too young, and his career is too fresh for him to risk a public display of attachment to any one woman.
Please do not go out in public with him as much as can be avoided. If you must go out in public, please do not walk with him. Please do not attempt to speak with anyone in the media about anything in your life. If you have Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, or anything of this nature, it might serve you to remove pictures of yourself from these accounts. Unflattering personal statements should be purged as well. The abuse of photos and information existing in these mediums is rampant and quick.
Passwords on email accounts should be changed frequently. Please do not use the same password for multiple accounts. Do not distribute your phone number or contact information to anyone unless it is absolutely necessary.
Your quick attention to these matters would be much appreciated.