Now and Forever

I see hunger in their eyes. Desire. They know Ethan has a girlfriend. They know his girlfriend is sitting right here. But they don’t care. They would get with him in a second. Even if it meant he’d be cheating on me.

  After the taping, I wait in Ethan’s dressing room for him to wrap it up. Georgia comes back from the bathroom. She’s all flushed.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Totally,” Georgia says, breathless. She’s carrying some 8-by-10 glossy photos of Ethan.

  “What just happened?”

  “Nothing. Ethan gave me some signed pictures.”

  “For who?”

  “My friends.”

  “Which friends?”

  “Just . . . some girls from school.”

  “Who?”

  Georgia can’t even look at me. “Kelsey, Markita, and Ravyne.”

  “What? Why?” Georgia knows I hate it when she bothers Ethan for signed swag. Or asks me to bother him. I can’t believe she went behind my back. And for those bitches? What the hell?

  “They’re being a lot nicer to me. Kelsey is friends with Kurt. She said she’d talk to him for me.” Georgia is fussing with her coat and bag. She still can’t look at me. “Anyway. Ethan didn’t even mind. It’s no big deal.”

  “No big deal? Since when is harassing my boyfriend like an obsessed fangirl no big deal?”

  “Um, I wasn’t harassing him. I asked him for three signed photos. Calm down.”

  “Can’t you see that Kelsey’s using you? She’s only talking to Kurt to get access to Ethan.”

  “No, she’s not. She’s friends with Kurt. She said she thinks he wants to be exclusive. He just needs a push.”

  “Have you completely forgotten how horrible she’s been to you? And Markita and Ravyne? If you’re going to bother Ethan for swag, you could at least do it for people who don’t treat you like dirt.”

  “It’s not like that anymore. They’re different now.”

  “Because they’re using you!”

  “Or maybe they’re sorry for how they treated me. People can change.”

  Can they? Can three girls who’ve snubbed Georgia every chance they got suddenly want to be friends? Whatever. Everyone wants something from Ethan. Even my friends. Can I really blame Georgia for wanting the same thing everyone else wants?

  “What do you care if Kelsey wants to be friends with me anyway?” Georgia says. “At least she’s helping me with Kurt.”

  “I could talk to Kurt if you want.”

  “That would be weird.”

  “Why? If I was having a problem with Ethan and you offered to help me, I’d totally let you.”

  “Why do you always have to bring the conversation back to Ethan?”

  “What?”

  “Why is everything always about you and Ethan?”

  “It’s not.”

  “Really? Because I’ve been trying to talk to you forever.”

  “I’ve asked you a bunch of times what’s wrong. You never told me.”

  “You’re always too busy. Or too obsessed with whatever’s going on with Ethan. I never get a chance to really talk to you anymore. Not like we used to.”

  “I’m sorry. But we’re talking now. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Why is it that you get the amazing boy and the amazing life and I’m still struggling with Kurt who won’t commit? It must be nice not to have problems.”

  “Of course I have problems. I hardly ever see Ethan anymore. I’m lucky if he picks up when I call.”

  “That’s hardly a problem.”

  “How can you say that to me? You know it’s been hard having him away all the time. This is my boyfriend we’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, Ethan’s your boyfriend, I know. The whole world knows. But the world doesn’t revolve around you guys.”

  “Don’t take your jealousy issues out on me. You could have told me what was wrong a million times.”

  “If you really cared, you’d be making more time for me. The second Ethan started blowing up was when you started ignoring me.”

  “How have I ignored you?”

  “How many times have you canceled plans with me in the past month?”

  True, I’ve had to reschedule hanging out with her a few times. Between going on tour with Ethan and makeup work for school, it’s been crazy.

  “You’re right,” I say. “I’m sorry I had to cancel. But it wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you. You can always talk to me.”

  “Not really,” Georgia says. “Not anymore.”

  I try to think of what I could say to convince Georgia that I’m still here for her. That I always will be. But too many promises have already been broken. I don’t want to risk breaking another one.

  31

  [12,919,007 FOLLOWERS]

  The security is so fierce at Ethan’s Los Angeles show that the bouncer is refusing to let me go backstage.

  “I’m on the list,” I tell him.

  “Sterling?”

  “Yeah.”

  He checks the list again. “Not seeing a Sterling.”

  “But Ethan put me on the list.”

  “Why don’t you repeat yourself one more time? That’ll probably make your name magically appear.”

  “I’m Ethan’s girlfriend.”

  “You and the twenty-five thousand other girls here. Move aside, miss.”

  “But—”

  “She’s with me.” Damien swoops in behind me on his way backstage. “She’s legit.”

  No apology from the bouncer. He just lets me pass.

  “Thank you,” I tell Damien.

  “That’s guy’s a tool. He was even trying to block Zeke.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Less stuffy. More drained.”

  Damien has been fighting a cold. We’ve talked a few times since I called him last week. Damien is supersweet. When we talk, it’s like he’s genuinely interested in me. He asks lots of questions about what’s going on in my life. I’ve never met anyone like him. I love talking to him. He always makes me feel better. Even when he’s not feeling well.

  “Are they giving you any time off?” I say. “You’d get better a lot faster if you could rest.”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening.”

  “Does Ethan know you’re sick?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Backup roadies aren’t part of the package. But one of the guys is mostly covering for me tonight until after the show. I think he felt sorry for me when I drank the drowsy kind of cough syrup by mistake.”

  Damien walks me to Ethan’s dressing room. Drew, Stefan, and Gage are chilling with some friends they invited. Sound check ended a few minutes ago. I don’t see Ethan anywhere.

  “Where’s Ethan?” I ask Drew.

  “Wardrobe malfunction. Aixa snatched him away like a ninja in the night.”

  “Then he has an interview,” Gage says.

  “Two interviews,” Stefan adds. “HBO is doing that backstage behind-the-scenes thing.”

  “We’ll be here the whole time,” Gage tells me. “Not being interviewed. In case you were wondering.”

  The guys look at me. I remember Damien’s theory about them looking.

  “Want to come hang with me?” Damien asks.

  Roaming around backstage was exciting at first. But it can get pretty boring while I’m waiting for Ethan to finish up with the bazillion things he has to do before he can say hi to me for three seconds. When there’s nothing to do between sound check and the show, time can really drag.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Now I don’t have a dressing room or anything, but . . .” Damien leads me past the craft service station and crates of equipment to a big, round table. Chairs are haphazardly scattered around. “Welcome to my office.”

  “I love what you’ve done with the place. It’s very . . . spacious.”

  “Thanks. I was going for homey but eclectic with a hint of industrial.” Damien pulls one of the aluminum chairs out from the table. “Care to sit?”


  I sit.

  “Would you like a beverage?”

  “Beverages, yet. This is almost nicer than flying first-class.”

  “Almost?”

  “They give you warm cookies in first class. And real silverware. And you get as many drinks as you want.”

  “So? You get as many drinks as you want right here.”

  “I didn’t realize the backstage roadie area was so fancy.”

  “We learn something new every day.”

  “Tell me something new about you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . . you never talk about your parents.”

  “That’s the opposite of new. That’s old. Old and boring.”

  “Not to me. I don’t know anything about your family.”

  Damien brings drinks over from a cooler. He sits down right next to me even though there are lots of chairs. “I don’t have a family. Technically I have parents. But I don’t talk to them. Not since everything shattered three years ago and I moved out.”

  I wait for Damien to tell me what happened. He just draws patterns in the condensation ring under his can of orange soda. I’m dying to know what happened. What could be so horrible to make someone move out at seventeen?

  “Where would you live?” Damien asks me. “If you could live anywhere in the world?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t traveled much. My mom’s been everywhere, though. She tells me about her trips. Europe sounds beautiful. Italy seems like a place I could live. Or Paris.”

  “What do you like about those places?”

  “They sound beautiful. And relaxing. My mom says that when people go out for coffee in Paris, they sit at the table for like two hours. They don’t gulp their coffee driving down the street like Americans do.”

  “We forget to breathe,” Damien says.

  “Yeah. We really do.”

  “People are so focused on the next thing. They don’t take time to be in the moment.”

  “The Now.”

  Damien smiles. “Exactly.”

  “I can’t take credit for the Now. My friend Marisa thought of it.”

  “She sounds cool.”

  “She is.” I remember how focusing on enjoying the Now helped Marisa deal with her anxiety issues. She’s so much calmer this year. She’s like a totally different person.

  “What were we talking about on the phone last time?” Damien asks. “We were in the middle of something and I had to go.”

  “Shonda’s move.” Shonda is Damien’s older sister. She just moved into a new apartment.

  “Oh, yeah! I wanted to give you more evidence for my higher intelligence theory.”

  “You don’t have to. But I’m listening.”

  “So check it. Shonda’s movers had stacked all of her boxes in the living room in these towering piles. After they left, she was trying to find the boxes with her soap and towels so she could take a shower. One of the boxes on the bottom collapsed and a whole tower of boxes almost came crashing down on her.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “She was standing there pushing up against the boxes. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to hold them up for much longer. Just when she was thinking she’d have to step aside and let all the boxes fall, her doorbell rang.”

  “How could she get the door?”

  “She couldn’t. She yelled that the door was open. And in comes a delivery guy with her new lamp. He could have delivered it anytime that day. But it was at that very second when Shonda needed help the most that he showed up.”

  “Wow. She was lucky.”

  “I think there’s more to it than luck. Out of all the possible times that day he could have delivered the lamp, he rang Shonda’s bell when she desperately needed help. She would have been crushed under those boxes if it weren’t for him. I’m telling you. There’s some force out there bigger than all of us. Bigger than we could ever imagine.”

  The possibility of a mysterious force playing us like game pieces blows my mind.

  “There’s so much more to this life than we know,” Damien continues. “There’s a lot we know we don’t know, but there’s so much we don’t know we don’t know.”

  “Like when you’re thinking about someone and they call you that second?”

  “Yes! Stuff like that happens to me so often I don’t even think it’s weird anymore.”

  “Or the song you were playing in your head comes on the radio? How can those things be random coincidences?”

  Damien leans back in his chair. “You get me. You totally get me.”

  We look at each other in silence. We don’t need to say anything.

  The guy who’s been covering for Damien comes over to tell us the show’s starting in fifteen minutes. I can’t believe we’ve been sitting here for over two hours. Time always zooms by with Damien. Talking to him on the phone for an hour feels like five minutes. Sitting with him here tonight went by in a flash.

  Of course I’m excited for Ethan’s show. But part of me wishes I could stay and talk to Damien a little longer.

  32

  [13,158,525 FOLLOWERS]

  Vintage convertible. Top down.

  Ethan driving down Cali Route 1. Sterling in the passenger seat, flip-flops pressed against the dash.

  Wind in our hair. Radio blasting. Singing along to one of our favorite songs.

  We could be filming Ethan’s new video. But we’re not. This is real life. And I intend to enjoy every second of it.

  Ethan was very specific about the kind of car he wanted to rent. He asked Zeke to find a 1953 Corvette Convertible from a private renter. The year was of critical importance. Must be a guy thing. I’d be happy in any convertible.

  We’re surrounded by remote fields of tall grass. We’re completely alone. I haven’t seen another car in a long time.

  Ethan pulls over into a switchback. “How awesome is this?” he says.

  “I know.”

  “Do you? Do you know how amazing it is to spend time with you alone?” He kisses me. “Let’s walk.”

  We get out of the car. Ethan holds my hand. We walk out into the field. The air is so fresh. Even the temperature is perfect. I can’t feel where my skin ends and the air begins.

  “It’s so quiet,” Ethan says. The only sound is wind rustling the willowy tall grass. There are no houses. No cars. Just us.

  We find a clearing in the tall grass. When we lie on our backs still holding hands, all we can see are grass and sky.

  “This is better than a massage,” Ethan says.

  “This is better than anything,” I say.

  “Anything?” Ethan props himself up on one elbow. He slowly leans down to kiss me, his lips lightly touching mine. “Even this?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  He kisses me some more. I wish we could stay out here forever.

  No screaming fans.

  No deranged stalkers.

  Just us.

  But today is our only chance to do what we want. And there’s more we want to do. Eventually we drag ourselves back to the car.

  “I don’t want to leave,” I say.

  “We’ll be back.”

  “When?”

  “Someday. This is only the beginning.”

  When Ethan promises that there’s so much more to come with us, my worry fades away. I love when he’s in a contemplative mood like he is today. On the way to Santa Monica, he fills me in on how his dad’s finally accepting the path Ethan’s chosen.

  “So my dad’s admitting he was wrong and I’m like, ‘Where was your support when I needed it?’ Apologizing doesn’t erase all the times he told me I was ruining my life. There were so many times I needed him that he wasn’t there for me. And now he wants to act like his lame behavior doesn’t matter? Mom was there for me all along. What’s Dad’s excuse?”

  I look out the window to stop myself from saying something stupid like At least you have a dad. I know how much his dad’s disappointment has hurt Ethan. This
isn’t about me.

  When we get to the Santa Monica Pier, Ethan grabs a bag from the backseat. He takes out sunglasses and a baseball cap. He asked me what I wanted to do today when we were talking after the show last night. I said I wanted to ride the Ferris wheel. So here we are. Ethan puts on his hat and shades before we get out of the car. I put on my oversized black sunglasses.

  If I ever live in Los Angeles, I would want to live near the Santa Monica Pier. The energy here is so peaceful. It reminds you to appreciate the little things. The little things are making me happy today. Being here in the warm sunlight at the same time it’s freezing back home. Walking on the pier toward the Ferris wheel, holding hands with Ethan, joking about how this one group of seagulls looks like old men.

  Then it happens. We’re almost at the Ferris wheel. Two girls are walking toward us licking ice-cream cones. One of them looks at Ethan. Her eyes widen. Her mouth opens.

  “Oh my god, that’s Ethan Cross!” she screams to her friend. They start shrieking so loudly everyone on the pier turns to look.

  I miss the days when we could go anywhere and do anything. Now Ethan has to hide behind a costume to do the simplest things. And even then he gets found out.

  As always, Ethan is good to his fans. He takes pictures with them. The girl who recognized him is shaking so hard she drops her ice-cream cone.

  “You were freaking awesome last night!” she raves. “We had seventh-row floor seats. You looked right at me twice!”

  “Thanks for being there,” Ethan says.

  The girls glance at me before going off to post their pictures. That usually happens. Ethan’s fans will look at me, but very few of them speak to me directly.

  The thing about spotting celebs in LA or New York is that people who live there pretend not to notice. They might turn to stare at someone famous if they pass them on the sidewalk. But they don’t run after them for a picture or anything. Fortunately most of the people chilling on the pier seem to be from here. They let me and Ethan go to the Ferris wheel without swarming him.

  After a few times around on the Ferris wheel, our car stops right at the top. The ocean extends forever from up here. Sunlight sparkles on the water like glitter. As it did when we were lying in that field of tall grass, time stops just for us.