Page 61 of Hidden with a Rockstar
The whole walk over they pepper me with questions I dodge, buzzing with the specific delight of being finally, let in. Ravita keeps side-eyeing me like I might bolt. I don’t.
Marnie makes a sound I have never heard a human being make.
“That’s—” Ravita’s hand comes up. Points. Drops. Comes up again. “That is Jani Anderson. That is—Lena. LENA. Why is Jani Anderson in your apartment?”
“Because she’s my sister,” I say.
Silence.
“Hi,” Jani says—not getting up, and smiles. “So you’re the two who’ve hanging out with my sister for years.”
I roll my eyes, because Jani's only ever this cool with people who aren't me.
What happens next is loud. There is screaming. There is Marnie sitting down on my floor because her legs have stopped working. There is Ravita saying “YEARS”. And there is my sister—gracious and famous—answering their questions and signing Marnie’s phone case and being, for once, allowed to be a whole person in the same room as my whole life.
And there’s me, in the middle of it, holding nothing back and hiding no one, watching everyone I love collide, and finding that it doesn’t end the world.
Later, when they’ve gone home hoarse and glowing, I text Rhonda: I told my friends everything. And they met Jani.
A pause. The dots cycle. Rhonda: How did that go?
Me: A lot of screaming but it was great.
Rhonda: Good.
And in that one word, I feel it. I feel myself becoming visible again.
CHAPTER 16
THE COTTAGE MIRROR
Sandy and Erica are on the porch, and I can't look away.
Sandy is holding Erica's coffee while Erica fixes her scarf. The frost sits on the railing. The morning is cold and grey and Sandy is laughing at something Erica said, and Erica is looking up at with an expression full of love. Sandy's hand rests on Erica's hip. They look picture perfect together. Ana is taking photos of them for social media.
They aren’t even together. It’s an arrangement—the label’s idea, a fake romance to bury Sandy’s scandal under something wholesome, and I’m the one who helped set it up. Even their lie is more honest than the truth I’ve got with Lena.
I want that with Lena. I want to hold her coffee and fix her scarf. I want to be visible with her.
I go up to my room and lock the door. I pick up my bass and sit on the bed and play the low notes—the ones that vibrate through the wood and into my ribs. I play for twenty minutes without looking at my phone, without monitoring the time, without worrying about who might hear.
The room fills with sound. The thought arrives during the sustain, hanging in the air with the resonance of something true that I can't unsay:
I’ve hidden Lena like a dirty secret, and pretended I was protecting her.
I set the bass down. I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling for an hour. I think about the moment I asked Lena to be private. I said it was about protecting our privacy. But I was protecting myself.
And now Lena is looking at me and seeing exactly what I've done to her.
The next morning I get up and go to the kitchen. Everyone else is asleep. I make coffee and watch the frost melt on the porch railing. Sandy and Erica will be up soon. They'll probably hold hands while they drink coffee.
I want to be with Lena.
That evening—the first evening we’ve had power since the storm knocked it out for two days—we celebrate the finished track with too much wine. The room is full of aftermath: cables coiled on the floor, and snacks everywhere.
I’m on the floor with a glass of red, when Jo clears her throat.
“So. The publicist called. The scandal isn’t dying fast enough for them.” She looks at Sandy. “They want you to prove you can commit to a person. They want you to fake-date someone.”
