Page 23 of Bombshell

She pulls me into a hug, and for a moment I feel only skin-crawling violation. No one has actually touched me since I got the news. After a moment, though, the anxiety vanishes, and I find myself sobbing into my best friend’s shoulder. By the time two large, wet spots have soaked through her jacket, I simply have no more tears inside me.

I’m a champion crier, I realize. I wonder if there’s an Olympics event for it. I’d be a shoe-in. I’d get all the best sponsorships. Kleenex. The Grand Ole Opry. I can actually see this life, complete and rounded and real, inside my head. The last week has been like that. Every black thought conjures its own reality. The future I was headed to—the one with Sterling—is gone forever. Everything feels futile. Pointless even. And worse than that? I can’t help thinking I’d always known we were doomed. I might as well acknowledge the cosmic joke in it.

“Do you think Sterling actually did it?” Her voice is tentative, but soothing.

“Who else would?” It’s the same question I keep asking myself, hoping to find an answer. “You know what would be helpful?”

“What? Anything.” She pounces on the opportunity to do something.

“What was your first thought when I told you? I mean at the exact moment you put all the pieces together.” My judgement is obviously impaired. I want someone else to tell me what kind of man Sterling is. I’m not sure I know any more.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” I’m not, though. “Gut check time.”

“I thought—he wouldn’t,” she says slowly, “but…”

“But who would ever expect anyone to do something like that?” I finish for her.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“And who else would?”

“Also that,” she agrees.

“I don’t know what to think, Poppy. It’s hard even telling you. Like, I worry—will you ever see me the same way?”

Poppy’s face bursts like a dam. It’s a strange thing, to watch someone else’s heart break for you. To watch them come apart, because your pain is just too much. “No, darling. No. No. Never. Nothing about this changes how I see you.”

“I know you love me. I know you wouldn’t abandon me. And I know you would never want it to change how you see me. It’s just, I wonder, you know? When people find out, does my name change from ‘Adair’ to ‘Adair with the sex tape?’ It’s just always there, this ugly feeling. Like an enormous monster. And to do anything—just get up and go to the bathroom—I have to pretend it’s not there, just waiting to rewrite me into a person I don’t want to be.” The last words escape through a sob, but I don’t want to feel sorry for myself. I just want her to understand.

“I will never, ever tell anyone.” Of course, Poppy understands. Of course, she does. What would I do without her? Why didn’t I share with her sooner? “And who else knows?”

“My father. My brother knows the video exists, I think, but he hasn’t seen it. Which means Ginny knows about it.” I feel queasy again.

“No one who will hurt you,” she says with a relief I don’t share, because I’m not certain she’s right. “And Sterling?”

“I had a whole day where I decided he made the video, but that he never intended for anyone to actually see it—besides my father. Basically, I convinced myself he thought the writing was on the wall, and this was his way of getting us enough money to keep us free from my family.”

“But it didn’t make you feel any better,” Poppy says knowingly.

“Worse, actually.” It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize how stupid this line of thinking was. “Because it would mean he made all the choices, used me without bothering to discuss it with me. It would mean that, whatever it is we have, it wasn’t enough to make him see what it would do to me.”

“Do you love him?” Poppy says, putting her arm around my shoulders.

It should be the biggest question of all after everything he’s done—the one that I have to consider. But I don’t. “Yeah. With all my heart. No question.”

She sighs like she was hoping for another answer. “I thought so.”

“But how do you tell if someone loves you back? I thought I knew…” I trail off. It’s too raw, and I’m too full of self-loathing. Another step in that direction and I feel like I’ll fall through a hole I’ll never claw free from.

“You always know, deep down,” Poppy says, her voice suddenly small and sad. “My dad loves my mom. My mom doesn’t love him, I think. And Cyrus doesn’t—”

“Of course he does, he just—”

“No, it’s fine. He doesn’t love me yet.” Poppy’s face brightens, and I recognize the signs of someone taking my mom’s advice and making diamonds. “You can grow to love someone. And Cyrus is the one for me. He just fell in love with himself first. He’ll get there. He just needs to grow up some more.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”