The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

87

Klarise didn't smirk like she won, just smiled sadly and then glanced at me. This was the first time she let her eyes settle on me since this conversation started. She looked back at Cameron, her look fiercer.

"You know what you've done."

Cameron's suddenly quiet, his eyes fixated on the table.

Klarise continued, and before she even said it, I already knew what was to come. "Haven't you been using Maeve? And how long has it been since you've used her?"

Now he looked up. "That's to protect our family. It was for all of—"

"Say all you want to make yourself feel better, but it's just for yourself. Mason never asked you to do it for him, did he?"

"I—"

"Admit it. Who has been the whole reason that protected your ass? It's Maeve. Even in all the mess of drama out there, it's her name that is filled with the dirt, not yours. Hers. So what right do you have to say about Juno now, when for years, you've been doing the very same thing yourself? Maybe if you really cared, you would've stopped using her since the start. Yet now you're only speaking out because I'm doing a small thing to help me. Yes, I'll admit it now. But can you honestly look me in the eye and say the same thing?"

I closed my eyes, wanting to disappear. But maybe I already was, since they were talking about me like I wasn't here.

"This isn't the same thing," Cameron defended himself, his words slurred together, trying to get it out altogether in a mess. "Juno doesn't know anything, but Maeve—"

"Is it really that different?" Klarise's voice is shaking with a hinge.

"I..."

My phone rings with a text message. I open my eyes.

The two of them look toward me, but I just focus on the screen without looking up.

I tucked my phone away, getting up and pushing my chair into the table. I don't look at either of them as I do. All I wanted was to be alone and think.

"Mason can't make it today. He said to wait a couple more days to see this whole thing die down first. Until then, we shouldn't make a fuss about it."

A pause. I ran my hand through my hair, turning away and walking toward my room. I was afraid that my legs might not be able to carry me that far enough until I collapsed.

"Maeve," they both called, except I felt like I didn't know these two people in front of me anymore.

I closed the door and locked it, shutting everyone and everything out. I made it right in time, just before I crash landed onto the floor, thinking what to make of this mess and the people I loved fighting.

A COUPLE DAYS LATER, things did not die down. The word only somehow spreaded wider, farther. It felt a little like running a never-ending marathon in some way. Except an endless one, where I'm expecting the finish line, but it doesn't come. And I just keep running, watching those around me doing the very same thing, only that they looked afresh, newer; like they haven't been running and running for what felt like forever.

Not just the rumors spreading farther, but this time even other people with the same statuses at us, colleagues, fellow actors and actresses, producers, even they were talking about us. I didn't know whether or not to be happy or sad, since it had been awhile for the spotlight to shine fully on me and Cameron, rather than always on the newcomers. I sometimes would be doing something during these days, and then all of a sudden I'm not here. The next second when my consciousness does come back, minutes have already passed. I was just coexisting you could say.