The Obscure Downsides of Fame (New Edition)

44 || words cut deep

"Can you turn it off?" I asked my mom, but she didn't. I remembered now. Fletcher and I fucked that night, and it became a regular thing after that. I didn't quit long after that. This was still this year, but early. It must've been early February.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"He didn't leak these. He's not like that," I said. Fletcher possibly knew me better than even Ava did, or Oakley before tonight. We didn't love each other as boyfriends should, but I did love him like a close friend. Our relationship was the kind that wasn't supposed to last, and we both knew it. Our relationship was one to grow from.

"You know them?"

"Yeah. Fletcher is cool. It could've been Vinny." I didn't know him very well, but Vinny didn't seem to like me very much. He was Fletcher's best friend, so I didn't see why he would leak these unless they had a fight or he needed money.

But that came with a whole different problem, because if these were from Fletcher's phone, there might've been worse pictures and videos of me out there.

"Was that all?" I asked, taking my mom's phone from her hand and scrolling further. More blurry pictures of me, but that was all. "That's all, right?"

"'That's all'? How could it possibly be worse?" my dad asked me, raising his voice. "You doing cocaine, Nolan? Is that what this is? And those needles on the table, what are those? Heroin?"

"I never used needles," I mumbled, but apparently that wasn't the right thing to say as he laughed bitterly, looking at the ceiling as he ran a hand over his face.

"Is that supposed to console me, Nolan? I don't know who you are anymore."

The words cut deep, and anger bubbled up inside me.

"Because you weren't there!" I yelled. I had never yelled quite like this.

My mom stood between us, her back towards my dad as she kept the distance, as though she was breaking up a fight, but I wasn't any less angry at her than I was at him.

It was weird seeing my parents side to side again. I hadn't seen them in the same room since I was fourteen; not for a holiday, my birthday, or even my graduation. I always got to see one of their faces, or neither. But I could see how this was the occasion that made them push through whatever hatred they'd built toward each other over the years. I just wished they would've noticed what the fuck was going on with me a lot earlier.

"It's not like I was hiding anything from either of you. It was your pot I was taking, Mom," I said, looking her straight in the eyes. "How did you not notice your fourteen-year-old sneaking around taking your weed?"

I turned to my dad next.

"The last time I saw you I was clean. The time before that, though..." I laughed. It was Christmas last year. He shot me a last minute message asking me to have dinner with him, after I'd already stuffed myself with weed-infused gingerbread cookies with whatever guy I was screwing at the time.

It was so funny how little attention they had paid to me over the years. "I thought I was busted, but then I didn't hear from you until my next birthday."

My dad's face turned so red I thought he would explode, steam coming out of his ears and all. My mom's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. I'd never spoken to them like this, but god did I feel free.

"Do you guys know anything about me at all? What are my hobbies? What are my friends' names?"

"That's enough," my mom said, reaching for a plastic bag she'd left on the salon table. "We're gonna need you to take this." She handed me a small cup, and a box with a small piece of paper were in her free hand.