Season 19, Episode 22 (The One With Kaye Gibbons)

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What was I thinking?

I can't do this. Am I really gonna talk to the whole world about what happened to me? And it's live, though, thankfully, not in front of an audience. That was another of my stipulations. Instead of her studio, I'm meeting with Kaye in a closed-off section of a coffeehouse. Just the two of us—and about twenty crew. Liam and I are outside in the back parking lot, waiting for everything to get set up.

I sit on the hood of Liam's car and flip through the emails I printed out. There are hundreds. Each one tells the story of someone who has been hurt either as a kid or later in life by someone like Jeremy. Right now, these words are a life raft. I'm doing this for them. So they can see me get some of my power back. So they can go out and tell their own stories.

"You ready for this?" Ellen asks, one hand gently gripping my shoulder.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Remember, she's tough. Her goal is to make you cry—you know that," she says. "And don't forget—"

"Ellen," I interrupt. "I've got it. I'm good. Seriously."

She looks from me to Liam and frowns. "Alright. See you in there."

Ellen's been taking every opportunity she can to glare at Liam, who she says is encroaching on her space. MetaReel agreed to let Liam take the lead on filming today—pretty much because they have no choice. It was either that or I didn't do the interview and we all know the interview is press it'd be stupid, from a Hollywood standpoint, to turn down.

I could get used to being in charge.

"Ready, Lex?" Liam says.

I nod and he turns on the camera. It's a nice one—the kind the crew on my show use, a real filmmaker's camera. I get a little thrill seeing him behind it, doing what he loves. There's really nothing sexier than that.

We've already discussed that I'm going to talk a bit to the camera before I go inside. Just some in-the-moment stuff. Liam starts me off.

"How are you feeling right now, Lex?" he asks. His hand moves up to the lens to focus it a bit more on me.

"I'm feeling pretty nervous," I say, making eye contact with the camera. "Not about Kaye or whatever, but about talking about something so private with someone who's essentially a stranger. Actually, someone I don't trust—like, at all."

"Tell me more about that," Liam says.

"Well, my step-dad let slip to Kaye once that Benny's gay—but this was before he was out. She had the family on the show and then, like, halfway through, she asks him point blank if there's a special guy in his life."

I shake my head, remembering the feeling I had when Kaye did that: as though an icicle had been stabbed into my stomach. I wanted to protect him, but I didn't know what to do. I could feel my whole family freeze around me. But Bens was awesome. He said, It's none of your business, but I'm gay, if that's what you're asking. That was how Benny came out.

"I was really proud of Bens for coming out, but at the time, he wasn't ready. He was trying to protect his boyfriend, Matt, whose family is super religious." I shrug. "Coming out should never be forced—that wasn't Kaye's decision, it was Benny's. But she took that away from him. So, yeah, I don't really trust Kaye."

The back door of the coffeehouse opens and a PA dressed all in black sticks her head out.

"We're ready for you, Ms. Baker," she says.

I like being Ms. Baker. It sounds like the name of an executive producer.

Liam follows me inside, camera trained on me. He films as much as he can now that his thesis is about me. Bens asked if it was weird, having him behind the camera when we're together but it's not at all. I trust him. Having that trust is something special—something I've never experienced before. The guys behind the cameras have always been on MetaReel's payroll. They were there to do what the company wanted, what Chuck or Jax or the producers told them to do. I was always trying to stay on their good side, get them to film me more than my siblings or get shots of me that made me look my best. But Liam's shooting who I am on the inside and I'm excited to see more of who that girl is. In so many ways, he's helping me to see who I am.

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