Coralen and Laura resumed dating a few weeks after going to have breakfast. Although Laura wasn't completely sure if the word she should be using would be resume as they hadn't dated in eleven years. In the eyes of the world, Coralen was dating a musician. A singer/songwriter she'd met at some awards six months ago. His name was Elliot something. Laura knew of him, but she wasn't really into slow, sweet, I'll-dedicate-that-song-to-my-girlfriend- type of music. As Laura had to go to interviews and travel a lot, they would go back and forward on who was travel to see whom.
All things considered, it wasn't going too bad for them. They talked, a lot. They laughed, a lot. They went to see movies, have dinner, walk on the beach and all those things that people do when they first start dating. Everything seemed well enough. Except for one tiny little detail. She wouldn't say it out loud. Even when Dunlop asked, she'd say "Nah, I'm fine. I mean, yeah, I think about it sometimes, but then, meh". That was the answer she gave, but she knew it wasn't a hundred percent honest. She was just acting the way she thought people would expect her to act. Normal. Reality was, she couldn't get Colbie out of her head. Not for long periods of time anyway.
But she couldn't tell that to anyone. Lock wasn't there anymore, and she didn't feel like calling him and telling him everything because she knew what her brother would say. 'You did what, Laura?' and 'Jesus, you're a fucking waker.' And apart from him, she didn't trust anyone enough to open up about how she was really feeling. About how it hurt when it hurt. How she missed her when she missed her.
Ironically, the only person she trusted enough to open up about Colbie, was Colbie.
She and Colbie weren't precisely in speaking terms. Of course, they talked. They had to. They worked together. But beside the 'this is what you can say, this is what the contract says you can talk about' and 'please refrain from speaking about this' there wasn't really much else they talked about. Colbie kept a marked distance that hurt Laura deeply and seeing her every day meant she couldn't give herself time to forget about the writer. She thought they could stay in touch, be part of each other's life. Make things easy. Instead, Colbie ripped off the band-aid.
As well as things were going with Coralen, she was still not Colbie. And the reality was, she'd never connected with anyone on the same level she connected with Colbie.
Things just kept getting worse. Things had been easy in the beginning. Laura wasn't thinking about Colbie too much, she wasn't waisting hours regretting or cursing at herself. She felt even good about the decision. But as weeks went by, it became worse. She began to miss her, really miss her. So the only way to continue being half-way functional was distracting herself, which was working until something else happened... If Laura believed in God, she'd have thought it was divine retribution.
It happened in New York, where Laura had the misfortune of running into Coralen's fake boyfriend. The guy was everything Coralen had told her. Arrogant, playboy, kind of stupid, but pretended to have a good heart to please the fans. They ran into each other at a cafeteria close to Laura's hotel. She was taking Kathy there as the actress had only just arrived in the States two weeks ago to do her respective interviews. The more interviews they did, the more they wanted to talk to the actors and the less they wanted to talk to Laura, which was perfect with her. She'd forgotten how much she actually hated fame.
Coralen's boyfriend, Elliot was a tall, black-haired guy with a smile as fake as his relationship to Coralen and not a single hair out of place. Laura hadn't seen him until he walked up to them to say hello. Even after he did, Laura didn't know who he was.
"Sorry, do I know you?" Laura said looking away from Kathy.
"That's kind of rude, is it?" Laura frowned, truly puzzled by the man standing next to their table. "I'm Elliot Dimond. I'm Corie's boyfriend."
Laura felt like laughing and replying 'Ha, ha, no you're not', but she stopped herself. The 'Corie' thing really bothered her.
"Oh, a pleasure to meet you." A bigger pleasure would be to un-meet you and pretend you don't exist, Laura thought.
"Yeah, Corie talks a big deal about you. I'm almost jealous."
This is when Laura first though, he knows... maybe. "Ah, thanks. She talks about you, too."
Actually, she didn't talk that much about Elliot since there wasn't much to tell. They went out to have lunch or party every now and then so that paps could take pictures of them together and keep pretending they were a beautiful couple. But apart from 'He's a bit of a dick, kind of arrogant, a tiny bit immature', she didn't really say anything else.
"That's good news. She's in LA, right?"
"As far as I know... You'd probably know better than me though"
"After all, I'm her boyfriend... right?"
Alright, he definitely knows, she told herself. "Uhm, last time I checked, yeah."
"Great," he gave her a fake smile and added, "Anyway. It was awesome meeting you. Hope to see you soon!"
Then he left, and that was the end of that weird encounter. Kathy asked who he was and Laura gave her a vague response. Things didn't start until a week later when Laura and Kathy were giving an interview. They were answering questions in a famous radio broadcast in New York City that had already lasted 30 minutes or so. The questions were the usual. How does it feel to be playing Laura Spafford? How does it feel to work with the person playing you in a movie? Do you guys get along in real life? Are you guys similar in real life? Same old questions.
But then, halfway through the interview, someone tapped on the glass separating the cabin from the recording section. The person who'd tapped the glass asked one of the guys doing the interview to come outside so they could talk. Laura noticed and immediately got a bad feeling. The interviewer stepped back in and sat next to the other guy handing her a piece of paper. Kathy was in the middle of answering a question while the guy read the piece of paper. After finishing they smiled at each other and waited for Kathy to stop talking. Then, they looked directly at Laura.
"So, Laura. You were in a movie with amazing actress Coralen Lawton over ten years ago, right?"
What is this, Laura thought. "Uh, yeah... I don't understand how that's important to—"
The guy interrupted. "Can you please confirm if you guys had sex while you were still a minor?"
What. the. fuck. Holy crap. Laura was in shock. So was Kathy who turned to her and said, "Hey, guys, don't you think that's a bit out of boundaries?"
"You mean like Coralen was?" One of the guys said.
What the hell are you talking about?" Laura was finally able to formulate.
"Well, there's a recording going around on the internet of you saying that you were kinda dating while you were on the set of Pyjama's Children. Correct me if I'm wrong but at the time you were only fifteen and she was like, what? twenty-one? twenty-two?"
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Then, not happy with that, they started bombarding Laura with very inappropriate questions. "Was it consensual? Is Coralen a lesbian? Did she fuck you up? I mean, we're just looking out for you. She wouldn't be the first sexual predator in the industry, you know? We gotta put a lid on that. Let them know they can't get away with these kinds of things".
Laura felt like she was about to pass out. She stood up along with Kathy, they walked to the end of the halls and towards the exit. Once outside, she puked on the pavement. The last thing they needed was Laura getting on another scandal for puking on the pavement, even if that was a result of a panic attack, so Kathy took her jacket off and covered Laura so no one recognized her. They got into a cab and asked the driver to just keep going.
As they kept driving, Laura pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked for it. There it was. Everywhere. It was the only thing anyone could talk about. Apparently, twenty minutes before that, a recording had leaked. A recording of her conversation with Colbie back when they were gathering information to make the movie. In that recording, Laura talked about everything and there was not much room for doubt.
"Oh, dear God," Kath murmured. "What now?"
"The hotel. We need to talk to Ivan. New famous lesson number one. This is why we pay our managers. To make this kind of shit not our problem. God, I need to call Coralen." Laura hadn't finished saying that sentence when her phone rang. It was her. "Len? God, I'm so sorry."
"What the hell's going on, Laura?! Tabloids are talking about me being a sexual predator. I mean... I mean... I didn't... Did?"
"What?"
"Hurt you..."
"What? Of course not! Listen to me. I don't know who the hell did this but I promise, I swear... we're gonna figure this out, okay?"
"Alright, I'm grabbing the first flight to NYC. I can't be in LA right now and I need to see you."
"Of course. I'll be at the hotel sorting everything out. It'll be fine. I promise."
"Okay. I believe you, but... God, how did this happen?"
That was the million dollar question, and Laura was going to turn every rock to find out how this happened.