Don’t Be in Love

37

Don’t Underestimate Your Public Relations

Degree — Adelaide

The photo of Dorian and Victoria spread like ink in water. And it had only been twenty-four hours.

Dorian Blackwood Off the Market.

There wasn’t a celebrity news outlet that wasn’t talking about it. Meaning I had been subjected to seeing the photos enough times to know the exact shade and brand of Victoria’s lipstick.

I should be checking my email, waiting on Beverly’s response. But the inside of my brain was frozen on a silent movie frame. Dorian and Victoria’s name appeared in a static sparkle that wouldn’t let me look away.

When I wasn’t thinking about them, I was thinking about all the women he had been with and how I sized up to them. The ones with the wealthy families and built-in careers. Was I some charity case? An experiment?

It wasn’t until I got into bed that night that I allowed myself to cry again.

I didn’t even feel sad. I was infuriated. Tears just happened to slip out in between.

But the worst part of all, was that I missed him.

I hated him. But I missed him.

I missed the way he squeezed my palm in the rain. I missed the way the umbrella shook above our heads when I made him laugh. I missed the way his voice deepened when he said my name. The way he leaned into me when I spoke. The way he held me even when we were arguing. The way he openly told me about his life like it was a collection of buried diary entries no one else had read.

I missed the way he liked me.

A knock sounded at my bedroom door.

“Go away, Mia,” I responded, my face shoved in my tear-stained pillow.

The door creaked open anyway.

“Hey,” I said annoyed, sitting up quickly.

Swaddled in a blanket, she intruded anyway, slipping into bed beside me. She greeted me with a horror-stricken face.

My heart sank. “What is it?”

“You need to see this.” She handed me her phone. I rubbed my wet eyelashes.

This couldn’t be real. A trick of the eye. The lack of natural light in the room. It had to be.

“Please tell me we’re both imagining this.”

“It was published an hour ago,” she responded.

What Mia wasn’t saying was that it was published by one of the largest tabloids in London.

One of the largest tabloids in London just published a photo of Dorian and me .

Well, I knew it was me because I was there, in that telephone booth on Christmas Eve. Our only witnesses our shadows. And my guilt.

As for everyone else in the UK, they were seeing this photo for the first time. A photo of Dorian Blackwood kissing an unidentifiable girl.

Mia stared at me as if I was contemplating taking scissors to the front of my hair to give myself bangs.

“I’m not going to freak out.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m not because … because you can’t tell that’s me since my back is to the camera, so it’s fine,” I convinced myself.

“It is?”

I closed my eyes in a pathetic attempt to meditate the situation away. “It is.”

“So you don’t want to read the article?”

My eyes shot open, and I picked the phone back up.

“Dorian Blackwood is back to his old ways again, spotted with a new lover. However, her identity is unknown. He was seen on Christmas Eve kissing a brunette in London in a phone box. Blackwood is pictured clearly kissing a short brunette, her back to the camera.

This comes just hours after a photo was released of Dorian Blackwood and Victoria Sutton kissing the same night, the photos taken only four hours apart. We can confirm these were taken the same day in accordance with our source. We were already aware of Dorian Blackwood’s dating habits, but what we really care about is finding out who the brunette is.”

I had never seen so many pictures of the back of my head, but it looked like I needed to do a better job at straightening my hair.

I handed the phone back to Mia. “It’s like Halloween all over again, and people forgot about that too. This will blow over. But right now, no one knows that’s me, so I just need to stay away from him to avoid any possibility of people making a connection, and we’ll be fine.”

“You’re being awfully calm.”

“Would you rather I have a mental breakdown? Because I already did that.”

She picked her phone up, looking at the pictures again. “At least I get a visual from the story now.”

I took my pillow and whacked her.

She laughed, falling backward. I followed the motion, lying beside her.

“You never told me what happened after you guys kissed. Did he say anything?” she asked the ceiling.

I exhaled. “He told me he cared for me.”

“Do you believe him?” The pillowcase rustled as she looked at me.

“I don’t. Not anymore.” The ceiling’s closed mouth in the form of a white crack stared at me. It told me I was an idiot. Or at least that’s how I felt.

“Do you want to know what I think?”

“I assume you’re going to tell me whether or not I say yes.”

“I believe him. And I think he’s probably been meaning to say much more than that for a while.”

I smooshed the side of my face into my duvet, looking at her. “Then why was he with Victoria on Christmas Eve, too?”