I tried to listen to Harris. I tried to dismiss Michael as a dinosaur jerk. But then the mic squawked again.
The PA mouthed I’m sorry and walked away. I tried to smile back at the PA, but all I could think about was the fact that I’d somehow kissed wrong. And everyone knew it.
My stomach clenched. What should have been a seminal moment had become my most embarrassing one. The set, which usually felt cavernous, was now claustrophobic. The lights above, which usually barely made a dent in the subzero temps of the set, suddenly felt warmer than sunlight. I thought I was imagining it, but I could see perspiration forming on Reid’s brow. The lights flickered when I looked back at him.
“Hey, we’ve got this,” he said with a reassuring smile that only increased my anxiety. I looked away. I did not want him to pity me.
The lights went out again as our director, Marnie, called “action,” but when my lips were supposed to meet Reid’s again, I felt my stomach sink, and the world was suddenly on fire.
Well, not the whole world, the set.
When I opened my eyes, Reid was already on his feet and grabbing my hand. I let him pull us away from the flames.
The fire alarm went off, and Marnie began yelling for everyone to get out of the building.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
While we were standing outside in front of the studio, fire trucks blaring, I could already hear the sound of cameras shuttering.
It was TMZ or ET or E! or some other show known only by letters. Behind them was the usual collection of fans carrying signs declaring their love for Reid. There were also a few signs rooting for our coupledom, both on-screen and off. Some part of my heart lifted at the sight of my name linked with his—ReGam forever!!! RhiWolfe Afire.
Today notwithstanding, my character and I and the fans had come a long way since I was cast two years ago. Then there had been an onslaught of tweets that felt a million times more painful than this morning’s embarrassing moment. When it was announced that a brown girl was playing the blonde, blue-eyed protagonist of the New York Times bestselling YA series Eternal Damned, my notifications blew up with threats, insults, and calls for a boycott of the TV series.
I read the tweets over and over again. To add insult to injury, there was a flash flood on the way home from school just as I stumbled on the tweets. My driver and I barely escaped the car, and I wound up with a sprained wrist. Even as the doctor put a cast on my arm, I couldn’t stop looking at my feed. I knew the script. I’d seen it happen before with everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter. Fandoms could be cruel fandoms. But there had been no way to predict what it felt like to have the hate scroll on your screen, pinging at regular intervals. The words stung even though I knew better. Even though I knew they were ignorant. Even though I knew they weren’t true.
I stayed quiet at the instruction of my publicist. At the advice of my mother. At the insistence of Michael. Michael was the one who engaged first, defending the choice to cast me, defending my talent. Even though I knew he didn’t really believe in me.
But it was Reid’s single tweet that stopped the hate storm.
Gamine is the best thing ever to happen to Rhiannon, to me, and to the show.
And just like that, the tide turned, and I got more tweets congratulating me than wanting me dead.
When he came to my apartment to make sure I was okay, I didn’t feel grateful to him, but angry. A single tweet from him had calmed the internet waters. I hated that his endorsement mattered and my words, my being didn’t. And I hated that I had to explain that to him.
I liked that he noticed I was upset, and that he acknowledged that he saw the difference in the way we were treated, but knew that he couldn’t understand what it felt like to be me. At least he wanted to.
“Ignore them,” Reid insisted now, not even looking toward the photographers. He took a blanket from one of the paramedics and began to unfold it, but his eyes were still on me.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Michael’s a jerk . . .”
“At least he can’t say it wasn’t hot anymore,” I offered awkwardly.
“Gam . . .” he said, his voice laced with so much pity it nearly broke me. “If I had known it was your first time, I never would have. . . . we could have . . . practiced.”
I could feel my cheeks warm. I dragged my fingers through my curls before tucking them behind one of my ears like I did when I was nervous.
“Hey, it’s okay . . .” he said, pulling me closer to him, using the blanket we shared.
“I just thought you’d only want to have to do it on set.” Said no girl ever.
He was freaking Reid Hamilton, and even though I was a star in my own right I was not immune to his obvious charms. Neither was the rest of America under thirty-five.
“Was I that bad at it?” I asked.
“You were great. It was great. But I wish you’d told me you’d never . . .”
“It’s embarrassing. I’m sixteen.”
“I think it’s sweet . . .”
“Right,” I said.
“Hey, you know that there’s a difference between an on-screen kiss and one off-screen—” he began.
“Yeah, Michael totally explained that to me,” I countered.
“You’ve seen them yourself—the kiss for the cameras is for the cameras. It’s about making sure that it looks passionate, but at the exact same time, it’s about making sure that the camera gets our best angles. It’s not real. It’s not true.”
I heard what he said, but it was still my lips on his. My heart beating in my ears. It felt real—even if it wasn’t to him.
“That wasn’t your first kiss, that was Rhiannon’s,” he said. I was struck by how long his lashes were and how insanely beautiful and brown and deep his eyes were. When I looked into them, everything and everyone else fell away. He didn’t have the square jaw that the other boys on the show had. His face was thin and long and punctuated with a dimple on his left cheek that shot through me every time he smiled. His wavy hair, usually pinned down with gel, was mussed in the hasty exit from the studio. “Whenever you have your first, whoever has it with you will be lucky.”
Shows like Hearts Eternal were way stations on the way to the big screen, but Reid was all humility. He didn’t seem to take his fame for granted, even though the whole world seemed ready for him to make his big-screen break. For some reason he kept turning down every movie script his agent brought him. He always had an excuse. Too close to Hearts Eternal. Too far from his range. I teased him about being Goldilocks looking for something perfect. But I secretly wondered if maybe it had all been too easy for him. Maybe he was scared life wouldn’t be the same once he got out of the Hearts Eternal nest.