The Diary of Our Love

Chapter 29

The next morning, I woke up really soon. Knowing James was in another room had left me wide awake most of the time. I could barely sleep and around 8 am I could no longer keep my eyes shut. As I could not hear any noise coming from my guest's room, I assumed James was still sleeping, so I decided to do my morning jogging. I put on my trainers, shorts and a t-shirt and left the house and started running immediately. The morning was rather cold, but I didn't care. The cold breeze on my face felt good. It invigorated me. It made me feel more aware and alive, and I needed to feel all that for I knew James would want to talk and I feared that part. I greeted Mr. Smith as I passed by the kiosk just around the corner and took a quick glance at the newspapers. Then, I sopped on my tracks immediately, as I noticed most of the front pages were about us. It was even worse than I imagined.

"You're in most of them, Leandra." He told me quietly, as if pitying me for a moment. I didn't respond. Instead, I grabbed The Mirror, "James Hetfield and Leandra Santoro: a war at the MTV Europe Music awards." I put it down and take The Sun "Metallica's front man in love with Spanish fashion star." I grabbed The Star "Hetfield to Santoro: I hate you for ignoring me."

"God..." I whispered; it had been much worse than I ever thought.

That was only the British press, I could only hope nothing had come out around the rest of the world or that it wasn't as bad as it looked now. Still, James was American and I was quite sure we were news around the US too.

"It will disappear in days." Mr. Smith said, seeing my reaction. "As soon as they have some other news, this is all forgotten."

"Maybe..." I said, forcing a smile. "I'm going..."

"See you later." Mr. Smith responded with a sympathetic smile on his lips. "Tomorrow it will be forgotten."

"I hope so..." I breathed.

I took off running again. If only I could disappear for a few days... If only I could erase all these sensationalist headlines... I ran for about an hour and a half and then I came back home. When I entered my house, I realized James was still sleeping. After running and seeing all the bad news about the two of us being spread all over newspapers, I needed a hot and soothing shower. I took a long one, letting the splashes of water caress my skin and wash away my tormenting thoughts. After, I got dressed. I put on some old, faded jeans and a red top, and I went to the kitchen to have breakfast. I know it is not very smart to go for your run with an empty stomach, but I was going through a terrible time that moment. While going around the kitchen, my phone rang. It was Gary.

"Have you seen the newspapers?" He asked me straight forwardly after our first hellos.

"Yeah... How bad is this?" I asked him because he had a better vision of the impact of this news better than mine because he had been dealing with this type of situations for long.

"I don't have a clue. Since he's this major rock star, I'm gonna guess it's good publicity after all. He told me. I wasn't surprised. That was how the stupid industry worked. "Leandra..." He called me right and I recognized his questioning tone.

"Gary... don't... please don't make me questions. Don't ask me for explanations..." I asked him.

"Was he the father?" He asked me though.

"Yes... but Gary, he doesn't know anything about that." I added right away. "Please, keep your mouth shut." I asked him. "I never told him anything. James doesn't know."

"I won't say a word." He promised. "That is something between the two of you but as far as I could see this is far from being over, Lea." Gary stated. "It's obvious the guy still has feelings for you, not to mention you left your boyfriend to help him." He pointed out. "Do you still have feelings for him too? You don't need to answer me... it's just an observation." He told me.