Crush

Twenty-Two

Tess was woken early on Friday morning by Lizzie shaking her, yelling at her to wake up. She rolled over onto her back and stretched.

"What's going on?" Tess asked.

Lizzie shoved her and said, "I can't believe you."

"Can't believe me what?" Tess yawned and opened her eyes.

Lizzie threw a newspaper at her, crossed her arms and said, "I thought we were friends, Tess."

Tess picked up the paper and opened it. She had to blink the sleep out of her eyes, and when she saw the front page, her heart dropped into her stomach. There, taking up most of the page, was a grainy picture of Tess and Maddie sitting in the grandstand at the show grounds, kissing. The headline said 'Starlet Shuns Concerts for Small Town Fling.'

"Oh my God." Tess kicked off the sheets and jumped up. She searched for her phone, found it under her shorts on the floor and cycled through to Maddie's number and dialled. It rang out, and she tried again. No answer. Maddie didn't even have a voice mail so Tess could leave a message. Tess dialled her own voice mail but Maddie hadn't left a message.

"Here I am telling you she reminds me of someone, and you knew all along who she was," Lizzie said, pacing across the room. "And Will. Will actually picked it. He knew she looked like Indiana Rose and you pretended like you didn't know what he was talking about."

Tess checked the time on her phone. 7.30am. Pop wouldn't be in town for another hour at least, and Tess had to get back to the farm. Now. She text Will to ask if he could take her out earlier, and was elated when he said he could.

"And my twitter feed," Lizzie continued. "You have no idea. It's just gone nuts! How do you think I feel being the last to know that Indiana-freaking-Rose is in my home town?"

"Lizzie, I didn't know," Tess said, pulling on her shorts.

"How could you not?" Lizzie said. "Look at her!" She shook the paper in front of Tess's face.

Tess snatched it from her and said, "She told me yesterday, okay? I had no idea until she told me yesterday."

"And you still didn't say anything. Tess, you know she's practically my favourite band."

"She made me promise not to tell anyone."

"I'm not just anyone. I'm your best friend. How could you not tell me?" Lizzie's voice was getting shrill. "If that's not betrayal, I don't know what is."

"Betrayal? Don't you think whoever took those pictures is the one who's guilty of betrayal?"

"Are you accusing me?" Lizzie asked.

Tess scoffed. "Of course not, but someone had to know who she was. And your dad was the one who put it on the front page."

"So it's his fault now?"

Tess rolled her eyes.

Lizzie continued. "He didn't have to do anything for your stupid festival you know. He loses money because he can't sell advertising on the same page as the feature because no-one wants to be associated with it."

"What are you talking about?" Tess looked around to make sure she had everything.

"What do you think sells more papers? A story about a stupid festival no-one cares about? Or Indiana Rose on the front page kissing her girlfriend?"

"I'm not her girlfriend," Tess said. At least, she didn't think she was.

"Well at least I know who my true friends are," Lizzie said. "Or in this case, aren't. True friends don't keep secrets like that."