Under the Hollywood Sign (editing)

Chapter 4

A few weeks later, after I was mostly healed, and my stitches were out, he said to me

“Hey, wanna go to a red carpet event with me?”

Red carpet event?

“Of course!”

“Great, it's in an hour.”

“An hour?!”

“Yeah. Are you gonna be ready?”

“I'll try. What do I wear? Glam rock, punk rock, rock and roll, or gala?”

“Depends.”

“Come on, Shane!”

“Any of those sounds fine to me.”

“Well, what are you going to be wearing?”

“This.”

That gave me guidelines, and I went upstairs to change.

I came back down in a Led Zeppelin t-shirt with a black blazer over it, black super skinny jeans, high tops, and my hair was swept to my left side. I had a dark red lipstick, a swipe of mascara, and a line of eyeliner. He got up off the couch, and he nearly fell over when I asked him if I looked ok.

“I take that as a yes?”

He nodded.

“Let's go.”

And I walked the red carpet for the first time. I had never been nearly blinded by camera flashes before, so that was a first. We walked by the paparazzi, and his arm was around my waist as we walked and posed. It was kind of fun.

People were asking a bunch of questions about me for a while after that. And I was asked about on one of his band's interviews. His band was Phantom Eighty Four, and don't ask me how they got their name. I have no clue, and I'm not sure I want to know.

He was practicing with his band at his house, and I was at mine, flipping through the channels. I saw an interview of them on MTV. I stopped flipping, and I leaned back. I watched for a while, and they were talking about their upcoming album 'Stories of an Insomniac'.

Then they asked about me. It wasn't a surprise, but the fact that Shane pretended like I didn't know who I was was the surprise.

“Delilah Cooper? Don't know her.”

“But you took her to the red carpet event with you.”

“Oh, that was her?”

“Yes. Is something going on that we should know about?”

“Oh, there's nothing. And I needed a date, so I pulled a girl that looked good from the corner, and brought her. Didn't know her name.”

That's when I had enough, and I shut off the TV. After I hit record. I needed proof.

My stomach was in knots, and I felt sick. I had to ask myself the question: did I want to be with him after that?

I didn't have time to answer that question. I was too busy sobbing on the kitchen floor. Then, there was a knock at my door. I got up, wiped my tears, blew my nose, and fixed my hair. It was Shane, and I opened up the door for him. His smile faded from his face the second he saw me. He immediately said

“Are you ok?”

“I don't know. You tell me.”

He looked confused.

“You honestly don't know?”

“No!”

I slammed the door in his face. But I didn't lock it, stupidly. He walked in. I was halfway out of the room, and heading for the stairs.

“Don't you know how to take a hint?!”

“Delilah, what's going on?”

“How do you not fucking know?!”

“Deils.”

He said, his tone serious.

I went over, picked up the remote, and I turned on the TV. I clicked play on the MTV interview, and he sighed, and leaned against the wall.

“Deils, listen to me.”

“I don't want to hear any lame excuse!”

“I can explain, I can!”

“Of course you can.”

“Delilah, stop talking, and listen to me.”

He began walking towards me.

“NO!”

I pushed him away with both hands. He was standing right in front of me.

“I don't want to hear a lame excuse. You did it. And that's all that matters. You did it, and it hurt. So I want you to get out.”

He tried to say something.

“Get OUT!”

I pushed him towards the door, and with that, he left.

I don't know how, but it got all over the news. Hollywood news. And as I was leaving my house to go to work, there were paparazzi on my doorstep. I took a step back, and the questions and camera flashes began right then. And I said to one of the reporter's questions

“How I feel about this? I hate it. I hate what he said about me, and I hate the fact that he said it, and I hate how he pretended not to know why I was furious at him. But I don't blame him for any of it. I don't blame him at all. This, all of this, has made stars lie about themselves, their lives, and they've been forced to give up everything. Privacy, freedom, and themselves. Half the stars that the media has turned them into aren't the people they are on TV. But they follow along with it. If they don't, bam. Their career is gone. And it's that way because this is Hollywood. This is where dreams are made. This is where dreams are crushed. That's the truth.”

There was silence. Then a daring reporter asked me

“Do you love Shane Anderson?”

“Yes. I do.”

“And if you didn't, would you want to know him?”

“Would I want to know the person that you've turned him into? Not at all. Because that's not a person. That's the person you want him to be.”

And with that, I pushed through the crowd with my head high, and I got in my car and left for work.

Don't get me wrong, I was furious at him for saying what he did. He could have avoided it, but as I said, this is where dreams are made, and this is where dreams are crushed. I'm still unsure if I want to be with him.

But to get my mind off of it, I walked into my office, and I began working on an article about Green Day.