Starbird

Chapter 21

My fists tightened around the magazine I was holding and my blood boiled. How did I not see this coming? What was my issue? I slapped the magazine down on the counter with a satisfying smack and groaned in frustration. He was dead. He was so, so very dead. Looking back at the cover of the magazine, the words bore into my eyes.

Liam Hawthorne’s New Bird! Has the bachelor gotten a girl at last?

I was not his new bird, whatever that meant. Also on the cover was a picture from outside the coffee shop, my face partially in view from the camera’s lenses. We were laughing at something, probably our lame name-calling. The quality was a bit shoddy, but you could still make out my face and that’s what scared me. If I was worried about people knowing who I was before with only James being my connection to the famous world, I had no idea what I had just gotten into after being seen with Liam. This was a week ago! Why does anyone care that we were hanging out?

Inside the magazine was a brief snippet with another two pictures of us inside the café and they just happened to get the picture of me poking Liam’s dimples. If I didn’t know the two people in that picture, I would have thought it was cute and silly, something a couple would do, especially the way the girl was looking at the boy. But the unfortunate topic of the matter, was that that “couple” was Liam and I. And I was looking at him like I was completely lovesick. It was just a crush, what did the paparazzi know? Nothing, that’s what! All they cared about was that the fangirls’ precious Liam Hawthorne was with a girl that no one has heard about it. What they didn’t care about was that that girl was me.

Feeling curious and angry, I grabbed my laptop and found the magazine’s website, finding the article and even more pictures than in the actual magazine. My exact wishes of remaining away from the public eye were denied. I went from being awkwardly at the edge of the spotlight to standing front and center stage in the limelight and I hated it. Below were thousands of comments, the majority of them containing hateful words and threats, but I couldn’t stop myself. I kept reading them, getting angrier every moment as they figured out who I was - who I definitely wasn’t. Each comment getting nastier and more hurtful until I felt like chucking my computer out.

“Cammie? You home?” I heard James’ voice reverberate of the walls as he came up the stairs to the kitchen where I still was, now sitting on the floor, biting my lip to stop me from crying. A traitorous sniffle escaped and I clamped my hand over my mouth as I shut my eyes to hold the tears back.

“Cam?” James rounded the corner and I could feel him staring at me for a moment before I felt him sit beside me and put his arms around me. I buried my head into his chest and cried.

“Cammie, what happened?” I sat up and wiped my tears away, grabbing my computer and putting it in James’ lap. I watched as James read the article and looked at the pictures and I could tell he hadn’t reached the comments yet, because he didn’t look to fazed by it. 

And then his brows furrowed as he began reading the comments, his scowl deepening each time his fingers scrolled further.

“Enough of that,” he said, shutting the computer. “Cam, you cannot listen to what those people are saying. They get brave behind a computer, but they’re wrong.”

“Are they? I’m not some super hot actress, I’m not well-known, I’m not cool, I’m just a nobody who happened to be there when he was.”

“Shut up, right now. They have no right to call you the things they did. You are a beautiful, awesome person and a phenomenal sister.”

“You have to say those things, you’re my older brother.”

“No, I’m saying them because it’s true. They don’t know you.”