Someone In The Crowd [Paul Wesley]

18. IRL

Cece walked out of her dressing room, deciding to stop by Paul's before she got on set. As she passed his room, she could hear raised voices.

"Why do you always do this?!" a woman's voice asked. Cece immediately recognised it as Phoebe's.

"Do what?!" Paul asked.

"You make me feel like I'm abandoning you! All I want to do is spend time with my friends."

"It seems like you don't want to spend any time with me anymore. Especially since we started working together."

Cece wanted to walk past and pretend that she hadn't heard anything, but she had to admit, she was nosy. She wanted to know what was happening between her friends.

"Paul, you have your friends here. You have Ian and Nina and Candice and everyone else, and that's great, they're your people," Phoebe said.

"They're your people too," Paul said.

"No, they're not," Phoebe replied, before taking a deep breath. "Julie's been talking about a spin-off show, about the Original family. She's asked me if I want to be a part of it."

"So?" Paul asked. "That doesn't change anything."

"Yes it does," she said softly. "Paul, our whole lives revolve around this show. Everyone we talk to, everything we talk about, our whole relationship is based on this show. It's the only thing we have in common anymore."

"That's not true," he said.

"It is true," she persisted. "Admit it. Our relationship hasn't been the same recently. Something's changed, we're drifting apart."

"So what, you want to break up?"

Phoebe hesitated. "If we don't do it now, we're gonna break up further down the line and it's going to be that much more painful. I'm sorry."

Paul didn't say anything.

After a few minutes, Phoebe left the room. Cece hid around the corner of the corridor until the sound of Phoebe's shoes was faint and distant.

She hesitated, before knocking on Paul's door.

"Come in," he called. When he saw Cece, he tried to force a smile.

"I kind of just... heard what happened," she said. "Are you ok?"

He shrugged. "It's just... a shock."

"You're telling me," Cece said. "I didn't even know you guys were having problems."

He sighed. "We've been arguing a lot lately, but every couple argues a lot, right?" He continued speaking without giving Cece a chance to answer. "Our lives are so... connected. I mean, we even lived together. I don't know what I'm gonna do."

Cece thought for a second. "Why don't you come to mine tonight? You can stay, and then tomorrow we can work on damage control."

"Damage control?"

"Yeah. Trying to untangle your life from hers in the least damaging way possible."

"Ok," he said, thinking about it. "But you don't have to let me stay with you, I can easily book a hotel room."

"Hey, I owe you one, remember?" she smiled, and again, he tried to smile back.

"Thanks Cece," Paul said. "But I don't want to cause trouble. Phoebe's your friend, she might feel weird about you letting me stay at your place."

"You're my friend too," she reminded him. "And you need me a lot more than she does right now."