Paparazzi Boy

Prologue

"So how did you get here under my skin?"

She looked beautiful, different, and anxious. Her voice was powerful but raspy, and she sang with a purpose, the purpose of showing him how much better she was without him. She didn't need him to be a part of the song. All she had was questions that neither of them could answer. But she was under his skin and he was dying to inhale her one more time.

"I'm always clueless to where you've been"

Let me back in Belle. I'm right here, right behind you. I just need one more time, one more chance.

"I'm here and I'm trying to let it go, let you go, go, go away"

Don't let me go. I never would. Forgive me. I'll never use a camera again, just don't let go.

"You hold me close and I know I can't win"

I'll go through anything again with you.

"I try so hard to stop but you're addictive"

He switched on the microphone he had in his hands and started shaking, because this was their verse, and he wasn't going to miss it again.

"I'm here and I know, I know, I have to let it go"

She turned around startled to hear his voice in sync with hers. He could feel the passion and surprise in her stare. She stood still, not even bothering to sing the next line with him. He couldn't get close enough, even when he was finally holding her hand in his palm, hoping she'd sing the last lines with him; hoping she would inspire him one last time.

"I can't keep holding on"

She barely muttered the words, looking right at him. There was so much awe.

"You think that by now I'd know"

I know. I know what I did. Forgive me. I know.

"I'm here and I know, I know, I have to let it go"

Do it again with me, he begged with his eyes. But all she did was drop the microphone and drop his hand and stormed off, tears barely running down her cheeks. He could barely hear the fans through the flashing lights in front of him gasping. He could only hear his heart drumming through his chest, and all his veins twisting because of the heat in his blood.

She wasn't going to do it again with him.

And maybe it really was his fault. Because while she was walking away, all he could think about was how good of a story this would make for the media, and how his picture would've been the best and most intimate, had his camera been with him.

He wasn't a guitarist, nor a vocalist like Belle. He was just a boy with a camera with a legacy to uphold.

He could already see the headline in his head, "Belle Jones Rejecting Former Guitarist!"

He wasn't even worth another round with the girl he had fallen in love with behind the camera.

There are so many ways to lose trust.

You lie and become manipulative and suddenly, no one believes you. You hurt someone and they don't know how to act around you afterwards. They don't know how to avoid getting hurt again. It's hard to be in the same room. It's hard to roll their name off your tongue without there being a twist in your gut. It is even harder to love someone you know will hurt you.

It was all about money, money, money. That's all Belle was supposed to be to me. A commission check and a bet I had to win with my coworker.

There are many ways to make someone no longer trust you. The lies were more than enough. Belle can't even look at me anymore. Most mornings, I can't look at the person in the mirror looking back at me either.

But somewhere along the way, I lost the translation between being her guitarist, to being her assigned paparazzi to blindly just falling in love with the simple girl from the East coast who became a brand name overnight. She didn't know the power her words had when it came to the public, she didn't know how much people looked up to her, and lastly, she didn't understand what effect she had on me once I realized I loved her.

It's hard to gain someone's trust when it's gone. It's even harder to understand when they're gone too.

Bella intrigued me from the minute I was assigned to her. I knew who she was; everyone did. She was the girl with the voice and the emotion behind the microphone. She was the girl who was slightly too skinny but no one questioned it because she was in the industry. I saw her for who she was the first time she hired me after my audition.

There was something about the way her voice flowed with the lyric she was singing. There was something about her laugh and how loud it had to be like she had to make sure everyone could see and hear how happy she was. There was something about the way she would eat slowly and barely before pushing her plate aside. There was also the way she used to talk about her ex boyfriend to the translation to how she would talk about me.

She had her own problems, just like me. And maybe that's why I learned to love her, regardless of what I found out or what I did to her. I learned to love, just like my mother said I would. My mother told me to be careful with who I fall for, especially if it's someone I've been assigned to. She had learned on her own more than twenty years ago. She told me, and I tried to listen, but Anabelle's voice in the back of my head everyday prevented that.

There was something there until there was nothing.

PapCo ruined everything between us; just like my mother said they would, especially from her own experience with my dad.

Trust is a gamble, and with this one, I've lost everything.