Exposure (18 page)

“
I’m… I’m not,” she says
with a small sigh. “I want you to be happy, and if this decision
makes you happy, then so be it.

“
Thank you,” I take her
face in my hands and plant a kiss on her lips.

^^^^

Now that I’ve quit EPE, my fame has
become bearable.

I still get the looks, and the
whistles (from sorority girls!) and all sort of students asking me
to sign their EPE copies, but somehow it’s okay. Maybe because I
know now that this isn’t going to last forever—that this is only a
phase in my life, I’m willing to accept it. Maybe that’s why Evan
isn’t. Maybe she thinks that forever she’ll embody Rylan, and she’s
not ready to merge her lives permanently.

I could just be speculating
now.

Three weeks after I quit, I’m grading
papers in my office with the usual team of grad students when the
door opens. I look up to the last face in the world that I’m
expecting.

“
Evan?”

All heads in the office turn to look
at her. She bites her bottom lip and hugs her binder to her chest.
She’s dressed in her usual school attire—sweats and glasses, no
makeup, her hair pulled up—but somehow she looks different.
Smaller.

“
I just… I, umm… just
wanted to let you know that you were right.”

I furrow my eyebrows,
confused.

“
I got into Harvard,” she
says with a ghost of a smile.

My mouth falls open. “Oh my God.
Evan…”

She swallows, her eyes glistening.
“Yeah, I know.” Suddenly it’s like she realizes that we’re not the
only two in the room. She glances around at the other students.
They don’t even know her and are gawking at her success. Even
Brad.

“
I gotta go,” she says.
“Good to see you.”

And before I can respond, she slips
from the office, and is gone.

“
Damn, Harvard,” says
someone. “Who was that?”

“
A friend,” I
murmur.

“
She’s a babe,” Brad says,
swiveling in his chair and tossing a Dorito in his mouth. “Kind of
looks like Rylan Willow.”

And then he freezes, and his eyes pop
out of his head.

Mother. Fucker.

“
Dude.
Dude
. Was that Rylan
Willow?”

I keep the straightest goddamn face I
can manage. “You think that was Rylan Willow?”

Brad turns to the rest of
the grad students. “Did that
not
look like Rylan Willow?”

There’s some murmuring, but not a firm
consensus.

“
I can assure you,
Brad
, Rylan wouldn’t
come visit me in the middle of the day. She likes her
privacy.”

“
What did you say her name
was? Evan?”

My pulse pounds in my ears. Brad wears
a massive idiotic grin. I say nothing and he drops it, but know
that he hasn’t really. He has her name. He knows what she looks
like. If he hunts her down and studies her face….

“
Rylan Willow…” he
whispers with a chuckle.

I pull out my phone and
text beneath the desk,
I think I just blew
your cover.

Chapter
Fourteen

Evan

Whether the origin of my blown
identity stemmed from my meeting with Dallas or not, I’ll never
know. I knew it would happen eventually. I guess it’s best that it
happened now, considering I’m leaving this place in two
months.

No one has confronted me
directly yet. I’ve heard the name
Rylan
called from a distance as I’ve
walked across campus. I’ve gotten cat called a few times, but no
one has had big enough balls to be direct with me. I’m sure it will
happen before I graduate. The only way I can try to prevent it is
to be on campus as little as possible. Which means I never see
Dallas anymore.

I haven’t seen him in two
weeks.

Mom screamed over the phone for a
solid three minutes when I told her that I got into Harvard. And
then she started to cry. “I can give you nothing,” she told me.
“Nothing to help you. I’m worthless.”

“
Mother, listen to me,” I
begged. “I’m already getting aid. And I’ll apply for more grants.
I’m fine. I promise.”

What she doesn’t know and won’t ever
find out is that, by the end of summer, I’ll have enough money from
erotic modeling to pay for an entire semester at
Harvard.

It’s a start.

Now that Dallas is gone, it’s easier
to look at the first two released issues in the series and the
remainder of the photosets without breaking into a hot, embarrassed
sweat. I even help Britain choose the best images to work into
Andrea’s story over a six pack of beer one night. Now that I’m done
modeling, I’m a hell of a lot more liberal with my diet.

“
I like the one where he’s
biting your nipple,” she says nonchalantly as we’re browsing
through images of shoot number five. God, this business sure makes
our relationship a weird one.

“
It’s not as badass as the
spanking one.”

She snorts.
“Bad
ass
. I see
what you did there. We’ll use both, dummy. I just think the nipple
pic has merit.”

“
Fine, fine,” I say,
polishing off my beer when Delilah walks in the front door. She
doesn’t even look our way, walking straight up the stairs and to
her bedroom.

Britain sighs audibly.

“
I need to fix this, don’t
I?” I ask.

“
You know my response,”
she says.

I make my way on the stairs
semi-reluctantly and knock on Delilah’s door. She cracks it and
scowls upon seeing that it’s me. “What do you want?”

“
Can I come in?
Please?”

She rolls her eyes and walks to her
bed. I push open the door to watch her flop onto her comforter,
picking up her phone. I take a seat at her computer chair and wait
for her to finish. When realizing that she won’t ever finish
because she doesn’t want to look at me, I say, “I don’t want your
forgiveness.”

Her fingers freeze on her phone
keyboard, and she glances at me.

“
I don’t deserve it. I did
a horrible, inconsiderate thing, and as sorry as I can be, it won’t
ever be enough.” I shrug my shoulders. “I fucked up,
Delilah.”

Her bottom lip trembles, her eyes
watering. “You don’t even want to hang out with me anymore. I
didn’t get it. I didn’t get why you suddenly decided to hate me so
much and take him from me.”

I bury my face in my
hands. “Shit, Delilah.” When I look up, I move from the chair to
the bed and wrap my arms around her. “I could never, ever hate you.
I’ve been self-absorbed lately. So self-absorbed that I didn’t even
realize you
liked
Adam. What happened between us was nothing. It was less than
nothing. I was feeling lonely and vulnerable and drunk and horny
and he was there. And I know that excuse will never fix things, but
I just need you to know that.”

She gives a weak smile and nods,
wiping the back of her hand with her eyes. “Thanks,
Evan.”

I nod and stand, walking toward the
door. I pause and look back at her. “Can I give you a bit of advice
from experience?”

She sniffs. “I guess.”

“
Things get confusing in
this business. Tell him how you really feel to his face. Even if it
terrifies you. Even if you’re worried that it’ll make things
awkward.

“
Don’t let this series end
without him knowing.”

Dallas

It’s just one of those Fridays that
blows no matter how you try and dress it up in your head. I’m
pretty sure I bombed my anatomy test this morning. The Scantron
machine broke so I have to grade all those little fuckers by hand.
There’s also a huge storm rolling in, and I parked on the other
side of campus.

All
the way on the other side.

I’m really not expecting it to get any
shittier. I should have known better.

Sitting in my office with
the door cracked, someone in the lobby right outside shouts
Rylan
.

“
Rylan… Rylan
Willow!”

I stand up so fast I almost knock my
entire desk over.

“
Come, baby. Show me some
lovin’. How about a little skin?”

I run out of the office. The tables
and couches in the lobby are packed with students, all of their
heads turned towards Brad. He approaches Evan with a swagger—Evan,
who stands near the double doors with her binder clutched to her
chest. Her eyes dart to me, and she shakes her head
rapidly.

But it’s too late. Rage controls me
now.

I’m not even conscious of how fast I’m
moving, how hard I yank him back. When he spins around, I ram my
fist into his nose, and he falls backward.

Some students gasp behind me, and then
everyone falls silent, until Brad screams, “You motherfucker!” He
clutches his face, blood pouring between his fingers.

I hope I broke it.

Evan gapes at me with a look of
terror. And then she turns and runs, punching open the doors and
escaping.

“
Damnit,” I mutter,
chasing after her.

The sidewalks are already slick with
rain, making it difficult to chase after her. I reach her car right
when she slams her door shut and hits all the locks. I skid to a
halt at her passenger side and bang on her window. She starts the
car and rolls the window down.

She’s crying.

“
How could you?” she sobs.
“How could you do that to me? I warned you. You
knew
hitting him would only make
things worse. All those people… they saw
everything
.”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t let him
talk to you like that. I couldn’t bear to listen to
him.”

“
Oh like you give a fuck,
Dallas.” Tears stream down her face, breaking me. “You don’t give a
shit about me.”

Every one of her words slices through
my chest. “Why would you say that?”

“
You left. You left after
kissing me, after touching me. After spending the night at my
fucking mother’s house, you left like it was
nothing
.”

“
That wasn’t what it was
like!”

“
Then
what
was it like?”

“
I couldn’t be a model for
EPE. I couldn’t shoot anymore.”

“
Why?”

“
I had to get away from
you!”

“
WHY?”

“
Because I’m in love with
you, Evan!”

Oh, shit.

Shit.

Shit shit shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Her mouth snaps shut, her eyes growing
wide. Confused. And I stand here, hunched over by her window and
getting pummeled by rain.

Slowly she shakes her head, another
tear streaking her face. “I have to go, Dallas.”

“
Evan, wait…”

She rolls up her window, and I back
away as she pulls out of the parking spot.

I wait until I can no longer see her
car before trudging to the other side of campus. To my car. There’s
no way I can go back up to my office now.

I have to go home.

Chapter
Fifteen

Evan

I lie on my bed as Britain brushes
through my hair with her fingers. Rain spatters against my window.
It’s so appropriate for this moment that I feel like it makes my
entire life a fucking cliché.

“
The slut never gets the
boy.”

Britain scoffs. “You? A slut? Give me
a break. And besides, that means Dallas is of equal sluttage, if
not more-so because of Tricia. The two of you are a match made in
heaven.”

“
But he left,” I
say.

“
Because he was having
feelings for you!”

I roll to my back. “That just means he
chose her over me.” I shake my head and rub my forehead with my
fingers. Crying has made my face all tight. “It’s better this way,”
I say. “I’ll be in Cambridge come fall anyway. Long distance
wouldn’t work…”

“
You love him, don’t
you?”

I stare at the ceiling, at anywhere
but her face, blinking as tears pool in my eyes yet
again.

“
I knew it,” she says. “I
knew it from your very first shoot that you were into him. Granted,
you didn’t love him then, but there was totally something
there.”

“
Lust, Brit. I had to pose
naked with him.”

“
It was more than
that.”

I shut my eyes, rubbing my temples.
“Fuck.”