Fifteen Minutes: A Novel (30 page)

When they had moved into the kitchen to work on dinner and she was alone, Reese finished typing in the web address for
Fifteen Minutes
. The site opened immediately, as flashy and polished as any Reese had ever seen. The home page had changed
him, with Zack and Zoey clearly featured. “Watch a real-life Romeo and Juliet story that includes more drama than we’ve had any other season.” The home page had changed since the last time she’d looked at it. Her reason for checking now was something she’d seen on Twitter earlier.

Shocking revelation—don’t miss it!! Tonight on #Fifteen Minutes!

Her heart raced ahead of her. She scanned the page, looking past the announcement of show times and dates and the fact that tonight was the debut of live performances. Then she saw something that made her heart drop to her knees.

A headline near the top of the home page read, “Romeo and Juliet?” Beneath that in smaller print it read, “Season ten involves every kind of story. Even a love story. Watch the preview now.”

Reese’s palms felt clammy and the room started to spin.
It can’t be Zack, right? That isn’t possible.
She closed her eyes and remembered what he’d told her the last time they talked. He was more frustrated than she could remember him ever being. Frustrated and tired. “They keep trying to make a story out of Zoey and me,” he’d told her. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them I have a girlfriend.”

She had sympathized with him, but hadn’t the uneasy feeling come upon her around the same time? She gripped the edge of the desk and blinked her eyes open, staring once more at the white triangle play button. She could click it and the preview of the Romeo and Juliet story would play. Her fingers trembled. There was nothing to fear. Zack hadn’t done anything wrong. His feelings for her hadn’t changed. She steadied herself and started the video.

The piece was only thirty seconds long and it moved quickly. “On tonight’s show,” Kip Barker said into the camera as the preview started. The top twenty rehearsed a dance number behind him, with Zack and Zoey clearly featured. “Watch a real-life Romeo and Juliet story that includes more drama than we’ve had any other season.”

A quick cut showed Zack singing his heart out and then the judges asking if he was single. “No,” he told them, “I have a girlfriend back home.” Just as quickly the image changed and Zack was onstage finishing a group number, his arm around Zoey. “Every season involves some kind of heartbreak,” Kip said in the voice-over. “But this season it gets personal.” Video snapshots from half a dozen photo shoots showed Zack and Zoey constantly together. “What happens,” Kip said, “when the pressure gets too great, when circumstances throw two unsuspecting people together.” The shot became dimly lit, Zack and Zoey sitting in an empty, darkened hallway, lost in what looked like some serious conversation.

Reese wanted to shut off the computer or look away, scream for time to stop, but it was too late. The next shot showed Zack facing Zoey in the same hallway, his hand alongside her face as he moved closer for what absolutely looked like a kiss.

The video cut back to Kip in front of the rehearsing contestants. “Find out what’s happening to this real-life Romeo and Juliet”—Kip sounded deeply dramatic—“tonight . . . when the live shows begin . . . on
Fifteen Minutes
.”

Reese stared at the screen, and for several seconds she couldn’t breathe or cry or scream. Had he really kissed her? Zack, the guy she’d loved all these years? She could see him sitting beside her in the pre-dawn light the morning he left for auditions.
Nothing will change, I promise . . .

The memory of his words stabbed at her. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? The signs were all there. The answer—the
only answer—was that she had trusted him. Implicitly. Perfectly. Other people might let success change them, but not Zack. Not her guy.

Reese stood and black spots danced before her eyes.
I’m going to faint. Please, God, don’t let me faint.
She had to leave, had to get out of Zack’s house before she threw something or fell on the ground in a heap and never got up. She wanted to run to the other side of the world, as far away as she could from the
Fifteen Minutes
craze and the fact that in just a few hours everyone would be buzzing about Zack and Zoey. And people who didn’t know her from Texas to Tacoma to Tampa would feel sorry for the girl back home.

She closed her eyes for a moment. This couldn’t be happening. She grabbed her keys and started for the door, but then she stopped. None of this was Zack’s family’s fault. She was about to turn back and make a quick explanation about her departure to Mrs. Dylan and Grandpa Dan, when Zack’s father and brother entered the house. They looked hot and worn out, but they must’ve seen something in her face that made them stop cold.

“Reese?” Zack’s dad took a step closer. “You okay?”

She shook her head. “No, sir.” Her tone remained kind, gentle. The go-to voice for any good Southern girl. “I need to get home.”

“What happened?” Duke came to her and touched her arm. “Something with your family?”

“The show.” She pointed back at the computer. Words wouldn’t come. The shock was too great. “They’re showing something tonight . . . with Zack and that girl.”

Grandpa Dan and Zack’s mom joined the others in the room and seemed to sense immediately that something was wrong.
“Honey, what?” Grandpa Dan came to her, his brow furrowed. “What happened?”

Zack’s father took control of the moment. “Reese said there’s going to be something on tonight’s show about Zack and some girl.” He looked to her. “A girl from the show?”

“Yes.” Reese needed to leave. She had to make this quick. “Her name’s Zoey. Zoey Davis?”

The other four nodded, all of them holding tight to every word. “Go on.” Grandpa Dan still stood beside her.

“I watched a preview . . . on the computer. They’re calling Zack and Zoey this season’s Romeo and Juliet.”

Grandpa Dan sighed and looked out the window. “That’s not right.”

“Is there any proof?” Dara moved to the spot next to her husband, her troubled eyes on Reese. “About the two of them?”

“Sort of.” Reese grabbed a partial breath. If she didn’t leave soon she’d start crying. “The preview only showed part of the video. But they look . . . very close.” She didn’t want to talk about it. She couldn’t. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to see the rest.” The right thing to do might’ve been to walk around and give hugs, bid everyone a proper good-bye. But she didn’t have time for that. “I need to go.”

“Okay.” Dara hugged her. Together the family walked her to the front door. “You’re going home?”

“I’m not sure.” Reese could feel tears welling in her eyes again. The sadness was gaining ground. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you soon.” She looked at Grandpa Dan and over her shoulder at Zack’s dad and brother. “All of you.”

Grandpa Dan gave her a side hug as she headed out. “We’ll
watch the show. And then I’ll call Zack myself.” He held Reese’s gaze. “Whatever this is, there has to be a reason. That boy loves you.”

Reese couldn’t talk. She nodded and smiled and hurried down the steps to her car. She felt like she’d fallen into a dark hole, a nightmare. Was she really leaving before the show even began? Had that video really happened? And had Zack really kissed her?

“No,” she whispered the word out loud as she reached her car. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.”

Tears fell down her face again.
How could you, Zack?
The question drilled itself into her mind. She missed him so much. Missed walking with him and riding beside him and laughing late into the night. The real Zack, the one the world knew nothing about. That Zack consumed her heart and mind. The same wasn’t true for him. Clearly. Whatever was happening behind closed doors on the
Fifteen Minutes
set, one thing was obvious. Zack and Zoey shared something special.

Once she was out of Zack’s driveway, she turned left. She had no idea where she wanted to go, just that she needed to get there. Away from Zack’s house and Grandpa Dan and his family who felt so much like her own. Away from a TV set. Without meaning to, she headed toward the Lowell Therapeutic Equestrian Center. She drove through the pitch-dark parking lot to the spot closest to the stables. The groundskeepers had seen her come at this hour before. No one would bother her.

Reese killed the engine and climbed out. The air smelled sweeter here, and she breathed deep. The fence called to her. She walked to it and swung herself up onto the top rail. This was her spot, the place she sat between students, when she wanted
only to watch the horses and dream about making a difference for hurting kids.

On those sunny afternoons, the view from this part of the fence was like a painting, and over time it had come to represent the future for her. A future that would be built around horses and horse farms and beautiful rolling green open spaces. The future she had pictured with Zack. It was appropriate that now, through the muggy summer night, she could see nothing but darkness.

“Why, Zack? How come?” Her broken voice pierced the silence. She wiped her tears with the backs of her hands. She covered her eyes with her fingers and let the tears come. She should’ve seen this coming, with all the tweets between the two of them. With the pictures coming out of their photo shoots and staged events.

But this was Zack Dylan. No matter what her eyes had told her along the way, she had listened to her heart, to the past and everything she had known to be true about the guy she loved. Zack hadn’t given her any hint that he was falling for Zoey. Maybe Reese was going crazy, blinded by devotion. Whatever the reason, she hadn’t seen this coming.

She leaned on the fence post and stared into the black sky. The stars were alive here and with each breath, with each hard-hitting heartbeat she came to grips with reality. Her tears slowed and then stopped.
God . . . You’re with me. I feel You here.

I am with you always, my daughter. I love you too much to leave you alone.

The response whispered at her from all sides, in a way that could only be divine. Reese breathed in deep again. She couldn’t change the situation. The video had told the story.
Zack was caught up in some sort of relationship with Zoey Davis. Whatever their story, they were absolutely connected.

The next move was hers.

As this truth settled in around the edges of her soul, Reese felt her world right itself. Her body ached from the impact of the video, but she would get through this. Somehow she would get through it. With that in mind, she had no question about what to do next. She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her shorts and called up Zack’s number. His profile appeared with a photo taken in May, at the beginning of summer. Reese and Zack in swimsuits and shorts, sitting on the edge of a dock at Cumberland Lake. They’d gone with the high school kids from church for a day of boating and tubing, and during lunch they’d found a quiet place to talk.

“I’m going to marry you, Reese Weatherly.” He had looked deep into her heart. “As soon as my family figures things out with the farm, it’ll be you and me. Forever.”

She had smiled and they talked about having a big wedding or a small gathering with just family and a few friends. Church hall reception or catered dinner and a dance in a ballroom. But here beneath the August night sky, that day felt like a million years ago. Like it never happened at all. Zack had become someone she no longer knew. At the beginning of his
Fifteen Minutes
run—when their biggest problem was a lack of communication—she had refused to feel anything but happy for him. Somehow things would work out. Sure the tweets from Zoey bugged her. But she never saw the girl getting in the way of what she shared with Zack. The connection with their grandparents, their shared faith and love of horses, the magic of how it felt to be in his arms . . .

Enough. She gripped the fence until she felt the wood splintering against her fingers. The call had to be made. She couldn’t wait another minute. She stared at the screen of her cell phone and tapped his number. Then she looked back at the sky and waited. She’d called him only a handful of times since he left, and never once had he answered. The producers made them keep their phones off—that’s what Zack had said. They were busy. Every minute booked.

Once, twice, three times it rang, keeping beat with her broken heart. She didn’t want to leave a voice mail, but she had no choice. “Zack . . . it’s me.” She kept her tone neutral. “Can you call me? We need to talk.”

She clicked the end button and realized she hadn’t breathed. A quick breath and she tucked her phone back in her pocket. There. She had done it. Whatever real or manufactured drama was playing out on
Fifteen Minutes,
Reese was no longer going to be part of it.

The last thing she wanted to do was drive home and watch
Fifteen Minutes,
but she couldn’t stop herself. Her parents were out, so she drove home to an empty house and turned on the TV. The light from the screen pierced the darkness.

She had captured the show on DVR, and now she forwarded it past Zack’s performance to the end of the show and the segment with him and Zoey. Reese slid to the floor and pulled her tanned legs up close to her chin. Her long dark hair hung over her knees as she watched the reality of her life play out for all of America.

The segment ended as the teaser had promised it would. With the two kissing. Zack really kissed her. Reese held up the remote and cut the power. The screen went dark and the room followed. There were no tears on her face and none in her eyes.
Just the cold, consuming shock. Because for all the ways she had pictured life with Zack, for all the happy moments they had shared and the ones she had absolutely seen coming . . . the engagement, the future, their life together, there was one thing she hadn’t imagined.

That it might end like this.