Promising You (The Jade Series #4) (22 page)

“It’s not the hangover. Physically, I don’t feel that bad. Before I met you I drank way more than that.” He faces the window as he puts his clothes on. I wait until he’s dressed, then go over and hug him. But instead of turning to face me, he just stands there with his arms at his sides.

Something happened when he was in the shower. His body is stiff and refuses to soften when I touch him. He must’ve built up a keep-away-from-Jade wall because now he’s cold and distant.

He breaks free from my hug and goes and sits on the chair by his desk.
 

I sit across from him on the bed. “Don’t you want to sit here with me?”

He won’t even look at me now. “You’re making this harder, Jade. Why did you even come here?”

I get up, placing myself directly in front of him. “What the hell kind of question is that? I love you. I want to be with you. After everything we’ve been through, did you really think I’d listen to your dad and just leave? Not even ask for an explanation? Not even try to talk to you?”
 

His eyes are fixed on the floor and his arms are crossed. The emotion he expressed just minutes ago is completely gone. He’s shut down. Given up.

“What happened while you were in the shower? Did you just decide you hate me now and you want me gone?”

I stand there, watching him, waiting for him to respond. But he won’t answer me and he still won’t look at me.

 
“I never should’ve trusted you, Garret. You lied to me when we first met and now I find out you’ve been lying to me this whole time.” I walk to the end of the bed and sit down with my back to him. “I guess it’s true. You can’t change people. You’ll always be a liar.”

He storms over, landing in front of me and pushing on my shoulder to get me to look at him. “What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t been lying to you! I didn’t know about any of this until yesterday!”

I jump up and get in his face. “I’m not talking about the plan. Or the organization. You lied to me about
us
! You said I could have this forever. You said if we ever broke up it would be because
I
did it, not you. You said that nobody could ever break us apart unless we let them. And like an idiot, I believed you! I believed everything you said! But it was all just lies!”

“Those weren’t lies!” He yells it, then lowers his voice. “I meant all of that. But everything is different now. When I said those things I didn’t know this would happen. So it’s not fair for you to say that I lied. Because I didn’t.”

“You lied, Garret! None of what’s happened should matter if you really meant those things. You should still want to be with me. But instead you’re breaking up with me!”

He raises his voice again. “Are you fucking kidding me? You think I
want
you to leave? I’m fucking dying inside right now! I can’t even look at you! It’s killing me to have you here in my room, this close to me, knowing I’ll never see you again!”

His eyes are wide awake now and he’s breathing fast. He’s finally coming out of the comatose fog he was in. I knew he felt that way about me, and about us, but I needed him to say it. I needed to get some type of emotional response out of him so he’d stop acting like this was over. Like he’d shut down and given up.

“You WILL see me again!” I yell back at him, tears rolling down my cheeks. “I’m right here! And I’m not going anywhere, so stop trying to send me away! Stop telling me to leave!”

“I don’t have a choice! Don’t you get that? They fucking own me, Jade!”

“No! They can’t have you! I won’t let them!”

 
The room gets quiet, but I hear his breathing, fast and heavy. I wipe the tears off my face and try to get control of myself. I can’t break down. I need to think. There has to be a way out of this. They can’t take him away from me. I need him. And he needs me. And what we have is so real and so rare that I refuse to let it be taken from me without a fight.

I look up and see Garret studying me, like he’s not sure what I want from him.
 

“Garret, if you really—”

He doesn’t let me finish. He draws me into him and puts his lips just inches from mine, hesitating because he knows if we start this, it’ll be that much harder for him to force me to leave. I gently kiss him and feel him giving in. He pulls me closer and kisses me back. It soon becomes a deep, intense kiss that for a moment takes my mind off all the events of this horrible day. I focus on the familiar feel of his soft lips and his warm breath and his strong arms around my waist.
 

I can’t imagine ever having anyone else kiss me. Or hold me. Or be with me. I only want this. Him. Forever.

The thought wakes me into action, and as much as I want the kiss to continue, I pull away. “Garret, we have to talk. We don’t have much time and we need to come up with a plan. Our own plan, not their plan.”

“There’s no plan we can come up with that will fix this. If we try to keep this going in secret, they’ll find out. If I don’t follow orders, you know what will happen.”

“Yes, so you need to think differently. You can’t just tell them no. You need a different approach.”

“Like what?”

I take a moment to think, forcing my tired brain to work. “Like what if you weren’t so popular with people anymore? Would this group still want you to be president?”

“They’re going to make sure I’m popular. That’s part of the plan. They build on the popularity I already have. So if people online say I seem trustworthy because of the way I smile, then they’ll make sure I’m smiling in every photo, at every event. Yesterday they said people think I’m loyal because the fake me hasn’t cheated on Ava. Older people said I seem responsible because I’m not seen at clubs and because I have short hair and don’t have tattoos. This group plans to use stuff like that to make me even more appealing to voters.”

I pace the floor hoping it will help me think better, but it doesn’t. My cell phone dings and I pull it out of my pocket. “I swear I turned this thing off.” As I go to shut it down, I notice more texts from Harper.

Text 1: Kyle Andermeyer just got booted from the airport.

Text 2: Still waiting for our flight. We’re sooo bored.

Text 3: My dad called. Said Kyle just lost a movie role worth $4M!

Text 4: Finally getting on the plane!

“What are you reading?” Garret asks.

“Just some texts from Harper. Some actor delayed their flight because he was being an ass. She said he just lost a—”

“Lost a what?”

An idea hits me and I feel a rush of energy as I think of the possibilities.

“That’s it,” I say.

“What’s it?”

“I think I have an idea.”

17

I hold up my phone. “These texts from Harper about this actor. That could be you, Garret.”

“You want me to be an actor?”
 

“No. Well, kind of, but not like you’re thinking.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Just go with me here. You know Kyle Andermeyer, the guy who stars in all those kid movies? Anyway, he was being a total ass on the plane and they couldn’t take off. Everyone was delayed at the airport for hours. Harper said one of the passengers got video of the guy and posted it online just minutes after it happened. Within the hour Harper said the story was all over the Internet. Social media. Celebrity websites. Fan blogs. And now Kyle just lost a huge movie role. All because the public turned against him.”

“Yeah? So?”

“The public turned against him, Garret. He lost a big acting job because the studio thinks people won’t go to the movie if he’s in it. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“No, but I’m kind of slow right now.”

“If we could generate the same type of bad publicity for you so that people turn against you, don’t trust you, maybe even hate you, then there’s no way you could even be considered for this plan.”

“Huh.” He pauses to consider it. “But by the time I run for office people will have forgotten about what I did when I was 19.”

“Not if you do something people won’t forget. We’re not talking about losing an acting job here. We’re talking about the presidency. People expect more from a president than an actor. A few bad things may be all it takes for people to decide that you’re not presidential material. The point is that the organization won’t want to take a chance on you if the public doesn’t like you or can’t forgive you. You’ll lose the starting base they think they have to build from.”

“I don’t know, Jade. They seemed determined to make this work.”

“It’s not up to them. The public will decide your fate. If they hate you, there’s no way they’d vote for you, even 20 years from now. And if you ended up running and winning the election with little public support, it would draw attention. Reporters would be all over that. So even if that group messed with the voting machines to make sure you got elected, they wouldn’t get away with it. Too many people would be looking into how you won.”

“And how am I going to get people to hate me? Or lose interest?”

“We don’t want them to lose interest. At least not at first. We want them to talk about how much they don’t like you. Post it on their blogs. Tell their friends. We want people to instantly have a bad image of you when they hear your name.”

“So I just do some bad stuff and make sure it gets photographed? That doesn’t seem like it would work.”

“No. You take all that research you learned about yesterday, the stuff that people like about you, and you do the opposite. So if people think you’re faithful to Ava, we’ll make up stories about you cheating on her. If people think you’re responsible, we’ll post stories about you crashing your dad’s expensive cars. You could grow your hair longer and get tattoos. Have you ever seen a president with a tattoo?”

“No, but—”

“So go cover your body in tattoos. Whatever it takes.” My mind is working so fast it’s giving me a headache. “Or get fake tattoos. You don’t actually have to do this stuff. We’ll just make it look like you did. We could make fake videos of you acting out at clubs, destroying hotel rooms, smoking weed. We could make fake photos and post them online.”

“And people are going to believe this?”

“Are you kidding? A fake Garret has been on TV for two weeks now and people are convinced it’s you. I even overheard these girls in my chem class talking about you and Ava like you’re actually dating, even though they see you and me together all the time. They just believe whatever they read in a gossip magazine or on a website instead of what’s right in front of them. Think about it, Garret. For the past few months, you’ve done nothing but go to school and hang out with me, and yet during that time people have become obsessed with you. You have millions of fans even though you haven’t even done anything. Your popularity is all engineered. Fake stories, fake photos. We can do the same thing only make the stories and photos negative instead of positive.”

“That would take a lot of resources. We’d need other people to help.”

“Your dad has a lot of resources. And he already feeds fake stories to the media. That’s how he covered up what happened to Sinclair.”

“Yeah, but he had a lot of help. Other members in the organization used their power and money to make that happen. He’ll be working on his own to do this.”

“I’m sure there are plenty of people who owe him favors.”

“Not enough for what you’re describing.”

“We also have Arlin. He said he’d help me any way he could. He knows I want to be with you and he feels like he owes me because of Royce. So now we have two very powerful, very rich men who can help us with this. And we have Harper who has friends in film school who could help us make some realistic videos.”

I’m out of breath from talking so much. I stop for a moment and notice Garret staring at me. I assume he thinks I’m insane but then he smiles.

“God, I love you.”

I go over to him. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”

He shakes his head no, still smiling as he wraps his arms around my waist. “You’re not crazy. You’re a freaking genius.”
 

“Are you serious? So you think it might work? You’re willing to try it?”

“I’m willing to try anything if it means I can be with you. I want my life back. I want OUR life back.”

“I do, too, and I have no idea if this will change their decision, but we have to try something. We can’t just give up.”

He rests his forehead against mine. “I don’t know why you stay with me after everything I’ve put you through. I don’t deserve you.”

“I know,” I say, smiling. “And once this is over you’re going to owe me big time.”

“Just name it. Anything you want is yours.”

“I just want a promise. A promise that you won’t give up on us again. That’s it. And I don’t want it now. You’ve already screwed this up and saying it now would be meaningless.”

He kisses me. “I totally screwed up. I did everything wrong. But when I found out what they could do to you, I panicked. I’m still panicked. If they find out we’re together—I don’t know if I can do this, Jade. I can’t put you at risk.”

“We’re doing this. And you’re not backing out. When does this plan they have for you go into effect?”

“It hasn’t been finalized yet and it can’t move forward until all the members have officially approved the final plan.”

“When will they approve it?”

“In a couple months. Now that the plan has been presented, the members are given time to review it and make comments up until the final vote. Once they vote to approve the plan, I’ll have to start going to their meetings and by late summer they’ll have me attending public events to get my face out there more. And I have to change my major to prelaw and transfer to Yale and get more involved in politics and—”

“Wait. So this isn’t final? We have time to change their minds?”

“Technically yes, but it’s not going to be easy. Almost everyone wants me to be the candidate. At the meeting Friday, the ballot had three other guys and me. I don’t know who the other guys were. I’m not allowed to know. Anyway, almost everyone voted for me. The final vote is just a formality. It’s in the bylaws for the organization and they have to follow the bylaws.”