The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

92

CAMERON FINALLY CAME HOME AFTER a year of staying out at clubs everyday.

But I didn't let him in. Or a better word, couldn't.

He was sober for once. Although sober or not, he yelled my name, begged on his knees, knocked on the door, cried and cried. He apologized more than I could count. All of those things he did, his carelessness of people finding out of our fakery, it all hinted to me that he cared more about me than those things. And maybe that made it harder for me.

I, too, no longer feared neighbors hearing him or paparazzis making their appearances. And I had cared so much about what people thought about me, so much of how my appearance was. But it was like the button that could switch all of these cares in me had been enabled. I didn't care who heard or who talked. All I felt was pain and pain, the throb that stretched from my heart to my throat made me feel as if I was in my own imprisonment. It hid me away. It made me unable to move further than I was allowed or tempted.

I was tempted to go open the door. I was tempted to see him there, on his knees, and take in his forgiveness. I was tempted to welcome him back, help him, and forget anything that he and Klarise had betrayed me of. I was tempted for so much and yet...the self-pride in me couldn't condone these temptations.

And so I had let him beg instead. I hadn't moved much since Klarise had told me about her and him yesterday, and as I sat behind the door and let the tears come, his pain and yells were somewhat a bit of mine. With a bottle of something next to me, any alcohol that was strong and harsh I could get down my throat, I let him scream the emotions I held in for me.

"I'm sorry! Please, Maeve, talk to me! I'll do anything, please!"

Bottle after bottle, it felt as if my feelings either drained away with the liquid I consumed or all the yells and begging I heard of him. I must have passed out at some point though, because when I woke up in the late afternoon, Cameron was gone.

It didn't take long for him to slowly stop coming. I wasn't surprised. But what did surprise me was the sudden overpowering loneliness that came in the silences of his voice outside our house. And it occurred to me to think: he's not coming back. She's not coming back. None of them are coming back...

I was alone, I realized. So alone.

I drank for most of the day. I had my curtains drawn up, not a bit of light shining in; the difference between day and night becoming none. I don't remember showering, or maybe eating much. The tears came when I slept, but while awake, I was as dry as a soaked up lake; a drought perhaps. My head had also stopped working around that time. All I felt was the feeling of having no one. No adoration mattered when those you wanted had left or turned their backs on you when you trusted them the most.

I loved and relied on them with my life.

I only had me now, how it had all started out...

And this well of loneliness slowly started to consume me day by day. I no longer existed in the world.

Life was meaningless when you felt like you've lost everything. And everyone.

SEVERAL PAPARAZZIS HAVE REPORTED finding Cameron Li begging and screaming in front of the house he and his wife, Maeve Sun Lively, shares. The curtains are all drawn, and their neighbors have mentioned not having seen Maeve leave or come out since months time. Anyways, Maeve not letting her husband into their place does hint to some truth of the rumor that's been spreading around about an affair going on between Cameron and Maeve's rival, Kla—"

I turned off the TV, finding it torturously irritating like I was suddenly a hundred degrees down in hell. And maybe I was but I hadn't realized it, living in a life-sized nightmare over and over again.

I had felt drowsy, and I was beginning to have a stench of a smell to myself I couldn't ignore. I got up from my sofa, my head and everything spinning along as I tried to stand straight.

I was trying to get a sight of the time on my phone, my hands shaking from the lost-of-count amount of drinks I've had, when all of a sudden my doorbell rang.

I groaned, annoyed, and tried to get my foot in front of the other.

There had been several doorbells rung from paparazzis and my neighbors, and in which I all told them, in the exact words: "Fuck off!" And gave them the finger. In my careful steps, trying not to trip over the scattered bottles, I headed for whoever that was on the other side, preparing the same words and motion.

The bell rang again, with a series of banging followed.

This person was not going to have it well, I thought. "Coming!"

The ringing rang and rang again, so was the banging, like there was no tomorrow.

"I said I am coming already!"

And then, the same moment I finally tripped over one of my bottles in anger and carelessness, the door opened itself.

I was swearing to myself, at the pain and the bruising I could already feel forming on my knee when—with sudden curiosity and surprise—I looked up to see who it was.

"You uh, left the door unlocked," she said.

I gawked, then rubbed my eyes to see if I was really seeing who I thought it was.

"Are you alright? Here, let me help you up."

She began to bend down to me, in some kind of tiredness and what seemed like days of exhaust. Her finger, her touch, met my skin alas.

And I screeched.

Even in pain, I kicked myself away from her. "Go away. I don't want to see you. You're on private property right now, I can call the cops. And of course I know you wouldn't want that kind of publicity running around, so before I do your worst, leave."

She didn't get up immediately like I expected. Not that she didn't want to but...like it was exhausting to do so. I heard a large sigh from her, and realized it wasn't hinted at my comment and childlike actions but because she was tired.

From years of habit being with her, my heart got over my head. "Klarise, what's wrong? Are you feeling alright?"

My whole house was dark, I should mention. So all I could get was her shadowy figure and a bare image of her face with her straight black hair messily all over it. I didn't have a good view of her.

"I..."

I forgot about everything. Not my fall just now, not what she had done to me, and not the anger and betrayal I had felt over the long span of time. My heart pounded slightly against my chest as I saw how abnormal she was. Why was she here?

"Okay, here." I began to stand up myself, a huge headache that I have gotten used to occupying my head while I tried to steady my stance and go over to her. In my mind, having not done anything productive for so long, I gave myself simple instructions of what may or may not happen in the next few seconds.

I reached for her arms, held her, and slowly began to bring her up to her legs and my height. But that's when I saw it.

I stared, my mouth dropped open, and blinked.

She sighed again, an arm slung around my shoulder as she tried to stand without wobbling. "Thanks, sorry about that. I've just been so tired recently with the extra weight and all..." She trailed off when she looked up at my face. Her eyes followed where mine led to, and slowly, we were all looking at the same thing.

There was a tiny, unusual, lump on her belly.

My mind started to form the pieces together bit by bit.

When I could begin to speak again, my voice was a croak. "Is that..." I pointed at her used-to-be flat stomach even though we were already both staring at it.

I couldn't get myself to say the word out loud.

She nodded, smiling as she patted it with warmness in her look. I met her eyes then, and all I saw was a smile, with a tiny trace of guilt left on it. The guilt that was for me which was barely there anymore.

She grinned at me, while I felt my world fall further apart.

"I'm pregnant," she said.