The Right Choice

Chapter 19

“So what you’re saying is that he just kissed you, randomly?” Taylor asked with her eyes wide open.

Jessie simply nodded in affirmation.

Sitting at their favorite table next to the window at ‘Brunch to Lunch’, a restaurant they frequently visited, Jessie spent most of their time explaining to Taylor the entire situation at hand. Initially though, her reaction had been harsh and very judgmental, just like everyone else. But as Jessie finally managed to convince her otherwise, she backed down. Jessie had been hoping that Taylor would or else she would have no support system at all.

Even so, Jessie was very surprised. Somehow her best friend was taking this with much more maturity than others. Everyone else had formed their own opinions, observations and conclusions; all in the span of just one week. ‘Well, six days if you wanted to be really accurate.’ Agreed that those pictures were extremely inappropriate and exhibitionist by nature but that didn’t mean that people should run helter-skelter with them.

The press turned out to be the worse.

All of them had painted a very sordid picture of Jessie. They were making her to be like a fame hungry newcomer with an urgent need to reach the pinnacle of prominence. They had made up stories of how her mother had been grooming her in secret for all these years, waiting for the right time to reveal her to the world. All of it, they claimed was done to ascertain Jessie’s status in the society. They also fabricated a story of how Jessie was on a look-out for the man who would help her reach there quicker. Since any and every girl associated with Holden had managed to achieve some level of popularity, Jessie apparently had seen no harm in developing a relationship with him. These were only a handful of the stories that were circulating. ‘Vicious animals; that’s what they are.’

Probably the most shocking of it all was the fact that there was no response from Holden or his PR team. It was as though he didn’t mind or couldn’t care less. It was either that or he had vanished off the face of the earth. ‘I hope he buys a one way ticket to another galaxy and never returns.’ Holden’s absence made the press make up another batch of lies. They concluded that since he was silent about the event and had not bothered to deny or accept the relationship, then they must surely be dating. If not that then at least the two must be fooling around.

Jessie was infuriated by that comment. How could they automatically assume that? Didn’t they have any ethics or sense of responsibility? Why were they hell bent on spinning this in such a weird direction? Jessie had tried asking her mother for advice. Her response had been, ‘Honey, they are gossip columnists after all. What else are they going to print? Gossip, obviously. And you my dear are this month’s latest gossip. You can’t expect them to keep mum on such a huge development.’ After that, her mother had continued to throw another series of rants at Jessie for dating someone like him.

All of which was useless to her and it wasn’t helping her ease the situation at all. Jessie suggested that they hand out their own press release, to which her mother had insisted they don’t. Adding fuel to fire was not going to be their strategy. They were simply going to take the high road on this and let the situation boil over on its own. As far as they were concerned, this was not worth fussing over. Jessie couldn’t believe that her mother didn’t care. Her father on the other hand was eager to do as Jessie wished but was helpless against her mother’s stubbornness. That ended up putting her in a major fix. She figured Taylor would be the only person who would probably understand her helplessness and give her some much needed comfort.

The past week had been tough on Jessie and all she wanted to do was spill everything out to Taylor and gain some peace of mind if possible.

After talking non-stop for twenty-five minutes and pausing only take a sip from her cup of coffee, she had revealed every situation that she had experienced since the dinner a week before. Jessie was so engrossed that she had forgotten that the Spanish omelette sat staring at her from the plate below. ‘I should eat that before it begins to evolve or something.’