Untouchable ~ A Jared Leto/MARS Fanfiction

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It's funny how an hour, a minute, even a second can change everything, isn't it? Everything about a person. Everything about who you think that person is. In an instant, everything can come crashing down. Truth is, a relationship rests on a delicate, razor-thin balance. It can tip over at any time, for any reason, and suddenly someone you thought you knew becomes a stranger.

It's happened to me before. The first time Todd struck out at me physically, I remember laying dazed on the floor, my head ringing from the blow. I remember looking up through a red haze at Todd bent over and screaming at me. I remember the heart-wrenching sound of Shelby across the room crying. That fight had started like many others before it, lasting all of fifteen seconds, but this one didn't end with a few choice words and silence. This fifteen seconds changed everything.

Now it's happening again. The man I've come to love with all my heart is changing before my eyes. He's not the Jared I woke up with this morning. He's not the Jared who held my hand and assured me that no matter what Katia and Ivan had on him, he wouldn't continue with the dating arrangement. He doesn't even look like the same man anymore. He's somebody else now.

Without a word, I rise from my chair. Without a word, I leave the table. 

I feel their eyes on my back as I cross the room, but I don't hear what I'm praying to hear—and what part of me is also dreading to hear. Jared doesn't call after me.

I'm sure Katia is gloating right now, but I no longer care. I cut my way around the tables and waiters, breezing past the stoic-faced maitre d. I push the uniformed doorman aside and shove the door open myself, stepping out into the night.

The two paparazzi have been joined by several others. They leap into position instantly, firing their questions one after the other, punctuated by the click-click-click of their cameras and exploding flash bulbs.

Gene and David are suddenly there, surrounding me, shielding me. Doing the job that they shouldn't have to be doing. I'm Lanie McCarty, a thirty-two year old wilderness survivalist and EMT from Northern Minnesota who somehow has found herself standing outside of a fancy French restaurant in Beverly Hills, California, wearing a designer dress and high heels, clutching a two-hundred dollar bag with a .357 Max tucked inside it, surrounded by two bodyguards and a half a dozen paparazzi yelling questions and vying for position to get a clear shot.

I want to laugh, to cry, to scream.

I do none of these. Instead, I reach out and grab the camera of the nearest pap, yanking it out of his surprised hands. Detached, I watch myself hurl it to the sidewalk where it smashes into pieces. Then I shove David and Gene aside, give the angry and protesting photographer a push into another pap. I kick off the hated heels and break free of the crowd of bystanders beginning to gather.

In my bare feet I hurry away, clutching my bag. I have no idea where I'm going, but I'm not getting there as fast as I want to. I'm hampered by the skirt and my vision that's blurred with tears.

A rumble of thunder overhead reverberates through me, a melodrama from the skies matching the storm inside myself. The first patter of raindrops strikes my face, and they somehow seem to snap me out of it. I slow down, as the cloak of unreality begins to slide away.

I come to a stop, looking around as the rain falls a little harder. I've left the restaurant and Jared a couple of blocks away. I'm standing here in a cocktail dress and bare feet, crying, my makeup and hair getting ruined, acutely aware and yet uncaring that I'm receiving curious glances from passers-by.

A bus stop is just ahead at the corner. I walk over to it and sit, clutching my purse in my lap, bent over it as if suffering some awful internal pain.

Which, of course, I am.