Scrapbook

Warm

I dropped the plate I was holding, "What do you mean there are pictures," It clattered on the ground, "Why can't we get a hold of them," Jamie turned his head to watch me, "Which magazines?"

My knees buckled, and I slid down to the ground, my back against the kitchen island. I set my phone face down on the ground, the cabinet in front of me fading in and out of focus. I faintly hear Jamie set down whatever utensil he was cooking with and gracefully move to my side.

"Hey, hey," he says meekly, hand moving to hold the side of my face, "What's wrong." I couldn't bring myself to say it. I promised I could stop this from happening, I promised I would protect him, I promised and I lied.

I feel him shift to the front of me, so we are looking each other in the eyes. My vision gets more and more blurred as they begin to swim, and he throws himself around me placing me in a much-needed embrace. I wrap my arms around him, on the verge of sobbing, and bury my head into his shoulder.

"Whatever it is, I'm here with you," He says into my neck.

"I fucked up," I mumble, "I fucked it up."

"I'm still here," he sighed.

I shook my head, "You'll hate me."

He pulls away and looks me in the eyes, "You know that's not true," My eyes find the floor, "Shit, Malic I've been here through secret meetups and hiding my car in a fucking bush for what, almost two months now. You should know that I'm serious about this."

"Everything will change."

"Malic."

"I'm scared."

"Malic please," He gently pressed his lips to my forehead, "Tell me what's wrong and breathe, I'm not going to leave. Just please, tell me what's wrong so I can help you."

"They found out," I say meekly, focusing on my knees.

"Who's they?"

"The," He'll hate you, "They are," You promised you wouldn't let this happen.

I see him sitting there, on his knees, right in front of me. His eyes wide with worry and fear, and sadness. It's subtle but it's there, hidden behind the emerald irises. His hands are clenching and unclenching, or tapping rhythms into his legs, a nervous tick I've picked up on over the past month or so.

If you really think about it, we've been doing well to not have the paparazzi find out for close to two months. Don't get me wrong, they still found me, but typically just me at my house, or me in Beverly Hills or somewhere fancy. But with Jamie and I spending close to five days a week together it's really shocking that no picture of us had ever been shown publicly. To be fair, we'd been very careful. We only met in his store, Jamie's apartment, and as of recently, my house. Either I ride my bike to his place or he brings a car to my place and parks it behind a hedge close to my house. Most dates were us making some food and eating in the privacy of a home. We could never go outside together, we had to leave places five minutes from one another, but the lack of Hollywood's favorite playboy dating anyone for the tabloids only increased the paparazzi's tenacity.

Soon they were arriving down the street, in my neighborhood. They moved in packs, they came in cars, they were in cahoots with one another, everyone sharing information on my location, status, situation. They started running at me, sprinting to get within range with their microphones or snap a non-blurry picture with their cameras, and of course, they got a few. Hell some of them even had Jamie in them, I just had the foresight to move far enough away from him so it didn't seem suspicious. It was painful, the running, the stress, and having to pretend like I didn't care about Jamie.