Picture This: Book 2 [GirlxGirl]

Prologue

Why?

An interesting question with a million possible answers. But for the life of her she couldn't think of a single suitable one. Why? Why... She leaned back, into the plush fabric of the sofa, and surveyed the many faces before her. Each and every one of them was waiting on her with closed mouths and open ears. She sighed and turned her attention back towards the man sitting behind the rather unnecessarily large desk adjacent to her. The asker of the impossible question. Then, as though she hadn't heard him the first time, he asked her again.

"Why did your father disown you?"

She could feel the intense glare of the lighting on her back, the lens of the camera boring a hole into her skull. Trying her best not to appear uncomfortable, she racked her brain for an answer.

"Well," She started, knowing she couldn't put off the question forever - though she would very much like to. "He wasn't happy with the path I chose." Wisely worded, she thought to herself. Apparently not wise enough though, if the next question was anything to go by.

"And which path was that?" She groaned internally, and began to wonder why she had agreed to do this in the first place, recalling the conversation she'd had just the other day. 'It's not a good idea, you know exactly why they asked you up there.' She'd argued, of course. 'Oh, please, I've done a million of these things. It's about time things got back to normal.' Too stubborn for her own good, she was.

"The gay one."

The audience gasped. The man's eyebrows shot to his hairline. The sun fell out of the sky. Shifting her weight, she soaked up the reaction, which had been exactly what she'd expected. Shock. This would be breaking news for the next week or so, why not make the most of it? But something was different this time.

"Are you confirming the rumours of your sexuality?"

Leeches. Every single one of them. The host. The audience. The viewers at home. Throwing away hours of their lives for a taste of someone else's. She wondered what was wrong with her. This is the kind of thing she used to live for. Now it all made her sick. So much had changed in such a short time, she just hadn't realised how much she had.

"That's right. I am 100% positively gay." She smiled sweetly. "And I couldn't be happier."

The audience lost it. They cheered and whooped and whistled and got on their feet. The model laughed and acted flattered, relieved even, but she wanted to get as far from that stage as possible. No ordinary person would be expected to stand before a dozen cameras and a hundred strangers and profess their sexuality. Mostly because nobody would care. Why was it so different for people like her? She knew the answer, of course.

Because 'ordinary' people are generally so bored of their own mundane lives that they live through the excitement of celebrities and gossip magazines and late night talk shows, so that maybe they might actually have something to talk about the next time they catch up with a friend or chat with a colleague. God knows there'd be nothing in their own lives worth mentioning.

"Congratulations, Alex." The man smiled. Alex didn't think it was genuine. And she was sure it wasn't genuine when he turned to the camera and said "You heard it here first, folks. Alexandra Valentine is officially gay." Was she unofficially gay before she had admitted it in front of millions of people? She wanted to vomit all over his pressed-to-perfection suit. Alas, it wasn't over yet. He was bound to have more questions after that reveal. When the audience finally settled, he continued.

"Over the past couple of months, you've been the centre of a lot of attention, as I'm sure you know. This, for example-" The screen behind them changed, showing a blown up image of a recent newspaper article telling the world of Alex's arrest. "How did you find yourself in that situation?"

Alex licked her dry lips and cleared her throat. At that moment, she despised the man. His gentle tone of voice, his charming smiles, his faux care for his guests. Underneath the whole charade he was just like every single one of them. He had no limits. He wanted answers. He wanted gossip. He wanted viewers.

"Shay is a difficult topic. All you need to know is that I wasn't found guilty, and that her death isn't gossip - it's a tragedy. A tragedy over which I know several people are still grieving. I think we can all respect that." That sure as hell put him in his place. He blinked, nodded, looked down at his questions, and then looked back up with that same fake smile on his face.

"So, now that we know you are, in fact, gay, can I ask: is this the girl you are currently seeing?" The screen changed again to show a picture of Alex at the beach holding Rose's hand. A fond memory now tainted and invaded by the media.

"This is, of course, the same girl you were seen being arrested with as well."

"That is the girl I'm seeing, yes. Her name is Rose."

"And how did you meet Rose?" Why he was so interested in Rose she didn't know. What she did know was that Rose probably wouldn't appreciate being the topic of conversation on what she referred to as "cheap entertainment." She wasn't wrong in all honesty. It was cheap, and barely even passed as entertainment. Alex may as well have been wearing handcuffs for how much the interview reminded her of being at the police station.

"Rose and I met through work. She used to be my photographer. That's probably all you need to know about her." Alex was barely hiding her irritation at this point. She was tired of her life being picked apart, and worried that if the public became too interested in Rose that they would find out more than she wanted them to know. She didn't want that to happen.

"Alright, as you wish." He laughed but nobody laughed with him. The audience were beginning to sense the tension. "I'd like to backtrack a little; rewind to your father disowning you. What was that like for you, and how have you been coping since?"

Whatever happened to 'tell us about your next shoot' and 'that's a really lovely dress.' Alex thought of how she could answer the question without completely shutting him down and making it look like she had something to hide. She didn't have anything to hide per say, but she didn't want to go into too much detail about the really personal stuff. Again she had to restrain herself from fidgeting under the weight of over a hundred pairs of eager eyes,

"Everyone worships their parents as kids, but as you grow up you realise that they're just people like everyone else. Sometimes people are good, sometimes people are bad. My father, though, is a close minded ass hole with more money than heart." Maybe she went a little too far, but it felt good to finally say it. Boy, did it feel good. A few people in the audience laughed, most were surprised - including the host.

"You don't think there's any chance he'll come around and take you back?"

"It's not a matter of whether or not he'll take me back. It's about whether I would even consider going back to him. He cut off my money, he fired me from his company... Jesus, he practically left me out on the streets. Anyone who could do that to their own daughter is no father of mine." Alex felt her heart thumping in her chest. This might come back to haunt her, sure, but for the time being it felt amazing. She hoped he was watching, she hoped his face was red and his fists were clenched.

"I see. So, you say he left you on the streets? How did you come back from that?"

"You're not Alexandra Valentine if you don't have connections. I'll always land on my feet." Thankfully, immediately after her father had all but shunned her and Rose, Caesar had offered them his guesthouse not far from his current home. It had sufficed so far, but they didn't plan on staying there forever. Rose especially wanted out. Apparently she hated feeling like a charity case, especially after everyone had "helped her out in more ways than imaginable."

"No doubt. What are your plans now, then? Surely you don't intend to fade like so many others?" He had worded it like it was a bad thing, to escape from a world where the word privacy meant nothing and feelings may as well have been a myth. But, honestly, Alex hadn't thought about it that much. What she did know, is that she didn't want to become irrelevant. Her worst nightmare would be seeing herself on one of those "where are they now" programs. Sure, she was sick of her life choices being dissected and criticised, but she was Alexandra Valentine. Irrelevance was not in the cards for her.

"I can promise you this - You will be seeing more of me."