The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

32

CAMERON WAS AT THE HOSPITAL and I was the one freaking out.

Me and Mason were in his apartment on a Friday night, all of us just relaxing, Mason from following me around all day, and Cameron and me with the current show we were filming together. But then there was a call Cameron received, and then within blurbs of words, he was gone and out of the door.

"I need to go, Mason!" I now yelled at him. My whole body was shaking.

"I can't let you, what will the press say about it the next day? For all we know it might not be a big deal, and Cameron is already going." He was raising his voice at me, and that was unusual. He was also blocking the door so I wouldn't leave, and for what seemed like the first time I was mad at him.

Cameron hadn't called back ever since he left, and I needed to go check on her myself.

All I heard before he left was: Klarise, I was on her emergency contact, she's in the emergency room, I have to go.

She was in the back of my head, I've tried so hard to suppress her there, and then suddenly she was at the top of my mind. She was in the hospital about something, maybe at the risk of her life, and all I could do was pace around the grand foyer of Cameron's and do nothing about it.

"If I have to punch through that door, I will, Mason. If you don't move away I'm going to shoot you down."

"You're not in your clear mind, Maeve."

"Oh to hell with clear minds, she's dying."

"You don't know that."

I went around and found the glass of vodka I had been drinking a few hours ago before Cameron went bursting out of the place. I took big gulps of it.

"Give me that, Maeve, you're not drinking that right now."

I think I was a little tipsy. Because when he came to try and get the glass out of my hand, I held it up and started giggling.

"I will if you let me go."

He was obviously mad. "Maeve, you're drunk, I am not letting you go anywhere like this in the middle of the night. Especially to her."

I frowned. "What if she's waiting for me? What if I didn't go and the next day she's dead?"

He was still trying to snatch the glass from my hand, while I was spinning it around my arms so he couldn't reach it. I would've been mad at me if I were him too.

"She's not going to die, and she is most definitely not waiting for you."

That was what really drove it. Before I knew what I was doing, my arm swung, and then the glass of vodka shattered against the white painted wall, which was soon stained. The sound of it shattering made the both of us flinch, and when I took a look at my hand that had thrown it, there was a small cut, but deep, and blood was starting to pour out of it. I stared at the pieces of glass on the floor and I had the urge to go grab one up and drive the cut on my hand deeper.

Mason immediately got my hand up and was examining the wound but I whirled around, slapping him away from me. The world felt like it was spinning around me.

"You're wrong! She's waiting for me! She should be!"

"Maeve, you're bleeding, let me look at it."

Tears were coming out of my eyes. "S-She's supposed to be with me, she wasn't supposed to leave."

"Hey," he came over and hugged me. Since when did he grow so big? It still felt like he was the little seventeen year old boy Mr. Wang had thrown at me, who was skinny and shy. When did he change? When did I change? "She's going to be alright."

And just when he said that, the door behind us opened. Cameron, his black hair messy, looked more tired than ever. But then his eyes widened at the sight of me (I was probably a mess myself, with my own hair all over the place from digging my hands into) and the shattered glass and stained wall.

"What was this about?" He was still at the door, and I couldn't tell if he was annoyed or just plainly angry at what he was seeing.

Next to me, Mason murmured: "I think it's time you tell him about everything."

I thought so too.

I DON'T THINK I have ever been this uncomfortable and awkward with Cameron. And I think he felt that too.

"She's alright, it was some food poisoning and they managed to get the stuff out of her system. She's now resting in the hospital."

"Why didn't you stay with her?"

He seemed surprised by this question and that follows by a moment of dead quietness until he's willing to speak again. "Well, the press..."

"Right," I knew it well enough that the press will talk, but the thought of Klarise in that hospital bed alone without anyone who actually cared for her made me almost unable to sit still.

He was waiting for me to continue of course, he was waiting for me to tell him about who I was. And as much as I liked him by then already, I savored the silence, I savored his waiting. I think that's how I had always been—not that I liked me about it—I liked to let people wait, I liked to feel their heads leaning in, wanting to know what I have to say. And the more famous I got, the more I liked that feeling and power I had.

The tipsiness of the vodka was starting to wear off and under the bright lighting I felt exposed. Mason was cleaning up the shattered glass, but I think he was also using it as an excuse to keep me and Cameron alone.

We both just sat there on the edge of his bed for a while, until I got the bravery to talk. Or maybe it was the small bits of alcohol still churning in my body that gave me the courage. Who knows.

He sat there silently as I started telling him who I was. Starting with the village, my mother, then Mr. Wang, and Adele and Joseph. Cameron flinched a little when I got to the part with Ya Kai Jun, but that didn't worry me. What worried me was what happened after that. Klarise.

"...I thought we were going to become something together. But then she just left."

He was staring at me then, and I couldn't read him.

"And all of a sudden she was marrying you."

Do you ever just feel like someone's trying to choke the air out of your lungs? And oxygen was running away from you as you run towards it?

He rubbed his hands through his hair, and even then as it was messy, it looked so good. Why did he have to look so good all the damn time was what I was so mad at him for in those few moments. Sure, it was silly and petty, but that was just what I thought. Or maybe I was mad at everything.

"Listen..." His eyes were on me when he took his hands off of his face. "It was an arranged thing from our families, me and Klarise had been childhood friends. We still are friends, if not for the press we might still be talking more right now."

I was nodding, but something didn't sit right with me. "But you did like her. I heard it from Mason."

"The past is the past, you know I only care about Mason now. She's just a friend."

"But..."

I took in a deep ragged breath. He couldn't fix me and Klarise, in fact, none of this was his fault. I wanted someone to blame, I wanted something to blame, but in some situations, the blame is hard to be put on anything. Sometimes maybe there just isn't a blame.

"I'm sorry, it's just so hard because..."

When I couldn't get myself to say more because I knew tears would come running out, he scooted closer to me on the bed and wrapped his warmth around me. Rocking back and forth, his voice was so gentle, the voice of an actor.

"I know, I know, I know."

And I think, (small gasp of breath) he really did know.