The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

56

MY HEAD WAS A FUZZ from the moment my brain started to clear the smallest bit, leaving enough room to tell me; You gotta get up.

So I did get up, and then I looked around me, realizing I needed to get out of this hotel. And the only comfort source I knew here in L.A., or maybe the whole world, was my best friend. And I needed him to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be alright, that I will get through this. Like how he had done nine years ago. Because I couldn't do it myself. I felt like one gust of wind and I might blow away, the world never seeing me again.

Nobody recognizes me as I walk the streets in my "I love LA" shirt and pants, my sunhat and sunglasses adding on as an even better disguise. I looked somewhat like an old lady lost in Mr. Bedazzle City, maybe that's why no one could tell it was me. I blended right in, for what seemed the first time.

When I finally came across their lawn after walking for hours, I didn't know why I didn't take a bus or call a cab, but somehow I managed. And their house made me gasp for a sharp breath, suddenly bringing up the image of me, Klarise, Cameron, and Mason, the four of us once together here.

I collapsed right there in front of their doormat, tears once again welcoming down my cheeks. And when I reached up high enough, with so much effort and energy, I rang their doorbell.

I knew that the moment I saw Mason I would feel so much better, because he just had that kind of effect on me. And I needed it so badly then.

But he did not answer the door. Cameron did.

He was standing there, looking down on me sitting on his doormat, and frowning as if trying to understand what he was seeing. Then, pretty quickly, his frown turned into what looked like recognition, following that, relief. It made me wonder how badly I exactly looked. Or, how long in total I had been ignoring his and Mason's contact.

I looked behind him, but no one was there. And then making myself look back into his eyes, I asked, "Where is he?"

I was then sitting on his living room sofa, a warm cup of hot cocoa in my hands even though it was spring and sort of hot. He even had a blanket draped around my shoulders. It was almost as if he knew how cold I was feeling, a sense of coldness only I could feel.

With my emotions a little more cleared, I look up from my mug and at him. He was sitting across from me, elbows resting on his knee as he leaned forward, hands clasped, and dark eyes glued on to me.

"Where in the world have you been, Maeve? And what the hell happened?" He finally asked, looking like he had this question stuck in him for weeks.

Ignoring him, I looked around the living room, not one trace of Mason. "Where is he?"

He frowned harder, leaning even more forward on his elbows. "Do you have a sense of time? How long we tried to contact you? Almost a month. Mason was about to file a missing person report, but luckily, in which you better thank me for, he didn't."

I swallowed down the emerging tears. I worried him yet once again, when I swore to myself I wouldn't.

"I'm sorry."

Cameron finally leaned back, his two fingers going to the bridge of his nose as he massaged it. "Mase was so worried when he left, and this is why I haven't taken on a film because I've been instructed to stay here and wait till one day you show up or something so that it can at least bring some kind of closure for him."

My face twists even more ugly as I feel stabs of guilt aiming at me. He notices, and softens his pained expression.

"He had to make a business trip with Juno, they got a deal with a high actor management company. Some big investment might be made, and he had to go. That's why he isn't here right now, but jeez, Maeve, you worried the shit out of him. Out of me."