A/N: oh heyyy new story time! guess who wrote this instead of writing her arguments for her trial brief due monday? meeeee. #priorities when the creative muse hits...she hits hard. i've been developing the story in the back of my head for a while now so I hope you like it!
also reviews make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Chapter One- Time Bomb
Have you ever felt like people are treating you like a ticking time bomb? How everyone hesitates when they try to formulate their words? How they hesitate in their way of addressing you? As if they're trying to make sure that you are not going go off, that it won't be their fault that whatever messed up, fucked up problem you have, it won't be triggered by them.
Lately, that's all I've been feeling.
But I guess that it should be a given when it's been a week since you've been released from rehab after your ex-boyfriend decided to use your fame to climb up the social ladder, find out that he cheated on you for a good three of the five years you were together, and you decide it's high time to go off on a life-tangent. A life tangent that was more of a "fall down the rabbit hole" than anything else.
To make the story short, my already depressive self decided to go on an alcohol binge which in turn led to a drug binge, that led to weeks upon weeks of staying in bed, intoxicated, stoned, and morbidly depressed. All these roads led to me being involuntarily committed to one of SoCal's best rehabilitation facilities after my friend and publicist Mary Margaret practically knocked down the front door to my penthouse apartment only to find me in the tub a bottle of sleeping pills just dropped from my hand.
Passed out, virtually lifeless. That kind of shit happens when the only person you've ever really loved, really trusted, chooses to tell you how utterly worthless he thinks you really are.
It's all over the tabloids. Finally, they get something right.
I guess I'd rather people treat me like a ticking time bomb, that would mean that they are no longer treating me like Emma Swan, the troubled ex-child star who now parties too much instead of focusing in what her illustrious career could really become.
Though, I'd rather they treat me like a troubled, uninhibited actress than with pity. I've never cared for pity. When you're adopted and your adoptive mother (the only one who ever really cared for me, really) dies of breast-cancer when you're thirteen, pity is all you get. So, in the grand scheme of things, ticking time bomb trumps wild-child actress, trumps pity on any given day.
I don't really remember much of what happened after Neal left. My ex-boyfriend, if you were wondering. I remember fighting for months and months leading up to him leaving. I remember finding out that he was seeing someone else. I remember crying, I cried a lot actually. I remember begging for him to stay, he had become such a constant in my life, such a—what I thought—permanent fixture in my life that I couldn't imagine a world without him in it. And then he told me he was just using me. He was using my fame (or infamy if you'd rather) for his own gain. He told me he didn't care for me anymore, that he had been trying to figure out a way to get out of this relationship without hindering my sanity, my feelings too much. He had, and I quote, "gotten tired of trying to fix me." He told me that I had brought him with me down this whirlwind life of chaos, of excess, of despair. He told me that it wasn't until he met Tamara that he felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders, that he could finally breathe with ease. Being with her, he said, was so easy and life with me had become basically unbearable. It was heavy, distraught, dazed, and confusing.
It wasn't what he wanted.
I wasn't what he wanted.
And then he left. As I said, I don't remember much after that. If I slept, it was because of painkillers; if I ate, it was because I had the munchies; and if I breathe it's because Mary Margaret found me right in the nick of time.
And for that I am truly thankful. The first few days at the Betty Ford Center had been hard, especially because I wanted nothing with being there.
I was fine.
You know, aside from trying to kill myself. I was fine. My stomach, however, was in terrible shape and was probably incredibly bruised from being pumped and I suffered from intense withdrawals from oxytocin. It took me weeks, well actually six months, to get myself together.
To feel better I had to try to be better and that was something that I hadn't been doing in a long time. I didn't completely learn that I wasn't worthless, that kind of deeply rooted behavior was going to take time to unlearn, but after six months they thought I was good to go.
And now here I am, for some reason in a record studio one week after being released. I doubt that I'm here to record a best selling album, considering I can't sing for shit, but Mary Margaret is here on business so it's definitely something about my public image. I had told her that I wanted to get out there, that I wanted to act. I was good at it, it kept me busy, and it kept me alive.
So here we are, I'm guessing to revive my story as that of the prodigal daughter that had fallen from grace coming back to regain her rightful place in the public eye as America's former sweetheart.
"Emma." Mary Margaret starts tentatively as if I were about to jump off a ledge at any second. It kind of amuses me, actually.
"Are you going to tell me why we're here, Mags?" I ask her, smiling reassuringly. I keep telling her that I'm okay, but she has a hard time believing me. But who wouldn't, considering how she found me?
"Yes. Look, I know that you want to get back into the game but unfortunately all the offers you had months ago have kind of evaporated completely. Your stint at Betty Ford doesn't really make you a desirable talent to work with for most studios." She tells me, eyes wide and fearful, afraid that this news would make me too upset to handle. I knew it wasn't going to be easy to get back in the game, my public image isn't favorable nowadays. I'm Britney in 2007. I'm "what is she going to do next"? I'm a time bomb.
"I know my public image is shit right now. Please, don't tell me that I'm about to become a recording artist though, you know I can't sing." I laugh, I cannot hold a tune to save my life.
"No, that's not why we're here." Mary Margaret tells me, cracking the first genuine smile I've seen in months.
"Then why are we here?" I ask her, rolling my eyes. Mary Margaret comes and sits next to me in the conference room we were in. Whatever we're here for, it's a meeting with at least two more people.
"Well, management has a proposition for you, to clear up your image." She tells me plainly, before quickly replying to a message on her BlackBerry. Why publicists still use BlackBerrys will always perplex me. Aren't they dead technology?
"I'm all ears." I tell her, actually completely open to whatever proposition management is willing to give me. She smiles methodically as she pulls a folder from her tan Birkin bag.
"They think that if the public sees you in a stable relationship, regaining your stability really, you'd be a more favorable asset to production companies." She tells me, reading from the letter before showing it to me. I look over it, clearly understanding that for my public image to look better and for me to get better acting gigs (or any, really) I was going to have to put on—literally—the performance of my life.
"So…we're doing the fake dating thing, then?" I ask her plainly.
"Basically." She nods.
Well, this wouldn't be terrible. Usually they pair people up with up-and-coming actors, who are generally extremely good-looking and looking for a bump up from the C-list. Mostly, they're kind of empty in the head so I never have to put that much effort into the conversation, just pucker my lips and make sure paps get good pictures of us.
Easy enough.
"Who with?" I ask her, intrigued at the identity of the Nameless Wonder I'll have to be kissing for the next couple of months.
"Killian Jones."
Oh, fuck no, I think as I choke on my Starbuck latte. The history I have with Killian Jones is not a good one.
"Absolutely not." I say forcefully, making Mary Margaret wince at my tone. She shakes her head and looks at me dead on, total publicist mode at the ready.
"It's either this or community theater in a nameless town, Emma." She replies curtly. She gives me the look publicists tend to give, the "there's nothing I can do with this" look, the "take it or leave it" look.
I hated that look.
Not more than I hated Killian Jones though.
"Mags, there must be something else you can do!"
"Emma, do you know how much I had to plead to get them to even consider keeping you in their artist repertoire? I told them I could make you get a big budget movie by the end of the year because I can make you look desirable to the production companies. I owe David Nolan a favor, he's having trouble with Jones and this is the best we could come up with."
There it is, David Nolan. Of course he's the only reason we're doing this. Mary Margaret and David have the worst sexual tension that I've ever seen (or perhaps the best?). David is the manager of the Rolly Jogers, the band whose front-man just happens to be Killian Jones, self-proclaimed bad-boy extraordinaire and sex-symbol. Emma had the misfortune of meeting him during a taping of the Tonight Show two years ago. She had been promoting her latest movie and to say he had been a chauvinistic asshole was putting it mildly.
"Except there's one problem Mags, I hate him. I cannot stand Killian Jones." I tell her firmly, crossing my arms against my chest.
"Well, I don't particularly fancy you either, love. Alas, here we are." The devil himself says entering the threshold to the conference room, coming up to sit next to me.
"Hello, lover." He grins wickedly, licking his lips in an almost profane way, and winking at me. I roll my eyes in evident distaste and suddenly, I feel like clicking my heels and thinking of home and by home, I mean the Betty Ford Center.
A/N: wellll? yesss? nooooo? good? bad?
let me know! i'm having spring break so whenever i'm not outlining for contract law or constitutional law i'll be writing this baby. i'll update soon i promise!
- steph!