CHAPTER 20

If clarity's in death, then why won't this die?

Years of tearing down our banners, you and I

Living for the thrill of hitting you where it hurts

Give me back my girlhood it was mine first

~ Taylor Swift, Would've, Could've, Should've

Holly POV

IF I CAN'T HAVE LOVE, I WANT POWER | Interviews: Bella's career

"She keeps her awards somewhere else?" I asked Edward and Aiden as they carted in a couple boxes overflowing with golden statues.

Bella's office was a sight to behold. It was large and open and surprisingly eccentric. There was a beautiful piano in the corner, a couple acoustic guitars beside it. A large pristine desk to the left that had a sleek laptop sitting in the middle and not much else cluttering the space. There was a beautiful white couch facing the opposite wall which consisted of floor to ceiling built in shelves that seemed perfectly sized for her countless accolades.

An odd feature if you didn't always keep them there.

The wall behind her desk was covered in clusters of personal photos. Not a single career-centered. I had soaked them up the minute I walked in to start setting up the space. There was a photo of Bella in a hospital bed holding her newborn son with a look of awe and a hint of fear. There were photos of Aiden throughout his life; as a toddler and on every first day of school up until college and baseball games and vacations. All of them together at his wedding, all of them in the hospital holding his newborn daughter.

There were photos of Bella and Edward that nobody would believe me if I told them existed because they were so… normal. There were dozens of pictures of them together at the beach, on their private island I would assume. There was one photo in particular of them sitting side by side on the beach, Bella's head resting on her husband's shoulder with their backs to the camera. The angle was slightly crooked from whatever they had set the phone on to time it. I couldn't see their faces, had no way to tell when it was taken, but I had a gut feeling it was after her trial.

There were pictures of them at countless events, neither looking entirely invested in whatever was going on around them as they were captured leaning into each other with conspiratorial were pictures taken at arm length on the couch as they smiled down at each other and candid shots obviously captured by a family member or friend. Decades worth of little moments that nobody would think they had because half of the country still assumed the marriage was fake.

There were plenty of more believable photos where Bella's appearance was recognizable, Academy Award dresses or tour outfits and Edward was always there. Arm thrown over her shoulder as she walked to stage in her sparkly black outfit for her reputation tour or lifting her in a hug after a show. He was there in the photos before shows, Bella standing bright eyed and smiling with her dancers with Edward's hand clasped firmly in hers. Those weren't about the show or prestige, though. It was just them. Their life.

There was the photo of their hands, Bella's wedding ring on display. It was the only recognizable one in the bunch, because it was what she had posted so long ago to announce she was married.

"Not usually," Edward said tensely, forcing me to tear my eyes away from her wall of photos again.

And that was that.

I was quickly learning how to read him. There were times when I could get away with pushing for more detail, and there were times when he made it very clear I had reached my limit.

That limit was usually Bella. He would talk about her accomplishments and success, would shout her praises for hours, but when it came to her, who she was behind it all, he was incredibly protective.

It was…sweet. As sweet as a man who ran the largest crime syndicate in the country could be. But also proved difficult when my job was to get to who she was behind it all.

"I had a breakdown and threw a couple out the window," Bella's voice chimed from the doorway. She stood with a woman carefully brushing through her curls and another lint-rolling the chunky pale blue cardigan she wore. "Security system started screeching, pretty sure I nearly gave a dozen members of security a heart attack. Edward included."

Edward grumbled to himself as he lined up the final award in its slot.

The wall… it was breathtaking. Awe inspiring. Unreal, almost, that all of them belonged to a single woman. Reading her list of accomplishments was one thing, but seeing them all like this was extraordinary.

There was a single Tony award she won a few years back for co-writing a song with an old friend on a whim for his Broadway musical. An Emmy she won for her guest role on the television show Unknown when she was eighteen. Three Screen Actors Guild awards; one for reputation, Welcome to the Badlands, and her first film outside of the Tainted series, Silver. There were four Golden Globes awarded to her for her acting in Silver and reputation as well as her songs Hurricane and Look What You Made Me Do. Eight Grammy Awards decorated the wall; Best New Artist, Song Written for Visual Media (Control from Welcome to the Badlands, Getaway Car from reputation, Without Me from the Tainted revival a few years ago), Best Music Video for Look What You Made Me Do, Pop Vocal Album for reputation, and two Albums of the Year for Badlands and reputation.

Then there were the Academy Awards. Seven Oscars lined the wall, all standing tall and pristine. There were three wins for Actress in a Leading role for Silver, Welcome to the Badlands, and reputation. Two for Song Written for Visual Media for Control and I Did Something Bad. A Best Picture for reputation. And her Isabella Cullen Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bella took a seat on the couch that had been lined up perfectly against that backdrop of her awards. She crossed her legs, the red bottom of her boots flashing my way. A friendly reminder that the woman was probably wearing clothing that cost more than my car.

She pulled at the sleeves of her sweater, fidgeting with the ends before switching to twirling her wedding bands around her finger as half a dozen people worked around her to set up the shot.

"I was offered five million dollars to sign a non-disclosure agreement to never speak about Duncan Zane or my experience working with him or his former production company yesterday," she said out of the blue.

I froze in my spot for a moment.

We had been working together for a few weeks at this point. After our initial interview with Bella and the rest of her family, we were slowly incorporating ourselves into her life. And I knew there was never a single moment she didn't carefully think through what she was saying or doing around the camera.

"Did you sign it?" I asked, eyes darting to where her husband and son wore matching frowns in the corner of the office.

Bella snorted, eyes meeting mine with a mischievous twinkle from across the room. "No. That would ruin my fun."

I got a nod from a PA and took my seat across from Bella. "You're ready, then?"

Bella nodded.

"Let's start at the beginning," I told her. "Your experiences filming the first Tainted movie."

"I was sixteen when I set foot on my first movie set. I became an emancipated minor to film Tainted because neither of my… well, Charlie and Reneé didn't want to spend three months in Georgia. Neither were upset about signing the papers. Or the fact that I was working eighteen-hour days."

"Eighteen-hour days at sixteen?"

Bella shrugged, unfazed. "I loved it. I didn't mind. I… I didn't have a lot going for me before that. I was an okay student, nothing special. I lived in a small town. I went to school and people ignored me for the most part. I didn't have many friends, didn't go out on the weekends or have sleepovers or go to parties. I just kind of… floated from one day to the next. Then I walked onto the Tainted set and found what I had been waiting for.

"That sounds dramatic, I know, but that movie changed my life. I wasn't really a movie buff or anything beforehand. I didn't know shit about the process behind it all. But that set was where I fell in love with every aspect of filmmaking. Even if now the memories are a little… spoiled."

"Why do you love it so much?"

A genuine, wistful smile tugged at her lips. "Acting is very… cathartic to me. I'm not great at dealing with my own emotions. Shocking, I know. But it's surprisingly rewarding to work through someone else's. To know and understand and justify why they're doing what they're doing, to scream when they scream or cry when they cry. I don't know. Maybe that sounds stupid. But I love it just as much today as I did that first day."

"So you've never thought about quitting?"

"Oh, of course I have. Every day since I was sixteen. Multiple times a day."

"Why?"

"I love my job, but it… it's excruciating at the same time. Because it's not just acting. It's not just making music. Once you become an entertainer of any kind you are considered public property."

Bella paused, lips pressed together and eyes far away until they refocused on me. "I know people don't really understand it. What it's like to be a public figure, to be 'famous'. That's part of the reason why I'm doing this in the first place. You… you don't know until it's too late how truly fucked everything is." She swallowed, eyes falling to her lap before they met mine again.

I gave her a small nod. This was what we were here for. The real story, not the fake smiles and easy going answers she'd given everyone her whole life.

"When I was sixteen filming the first Tainted movie there was a stunt where I was running through a forest while it was on fire. The stunt coordinator made it very clear it was unsafe for anyone to be within a certain range of the flames. Except for me. Because I was running through the flames."

Bella took a deep breath, eyes slightly unfocused as she relived the formative years of her career, memories she probably worked hard to not think about on a regular basis. Her words came fast and true, the confessions of a woman who was finally telling her truth.

I soaked it all up, each and every word. Barely giving myself time to think between each question.

"But I didn't bat a fucking eye at it. Because for the first time in my life I was good at something. Great. People liked me, they acknowledged me. I didn't get much positive reinforcement when I was a kid. And once I started getting that for acting I craved it. So as soon as that first Tainted movie was wrapped I didn't second guess my decision to go right to another movie. Then another.

"When I was seventeen I needed a new manager and I had a few meetings with Colton Shay. He thought he could slide his hand up my thigh and make crude comments and I would spread my legs for him and thank him for making me a star. He's the reason why, to this day, I will not have a man on my immediate team working with me.

"By the time I was eighteen I was exhausted and overworked and had picked up the habit of starving myself because being skinny enough to fit in my red carpet dresses was one less problem I had to worry about. And most of the time I was too fucking tired to eat anything, anyway.

"That's… that's when I had my first breakdown. I was supposed to go to the Video Music Awards the night before the second Tainted movie was coming out. Smile and wave and talk about the film and be the peppy little thing everyone wanted me to be. Twenty minutes before that red carpet I was dry heaving over the toilet because there was nothing left in my system to throw up and I was so tired I couldn't think straight and I couldn't breathe–my body was in this weird fight or flight response because I was scared and tired and I didn't know what to do or where I could go I just–I had nowhere to go. I had no one I could call.

"I wasn't–I was just a prop. I wasn't a person anymore. No one saw me as a person. I was just supposed to stand there and look pretty and smile for the camera's even though I couldn't breathe. I–even as I walked into rehab the next morning there was a guy hiding in the bushes with a camera and I smiled at him. Because that's what I was trained to do. Always smile. Never let anyone know how I really felt."

Bella took a deep, unsteady breath. I felt her husband's eyes on me from where he still stood behind me. Knew all it would take was one look from his wife for him to kick us all out.

She took another, more steady breath and met my eyes again. "Those first few years of my career really shaped me more than I care to admit. To this day I still have the habit of pushing myself too far, working too hard because I feel like I still need to prove myself. Whenever I'm stressed or upset or overwhelmed my appetite disappears. Not because I want to lose weight or have a dress I'm trying to fit into it just… seems like it'll solve my problems sometimes. Which is fucked.

"I still…" she sighed with a shake of her head. "I still like to hide behind a character's tears and not let people know they've actually hurt my feelings."

Bella took a few deep breaths, and it wasn't until the third that I realized I was matching them.

My eyes scanned the rows and rows of awards behind her. Decades worth of work. Then my attention fell back to the woman sitting in front of them. The one who ran through burning forests and walked into rehab with a smile on her face.

"Did it help?" I asked quietly. "Rehab?"

Bella shrugged. "A bit. I was, um… That's when I was diagnosed as bipolar."

I tried to keep the shock off of my face, but I must not have done a very good job if Bella's patient smile was any indication.

"I've never really said anything about it. People–people are mean," she shrugged. "It doesn't matter whether the public is going through a phase of trying to break the stigma behind mental health. If I had told people at any point throughout my life about it they would have torn me apart. Still will, probably, but…" she gave me an exasperated sigh. "Add it to the fucking list."

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. Because she was right. Isabella Cullen was always the exception, and not in the good way. People would tear her apart for something they praised someone else for.

"Rehab wasn't bad. Honestly, I kind of enjoyed it. I got to sleep. Think. Breathe. It probably would have worked a little better if I stayed for the whole program, though."

"Why didn't you stay?"

"Because Charlie, Reneé, Lawrence, and Duncan Zane were trying to petition the court to put me under a conservatorship of the estate and person. They wanted control of my finances and control of me. They would have been giving me allowances of my own money, they would have been telling me where I could live or who I could see. When I could work, what I could work on… I would have been the perfect puppet."

Christ.

"How did you find out?"
"Kate told me. She was my personal assistant, but she was also my best friend. Still is. They called her and wanted her to go on the record saying I was unstable. She refused. Came to the center–she was the only one who ever visited me in the first place–and helped me get signed out. The first place I went was a lawyers office. I had to go through dozens of meetings with different psychiatrists and doctors to prove I was stable enough to make my own fucking decisions. At the time–at the time I didn't know Lawrence was in on it. I thought it was my parents and Zane.

"I also didn't realize how bad the situation was. How bad it could have gotten. I was still adjusting to new meds and honestly, I was a little fuzzy and out of it for a while because of it." Bella sighed, shaking her head and smiling to herself. "But, let it be known, I am an excellent actress under pressure."

Bella chuckled to herself. I heard a deep sigh from behind me that I assumed was from her husband, and listened to her son curse to himself under his breath.

Only Isabella Cullen could joke about committing perjury and get away with it.

"And after rehab? How were things then?"

Bella refocused, she curled her legs underneath her on the couch, pulling a fluffy white pillow into her lap. "Things were okay, I guess. I bought a house. Filmed Silver. Won my first Oscar."

I cocked my head to the side. "You talk about winning an Oscar like it's a walk in the park."

"Oh, it's not," she clarified quickly. "People work their entire lives for the opportunity to be nominated for one. For the smallest chance to maybe win one. I have seven. I pushed myself to the brink for each and every one of them. They're not something I take lightly. But I do sometimes wonder who I would be if I hadn't won that first one."

"Why is that?" I asked, watching her fingers brush over the tiny statue of the Academy Award inked into her wrist.

"Because I remember winning that award and going home to an empty house with parents who still didn't give a shit about me and friends who only wanted me around for exposure. And I thought if that Oscar wasn't enough for people to like me, maybe two would do it. Or three.

"And now here I am, thirty-five years later with seven goddamn Academy Awards and people still have the nerve to call me a fucking fraud."

Bella closed her eyes and huffed out a long breath through her nose. Her growing anger had been obvious, her eyes hardening and hands clenched against the pillow in her lap. That anger faded away–or was forced away–by the time she opened her eyes again.

"I love what I do. Despite all of the shit that comes with acting, I have loved it from the moment I was sixteen and stepped foot on that first set. I don't take a single accolade I've been honored with lightly because I know how hard I worked for each of them.

"He knows how hard I worked for it. Knows how much it means to me. That's why he said–why he said what he did."

The air in the room shifted. The imposing force behind my back that was her husband encroaching and ready to call the whole thing off at the first sign Bella wanted out.

"Why Lawrence claimed he accepted a bribe for your first role," I clarified.

Bella winced. "Yes."

"Is it true?"

"That's enough for today," Edward interrupted, heavy footsteps falling behind me.

"I'm fine," Bella said, eyes meeting his over my shoulder before turning her attention back to me. "I don't know if it's true. Just when I convince myself it couldn't be, I start to doubt every single thing I've ever accomplished. It's why I threw a couple Grammys out the window."

"That's enough for today," Edward repeated.

Bella nodded.

–Love|Power–

Edward sat just where his wife had a few days ago, on the pristine white couch of her office with a backdrop of every prestigious award she had ever won behind him. I had yet to see the man in anything besides a perfectly tailored suit, so his appearance in a black button down and matching slacks was unsurprising. He was somewhat casual today, with the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows and the first few buttons undone.

I sat opposite him. Watching and waiting.

Because the most fascinating things happened when you let someone talk, uninterrupted. When they felt comfortable to tell you their life story, their relationships. Their thoughts without interrupting or intruding.

It worked on most people. But Edward Cullen was not most people. He said nothing he didn't want to, nothing he didn't think through beforehand.

"Nobody really knows," he told me eventually. "All of the shit she's been through for her career. Even with this," he sighed, motioning toward the camera crew. "Nobody will ever understand. They'll still attack her, berate her, call her a fraud even when they have no fucking idea what she's done."

"Yes, they will," I agreed. "But at least this way she'll know she tried to get them to understand. To listen."

Edward shook his head, unconvinced. Which was understandable, because he was right. No matter what he or anybody else had to say, people would always come after her.

If there was one thing I knew about the man, though, it was that he loved his wife. And would do anything for her.

"After we first met," he started. "She had two shows in Chicago and was gone in a matter of days. But we still talked. Phone calls, texts, video calls, always between shows or interviews or meet and greets. I remember one night she was upset, her show had a some technical problems and she started to lose her voice by the end of it. She had to cancel a few meet and greets and she was devastated.

"But she wasn't upset because she was sick or because of the hassle it would cause her to not be able to talk for two days. She was upset because her sore throat had shattered the hopes of the people who thought they were going to get two minutes with her the next day. It was the first glimpse I had of her tendency to put absolutely anything and anyone above her own needs. Above her own health or safety or sanity."

His jaw tensed, eyes flaring as he looked at me. "I don't know everything there is to know about Hollywood. I know more than the average person, sure," he relented. "Not everything, though. But, I do know my wife. I know the early days of her career greatly influenced who she is today."

The anger that flashed behind his emerald eyes had my stomach drop.

"I know every time she skips a meal because she's tired or stressed, those early years are to blame. I know every time she comes home from filming a movie exhausted and covered in bruises like it's not a big deal, to her, it isn't. I know every time she has to laugh off someone calling her crazy it kills her on the inside."

His teeth clenched tight enough for me to hear the snap. I watched the muscles of his jaw flex.

"I know she was sixteen when Nathan Lawrence helped shape her mindset to put every-fucking-thing and every-fucking-body above her own wellbeing. It's one of the many things I'll never be able to forgive the man for."

–Love|Power–

Heidi Thompson had been Bella's manager since she was seventeen. Claire Howard had been hired on as her publicist around the same time while Kate Wilson had been Bella's personal assistant since she was sixteen. Now the four of them were equal owners of the most successful talent agency in Hollywood.

The trio of blondes sat across from me at Bella's large eighteen-person dining room table.

Heidi wore a sharp blazer, her pale blonde hair pulled back in a sleek bun. Claire was dressed more casually in a pale green sweater, her own blonde hair falling in delicate waves down her shoulder. Kate wore a casual black t-shirt, her hair falling in a straight line down her chest.

"The thing about Bella," Heidi started. "Is that she's stubborn enough to think she can prove every single person who has ever doubted her wrong."

"And the thing about Hollywood," Claire continued. "Is that once that point is proven, they're very quick to forget about it. Especially where a woman is concerned."

"Can you expand on that?"

Kate took the bait. "Bella should have solidified her legacy by the time she was twenty-two. She was the youngest woman to win the Leading Actress Oscar, and Badlands was the start of a new era of entertainment. But nobody has ever given her the credit she deserves."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Hollywood thrives on control," Heidi offered. "Studios and managers and directors and labels, that's all they want. They want control over the art, over how and when it is consumed, and over who is making it. They think they have it all figured out, the perfect formula to make all the men behind the desk more money each year. And for a long time, it was the perfect formula."

"Bella, however," Claire continued. "Has had a severe aversion to authority her entire life. She does not like being told what to do or how to do it or when to do it."

"The idea of an entertainer like Bella, someone who can throw together an Academy Award winning film on a whim and make a grammy winning album out of spite and sell out stadiums and outsell every other artist in the last decade at the same time, it breaks every single rule Hollywood has," Heidi said. "Because every time she has broken one of those records it's after meeting with a dozen different people who tell her not to do it."

"And the idea that someone can do all of those things independently? Without the constraints of a record label or studio or single benefactor is unheard of."

"So it comes down to money?" I asked.

It was a nice theory, but money also spoke volumes. And Bella obviously had more than most.

Kate frowned at me. "It comes down to talent. And timing. And knowing when to go for their necks."

–Love|Power–

Peter Clark sat at an empty table in one of the many Cullen-owned establishments in Chicago. He shook out his shaggy brown hair and flipped an errant guitar pick between his fingers.

There was no guitar near him. I had no idea where it came from.

He was an enigma. Had an impressive career of his own, and disappeared from the grid a few years ago. He popped back up last year when he and Bella released a compilation of their work over the years, random snippets that had been long forgotten that outsold a majority of what current artists put out.

He had never faced near the same amount of criticism Bella had, career wise. He was a celebrated singer-songwriter who was never called out for only writing about love or relationships or his life.

He was one of the few people ever credited as a co-writer on Bella's work. One of the only ones she ever trusted enough to work with.

"Bella," he sighed, leaning back in his chair. "She's the coolest chick you'll ever meet. People are intimidated by her. They always have been, since the beginning. The first time I met her we were at a party in LA. I have no fucking idea what it was for, but she was in the biggest crowd in the place. People constantly gravitated toward her, but no one was saying a word to her. They wanted to be near her but they didn't know how to handle her, even then. She was probably seventeen, maybe eighteen at the time. Hadn't really become Bella you know? She was still Bella. Christ, that sounds insane."

"No," I told him with a smile. "I get it."

"Anyway, I walked over to her and introduced myself, just to see what the deal was. Figured there'd be some giveaway as to why people were simultaneously surrounding her but not paying her much attention."

"And did you figure it out?"
"Girls didn't like her because she was always the most beautiful one in the room. Guys couldn't handle the fact that she had bigger balls than them. All the classic petty, insecure Hollywood shit."

The way he called her the most beautiful woman in the room had my own heart skip a beat. I idly wondered if Bella had been the one that got away for him.

"Bella and I became quick friends. Yeah, we dated, but it was never going to work out. It was on and off for almost two years–more off than anything–until we realized we could break up and still be friends. Because Bella… She's the best friend you'll ever have. Most loyal woman I've ever met. Willing to do anything for her people.

"Now," he chuckled, leaning over the table and crossing his tattooed-covered arms in front of him. "That also means she will make your life a living hell if you cross her or her people. But that's always something I admired about her. That fierceness. She wouldn't have survived as long as she has in this industry without it.

"Because the thing…the thing about the music industry is that most talented people in the room have to work ten times harder than everyone else. Because you always have to get better than yourself. Bella's biggest competition is herself. I mean, Jesus, imagine having to top yourself when your first project won Album of the Year at the Grammys? When it won a goddamn Academy Award?

"Everyone in the game has a miss. Her 'flop' era is considered Hopeless Kingdom because she was ineligible for any wins. Not because she couldn't have won them. That's pretty damn impressive."

"You've never been… jealous? Of that level of success?"
Peter's eyes widened in fear. "God, no. Look, I like making music and I'm lucky enough that it's been a lucrative career for me. I love touring and the attention as much as the next guy, but Bella's level of success is hell. She'll tell you that, anybody who knows a fraction of what she goes through will tell you that."

I nodded, staring down at the guitar pick he still twirled between his fingers.

He was right. Everyone had told me that. From Bella to her team to her husband, everyone said that Bella's success, while wonderful, was brutal. And her success, her career, it was just one small piece to the puzzle.

A/N: I don't know why but these chapters just get me. These little interviews have been floating around in my mind from the moment the plot for this story came to me and I absolutely love them. I hope you do too, because I've got probably 3-4 more.

Also, in case you missed it, I posted the prologue to a new story last week - Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince. I'd love to know what you think of it :)

Hope you guys enjoyed this one - see ya next time!