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Oh, it’s bad.
I turned to him and grabbed his shoulder. He picked up the pot, set it down again. “I just got here and already, it’s as if I have the plague. What’s going on?”
Brian stared at the coffee pot like maybe it would tell me instead of him. I wondered where he’d gotten the second carafe, if he’d dropped the first. What coffee maker in my building had been rendered defunct by his thievery? “I really wish you’d seen it for yourself so I wouldn’t have to tell you.”
“Seen what?”
“The local news ran a segment about you this morning.”
I flashed back to the blue van parked a short ways from Megyn’s house and my blood ran cold. “No,” I breathed.
“Yes,” he said grimly. “I’ve already done some investigating. Apparently, the media teams have been sitting and waiting around for this to happen ever since you first planned your Halloween party. The advertisements. They’ve been watching, waiting, seeing if anything came of it.”
I already knew where this was going. I staggered to my desk and sat down, burying my head in my hands.
Brian went about the business of making more coffee, his shoes squeaking around I the drying puddle of his last attempt. “So they learned you had found someone by watching your movements. They found out about Megyn. They reported the whole thig, framing it as being exactly like the Cinderella fairytale. Including,” he took a deep breath, “your differences in social status.”
“No,” I moaned. “No, no!”
Brian left the coffee pot hissing and gurgling and came over to sit down beside me. “They did a damn good job. I hate that I have to give them that. They had pictures of Megyn in her dress at the party.”
“What the fuck?” I shouted.
“I would guess they took pictures from others who attended, combed for Megyn, cropped everything else out, and enhanced what was left.” Brian slapped his palm on the desk. “They had pictures of all four of us leaving the Lonely Whale together, and photos of you leaving her house. Looking all dirty and satisfied.”
I couldn’t believe it. I had been tricked. The media people knew I, and everyone else, would focus on their big van, distracting us, preventing us from seeing therealreporter or photographer. I might even have looked right at the person taking pictures of me, maybe smiled or waved, never knowing they were on the verge of ruining me.
“Carter, why were you so dirty?”
“I was helping her clean,” I choked out. “It was only yesterday.”
Brian got up and started pacing, his face creased with concentration. “If Megyn sees this, I don’t know if you’ll be able to come back from it, buddy. This is exactly what she didn’t want. This was her biggest fear.”
“Brian, I know,” I snapped. My heart was pounding, spasming, feeling like it was about to give out.
“I’m sorry, Carter.” He stopped pacing and thumped his hand on the wall. “I’m just scared for you. We need to come up with a plan and we need to do it fast.”
“What kind of plan?” I moaned.
“We need to address the media. Megyn needs to be on-board with it. This thing is only going to worsen unless you guys nip it in the bud.”
“Good luck getting Megyn to agree with this,” I said, mostly speaking to myself.
This was an absolute disaster.
CHAPTER26
MEGYN
As soon as a commercial came on, I got up and went into the bathroom and threw up, getting rid of the breakfast I’d only just eaten. I clung to the toilet seat, shivering and gagging, tears sliding down my face and hitting the back of my hands. The tears felt as hot as acid, as hot as the bile swirling around in my stomach.
I sat back from the toilet and flushed away the mess. I wrapped my arms around my shaking legs and huddled up against the wall. My breathing was too fast, my pounding heart fit to burst out of my chest. The colors of the bathroom, all pristine and shining from the work I had put I, were so vivid I could smell and taste them. All my senses seemed to be blurring, leeching into each other.
I’m having a panic attack,I thought, with a strange sort of clarity.
For once, I didn’t blame myself for what was happening, not at that very moment, at least. Anyone else in my position would be having a meltdown exactly like this.
After what I had just seen on the TV, I felt like I deserved this freak out.