Page 138 of Fame & Obsession

AngelMia: Of course, the way she slept around, it was bound to happen eventually.

I hear Julian suck in a sharp breath. My arms ache to hold him, but I don’t dare move.

AngelMia: I just hope that bitch he’s with doesn’t OD again. That would be a tragedy. I think I have some Palladone I could lend her.

I’m going to be sick.

“It was never reported that they pumped my stomach, or that they found Palladone,” I whisper. “Even if it was leaked, the official report stated the cause was poisoning, not an overdose. We’ve got her.”

“Wait.” He places a hand on my shoulder. “Let her run with it. Let’s make it solid.”

AngelMia: His career is going to be amazing, I don’t understand why he wants to drag himself down with low-life whores like her.

“Who the hell is she calling a whore?” I blurt out, ready to start typing back a response.

I’ll show her how fucking low I can go….

“Phoebe,” Julian warns. “Don’t give her what she wants. Those were your words, remember?”

I grumble and stare at the computer screen.

AngelMia: Everything will fit perfectly step by step. This is my step. My beginning, her end.

“Oh my God.” Julian’s ragged voice causes me to swivel the chair around, only to find his expression has gone from sultry to catatonic.

“Julian? Jesus, what’s wrong?”

His face pales. “No, it can’t be.”

“What the hell is going on?” I demand, giving his shoulder a light shove to snap him out of it.

Blinking, he shakes his head. “AngelMia.”

“What?” I have no idea what he’s saying, but from the tortured look on his face and his stiff body language, I know I’m not going to like it.

He sinks onto the bed. “AngelMia,” he repeats.

“What’s AngelMia?”

“Not what…who.” He runs a hand across his face. “AngelMia was the screen name of a girl named Mia. I met her in a bereavement chat room I visited after Lam died. Ty found it and thought it would help to talk to people who were going through the same thing. Especially since I could be anonymous.”

Being so far away from him felt wrong. So, I stand and walk toward my bed as he continues.

“Eventually, I met Mia. She’d just lost her brother around the same time we lost Lam. We became friends and talked almost every day. I can’t say she pulled me out of my funk, but I wasn’t suicidal anymore.”

“Oh, Julian.” I sink onto his lap, and his arms automatically wrap around me. Pulling him close, I sit deathly still and let him finish.

“Once I finally decided to leave my room, shit was already going downhill. I’d put the band on the back burner for so long, the guys made me realize we had to make a decision. We either started auditioning new guitarists or called it quits. It’d be a slap in the face to Lam’s memory to just give it all up, so I dove in head-first to auditions. That meant there was no time for anything else—especially chat rooms.”

“So you said goodbye?”

“Yeah. I went into the chat room and told her that would be my last post.”

“I assume she didn’t take it well.”

To be rejected by Julian Bale, whether she knew it washimor not, had to be catastrophic.

“That’s putting it mildly. She went cryptic, weird chick prose on me. At the time, I thought she was just quoting some famous line or something.”