Beautiful Monster 2 (Beautiful Monster #2)(34)
Author: Bella Forrest

With a glance outside, I saw that the sun was already starting to set. We had so few moments left, and I felt annoyed. But I understood, I guess, and so I stayed, waiting for the commercials to end.

The announcer repeated basically the same thing she had just said, which had always bothered me. They made TV shows these days where you could pick them up at any time, and still understand what was going on.

And then I saw the white mist that they had referred to. The white mist I had seen when I was in the Red Theater.

It swirled and smoked, and I searched the TV and my mind from every angle, trying to figure out where it was coming from. But then, the camera angle changed and it began to take a shape. It began to stand up like a human being, the misty outline blurred.

“Amy…” Liam said, but I held up my hand, staring at the TV.

The shape became clearer, and if you looked at just the right angle, a face appeared.

“Liam, ghosts are real, right?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Yes, but, Amy, what the hell is this?”

“Sssh.” I was rooted to the TV, staring at it. Hair formed around the face, and if I hadn’t seen her face a thousand times, I wouldn’t have known her. But I knew that face, engraved in my memory forever.

“AMY!” Liam yelled and I turned my head to the laptop, where he had an article pulled up.

On the top, in scrawling black script, was Amy cheats on Liam? Below it, a picture of me at the doorway of the audition room, my hand in Drago’s. I swiveled my head back to the TV from the laptop and then back to Liam. I couldn’t decide if I was seeing things or what needed priority. The media fabricated things all the time, I knew that. In a perfect world, both of these stories would be fake, and Liam would believe me. Yet he looked pretty angry about it.

I wanted to believe Sites had faked it. But they couldn’t have known, couldn’t have done it just to mess with me.

“Liam.” I pointed to the figure, now freeze-framed on the TV. “Liam, that’s my mother.”

Chapter 15: Amy

“And the worst part is that he doesn’t believe me.” I leaned against my chair on set, keeping my voice low as I talked to Drago.

It had been over a week since Sites aired, and Liam had found that article. That night had been the worst night we had ever had. He didn’t quite believe me when I explained that nothing happened. It’s true, I was mad at him when I went to the audition for Ranger, but the anger had come out in my audition, not in cheating on him.

And on top of that, I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that I had seen my mother’s ghost. I didn’t quite believe it myself. Even though I was in the Red Theater every day, I had never seen it again. I watched the footage from Sites over and over again, going through it frame by frame, and each time I saw it. I even had a picture of her and got everyone I knew to compare it to the image. Most of them said I was right, even if they were just indulging me.

The only person I felt like I hadn’t shown it to was my father. I couldn’t imagine how he would react, and so I kept it from him. If he had seen that part of the show, then he didn’t say anything to me. Or maybe he just didn’t recognize her. I mean, after all, he had seen ever every day, looked into her face. All I had was images to go off of. I didn’t want it to dominate my life, but I couldn’t get it out of my head.

“If you want,” Drago said, bringing me back to reality. “I could talk to him. Tell him you’re great, but I’m not interested.”

“Uh, thanks but no thanks.” I shook my head. “Liam would probably freak out even more. And I really can’t take any more freaking out from anyone.”

At the moment, the only person that I wasn’t worried about was Sarah, who was with Connor. Now that Isabelle was gone, they spent every waking moment with each other. Hopefully, they were using birth control. Connor didn’t seem to be grieving his wife too much, although whenever I asked Sarah about it, it was apparently a private point. Whatever it is, I made her pinky swear me she was safe, and that she wouldn’t ever hurt herself again, and she assured me she was alright.

The police investigation had drawn even more attention to the school, with paparazzi everywhere trying to figure Sarah’s connection to it. So far, though, no one could draw a connection besides the fact that she was an unfortunate victim. Which she was, they just didn’t know the part about her also being the mistress of a centuries old vampire with a very jealous wife, who moonlighted as a fourteen year old child. I highly doubted the media could come up with a more bizarre story than the truth.

“Did you practice that knock out?” Drago asked, changing the subject.

“I did. But are you sticking around to watch it on camera?”

“Yep, so make one mistake and I’ll knock you out,” he teased me.

I grinned, getting up as they called me. On set, things were as normal as they could get. The regular cast was great, and the crew was even nicer. It wasn’t like Gatsby where they yelled at me for every little thing, and then ignored me the rest of the time. I felt like I actually mattered here, people asked me what I wanted and how I wanted it. Drago and I had a million jokes from the summer show. Everything was relaxed, we could joke around and not wonder if one of our friends was having their life threatened. It had only been a week, but I was starting to enjoy set a lot more than rehearsal at school, which was a swap from last year.

The only thing I gave Liam credit for at the moment was his great idea for my independent study. Every night, for about an hour, I wrote a journal entry segregated into two parts Today and The Past where I recounted stories from the previous year. It was the easiest project I had ever done.

Of course, I couldn’t write how mad I was at Liam for not believing me, or the fact that I hated Phantom of the Opera and much preferred Ranger. My independent study would go in a display case at the front of the school, so a lot of my feelings had to be highly edited. I consoled myself by writing them and then deleting them after.

At least I had a lot of fuel to play Cassandra. She had a dark past and was so angry all the time. She was also judged for being a girl ranger in a male dominated field. It was every actor’s dream, and she always had great lines. She was also very different from the innocent, straightforward characters I had played before. I had gotten used to these innocent young characters, but I had to think about every single one of Cassandra’s steps, her words, and her expressions, and it felt great. I was obsessed with her already, and I hoped my episode arc would be extended.