Page 71 of Hearts Adrift
“Heather …” tries Marty, but I sense he knows it’s to no avail with that daughter; she is a train that, once set to the tracks, cannot easily be drawn to a halt.
“Are you done with your love parade for my ex?” asks Finn politely.
“No.” Her eyes turn onto me. Under her gaze, it takes a lot of willpower for me not to retreat into a shell and vanish from the known universe. I should issue my apology right now. Everyone’s here. And I have so much to apologize for. I don’t even have to prepare it; there’s no script when the apology is genuine and comes from your heart.
But what Heather says instead catches me by surprise. “Theo informed me—via a scant number of texts minutes ago on his way out of town—that you are a decent man. Despite how things seem, you have placed my brother’s heart at the very top of your list of priorities.” She bristles. “While I may require a dash more convincing … and I believe Theo may be … ratherbiased, considering his deep adoration for your film work …” A tiny sigh of concession flees her lips. “I fear I must take his word for it, as I—”
“Oh mygod, this isexhausting,” cries Finn, surprising us all. “Heather, we don’t live in 1815. River isn’tcourtingme. You don’t need to sound so fuckingformal.”
Heather’s eyes flash with outrage for half a breath. She turns to her dad and quietly asks, “Did I really sound that bad? It’s just how I talk.”
“And I’m sorry, Heather, but I really don’t need yours or Theo’s verdict on what kind of man River is,” Finn goes on. “He’s not a ‘scandal’. He’s not the problem. He’s just caught up in it because he tried to do the right thing.” He peers at me. “River didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Brooke’s eyes shift back and forth between us, as one of the cats—Arial, I think—starts weaving in and out from between her legs. She hardly notices, her mind distraught.
I can’t hold back anymore. “I still brought this storm to your door, Finn.” I look at him, his eyes reflecting a kind and gentle urgency. “I bear the responsibility. Not you or anyone in your family. I’ve done so many selfish things my whole life, and apparently it didn’t stop here, even when I dropped into your bungalow with no seeming care of what insanity I might bring along with me. And … all of this … started with my act of cowardice. With my running away.” I let out a sigh of resolve before facing the family. “And I plan to fix it all right now.”
“How?” asks Brooke. Arial’s found his way to her lap. She distractedly pets him. “I’d advise not to postanything, Mr. Wolfe. It’s, like, an inferno out there right now.”
“Then I won’t. Instead, I’ll go live to my followers.”
For a beat, the house holds its breath.
Brooke clears her throat. “As in … a live stream? Real-time? To … say … what, exactly?”
“The truth,” I announce rather anticlimactically. “I plan to explain—without outing my friend—what I did. I’ll take full responsibility for the media circus and for my neglect of the fallout. I will deliver a sincere apology to my fans and to those I’ve affected, and I will do it all live on cam. No editing, no makeup, no performance. Just me and the world.” I give it asecond thought. “Maybe a …touchof foundation. Just a dab. Nothing else. Actually, do you guys have a decent lamp around here? Like, for lighting? I don’t wanna look like a gremlin broadcasting from a closet …”
“You can’t do that,” blurts Brooke, her eyes so wide, they’re spilling off her face. “That’s averybad idea.”
“Is it, though?” asks Heather, scratching her chin. “If I was one of his fans—which I’m not, but I could be, but I’m not, but if I was—then seeing a raw video apology instead of some overly-polished, sterilized post would be far more likely to inspire a sympathetic reaction.”
“It raises way more questions than it answers,” Brooke throws back. “And you can’t really explainwhyyou hit the director without outing your friend, can you?”
“He’ll just say the director is a power-abuser,” Heather counters, “which is true. We know the whole story, by the way,” she adds dryly. “Brooke filled us in.”
“I did,” she admits to me quickly before turning back to her sister. “But he can’t just make a claim like that with no evidence. That can be seen as slander. And considering Mr. Embers—why am I being respectful to that jerk?—Mr. Fuck-Face still hasn’t pressed charges, I don’t think that’s a dragon we wanna wake. Please, Mr. Wolfe …” She turns back to me. “Let me try other things first. I’ve taken us this far, haven’t I? I turned the tides for you once.”
I’ll never get used to that fire behind Brooke’s eyes.If only everyone in the world could see that passion the way I do… “You rocked it this past week, Brooke,” I tell her. “I told you before, a roomful of so-called ‘experts’ couldn’t have pulled off what you did.” She adopts a proud smirk, her posture straightening. “Still,” I go on, “I … need to be the one to do this. For me. I need to be the one who sets things right this time. On my own terms.”
Finn presses to my side, his voice low. “Be that as it may … you don’t have to do this alone.”
I gaze at Finn—another source of passionate eyes. The fire runs deep in the blood of this family, that much is clear to me. Is that why it feels so much like home here?
“Do you truly think it’ll help?” asks Marty. Despite his calm tone, when he speaks, the sisters go silent, both of them turning his way. “Are you not afraid of the risks?”
I shake my head. “I’m aware this very well may spell the end of my career as I know it. I think a part of me was ready to say goodbye to all of it the moment I fled that first press meeting that never happened. Or maybe before that, seconds before I flew off the set and put my fist into Trent Embers’ face. I was ready to let it go. Yes,” I reaffirm. “I am ready for whatever consequences face me … as long as Finn and your family are safe.”
Marty is difficult to read. He’s both pleasant and oddly aloof at the same time. But eventually he smiles and takes action with an assured calmness. “Well, then. Let’s set you up a nice spot for your live feed, shall we? Girls?”
Brooke and Heather look at each other, surprised, then at him. As the fight slowly drains from our bones, everyone seems to surrender to the notion that I’m going to do this.
While Heather and Brooke set up a well-lit spot with a chair in front of a stack of books (in lieu of a tripod) atop a desk to properly support my phone, Finn clutches my arms and begins coaching me. “Ignore the comments during the live feed,” he tells me for the fifth time. “They’ll be trolls, all of them. Just stay focused on the teeny tiny lens. Don’t break eye contact. Full eye contact with your audience will keep you sincere and totally connected to them. You don’t want them to eventhinkyou’re checking a script …”
“You may not realize it,” I tell Finn, rubbing his arms, “butyou’ve given me so much in my short time here.”
“Did you pay attention to what I said?Eye contact…”
“I think these past few weeks have contained some of the greatest days of my life.”
