Page 28 of Holiday Star
Oh. Yeah.
He’s right, I tell Jenny everything. I’ll have to be careful and keep this to myself. “Fine,” I huff. “I won’t tell Jenny or anyone else about your big, dark secret. Do you want me to sign an NDA?”
He looks for a moment like he’s actually considering it, but then he shakes his head no.
“Well.” Caleb picks up Pip and gently places her on the cushion. She cracks one sleepy eye open, then closes it. “Tonight has been,” he pauses and my heart sinks, knowing he is going to say something disparaging, but he seems to reconsider. “The part with the caroling, that was pretty great, so thanks for that. And the talking…that was okay, too.” His smile is small, but I consider it a win.
When that smile disappears, his weariness is so heavy it bows his shoulders. “As for the rest of it, don’t worry about that. It’s just my life. I used to enjoy it, all the fans. Back when I was a teenager, it helped my insecurities.”
I snort. “You? Insecure?” I can’t picture that.
“I was more insecure than anyone. Do you know how few child stars transition successfully into teen and then to adult celebrities?”
When I shake my head, he says, “Hardly any. Most of the time, the public decides you aren’t so cute anymore and they throw you away. Discarded at twelve years old. That would have killed my mother, so I tried my best. I started to weight train by age eleven. Got daily facials so I wouldn’t get the usual teenage acne. Back then, a pimple felt like the end of the world. Those screaming fans made me feel better about myself.”
“And now?”
He shakes his head ruefully. “Now…I know how bad this sounds. What a cliché I am. Another actor choking on his silver spoon. But now I’m so exhausted. It’s all forced. I’m not connected with my fans anymore. That energy that they used to give me, I can’t tap into the way that I used to. I hate being like this. It’s not fair to them.” My heart aches at the defeated look on his face.
“You could retire.”
“And do what? This is all I’ve ever known since I was five years old. I don’t have any other skills.” Everything in him droops. His head. His shoulders. His full mouth.
I understand the trap he’s in a little better then. The endless loop of despair, confusion, and insecurity.
“I’m going to brush my teeth and turn in.” He stands up, his eyes flicking over my face and trailing down to my lips, only to jump back up so quickly I wonder if I imagined it. He scrubs his hand across his chin, so hard that I can hear his stubble scrape.
“Good night, Gwen.” The fourth time he’s said my name, the most real I’ve seen him.
A few minutes after he’s left to go upstairs and use the bathroom, Pip raises her head, blinking groggily. She stands up, gives herself a little shake, and jumps off the couch. I scratch her ears, and she scampers out the dog door into the backyard.
I can’t fall asleep that night, going over and over my conversation with Caleb. On the one hand, he has everything anyone could ask for: fame, money, good looks. But the pain in his eyes is real, and it reminds me that true happiness doesn’t come from any of those things.
True happiness is a mom who calls me honey, a friend to confide in, that feeling I get in the hospital when I know that I’ve helped someone. That I’ve lived a life of service to others. That’s my happiness, anyway.
It’s strange how drawn to Caleb I’ve become over the past week. I was determined to dislike him, assuming he was shallow and selfish. But he’s not any of the things I thought he was. He’s beautifully broken, and sad, and angry, and vulnerable. Maybe that’s what I find intriguing about him. The need to heal people is why I went to medical school. Do I like him because I want to fix him? Is that fair to him? I wouldn’t want anyone to fix me. Not that I need fixing. I’m fine…totally fine. I don’t know. It’s all a jumbled mess in my mind.
After hours of tossing and turning, I give up and go downstairs to get a glass of water. Caleb is asleep on the couch, an old quilt my grandmother made thrown over him. Only his head sticks out. I can’t resist taking a peek.
His hair is tousled gold. In sleep, his face is relaxed and boyish. He looks like an angel, fallen from heaven. That’s when I notice Pip, curled into his side, with his hand draped loosely over her.
“Good dog,” I whisper softly.
16
Teddy calls me early the next morning, which is weird. He usually just texts. These days, he prefers short, superficial conversations about the weather.
We used to be so close, my baby brother and me. After Dad died, Mom worked long hours, trying to support us. We moved from one tiny, cheap apartment to another. Brandon was mostly gone, off to community college, which he hated.
It was just Teddy and me, left at home together.
I was seventeen, and he was twelve.
I was sad, and he was lost.
He needed my help. I had to make him talk about what we had been through. Eventually, I learned that playing ball with him was the surest way to get him to open up. It could be any sport, really, but basketball seemed to work best. Something about having a ball in his hands distracted him enough to remove the filter from his mouth.
When we played, all of his thoughts, fears, and dreams would come spilling out. Basketball is how I learned about how devastated he was by Dad’s passing. It’s how I broke through to the point that he could cry in front of me. It’s how I found out that he feared losing the rest of us, especially Mom. He admitted that he had nightmares where she died in a fire, a plane crash, a robbery gone wrong.
