Page 128 of Morally Gray Daddies

Karma. That has to be the explanation, I thought as I stared in the cracked bathroom mirror in the small depression-era shoebox home I’d grown up in. A house I swore I’d never come back to. And yet here I was. Running from the glitz and glamor of the Hollywood life I’d once wanted more than anything.

Back to the pit of Small Town, USA.

Back to the town that had broken my heart. Or maybe I had broken its heart. I’d certainly broken his heart.

Him.

Damon Micheal James. Anybody with a first name for a last name should come with a warning label. Trouble Ahead.

Maybe he had come with a warning label. Enough people had certainly warned me. Friends. Teachers. Coaches. Neighbors. The town busybodies.

Not that I’d cared. From the moment I’d met him, Damon Micheal James had been the only boy for me. I’d known it even back then.

Eventually, people stopped warning me and just accepted that maybe it was meant to be.

We both thought it had been.

We’d planned to run away together. Not just planned, but actually put that plan into action. Money saved, bags packed… all we had to do was go.

He’d never made it.

Instead he’d gotten arrested, and with my dad pissed as hell that I’d not been home for two days, I had no real choice left.

I took the money we’d saved and went to LA without him.

And until recently, I hadn’t regretted it. I’d done just fine for myself.

In Hollywood, I was what they called a triple threat. I could act, sing, and dance. The blonde hair, big tits and tiny waist didn’t hurt either.

My career had been launched from one fateful audition—the stereotypical lucky break—and it had gone perfectly from there. I’d reinvented myself. A whole new name, a whole new life, a whole new identity.

But the only person I’d been truly fooling was myself.

The real story had made headlines. Big, fat splashy ones.

America’s Sweetheart—America’s Fake

Triple Threat from the Wrong Side of The Tracks

Sabrina Made It Big, But Has Her Past Caught Up With Her?

Those were the headlines plastered all over every newsstand tabloid and every social media site this week.

I knew as far as scandals went, it was a minor one. What they considered a slow news week. Compared to secret affairs, mysterious illnesses, rehab stints, trips to jail, and assault accusations, this was nothing. But it was big to me. All the disgraceful truths about my life I’d kept hidden splashed across every tabloid for all the world to see.

And if you looked past the headlines, it only got worse. The sordid details of my past life had been discussed in great agonizing detail. Complete with pictures. Receipts as they called them these days. How I’d been the child of drug addicts. How my dad had abused me. How I’d run from him, into the arms of the town bad boy. How I’d been planning to run away with said bad boy, when he was caught with a trunk full of drugs and thrown in prison. How I’d left my hometown and never looked back. Not even for the man I’d once loved.

And when it had all come out, I did the only thing I was actually good at. I ran.

Back to Three Rivers. Back to this ass-backward, scandal-ridden hillbilly town. Back to my Father’s house—the one I hadn’t been able to bring myself to get rid of after he’d died.

I’d told myself that it was only because they’d never find me here, but let’s be real—they probably already had the address. I’d wake up in the morning to find them camped out on the lawn waiting for a glimpse of the just-barely-above-trailer-park trash.

It was a temporary fix. A hideout while I licked my wounds and recovered from the sordid trip down memory lane I’d been forced to take.

Eventually, probably soon, I’d go back. I had to. After all, I’d given up everything to get where I was. I couldn’t throw it all away because of one stupid not-even-that-big scandal. I’d just always worked so hard to leave my past behind me, to never talk about who I was before I was famous or where I was from.

There were scripts to read, shows to perform, events to attend, and a wedding to plan. Not that I was currently answering calls from my agent, manager or wedding planner. Because even though my life felt like it was falling apart, I still had him.

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