Page 105 of Faking It

“Jesus, Tori. What am I going to do?” I whisper tearfully, turning around, wiping my mouth.

“It’s my fault.” She’s crying again. “I ruined your life, Ana.”

“Can you stop blaming yourself? Please. You tried to stop the story from going out, but there was no way to stopher.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she replies as I walk past her to exit. “My attempt to make the story go away did more harm than good.”

I turn to face her. “What do you mean?”

Her hands twist in each other as she comes closer. “Ana, I swear to you, I didn’t know who the source was. I told Micah to kill the story and pay the source to make them go away. I pissed her off for some reason. Maybe she got mad that the story went away.”

“Pissed who off?”

“Your mother.” She stretches her hands toward me as I gasp. “I swear, I didn’t know she was the source. Not until the news broke, when Micah called me earlier. She’s hellbent on getting her story out there, but because I killed it, she went to the next best thing.”

“My bitter ex.” Also, a filmmaker, co-incidentally.

“Fuck my fucking life,” I huff. “How the hell am I going to come back from this?”

“Look, all is not lost,” Tori says quickly, her game face appearing as she wipes her face dry. “We get your side of the story out there and leave the rest to the court of public opinion.”

“And if they believe her?”

“It’s a chance we’re going to take, anyway. It’s better than being sitting ducks. I’ll post the story as often as I can to get more traffic. Hopefully, the internet has people with critical thinking skills.”

“I think I’m going to have a heart attack,” I mumble, grabbing handfuls of my hair.

Tori moves around me. “Relax. I’ve got it covered. I’ll call Micah, and we’ll set something up.”

She’s halfway out the door when something from our conversation hits me. I grab the tail end of her shirt. “Wait a minute. What do you mean by posting the story to get more traffic? You barely have five thousand followers.”

There’s a long pause, during which Tori takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“Tori. What aren’t you telling me?”

Silence.

Another part of the conversation comes back to me, where she mentioned calling Micah. Something hits me solid in my stomach, and it feels like I’m going to be sick again.

I was wrong about Gideon. Wrong about everything.

“Be honest with me, please,” I whisper, my voice quivering. “Is Micah running ANON?”

She half-turns, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“Tori, answer me!”

Chapter 38

Gideon

“This is insane. This is fucking insane.” Aunt Cheryl slams her hands on the oak table. “I blame you.” She stabs her finger at Jared, sitting across from her. “And I blame you even more,” she finishes, pointing to where I’m standing at the doorway, my arms crossed on my chest.

“Blame us all you want, it won’t make the problem go away,” Jared says calmly.

“Problem? This isn’t a problem, my dear nephew. This is a fucking nightmare. A drug addict! A convicted felon! Starring inmymovie? Do you see how disastrous this is for me? For my brand?”

“It’s not true,” I mutter, and her head swings around to meet my cool gaze, though inside, I feel like there’s a volcano about to erupt. I’m itching to destroy someone. Two people, in fact. That loser Logan and Ana’s evil Mom.

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