Page 86 of Keep It

Numbly, I unbutton the shirt and tug it off my shoulders, turning my back to him in a show of shyness I’ve not possessed since that first morning we woke up together. His attitude would have normally made me spit a snarky comment back at him but my voice is lost. Abandoning me alongside the comforting cotton of his button down.

Wordlessly, I hand it to him and pull on the robe hanging on the door.

“Are we not going to talk about this?”

“Talk about what?” he says flatly, pulling his jeans on.

“Don’t be obtuse, Danny. It’s not a good look.”

He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Is it–” I lick my lips, “–is it your dad or is it…us?”

His silence is all the answer I need.

“It’s over, Anya,” he says softly. So softly I almost don’t hear him.

“What?” I whisper.

He finally catches my eye. “It’s over.” The words roar in my ears.

“Are you joking?” I choke, following him as he rushes through the apartment.

No response. “That’s it? A few photos and you end this just like that?”

“It’s not just the photos,” he snaps, refusing to look at me.

“Then I don’t see what the issue is, why are you doing this?”

“This is serious, Anya!” he explodes, his hand running through his hair. “Those pictures are not going to go away. With all the stuff that’s come out about myfather–” Danny spits the word with disgust. “This will only get worse, and the worse it gets for the family, the worse it gets for us. Anya, they’re not going to leave us alone, especially now. It’s a bloody miracle the press haven’t figured out it’s you yet, but it’s only a matter of time. And then think what they’ll say.”

Understanding dawns slowly. They’ll say he was taking advantage of his assistant. Just like his father.

“Danny, you can’t think like that. You’re nothing likehim.”

“They don’t know that,” he cries. “To the world I’m a washed-up child actor who is sailing on the wings of a predator and snorting lines of coke on the weekends.”

Helplessly, I reach for him.“But you know that’s not you.”

“But they think that, Anya! They do, and there is nothing we can do about it…”

How can we go from the other night to this? Just days ago I had had to bite my lip to keep the words on my tongue. The words that I’ve felt for so long, but been too scared to say out loud. My mind whirls as I try to come up with another solution, a way to stop this from happening. But he beats me to it.

“Look, it’s been fun, but let’s not kid ourselves anymore than we already have. There’s no need to make this anything more than it was, Anya. I can’t do you any favors, so we might as well just end it here.”

I see red. “Favors? Don’t do that. Don’t make this out to be something it wasn’t just so you can do this to me. You know we’re not like that, that we never have been. You’re the one who reassuredmewhen I was having doubts. We both knew how damaging this could be to my reputation but we did it anyway. If this gets out no one will touch me with a ten foot pole. I’ll just be the girl that slept with the lead actor.” Numbly, I realize I haven’t even told him about the new job with Devon.

“Then where can we go from here?” he asks, exhausted.

He doesn’t want it out because it’ll look like he’s taking advantage, me for the same reasons.

Our relationship can’t survive in the shadows forever, we both knew that going in. It’s what we agreed and what we felt coming even as we fooled ourselves it wouldn’t matter.

We stare at each other, and I try to drink him in, commit his face to memory. I know by the way his eyes rove my face that he is doing the same. He nods finally and turns on his heel.

“This was never going to end any other way, was it?” I call from behind, the wobble in my voice killing me.

He stops, unable to look at me. “No, it wasn’t,” he says before pulling the door open and slamming it behind him.

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