Page 62 of Beneath the Hood

And as I drive away, I wonder if she even noticed I was gone.

31

Blakely

Iwatch him as he walks away, my heart throbbing like a pulled muscle, straining to chase after him. But I don’t, because now more than ever I want to keep him far away from the shadows of celebrity.

A whisper of a thought trickles down my spine, wondering why I’m so focused on attaining something that I’d do anything to save someone else from.

But that revelation is something I don’t have time for, so I push it down. Bury it underneath the goals I’ve had for years and move along like it was never there to begin with.

I make it through the rest of the afternoon, filming video content for the new platform, and enough branded shoots for the next two weeks. But my heart isn’t in it. It’s stuck to the tiled pavers where I smacked Jackson’s hand and walked away.

My stomach clenches at the memory.

He’ll understand.Even as I think it, images of him ruminating over why he was wasting his time on me sends anxiety drizzling through my insides, my brain a muddled mess of “what-if” scenarios.

It makes me jittery and that combined with the pregnancy rumor has me aching for solitude. For a treadmill, or a set of weights.Somethingthat will let the heavy twinge of angst seep from my pores and purge from my system until I can’t feel the weight bearing down.

My lungs squeeze tighter with every minute and there’s tiny cuts in my palms from where I’ve been relentlessly clenching my fists, but I survive the next few hours until finally, everyone leaves.

I don’t waste a single second, flying up the stairs and grabbing my workout gear, desperation acting like sails to my ship, steering me toward salvation. Glancing quickly at my phone, I ignore the way my heart pinches at the blank screen.

No new messages.

Three hours and a shower later, I expect to feel refreshed, but instead I feel the same. I can’t remember a time when working out didn’t alleviate the bruising grip on my insides, and the fact that it’s still there causes panic to spread through my chest.

My eyes bounce from my reflection in the mirror to the pink measuring tape I grabbed off the bathroom shelf.

Over and over again I look, my fingers tightening around the edge of the counter until they ache.

Pregnant.They think I’m fucking pregnant.

Logically, I know they’re grasping at straws. Spinning lies into a web of drama, anchoring it on the edges of small truths to make it believable. It’s the entire reason Sierra wanted Jax around in the first place. Nottooclose, but close enough to garner interest. I guess she didn’t expect it to spiral out of our control—have them run a story we weren’t expecting. Worse, one we didn’t help craft.

I should be used to it by now. This isn’t the first or the last time that my name will be caught up in “bad” publicity. I learned quickly to put up a shield—to not even glance at comments in articles.

I’ve told myself it doesn’t matter what they say. After all, they’ll never be as good as I am at tearing me down.

But the truth is their hate hurts. Like a thousand needles slowly bloodletting my body, draining my life source and replacing it with their toxic words.

Sometimes, I think it slices deeper when a stranger throws the barbs.

And when you have a vulnerability, even something rooted in falsity hits the mark. It dives deep and suctions to your insecurities, dragging them to the surface until they’re all you can see.

You have been looking a little puffy lately.

The fist that’s been clamping my chest grips tighter and I spiral down until I can’t see the truth from the lie. The logic from the crippling self-doubt.

Bile teases the back of my throat, nausea churning in my gut as my fingers wrap around the measuring tape, the cloth biting into my fingers as I squeeze it tight.

Panic fills my lungs until I’m gasping for air, the thought of seeing numbers I don’t like making me wish I could crawl inside myself and wither away until I’m nothing.

Pathetic.

Suddenly, even though I’ve just finished an extensive three-hour workout, the need to burn more fat gushes through my veins. My entire body collapses in on itself with the urge to atone for my mistakes. To work harder so I can prove to everyone that they’re wrong.

So they never see anything other than what I want them to again.

---