BAM BAM

BAM BAM

BAM BAM BAM

The loud sounds echoed in the empty gym.

I said a name in my head for every time I hit the bag.

SAMANTHA. BAM.

Tod. BAM.

Rachel. BAM.

BLAIRE. BAM.

CYNTHIA. BAM. BAM.

I stopped and started breathing very deeply. I thought of all these people.

Wendy Allen is a ridiculous wanna be.

Wendy Allen is pathetic. All she wants to do is make it big. She's too willing. I bet she'll do anything. And I mean anything.

Wendy Allen? Oh, you mean the loser? The new "star?" Don't make me laugh. She knows Thomas Sangster a week and she's big all of a sudden. Uh huh.

Wendy Allen isn't anything. She was a fan who won a ticket to hang out with an actor and she said something to get a slip into fame.

Wendy Allen... Hm. What do I say about her that we already don't know?

Bet Sangster wishes he Never met Wendy.

I screamed and started punching again, harder. My hair was in a ponytail and I wore a sports bra and yoga pants and tennis shoes. My hands covered in gloves, they still hurt from the constant over beating from the bag.

Allen can do whatever the hell she wants. We all know that she had a major crush on Thomas. He totally ditched her when they hung out. Some say it was because he no longer had a reason to hang out with her. I mean it was only a week... But would he really have left her completely with no further interest after a week? I mean... Whatever.

He's just a boy. I'm just a fan.

It doesn't matter.

It was just a week.

I didn't love him, but I did like him. It was stupid.

So what.

I was a star now.

A lame, nationally hated star that could sing really well, act even better and had supposedly used her hero to climb to the top.

But I hadn't!

I'll admit that because I met Thomas I got to do things I normally wouldn't, but I hadn't purposefully used him to get there.

I rested my forehead on the punching bag.

"Lame. I'm bloody lame." I wiped my tears with my arm.

It was hard to be hated. I didn't get interviews unless it was to twist my words and rip me from my hard climb up. It was like being in a box of crabs where everyone was only focused on tearing you down. Just you.

I didn't get invited anywhere to do anything. No red carpet. No movies. No lunches.

I was like the secret, unwanted actress. What had started as a really great chance became a horrifying, unpredictable mess.

I sighed, falling to my knees.

"You okay?"

I jumped, then scrambled to my feet, spinning around. "T-Thomas?" I stuttered. "Sorry. Uh, Mr. Sangster. I was just... Why are you here?" I asked.

He scrunched his nose. "You're not okay. I see that now." He came to me and enveloped me in a hug. I stood very stiffly. "Hug me back?" He asked.

I lightly hugged him back. Awkwardly.

"Come on Wendy. Are you mad at me? I wasn't the one who spread the rumor."

"You're the one who disappeared after it all went down. Even after promising to be my friend because you thought I was cool or whatever. Thanks for giving me that chance. Really. Too bad it went to shit."

He hugged me tighter. I was sweaty but he didn't seem to mind. He let me go and took my gloved hand, leading me to a chair on the side. He sat me down then dragged another chair over.

I looked at my gloves, trying not to cry again.

He took my hand in his lap and slowly pulled off my gloves. I winced.

He took in a sharp breath in when he saw my knuckles. I stumbled to explain. "I-I couldn't find my gloves yesterday." They were half scabbed, half almost scabbed, still slightly showing the bloody, red, irritated flesh under the ripped shin. My knuckles had red and purple bruises mixing with the blood. It was ugly. And bad. Really bad.

"Why?" He whispered.

"Because I have a lot of pent up anger and I had to get it out so I could be ready for the next day." I paused. "Directors won't even let me try out anymore. They turn me away the second they see me." I sighed.

He took my hands. "I'm going to fix this."

I looked up at him sharply. "You can't! If you help then I'll drag you down with me! I can deal with returning to a nobody life and everyone pulling me down and laughing at me. But you... You're amazing Thomas. You're loved by EVERYONE. That's why they hate me. They'll just hate me more, think you're stupid. The rumors will get worse, explaining while you're helping me now."

"Not if we becoming friends," he said.

I thumped my palm on my forehead. "You don't understand! I don't have friends! I can't."

He shook his head. "You can't push me away. I put you here. I left you, feeding the rumors. I gave you the week and then dumped you even after I promised to hang out. I let the rumor fester because I was told to, instead of supporting you. It's my fault."

I opened my mouth to protest but then close it. "I forgive you," I said after a while. "I did the second it happened. You couldn't predict how horrible this would get."

"It still doesn't make what I did right."

"Bloody hell... So stubborn!" I scolded.

"Okay mother."

I laughed. "Fine. You deal with it, it's your fate."

He nodded. "Okay. Let's do it."

"Okay."

We sat quietly a second.

"Get a shirt on. We're going to go to lunch," he said, slapping his knees and standing. I stood too.

"Okay. Give me a second."

I ran into the locker room and pulled on an airy shirt I wore on work out days because I got so hot and I needed to cool off. The I slipped out and joined Thomas.

"Well, Miss Allen, come on," Thomas said.

I scrunched my nose. "Call me Wendy. You always do."

"Call me Thomas. That's what friends do," he shot back. Oh. I see what he was thinking. Earlier, when I corrected myself and said 'Mr. Sangster.'

I smiled a little. "Okay."

We left and he drove us to a little restaurant a little ways away. This was a run down part of town that I ran in to get away from the press. So, like wise, the restaurants were vintage and cute, but had only like two people in it-which included the workers.

We sat down and started talking.

"How have- how has- man your life has sucked. I can't ask how anything has been because I know it's all been a trip to hell and back," he said, running his forehead.

"Yeah," I agreed bitterly.

He took my hands across the table and smiled at me sweetly. "This will get better.

I leaned in. "Oh yeah?" I challenged him.

He leaned in too. "Yeah."

We stared at each other, until it settled how close we were. Then our intense stares fell away and we got lost in each other's eyes. His eyes flashed to my lips for a millisecond and I found myself leaning back immediately, pulling my hands from his grasp.

I coughed.

"So! What do you want to do today?" Thomas asked, not missing a beat.

"I don't know. What do you usually do with your friends?" I asked.

"We hide in the studio and pretend we're being good during break-until someone sneaks in a camera and posts our goofing off on the Internet," he says.

"I'm sorry! I didn't realize what the press did to people back then! I just thought it was cute! You guys were dancing. It was sexy!" I said, flustered.

He laughed. "It wasn't that big of a deal. It just made fan girls die," he said, rolling his eyes.

"You have to admit, Dylan in the front was going all out! You were in the back. You could see personalities in the dancing. Like, how outgoing Dylan is. How crazy and comfortable with silly stuff he was. He was going all out, no shame. But you in the back, were only like half there because you're used to being more serious and you don't do things like that often. It's cool!"

"Sherlock Holmes over here," he said, impressed. I shrugged.

"Do you remember when we were at the park, feeding the ducks?" I asked, laughing.

"Oh yeah! Ugh. That was so bad..." He rubbed his face, smiling and blushing.

"You tossed him a piece of bread but it was too big and the duck started choking. We like raced to save it and we felt so bad! Then the park ranger came up and was telling you off about reading the signs and being famous and how that shouldn't stop you from being good too?" I was doubling over laughing.

"And you were in the background making faces!" Thomas added. "I got in trouble because he thought I was laughing at him!"

"You were fine," I said, waving my hands in the air like I was wiping the words out of the air.

He shrugged. "True."

"Mr. Sangster, can I take your order?" A waitress asked. His humor immediately drained away when she recognized him. He looked to me carefully, wondering if she knew me too.

"I'll have a number four," he said.

"Do you want a drink with that?" She asked.

"Yeah. Uh, water."

"Okay!" She turned to me. "Miss Allen?" She asked, this time venom in her voice and her word slow.

"A number one please?" I said like I didn't notice. I'd learned to order the thing I wanted the least so that they wouldn't give me that-people always gave me the wrong order-on 'accident' of course...

"Sure. Drinks?" She stared me right in the eye, as if dating me to give her something else to mess up.

I closed my menu carefully and set it on the table, leaning in to my elbows and looking at her without blinking. I smiled. "Dr. Pepper."

We stared at each other for a long time, her glaring at me while trying to not let Thomas see and me smiling pleasantly, the implied challenged in my eyes.

She blinked.

"Coming right up," she said, her eyes now down cast. I'd won the silent battle. She wouldn't mess up my drink, at least.

She left after grabbing our menus and I leaned back in my chair. I kept a pleasant smile on my face, resolving to hit the bag harder later.

I looked up at Thomas. "Excited for our food," I said. "Wonder what I'll get."

"You ordered-"Thomas began.

"Don't start anything," I warned him. "I've been dealing with this the past two months. Just. Leave it."

He squinted at me. "Why do you deal with this? You don't have to."

"Yes I do. Unless I want the press blowing it out of proportions. If I make a scene, it goes from 'she was just eating at a cafe,' to 'look! She's starting shit! She is a bitch!'" I explained softly.

Thomas had a pained look in his eyes.

After we got our food, I enjoyed a number seven and drank my dr. Pepper. I kept my eyes on Thomas, making sure he kept silent. He did. He also shot the waitress a look that said 'not cool, man. Not cool' and she looked at me like she might be a little guilty. But then she walked away.

After, we went to the park. We were slowly making our way out of the run down part of town and to the populated side. Slowly, but surely. After walking in the park talking for a while, we drove to the beach. We just sat in the car and looked at the waves, not having brought anything with us.

"I love hiding in California," I said softly.

"Hiding in California. Never thought that would happen."

"I live in LA. People don't expect to find me not in LA. I say 'California' but I mean that I'm hiding from LA. I'm in other parts of Cali and not dealing with people. It's... Nice. I've come to enjoy the seconds of peace I get, where I didn't before." I shrugged.

He took my hand. "I'm glad that I came back. I missed you."

I looked at him, my eyes wide with shock and a little bit of worry. I didn't want to like him. But I did. My crush from not knowing him had gone to border line love as I got to know him. I never hated Thomas. Not once. In the week I got to know him and not again.

Everything he did made my feelings grow and I hated it. I hated these feelings for making me weak and open for any attack. I had to stay inside myself and hidden-but I couldn't do that with Thomas. No matter how hard I tried to.

"Wanna start some real drama?" He asked, smirking.

"Not really."

"Why not? Stir the pot. Let people see us together in public. Let's get things going!" He said, his smile growing.

"Drama isn't exactly fun," I groaned.

"It is when it's good drama. There are people who support you, Wendy. People who like you. People who know what really happened and can see it in the way you respond to everything. That waitress? She knows now too. That's why she was guilty. If we're going to hang out, I want people to know." He drove us to the most populated place where we were and parked. He offered his arm after he got out, went around, and opened my door.

"Join me in stirring the pot?" He asked, a mischievous smile on his face.

"Ugh. Fine!" I groaned.

"Yes!"

I took his arm and he pulled me up, into him. I stumbled a bit, and he caught me, wrapping me in his arms.

I coughed again, looking away.

"Are you blushing?"

"No."

"Mh hm."

"Shut up."

He let me go and I took his arm again. He walked us through to the park on the other side. "Wanna feed birds again? There's a place selling read right there! We can do that here." He sounded so giddy I couldn't say no.

He bought a loaf of bread and we went to a bench, across from a lady already surrounded my birds that were taking the bread off the ground.

I shook my head at Thomas as he excitedly got out bread and began tossing it on the ground. The mass of birds around the woman lessened as the stragglers, still hungry, came over to us.

We sat there until there were a bunch of birds around us too and we were half way through the loaf. The pieces we were using were small and one piece of bread fed a tons of birds. I got brave enough to put bread on my lap and let the birds hop up and eat from my lap and hands.

"Cool!" Thomas said, following me actions.

He put a piece of bread on my head and a bird hopped up and just sat there. I giggled and it flew away. We put the food all over each other and let the birds eat off of us. We laughed and giggled and chuckled and had a grand ol time.

After we finished our bag, finally, we left. Thomas drove us to McDonalds and got two cones-they had the best ice cream-and fries-The also had the best fries. Both of us dipped our fries in the ice cream and ate them like that. We only ate once we parked, which happened to be in the McDonalds parking lot. I snuck out and got a Redbox movie. Then, after we are out food, we decided to go home.

"This place isn't far from my house. You can stay the night if you want. Why are you in Cali?" I asked.

"I was visiting with Dylan. But I'll be glad to stay the night."

He smiled at me and I rolled eyes.

"Come on Sangster. We have a lot of work to do," I said.

"Yes ma'am," he replied. I laughed and we took off.