The next day, when Faith came with the clean clothing, she noticed wounds around Kylie"s waist. When she asked what they were from, Kylie said, "They are nothing but superficial scratches. I got them from climbing out of the window at the hotel after the ceremony. It sounds bad, but it was nothing compared to what happened to Princess Dianna when she tried to get away from the paparazzi!""That was very bold of you," Faith said. "You must have been scared. I can only imagine what would have happened if the reporters had caught sight of you!"
"It was nothing," Kylie laughed. "I was still drunk at the time. I barely even remember it. At worst, they would have taken pictures of me puking."
"Be that as it may," Faith countered. "You also look very tired."
"I am tired," Kylie admitted. "I will tell you something in confidence: Ethan and I made love last night. It was very vigorous, but when he woke up, he was chipper and full of energy. With me, though, it is different. When we have s.e.x, I wake up exhausted."
Faith frowned and said, "I can"t relate to your story but, if you ever need someone to talk to, I"m your Huckleberry."
"Thank you," Kylie cried as she hugged Faith. "You are a true friend."
The day after the party, Cliff"s face began to appear on the internet. Everyone knew that he"d holed up in a hotel room, but no one knew who he"d been with. The next day, when housekeeping opened the room, it was empty, and everyone had a.s.sumed that the mysterious woman had escaped through the window with Ethan.
Cliff had updated his Instagram with a short sentence: "To the woman that I love the most, I wish you happiness throughout your life!"
Out of all of the things he could have said, people found this sentence particularly interesting because it implied unrequited love. Almost minutes after it had been posted, the server crashed as countless fans, and media personalities guessed who the woman was. Cliff"s post had already been shared almost two billion times, which he would later learn, was a world record.
The mystery was cleared up days later, though, when Cliff came forward and said, "I"m sorry to disappoint everyone, but my last post was for my mother. It was her birthday."
The response to his post was mixed. It was definitely disappointing to have the story end so anticlimactically. That being said, many of Cliff"s fans were in love with him, so they were happy when they learned that he was still single.
Kylie felt very nervous as she followed Cliff"s story on the internet. She felt that it was inevitable that she would eventually be connected as the mysterious woman who"d flown out of the window. It was only a matter of time before someone got a hold of the guest list and began to narrow it down to only the women that Cliff knew. Once that was done, it would be a simple thing to pick Kylie out of the list. Her only hope was that the guest list wouldn"t go viral…
If there was any evidence that could prove she was the woman in the room with Cliff, Kylie a.s.sumed that the fallout would end her.
Faith drew her iPad form from her bag, opened an internet page, and gave it to Kylie. "Read this," she said.
Kylie pushed it back and said, "Just read it and give me the Reader"s Digest version."
"I already read it," Faith admitted. "An earthquake struck j.a.pan yesterday. There was a ma.s.s shooting in Italy this morning. A thousand-year-old turtle was released into its natural habitat. There is a new international clothing brand that everyone is talking about. They are boasting that their clothes" quality will be high, but their prices will be low. There is speculation that, if their product lives up to their hype, they could put businesses like Oscar de la Renta, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton out of business.
"A film directed by Bob Miller had its opening ceremony yesterday," Faith continued. "There is also some news about Sally Cooper. It is mostly about the film you will be working on together."
"Is there any news about Khloe?" Kylie wondered.
"It is very strange," Faith replied, "but Khloe"s entire life has been swept clean away. I searched for her name, and I didn"t get a single response."
"I wonder if Faith did this." Kylie wondered. There is no love between them, but I didn"t even know that it was possible to erase someone from the internet…"
Kylie sat down in front of the mirror in her room and began to do her make-up.
Faith continued to surf the net. Once she was fully satisfied that she wouldn"t find anything about Khloe, she decided to check what Cliff was up to. She typed his name into Google and pressed "Enter".
As the results popped up, Faith was surprised by how few stories there were – and anything that was current had been scrubbed. No one even mentioned his presence at the opening ceremony of Director Miller"s new film. He had even been edited out of the group shots. It was all very mysterious.
Faith might have had reasons for killing Khloe"s online persona, but as far as she knew, she had no beef with Cliff.
In Cliff"s studio, everyone was running around like chickens with their heads cut off. People had begun to notice that he"d been partially scrubbed and had begun to speculate on whether or not he would still be working with Director Miller on his new film.
Not knowing what was going on, Cliff had decided to remain silent, which only led to more public speculation.
"What the h.e.l.l has happened?" his number one a.s.sistant asked him. "A reporter claims that when he tried to upload an image of your face, it immediately disappeared. It is like you have been universally flagged as inappropriate content. In fact, the internet seems to hate you more than it hates kiddy p.o.r.n…"
Cliff sat down on the sofa. "I don"t know," he sighed. "It makes me long for the days of old when the internet was nothing but the science fiction nonsense of geeks and nerds… As long as we keep up with the filming schedule and the movie is released on time, we are gold."
"Yeah," the a.s.sistant laughed. "Stay gold, Ponyboy!"
When Cliff arrived on set, he was bombarded by the press. "What"s your opinion on Director Miller"s new film?" one reporter wondered.
"If I didn"t think it was awesome," he replied, "I wouldn"t want to be a part of it. I am also excited to be working with Sally. She was crowned as the Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival, as you already knew. I am also honored to work with Kylie. She may be a bit of a newcomer, but I have seen her work. You will not be disappointed. There is no question in my mind that she will play the lead in her next film!"
Right at that exact moment, Kylie stepped out of a car. Faith saw the reporters from afar and suggested that they go through the back entrance.
"No," Kylie sighed. "If I plan on being a public figure, I need to get used to facing the crowds."
"Alright," Faith replied as she took Kylie"s arm and led her up the sidewalk and through the crowd. At the moment, everyone was so focused on Cliff that they didn"t even see Kylie, which upset Kylie a little. She didn"t want to be bombarded the way that she"d seen List actors be bombarded, but she had hoped to at least be recognized.
"Please step aside a little," Faith shouted.
As they reached the end of the crowd, Kylie faced Cliff and called out to him: "Cliff, are you going inside?"
Cliff stared at Kylie and introduced her to the reporters: "Let me introduce you to the up-and-coming actress that I was just talking about. Kylie Finch, why don"t you join me? I am sure that the reporters have as many questions for you as they have for me!"
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