Jazz brushes it off with a laugh, but now she’s got me frazzled. You’d make a good daddy. My chest is tight, burning from the inside, the knot barely loosening by the time we’re due back on set. Serena returns a lot more chipper, her pupils like fucking saucers. It’s obvious she’s high, but nobody says a word. I notice Cliff is watching her, though.
Serena’s on point now, wide-awake and feeling beautiful, while I keep fucking up, take after take after take. It’s a mess. The movie's going to be a goddamn disaster if we can’t get our shit together.
“Cunning, your timing is off,” the AD says. “What did you two do, switch places?”
“I’m getting it together,” I say, stretching. “I just need to clear my head.”
Serena steps closer, whispering, “I got more if you want it.”
Do I want it? Fucking right I do. I want it all day, every day. But I don’t need it, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have it, so I shake my head. “I can’t do that anymore, Ser. You know that. And you shouldn’t be doing it, either.”
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re not the boss of me, you know.”
“I know, but I am—”
“Quiet on set!” a voice shouts, cutting off our conversation. “Let’s try this again! Give us a good one this time!”
We do. We give them a good one. Hell, we give them a few. But after nightfall shit starts deteriorating again. Serena runs out of coke while I run out of patience for her attitude.
“Ugh, this sucks,” she growls, messing up her hair as she clutches her head. “I feel like shit.”
“You’re more cocaine than woman at this point,” I say, frustrated that we’re not through yet. “I’m surprised you can feel anything anymore.”
“You’re such a prick,” she snaps, shoving me.
“Oh, whoa, whoa!” Cliff gets between us as she clenches a fist like she’s about to swing at me. “This is not happening. You’re frustrated? Fine. Get a room and screw each other's brains out. But this? Oh, no, no, no… not going down.”
“What needs to go down is some detox,” I say. “Some counseling.”
“Shove your judgment up your ass, Johnny,” Serena says. “Just because you went full-blown junkie doesn’t mean the rest of us will, too. I’m fine. So why don’t you worry about how much of a fuck-up you are and leave me alone!”
She storms off set, crying, and the shoot is postponed—officially, because Serena Markson is under the weather.
Unofficially? Turns out, I'm an unsympathetic asshole.
I run my hands down my face. “Could this day get any worse?”
“Never say that,” Cliff says. “Because as soon as you say that, it’ll get worse.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Look, give her time to calm down,” he says. “Give her time to come down. We’ll come back tomorrow with a clear head.”
I go to wardrobe, getting out of the suit, grateful to be back in jeans and a t-shirt. I don’t wait around after I’m changed, because I'm damn sure not riding in the limo back to the hotel with Serena, so I order a car and skirt past the lingering crowd to meet it on the corner, not wanting to wait for it to pass through security. A few folks catch up to me. I sign a few autographs but turn down requests for photos, enough cameras flashing in my face.
I hate the fucking paparazzi.
I’m standing on the corner, waiting. The car's a minute away. They’re pelting me with personal questions that I do my best to ignore—although, I want to sucker punch one of them when he asks about my father.
“Fuck him,” I mutter under my breath.
“What did you say?” the paparazzo asks.
“I said fuck him.”
Ah, that’s going to be one hell of a sound bite.
Before I can say anything else, there’s screeching nearby, a group of fans rushing toward me. Shit. People are pushing, shoving, as the crowd closes in around me, fans trying to get past the assholes with cameras who keep drowning them out with their inconsiderate questions. Nobody’s watching what they’re doing, and I’m losing my cool. Fast. I can’t even meet my damn car on the street without this chaos. I sign some more stuff that’s shoved in my face, and I try to calm myself down, but these assholes do everything imaginable to antagonize me.
Footage is worth more when I lose my temper.
The same guy who asked about my father tries to get closer, to get a better angle, mowing a young girl over. She stumbles and I catch her, grabbing her by the arm. She can’t be more than thirteen or fourteen. It pisses me off.
“Back the fuck off before you get someone hurt,” I say, shoving the guy away, just to get some goddamn space, but it seems to trigger panic in the crowd. Some try to disperse, and that young girl dodges forward, out into the street, because there’s nowhere else she can go. Shit. She doesn’t even look. Headlights swallow her up. A horn blares. I can see the horror in her eyes.
The girl fucking freezes.
No.
It’s instinctual. I don’t even think. She freezes and my feet move. I dart out into the street and grab the girl again, shoving her back to the sidewalk. She knocks into the crowd, losing her footing, but I have no chance to make sure she doesn't get trampled. I turn, and the car is right there, tires squealing, brakes screeching—
BAM.
Everything feels like it’s in slow motion. My brain doesn’t register it right away. Flashes surround me as I fly backwards and then—holy fuck—pain. It’s like a shock, every nerve ending in my body screaming as I slam into the asphalt.
Blackness. I’m blinking, but I can’t make out much. People are yelling all around me. My head is pounding. Their words are vibrating inside my skull and I want them all to shut the fuck up. Police lights and sirens, paparazzi cameras flashing, panicked screams from someone. I try to sit up but something warm runs down my face, soaking my white shirt.
I look down at it. Blood.
The sight makes me woozy. Whoa. My vision goes black and then Cliff is there. I hear him before I see him, hear his warbled voice before his face greets me. “Take it easy, Johnny. Don’t move. We’ve got help coming.”
He looks worried.
I wasn’t worried.
I wasn’t… until I looked at him.
“Is she okay?” I ask, my chest aching.
“Who?” he asks.
“The girl,” I say. “She was in the street. There was a car coming. I don’t know. Is she…?”
“Everyone's fine,” he says, glancing around before turning back to me. “They’re freaked out, but nobody else is bleeding. What were you thinking?”
“That she was gonna get hit by a car.”
“So you took her place? Jesus, Johnny, you’re taking this superhero business way too personal.”
I laugh at that. It hurts.
I close my eyes and grit my teeth.
Where is that goddamn help?
You’re lucky.
That’s what the doctor said to me.
It’s your lucky day.
But as I lay in the stark white hospital bed in the dim private room, surrounded by people I don’t care to look at, with security posted at every corner as phones ring and ring and fucking ring, I don’t feel very lucky. This day has become unimaginably worse.
Severe concussion. Laceration to the temple. Broken right wrist. Bruised ribs. Besides an array of cuts and scrapes, swelling in places that aren’t happy about this shit, that’s all that seems to be wrong with me.