Page 41 of Once Upon a Star

His eyes searched mine as he waited for me to speak. I don’t know how he knew I needed time to compose myself, he just knew. I wasn’t sure who my revelation would hurt more. Him or me. I needed to say it, for myself. I needed to have him hear it. I had loved him for most of my life and I knew I always would. He was saying and doing all the right things and I kept pushing him away. If I truly wanted that closure or to see what we could be, I couldn’t do that until I told him everything.

“You did the same, Bash. You supported me, you cared for me, you loved me, in a way I didn’t even know existed. I had no idea how important it was to have someone who was on my side until you weren’t there. I had been so unsure of myself, of my career path, of who I could be, until I met you. You helped me get the confidence to be the woman that I am.”

“Ara. It was always in you. It was always there. But if I helped you to see that, then I’m honored.” Bash squeezed my hand.

I moved my hand away from his and stood up. The game was forgotten as I turned away from him and wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly chilled. I could feel Bash standing up and moving to stand behind me. He didn’t try and touch or comfort me, something I was both thankful and hurt about.

“It was one thing to never know my family’s love. It was easy to not miss something if it was never there. But when you came along, and you showed me what it was like to be loved, to be heard, to matter, it changed everything.”

I slowly turned and looked at him and said, “Which was why it hurt so much worse when you took it all away.”

Chapter 23

Sebastian

I thought I had understood just how much I had hurt Ara. I thought I had known enough about her life, her childhood, her relationship with her family to know her past. I thought I understood where her pain and anger toward me had come from. I could see now that I was wrong, so very wrong about so many things.

“Ara,” I said and tried to reach for her hands.

She lifted them toward her chest and moved away from me. I let her go, but I wanted to follow her; I wanted to pull her into my arms. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. I wanted to go back in time and fix everything for her. I wanted to find her family and wring their necks.

“I won’t say it’s okay, because obviously, it isn’t. I just needed you to know. I don’t expect you to understand or try to change who you are or what we are. I . . . yeah. There it is,” Ara said.

“Thank you for telling me. That couldn’t have been easy. I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted to leave you. I never wanted any of this,” I said.

There was an ache deep in my chest that made it hard to breathe. I could feel tears in the back of my eyes and I quickly blinked them away. What I was feeling, how I was processing all of this was nothing compared to what Ara was going through. I needed to be there for her. I wanted to believe that by her telling me, she wanted us to move past it. I just hoped she would give me a chance to explain.

I sat on the couch and looked over at Ara. She wasn’t looking at me but running her hands up and down her arms as if she was suddenly cold. I thought about going over and putting a blanket around her, but I got the impression from her stance and words, she didn’t want anything from me. What I could give her was my sordid past and history.

It took everything in me to walk away from her, but I moved and sat on the couch and said, “The first memory I have is my mother telling me I was the most beautiful child she had ever seen. She said it so often that I had no choice but to assume it was true. I wanted to think that I wasn’t egotistical, that I didn’t let it go to my head but we both know that wasn’t true.

“I think it was my mother who first got me interested in doing movies. I was the most beautiful child, why wouldn’t I be on the big screen? She took me to acting classes and auditions when I was too young to know any better, much less what they were. I assumed that was what kids did with their mother after school. At first, I thought it was cool that she would take me out of class to go to an audition.”

Ara glared at me. Her look told me that she didn’t understand why I was telling her all of this and was annoyed that I was making it all about me.

“There is a point to this. A very important point. I want to explain my actions to you, but I need you to understand all of it, all of me. You told me your truth, your hurt, your anger, your fears. I want to do the same for you.”

Ara looked at me for a few seconds before she gave me the slightest of nods, telling me to continue.

“As you know, I wasn’t getting any offers. No one wanted to work with me. Mom told me it was because the people didn’t see how amazing and talented I was. She convinced me that we just needed to find the right person to work with me and then everyone else would be sorry.

“I believed her. I was a kid, turning into a teenager. I was naive. I thought my parents had the perfect marriage, that our family had the perfect life. I thought my parents were sending me to camp as a gift, not because they needed time alone and Dad wanted me out of the picture.”

“Bash,” Ara said, shocked. I had never told her because we weren’t talking by the time I figured it out.

“I won’t say it’s okay, because obviously it isn’t. I just needed you to know,” I said repeating her words. “Lucky for me, Dad had heard about Winslow Creek and thought it would be good for me to go. I had no idea how right he was going to be. If I hadn’t gone there, I never would have met you and I wouldn’t be the man I am now.”

Ara walked toward me but didn’t say anything. When she sat next to me on the couch, I turned to her and continued. “There was just something about you; from the moment I met you, I knew you were special. I knew you were someone I wanted in my life. I thought for sure you would feel the same way, that you would see what I thought everyone saw in me. I was this great guy that you would feel privileged to know.”

“You were so full of yourself; I had to put you in your place,” Ara said.

I smiled at the memory and it was probably the moment I fell in love with her. “And you most certainly did. You were the first person who told me to get my head out of my ass, not in so many words but close. You taught me something that is probably the most important thing about being an actor and the one thing I wasn’t doing.”

“What was that?” Ara asked.

“You taught me to be humble.”

Ara laughed. “Because I’m so humble and you most certainly are, too,” she teased.