Page 181 of Broken Lines
“Am I still ‘bent out of shape’ that someone lied their way into my home and good graces? While using a fake last name…” I cock a brow at her. “Yourlast name, actually. And am I still a littlemiffedthat this person wormed her way into my life just so she could sell me out to a shitty B-list music magazine?”
June bristles as I step closer to her.
“A little,” I snap viciously.
The girl in front of me swallows, but she doesn’t draw down.
“You don’t seriously believe Melody had anything to do with publishing that piece, do you?”
“Well gee, June, maybe I was misled by the fact thather fucking nameis on the article as a co-author. Or, hmm, the fact that it’s full of confidential information that I distinctly remember telling her and her alone, without, I should add, agreeing to being recorded while doing so?”
“Maine is a single-party—”
“Fuck. Off.”
I turn to leave again, the high I was riding earlier from finishing Iggy’s song dissolving like acid into something far more bitter. Something far more insidious.
The need for substances.
My body shakes, my skin burning as my demons try and claw their way back into control.
“Look, she may have recorded you—”
“May havenothing,” I hiss, whirling on her again. “She did.”
June shrugs.
“Fine. She fucked up. But she didn’t write that story. She didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“I’m sure.”
I need to get the fuck out of here. But this time, as I turn, the precocious redhead grabs my arm and yanks me back around.
“Stop walking away from me, asshole!”
I frown. There’s real emotion and edge to her voice, and for the first time since she accosted me a minute ago, I can see through the attitude and the anger.
And I see that she’sscared. Like really, actually scared. My brow furrows as I glare back at her.
“I know for a fact she didn’t write that piece, dickhead,” she chokes. “One, because the co-author, Becca Scaldi? She’s a hack writer, and a snake. And she’s also dim enough to have left her phone open around me.”
Her eyes harden.
“Melody may have recorded you. But she didn’t give it to anyone or write the story. Becca stole the recording and those pictures off Melody’s phone and emailed them to herself.”
I grunt. But June’s not done.
“You don’t find it strange that Melody writes the bombshell music article of the decade, and then literally ceases to exist at Ignition? Doesn’t write a single other story for them, despite putting them on the map?”
I smile thinly.
“I suppose she was too busy building her and Judy’s fucking Real World reality empire to have the time to blow up anyone else’s lives.”
“Oh myGod, you’re such a victim!”
“Fuck off—”
“Okay, yeah, the article was a dick move and the media showed up at your door. But, c’mon, seriously? It got you back in the world. It got you recording again, so they say. What were you doing that was so great before? Being a hobo on some island?”