Blythe yawned as she shifted the rental car into park.  Today she believed there were too many mirrors.  She cared not to see her face for it was the face of disappointment.  How could she be so careless?  Maybe she deserved it, some form of penitence for her sin or, for that matter, sins. She was shocked she was not stalked by those that would have right to wish her dead.  She pushed opened her door, fixed her hat so it sat just right to hide her face, but give her sight of her surroundings.  Her lungs held a breath for fear of being noticed.  Her eyes darted and looked around, and saw no one that she knew, or did not know, for that matter.   

Blythe walked carefully to the front door of the building.  Good thing she was wearing her new high heels.  Shameless plug, maybe?  Not really, who would know that she had a hand in creating them?  Plus they do make her legs glow beautifully. She slipped in and let out the breath she was holding.  This need to ardently hide her true feelings with self-centered thinking and stupid jokes had been infiltrating her thoughts since last night.  Thomas said it was her defense mechanism.  He was the crazy one, not her.  That would be something he would know when she saw him next, if she was allowed to ever see him again.  Most likely for people like her they would give her someone new, someone that was more abrasive and less human, or famously well liked by those that matter.  

Blythe pushed her self to head to the elevator, smiled at Anthony the security guard.  He did smile back.  She had a gift for him and had forgotten, yet again, to bring it in.  He had a daughter that loves Dora the Explorer and Blythe had bought the entire season.  She loved kids.  They were so perceptive.  Her smile melted into disgust remembering last night vividly.  Her legs started to wobble and she almost fell down.

“Ma’am are you alright?”

Blythe felt his hand grab her and balance her on those new high heels.  Those stupid high heels that she thought were such a great idea to wear.  Her face looked like something out of a before picture.  “Thank you, Anthony.  I’m fine.”

Anthony looked like he wanted to say more, probably about what is now office gossip.  She did not want to find out what he had to say.  His words would not bring comfort.  

“Thank you.  How is Debby?”

He smiled.  He must have thought Blythe would forget her name.  Never would she forget such a charming child.  His proud beamed through his face and his words.  “She is doing great in school.  The kids don’t believe her when she talks about you.  She doesn’t allow their lack of belief harm her.”  Then his eyes grow dim, for he must have allowed what has transpired to bring him back to now.  “I shouldn’t keep you.  Rodger was adamant about you being on time.”

“Isn’t he always?  He’s like an anal wart that can’t be removed, but always reminds you that it’s there because it pesters you so.”

The joke was lame and she knew it, but Anthony laughed.  He laughed because he felt obligated.  She was a pity case.  She said goodbye and got on the elevator.  Her avoidance and her defensiveness were not working harder to keep her safe from certain meltdown.

Her cell phone rang.  Ignore it.  Rang again.   Ignore it.  Glanced.  Scoffed.  She was here.  Why was he calling her?  So impatient he was.  The ground was her focus because of the mirrors that were stupidly placed in an elevator, of all places.  Random emotional inward-burst.  There must be a mental techno name for that.  She had not a clue.  Her eyes caught sight of her feet and a ghastly noise escaped without request.  Her toes looked like what a foot model would not want.  Pedicure appointment was not top priority, should she be able to have those any more.  Bradly would not be pleased with her lack of upkeep.  

There was a ding and she looked up.  The doors slowly opened and she squeezed her skinny self out before they were finished.  Briskly she moved her self toward Rodger’s office, and avoided any eye contact with those that were trying to notice who she was.  Her hat was working, or so she hoped.

Once in Rodger’s office Blythe shut the door and pushed her back up against it.  She heard the whispers outside start up.  She had to ignore their need to be servile to gossip.  Funny was the fact that the last time she was here they were fawning over her every word, and even asking about what she was wearing, hoping they would be able to pull off her great fashion sense.  

Blythe slightly smiled and then her right hand fiddled a bit until it found the knob.  She locked it and walked in a depressively crawling fashion.  She withered as her body sat down into the chair that she had sat in many times over for far less distressing situations.

Rodger sat across from her, behind a desk that enveloped his body like an ameba surrounding its lunch.  He had pictures of his family that were visible on his desk and behind him on shelves.  A baby stared at her and the thought of a baby made her eyes fill with what she believed were tears.

Normally Rodger tells them not to bother him.  She wanted to be bossy.  Defensive mechanism strikes again.  “Don’t worry they know I’m here.  No need to tell them to leave you alone.”

As if he knew she what she was trying to pull, he countered with his own belligerence. “You’re late.”

“I know,” said Blythe as she lifted her hat off her head and fluffed her hair.  “I did not want to be followed.”  A grin forced its way onto her face, but her hands trembled and her hat used gravity to get away.  She didn’t blame it.  She, too, wished her soul could leave this condemned body for a better life, or a better body.

“No one followed you, or knows you’re here?”

A stupid question deserves a sarcastic answer.  Blythe gave an exaggerated affirmative nod.

“Good. Then let’s get down to business.”  He pulled out papers and placed them on his desk.

Blythe interrupted his train of thought. “First I’d like to do a bit of a rant.”  

Rodger sighed and rolled his eyes.  

It was important to relieve stress of the situation, so that she could deal more openly with everything that has happened, and, for that matter, will happen.  Thomas would allow it, so should Rodger, if he knows what’s good for him.  “Thank you for allowing me to go on.”  A nervous laugh seeped through her attempt to control herself.  “Did you see that report about Britney Spears?  She is such a stupid whore.  I mean she has kids.  You’d think she would be loving enough not to go and do all this partying and lying, just so she could keep them with her.  Now she doesn’t even have them.”  She shook her head and then caught a strand of hair between her fingers.  “Then there are those that drink and drive.  I mean really, you can’t drive while you’re inebriated.  How dumb is that?”

Rodger just nods unaffirmatively.  He mocked her nod.  Bastard.

“You agree or are you doing that to pacify me?”  Wait for the lie.

Rodger closed his eyes and said as his breath escaped in exasperation, “I’m just trying to live through your talking so we can get to the point of you being here.”  Brutal honesty was not at all expected at a time like this.

“That is what I pay you for.”

“No,” Rodger snapped as he shook his finger. “That’s why you pay Thomas your psychiatrist.”

“I should so find a new…”

“What?  Someone is going to want you?  The amount of crap I have to sift through and the amount of imagination I need to fix your flaws is tiring.  I don’t think anyone would want you.”

“You act like I’m some sort of problem.”

“At least one us has acting that is noticeable.”

Her teeth clinched. “That is also not your job.”

Rodger’s sarcasm attacked.  “Do you have anything more you’d like to go over before we get down to business?  You know, the reason you jumped right out of bed looking like something a make up artist would fail to fix.”

Volcanic eruption of eruption of feelings was imminent any moment.   “I’ll have you know that my life doesn’t revolve around waking up and coming to talk to you.  I was busy last night and early this morning.”

“I know.”  His eyes lowered to the papers in front of him.

She tried pushing the gray cloud out of her sky, keeping it from allowing inward feelings to flood the hopeful planes.  “You know Lindsey Lohan might drink and hit a small child.  She’s done a ton of stupid things this past year, I have faith she’ll do it again.”  Why wish pain towards a small child?  Did she not love children?  What was going on?

“Faith and fact are not one and the same.  I’m not going to sit here and listen to you preach and tell me otherwise.  Are we going to do what we’ve set this meeting up to do?  I pulled a lot of strings to get you here.  Do not make it a waste.”  If Santa were real he would give him his very own strip-mine of coal.  Blythe would shove some up his bum.  With his tight ass he could make diamonds all day long, because the amount of pressure he could generate by squeezing his buns together.

Blythe sat there in bitter silence.  The thunder rumbled with the gray cloud staying put, her legs shook ever so slightly.

Rodger relented, “Fine.  Go ahead and say what you need to say.  Get it off your chest, and then we’ll talk about it.  Go on.”  He waved his hand to initiate his speech gifting moment for her.  He was such a pompous fool.  He was not listening to her.  Just listen, please.

The gray cloud was swollen with emotional rain.  Tears surfaced but where commanded to stay put. “I love reading the gossip articles.  I love to do it because it makes me see the truth in their lies.”  Rodger looked like he was biting his tongue.  He should bite it clean off.  He never used it right anyway.  “I’m good at seeing the lies and understand that most of what they state are lies, but there is always a hint of truth.  I like reading them and finding out where the truth is.  I read about how people do drugs and get caught, and how they drink and get into fights, and how they break up with this person to go out with another person; who happens to be married to someone else for seven years.”  She watched him squirm with that mention.  He was far from faithful with his wife, and yet if he knew how unfaithful she was he’d really hate Blythe.  He’d be upset because it was experimentation without notification. “They always come out of it looking as if there is no harm.  It really is not fair.”  A lump of past emotion lodged in her throat.  “They need parents.  They have at least one.  I have none, both dead because they died in a suicide bombing visiting home.  I have no one close to me.  No one.”  She was trying to reach out.  Trying.  Hard.  He had to listen.  He had to understand what she was conveying.  Please.

It was an emotional tug of war.  Between wanting him to comfort her and wanting to lash out at him, it was every bit as tiring as an actual tug of war.  The gray cloud was no longer begging to release its emotional bounty.  It would without her allowance, when it wanted.

Rodger looked at her and waited.

Blythe looked at him and waited.

“Are you done?”

Blythe slowly nodded.  The gray cloud drizzled beads of tears that fell from her eyes in hopes to heal her mistakes, and allow her to be herself.  Just listen.  Understand.  Get it.

Rodger looked down at the papers and then said, “Blythe we are in trouble.” He used we as if he would serve time in jail should they both go.  He spread out the articles for her to see.  “These are going to be running in our local newspaper and a couple of national magazines.  I was able to get advance copies, but there is no stopping it.”  

One of the article titles read: Blythe’s Plight.

Blythe looked down at them and said, “I know.”  It is unavoidable.  But Rodger needs to listen. Listen to her and allow her to be free of guilt, at least within these four walls.

“What are we going to do about this?  Have you talked to your lawyer yet?  If I know what we can do I can spin this for the public and give them something to think about.  That way when it does go to court they’ll have a personal opinion, and hopefully afterwards it’ll be something that is on our side: the winning side.”  Spin it?  Her tears were not spun worthy.  They were true.  What she had done could not be undone no matter how many spins, no matter how many tears, no matter how many dollar signs.  What she had done was un-take-back-able.  

Another read: An all New Blythe Oops.

Oops?  An oops happens when you can use an eraser to get rid of an extra line to turn an M into a N.  What had happened last night was no oops.  Though an eraser did do a permanent job of riding the world of precious gifts, and that eraser shared her name.

Blythe’s thumb removed a couple of locked tears in her eyelashes.  “I’m so sorry.  But I’ve never done anything like this.  All my problems are mouth problems.  You know, speaking when I shouldn’t. I have never done something like this.”  She had never thought she could.  Just understand.  Hug.  Come around the desk and give a hug, a reassuring hug.

“Blythe,” Rodger said as he stayed behind his desk, “you’ve said that one too many times.  No one likes a pity case.”  Pity?  She was heart broken, not asking for anything remotely close to pity.  Mend the broken heart, make it beat again, make it well, and keep her sane.

Another read: Boom-Boom went Blythe’s Life.

Boom-Boom?  How rude to use a title of a movie she was in.  That movie was her Oscar nominated movie for her dramatic role as the sister that took drugs then decided to drive.  She has a car accident and kills the boy in the other car.  The boy was her twin brother.  Boom-Boom was his nickname, because he liked to tinker with fireworks.

The gray cloud just let go of all its pent up emotion.  Blythe buried her head into her hands to catch the tears and hug herself.

“You killed seven people in a van.  Two adults, three brothers and two sisters.  The kindness that people will have will not be for you no matter how many movies you’ve created that touched their heart.”  She wanted him to mend her heart.  “I pulled strings to get you here. Lots of them. Those strings might become public knowledge, they might not.  But you need to get over yourself and create a story that will allow you to come out on top.”  Get over it?  Remove a whole family from life and the simple phrase of get over it cures the pain.  “They were nobodies.  You’re a somebody.  Everyone knows you.  They did not know them.  This fact can work in your winning this and moving on and being all that you should be.”  They were somebodies to someone.  Someone loved them.  Someone was waiting to see them again.  Now they’ll never get to.

And the last read: Hollywood Starlet’s Drunken Slaughter.

Blythe’s forearms had rivers of despair filled with tears of certain care.  She sniffled, “I’m sorry.”  As if she was asking a god her voice was but a faint whisper, “Second chance, please?”

Why isn’t he comforting her? Just one hug?  Just one?  It would be nice to have someone care more about her than her persona in the media.  Someone?

She sobbed a realization, “No second chance.” She did deserve to look like this.  She deserved much worse than looking like a make-up-less winch.  Why were the paparazzi not here photographing her true pain and anguish?  And would anyone care when she decided to erase herself permanently?

Rodger did not even react.  He just waited, for this too shall pass.