Gorgeous Gruesome Faces, page 17
I already know I’m not good enough for her; I don’t need her to point out every single way I’m inadequate.
“I’ll talk to her as soon as the tour is over,” I tell Mina. “Promise.”
“Maybe Candie can ask the celestial maiden to help speed up Jin-hwan and Brailey’s break up,” Mina offers with a mischievous grin.
“Don’t give me any ideas,” I say with a cackle. “Now tell me everything that happened with that boy. From the beginning. Spare no details.”
* * *
I’m texting with Jin-hwan again during rehearsals.
It’s the week before our tour, the precious final moments when we should be pouring all our attention into perfecting our set, but I just can’t stay focused. I know I shouldn’t be texting with him out in the open, but we’ve both been so busy that we haven’t had time to call each other. I have no idea when we’ll even be in the same city next. I need to take advantage of every minute I’m able to reach him, every second.
Out of nowhere, a hand reaches down in front of my face and snatches the phone out of my hands.
“Hey!” My head snaps up.
Candie’s got my phone captive in her grasp, her eyes moving across the screen as she reads our text messages. The inevitable moment I’ve been putting off for months slams without warning into my chest, knocking the air from my lungs.
“I keep waiting for you to come clean, but I’m tired of turning a blind eye,” Candie says.
No excuses or explanations will save me now. My thoughts crash into one another in a blazing pileup. “I was going to tell you after the tour.”
“Not only are you hooking up with a cheater, you’re letting him talk you into sending dirty pictures? I thought you were smarter than this.” Candie shoves my phone back at me.
It takes me another second to remember what Jin-hwan and I were just talking about.
“We’re in a long-distance relationship; it’s normal!” The disgust on Candie’s face sends a hot burst of embarrassment flaring up in me.
“Do you realize how easily pictures of you can leak?” Candie bites back. “Is it really too much to ask that you think things through before you do them?”
“This is why I didn’t tell you!” The defensiveness grows into anger as my voice rises. “I knew you’d react like this. You’re not even mad that I hid it from you; you’re just mad that it might fuck up our reputation! Your reputation!”
“Calm down, please, both of you!” Mina steps in valiantly, but her usual soothing waters don’t even come close to putting out this fire.
“You need to stop seeing him,” Candie orders.
“Why should I?” I snap.
“Because he has an actual girlfriend! The press would murder you, and then her army of fans would pick apart your carcass.”
“He’s going to leave her. He wants to be with me,” I declare with full conviction, like I’ve been called to a witness stand.
“Is that what he told you?” Candie chortles, the sound of it derisive and mocking, nothing like her usual tinkling laughter. “How stupid can you possibly be?”
I shake my head. “I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked me to do. I’ve pushed myself to the breaking point for you. Don’t ask me to do this.”
“He doesn’t love you,” she tells me coldly.
The way she says it as if it’s an absolute concrete fact—as if it’s preposterous that someone like him could possibly love me—hurts more than anything else she’s said.
“Please, can we all just step back and take a deep breath?” Mina begs. But instead of placating Candie, Mina only draws her ire.
“You knew about this, too, didn’t you?” Candie rounds on Mina.
“I—well—um,” Mina stammers.
“Of course you did. I bet you encouraged it,” Candie accuses. “Are you really just going to stand by and enable her to selfishly throw away everything we’ve worked so hard for these last two years?”
“That’s really unfair, Candie.” Mina’s demeanor crumbles. She looks deeply wounded. “You know how much Sweet Cadence means to me.”
“Right. I’m the bad guy. I’m always the bad guy.” Candie steps back from both of us, isolating herself. “If this blows up in our faces, we’re done. Brailey and Jin-hwan will walk away unscathed, but we won’t be able to recover from a scandal like this. Don’t you two get that?”
“Because that’s all you care about now, isn’t it?!” I yell at her, the dam breaking. All the anger and hurt I’ve been bottling up rushes out in a furious torrent. “When was the last time you even asked us how we were doing? Do you know that Mina’s grandmother’s cancer came back and she’s in the hospital again? You’re such an egotistical glory hound that all you care about now are ratings and how we’re doing on the charts! You don’t give a shit about anything else; you only care about being fucking famous!”
“I care about you!” Candie shouts, finally losing her composure.
I turn away from her and head for the door before the tears can fall.
“Stop!” Candie orders.
The command hits my ears, sinks into my body, and I’m frozen in the doorway, completely still, one foot over the threshold. Even the breath in my lungs seizes. I can’t breathe.
It lasts for only two, three seconds.
All at once, my body is released, air comes rushing through my nose, and I let out a loud gasp. Mina hurries over immediately, rubbing my back as I cough.
I glance up at Candie in disbelief. That terrible feeling in my gut, all those fearful questions and dark doubts I’ve dismissed and ignored since the VIXEN incident flood back.
If Candie can hurt Soomin like that, can make people’s bodies turn against them …
Would she one day do it to us?
“I—I’m sorry,” Candie stammers. “That wasn’t what I … I wasn’t trying to—”
I take Mina by the wrist and flee from the studio, leaving a shaken Candie behind to watch us go.
Chapter 22
NOW
After the ambulance leaves, Faye and I find ourselves sitting side by side across from Ms. Tao in her office, like a couple of poorly behaved schoolgirls about to be admonished by the headmistress. Like we didn’t just watch a girl try to slice off her own face.
Ms. Tao folds one hand neatly on top of the other and leans forward in her chair, shutting her eyes.
“Sadly, this isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed this type of stress-induced behavior. We’ve reached out to Hannah’s family, and her mother informed us that Hannah has been struggling for quite some time.” She sighs deeply. “Our goal has always been to challenge you girls without sacrificing your mental health, but we’ve clearly failed Hannah. On behalf of myself and all of the instructors here at SKN, I want to apologize to the both of you as well. Thanks to your swift response, we were able to get Hannah the help she needed in time.”
“I’m glad she’s with her family now,” I say.
I’ve changed into a new outfit, but when I look down I swear I can still see the red spread of Hannah’s blood across my chest. Faye stays quiet, like she has been since we first walked in.
Ms. Tao spares us a doleful smile. “I absolutely understand if you need to take some time to process. And please know that you have my full support if you decide to withdraw from the program.”
I drink in her words and let them sink deep. And I consider it. Leaving. Giving up.
I picture myself going back to my room and packing my belongings into my suitcase. I imagine calling my mother and telling her I failed, again. I envision waiting outside in the parking lot for Mama to pick me up, the long silent ride home. I think about how easy it would be to go up into my room, shut the door, and hide away from the world again, plugging my ears and covering my eyes. Just like I did last time.
Hannah’s face layers over Blake’s face, which layers over Mina’s face.
I see Mina’s body falling backward off that balcony, again and again.
My hands clench and unclench in my lap, the crescent press of nails cutting into the inside of my palms. It’s connected. All of it. It must be.
And all of it leads back to Candie.
Once we’re back out in the hallway, I take Faye’s arm and lead her into the stairwell, glancing around carefully to make sure no one’s nearby. Then I turn her to face me.
“You promised me, Faye.” I need to get her out of here, and I will resort to emotional blackmail if I have to. “You promised that if anything else happened, you would leave. I think it’s safer if you did.”
“But I don’t want to!” She shakes her head, her voice fraught with despair. “I’ve come so far!”
“Trust me, this won’t be your only shot. You’ll have another chance. You’re so talented and full of heart, you’re definitely going to make it. Just not here. Not this time.”
I rest both hands on her small shoulders.
“Please,” I beg. “I couldn’t save Mina, and I—” My voice starts to wobble, and I fight to keep it even. “I need you to be okay. I won’t forgive myself if anything happens to you. Please do this for me.”
Finally, Faye’s shoulders begin to sag under the weight of my hands.
“Okay.” She nods. “I’ll let Ms. Tao know that I’m leaving.”
I exhale a long, deep sigh of relief.
“If it’s not safe, why are you choosing to stay?” Faye asks, her eyes full of worry.
“Whatever is going on here, I think Candie might be involved,” I tell her. “I need to find out the truth from her myself.”
Faye wraps her arms around me and pulls me into a long hug, as if she’s convinced that this is goodbye forever. “Please be careful, Sunny.”
Small embers of determination gather in the pit of my stomach, growing brighter and hotter until flames rise.
Tonight. I need to speak with Candie tonight.
I won’t let her avoid the conversation any longer.
What is happening to the girls in this workshop is tied to Mina, somehow. To the celestial maiden. I can’t stand by and let another tragedy like that happen again.
I’m going straight to the source, and I’m going to find out exactly what’s behind the hidden corners of this building.
* * *
At the end of the day, I sit at the table in my room battling with my hair.
I’ve googled my father only a few times when I was young, and the search results showed me photos of a tall, thin-faced man with messy curly hair. He somewhat reflects the person I picture in my mind: a chain-smoking, caffeine-chugging auteur who doesn’t give a damn about the illegitimate children he’s sired. I don’t look like him at all. The only thing I’ve inherited from him is my head of thick, wavy hair.
The brush in my hand snags on a stubborn tangle at the back of my head, and I wince, hissing back the pain.
“You’re going to damage your hair pulling at it like that,” Candie’s voice says from across the room.
I jolt slightly in my chair, turning from the table to glance at her. Candie sets her bag of toiletries down on her nightstand. I didn’t even hear her come into the room.
She walks over to me and lifts a hand in offering. I hesitate for a second before dropping the brush into her open palm. She moves to stand behind my chair and starts to gather my hair meticulously into her hands. Fingernails glide in tingling arcs against my scalp, sending a sharp wave of shivers rolling down my back. The brush runs from the top of my head downward in slow, even strokes, stirring memories lying just beneath the surface.
We used to do this all the time. Candie would comb my hair with a brush, sometimes with just her fingers. It was calming for us both. Therapeutic, on hard days. She’d do it at the foot of hotel beds, when we were traveling in cars between events, when we were waiting around on set, bored. She told me once that she loved my hair. It validated my opinion that my hair was my best physical feature.
My eyes are lulled shut by the soft whisper of bristles as they pass by my ear. I assume she’s extending this familiar, soothing kindness because of what happened with Hannah and me. It works; it’s almost frightening how fast I flash back to the only period of my life when I felt truly safe and secure, buffered between Mina’s smiles and Candie’s protection. A small, anxious voice reminds me to stay on guard, but I can’t help but lean into her touch.
“I think about Minnie all the time,” I say.
“I think about her, too,” Candie says. “But I’m trying to focus on the future. She would have wanted that for us.”
“What she wanted was to star in a Broadway show.”
“And own an alpaca farm.”
I can’t see it, but I hear the small smile in Candie’s voice.
“She wanted to do so many things.” I stare at the white wall in front of me. “She’ll never get the chance.”
Candie is silent behind me. The brush strokes keep coming, continuous and rhythmic. She reaches for the hair products on my table and dabs some oil in my hair to tame the frizz.
“Is it you, Candie?” I ask her, point-blank. “Are you hurting the other girls? Forcing them out of the competition?”
All movement from Candie halts. We’re plunged into silence for an excruciatingly long time.
“Why would you think that?” Candie asks finally.
“Because you’ve done it before,” I say in a low voice, like I’m afraid someone might overhear.
“Everything I’ve done, I did for you and for Mina,” she says.
The brush pulls away entirely. Her arm slides up to drop the brush back onto my desk. I reach out, my fingers catching her wrist. Her skin under my palm is hot and damp from the shower. I pull her in toward me, my thumb pressing against the round bump of bone.
“Has it been long enough now? Can we talk about us? Can we talk about what happened?”
I search her eyes for the answer. We’re close enough for me to smell the fresh scent of soap rising from her body, the fragrance of her shampoo. Droplets of water fall from her bangs and land on my knee.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Candie says. “What’s done is done. We can’t change anything. We can only move forward.”
She pulls her wrist free, banishing me from the warmth of her contact, retreating to her side of the room. She slides on her headphones and settles down in her bed to read, making it abundantly clear she’s not interested in anything else I have to say.
I’m unmoored again, bobbing helplessly out to sea, adrift in the pitch-black waters with all the horrible things swimming just below my feet, watching as Candie floats away.
I’ve spent so much time watching her walk away from me. Always too afraid to chase after her, too afraid to express what I want, too afraid of rejection, of crossing boundaries, of pushing past the point of no return.
I have nothing left to lose now.
I get up from my table and cross the floor to her bed. I sit myself down on the edge of her mattress. When she glances up at me, I reach out with both hands and gently pull off her headphones.
“What are you doing?” She’s stunned, clearly not expecting me to break from my pattern of following her lead in avoiding the unresolved mess of our relationship.
“There’s something I’ve never told you,” I say, taking the book out of her hands as well, setting it on the nightstand. “I didn’t realize it at the time. I think I was so drawn in by Jin-hwan because I was heartbroken and he made me feel loved. And I wanted to spite you. I wanted to make you jealous.”
Candie blinks rapidly, unable to hide her surprise.
“It worked, right? You were always watching me when I was flirting with him. And you were mad that time you caught us in the trailer. You tried to act like you weren’t, but I knew you were furious.”
I lean forward, drawing our faces near. “I can show you. What Jin-hwan and I were doing before you walked in…”
Candie is at her most formidable when she’s backed into a corner. She doesn’t like it when she’s not the voice of authority, not the one calling the shots. I want to see what she does when I pull her off the throne of control.
I lean in on my palms, closer and closer, until my lips touch down against the side of her neck. Beneath me, Candie goes entirely still. I wonder if I listen at her chest if I’d hear a thundering rhythm echoing my own frantic heartbeat.
I brush my mouth lightly up along her pulse to her ear. When my teeth graze her earlobe, her breath hitches sharply. The sound makes my head swim with dizzying bursts of white heat. My hand curls against her waist, fingertips skimming the vulnerable patch of exposed skin under the hem of her sleep shirt. Candie’s hands reach up and land against my shoulders, not drawing me closer, but not pushing me away, either.
I sit back from her slowly. There’s a high flush on Candie’s cheeks, the both of us trying and failing to regulate our breathing.
“You said that my feelings might have been influenced by the maiden. What else is the maiden capable of?”
The second I mention the maiden, Candie’s expression shifts. The flustered look vanishes, replaced by something else entirely. She turns away from me to face the wall, her shoulders hunching inward. “… I can’t talk about this.”
Suddenly, she looks small and lost.
She looks scared.
The memory of Candie quietly sobbing in that bathroom flashes into sharp relief. Her reddened eyes. How hard she was trying to hide any sign of weakness.
The realization finally hits me. I’ve always been too slow on the pickup, too oblivious to hidden intentions, to the ways seemingly unrelated details fit together to form a larger picture.
I’ve been wrong this entire time.
Candie wanted me to think of her as a hostile presence. She’s acting cold and removed for the express purpose of pushing me away from her, but it’s exactly that—an act. She’s trying to protect me from something. Something that terrifies her.
The pieces finally click into place.
