Finding What's Real - Softcover

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Emma Harrison has written several YA romances including The Best Girl, Tourist Trap, Snow Queens, and Finding What’s Real, as well as many TV and movie adaptations. When Emma is not writing, she loves to bake, work out, read, and watch way too much TV. She lives in New Jersey with her incredibly awesome husband and two perfectly adorable sons.

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Finding What’s Real

1

“BUT YOU MUST HAVE KNOWN your parents were looking for you—that the whole nation was looking for you.” Kitty Wolf’s brow was appropriately concerned, her posture tipped forward in interest. The colorful overhead lights made her pore-free, latte-colored cheeks glow. “Why didn’t you let them know you were all right?”

Heat seared my skin, even though I could feel the relentless whoosh coming from the air-conditioning vent behind my head. My manicured fingernails dug into the leather seat at my sides and my mother’s eyes twitched. I folded my hands in my lap and plastered on a smile. Outside the plate-glass window, some mom from Ohio shouted, “Give ’em hell, Cecilia!” If only.

“I just want to say I’m very sorry for any stress I caused my parents, or anyone else for that matter,” I recited. “My grandmother and I were very close and after her death . . . I made some bad choices. But I’m back now, and I’m as committed to my family as ever.”

There was some truth in there somewhere, at least. Sandwiched between the publicists’ lies. My mother reached over and briefly placed her cold, dry hand on top of mine, giving it a wide-fingered squeeze like one of those claw mechanisms inside an arcade machine. Comforting, it was not. Though I’m sure it looked that way to Good Day America’s ten million viewers.

“More than anything, we really just want to focus on getting Cecilia to her high school graduation tomorrow and start looking toward the future both for her and for this country,” my mother—the great Senator Rebecca Montgomery—said. She gazed directly into the camera. “We’re so grateful to the people of this great nation for supporting us through this crisis. You’ve really shown us the best side of America, and we hope that you’ll now respect our privacy as we mourn the loss of my husband’s mother and work to piece things back together.”

Gag. And as if anyone in this great nation of ours had ever respected anyone’s privacy.

“God bless America,” my father added.

Gag. Barf. Gag.

Kitty Wolf sat back in her chair with a satisfied smile. “And on that note, we’ll go to commercial.” She looked into the camera and ducked her chin in the way of professional newscasters everywhere. “For Good Day America, I’m—”

“Wait! One more thing!”

The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. It was like a switch in my head had flipped. And now, every single person in the studio held their breath. I saw two boom operators exchange a look like I’d just lit myself on fire in the middle of the set. But what was I supposed to do? No one had mentioned Jasper. Or Shelby. Even though news footage of the two of them being dragged out of Jasper’s house in handcuffs had been playing practically on loop for the past two days.

Kitty and her producer exchanged a shrug, and then the green light on top of the camera that was aimed at me turned on.

“Jasper Case and Shelby Tanaka did not kidnap me,” I said, looking Kitty steadily in the eye. Or as steadily as possible when the rest of my body was shaking. “They’re just friends I made in Sweetbriar. Every allegation leveled against them is false, and they should be released immediately.”

Kitty’s smile was stiff. I’d leaned forward, so I couldn’t see my mother’s face in real life, but I could sort of make it out on one of the monitors. She looked about ten years older than she had two seconds ago. Wrinkles. Lines. Ire.

“All right then,” Kitty said brightly. “Rebecca, David, Cecilia, thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your story. I’m sure I speak for the entire viewing public when I say we’re so glad you’re safe, Cecilia, and we can’t wait to see what you do next.”

Was it just me, or was there a sort of evil glint in her eyes when she said that last bit?

“For Good Day America, I’m Kitty Wolf.”

The theme music started up and Kitty launched herself out of her chair, ripping off her microphone. “God, I need to pee.”

She quickly shook my parents’ hands, gushing about how nice it was to meet them, then wished me luck, kicked off her puce-colored heels, and ran as best she could in her tight-ass pencil skirt, a team of makeup artists chasing after her.

“Well. That wasn’t too painful now, was it?” my father asked, straightening his suit jacket. The caked makeup on his dark skin was a shade too light, making him look like he was wearing a latex mask that was slowly peeling off.

“If lying doesn’t bother you, then no.” I glanced at my mother and I could tell a tirade was building. There was this very subtle shade of purple-pink creeping up her neck. It would not make it to her face. It never did. The woman had an intense amount of control in public.

“Greenroom,” she said through her veneers. “Now.”

I turned away from my parents just as the PA who was in charge of us appeared to usher us down the hallway. My mother walked behind me, her heels click-clacking primly, and I could practically feel the rage emanating off her. But of course she wouldn’t say anything out here, where anyone could hear her. As soon as we were alone she would unleash the beast. Or alone with her assistant, Tash Miyaka, a twenty-something professional butt-kisser who wore nothing but black shift dresses and pearls and always had two phones and an iPad on her. She was waiting in the greenroom and jumped out of her chair when we arrived, sending the iPad bouncing across the carpeted floor. She scrambled on hands and knees to pick it up.

“You guys can feel free to relax in here while I check on your car,” the PA said with a kind smile. Then she closed the door and was gone. I ripped off the itchy pink-and-white-plaid jacket my mother’s stylist had chosen for me and threw it at the nearest garbage can, then fished in my new Louis Vuitton bag (a smaller version of my mom’s, also provided by the stylist) for my phone. Until I remembered that my mother had taken my phone five seconds after we were reunited two days ago.

“What the hell was that? You just hijacked that interview!” my mother snapped. Her body trembled, but her helmet of blond hair stayed freakishly still. “We had the perfect sign-off and you had to muck it up by pushing your cause.”

“My cause?” I blurted. I felt hot all over from the effort of standing up to her. It wasn’t something I’d done much of in the past few years—hell, in my entire life. Honestly, since I was ten years old, I’d barely ever seen her. But things were different now. They were going to be different. After everything that happened, they had to be.

“You mean my boyfriend who you had arrested for no good reason?”

“Don’t turn that around on me! You’re the one who ran away, leaving me to clean up the mess. Did you really think I wasn’t going to find a way to spin the story?”

“By throwing two innocent people under the bus?” I asked. “They’re in federal prison, Mother. And for what? For being kind to...