“Hey,” Daisy chimes in, her husky curled beside Ryke, “that’s not her fault. You know, not everyone enjoys kissing in public.”
“But why these past four months more than ever before?” Corbin asks. “The media is going to latch onto the timing.”
Rose pulls back her shoulders. “We were trying something new, to spice up our relationship since we’ve had a child.”
We’ll never utter the real truth: that we were enticing the media—on purpose. As far as Rose and I are concerned, the only one who will ever know our secret is Ryke Meadows.
Naomi nods. “It’s a decent defense, and it’s better than staying quiet. We’ll add that to your written letter. It’s not something you’d need to say at a press junket.” She’ll type the letter. We’ll read it and approve. That’s how this works. “I know you have some family pictures of Jane on your Instagram, but you two should post more. In addition, you both should work on tweeting about parenting. People like these comments. It makes you relatable.”
“Loving comments,” Corbin clarifies, “not sarcasm or anything that can be taken out of context.”
Rose huffs. “I have no idea what you mean.” She combs her fingers through Jane’s hair affectionately. She does know, almost entirely. She hates talking about it. I’ve seen regret flash in her eyes at comments she’s made before, taking a concept too far, not meaning the degree of what she says.
She speaks her mind often, and she’s penalized for every single word, even the ones said in haste, the ones layered with fears, the ones bleeding with rage. I love all of her opinions, the passionate ones, the dramatic ones, and everything in between.
“At ConnorCobalt,” Corbin reads Rose’s old tweet off his legal pad. “Every time the little gremlin wails, my ovaries kill an egg. I’m going to be barren soon.”
The people that know Rose laugh. Her mother and father remain quiet.
“It was a joke,” Rose says, her voice breaking at the end. She stares harshly at the ceiling, more upset than I thought she’d be. I can feel her confidence waning.
My smile fades. I massage her tense shoulder and lean closer to whisper, “It’s not your fault, Rose.” None of this is her fault. Everything is being distorted.
“She should be allowed to be herself,” Ryke interjects, sitting up on the window nook. Daisy slides off his lap and pets their dog.
“Not at the cost of her reputation,” Samantha says. “You wouldn’t understand—”
“I understand. I fucking understand more than you even want to know—and this entire thing is about turning them into people they’re not.” He points at me. “Let them be whoever they want to fucking be—the end.”
If only it was that easy, my friend.
“You live off a Hale Co. trust fund,” Sam chimes in, reminding everyone about the money involved in my decision. “We’re trying to protect companies that can be hurt by public perception. I don’t think you have a say here.”
“Fuck you,” Ryke fumes, standing off the window nook.
Lo hesitates to block his brother from a physical altercation, but Ryke hasn’t charged Sam yet.
Naomi takes advantage of the brief silence and reroutes the topic. “The sex tapes are a good form of defense, even if everyone is trying to brush them under the rug.”
Corbin taps his pen to his legal pad. “They’re not brushing them anywhere. Everyone believes that the tapes are just another stunt to cover Connor’s tracks. And frankly, I’d buy into it too.”
“Then you’re an idiot,” Loren interjects.
“No,” Corbin says, “the public doesn’t know Connor as intimately as all of you. They know what they see, and what they see alludes mostly to a well-coordinated stunt. My suggestion—to clean everything quickly and easily—you need to deny these claims against you.”
Rose tenses even more beneath my hand. I can’t speak right away, but Corbin isn’t finished.
“You’ll say that you’ve never had sex with a man before. You’ll say that these guys were friends of yours and they just want a quick payout by tabloids. You’ll say you’re heterosexual and in a healthy, loving marriage with your wife.”
To fix this, I must lie.
I already know this. I’ve thought a hundred steps ahead of them, and I wait for Naomi to offer me a different version of the same hurdle.
“Fuck all of you,” Ryke says words that I feel but can’t articulate.
“If you don’t have anything constructive to add, I think you should leave,” Corbin tells him.
Lo shoots a withering glare his way. “You’re our goddamn publicist, not the king of the castle, so stop acting like you have authority to banish my brother into another room.”
Naomi abruptly stands. “I have an alternative.” She procures a paper from her folder and passes it to me. I graze over a long list of sexualities: bisexual, pansexual, polysexual among other terms. “Pick one,” she says.
As if it’s as easy as ordering an appetizer off a menu.
The room deadens, all eyes shifting to me. The paper is heavier than they may realize. My entire twenty-seven years of existence I’ve wedged myself into parameters that other people construct—to blend in, to appease men and women alike.
To me, these terms are just another parameter—and I’ve never enjoyed stepping into this box, to pretend to be someone else when what I feel is so simple, so rudimentary. I admire other people who can identify with these words, but it’s not what I feel.
I’m attracted to people, to the all-encompassing passion of the soul, of the body and the mind.
And I shouldn’t have to be labeled to make sense. My sexuality shouldn’t be of priority to anyone but me. If I’d only slept with women, no one would care, but they’ve learned differently, and now they’re bothered, incensed—confused, doubtful.
So to appease them, I have to step into that cramped box. To make sense to them, I have to declare something I don’t feel.
I know who I fucking am, but very few people truly know me. Now I have to choose which Connor Cobalt millions of people will see.
The fake one: I’ll give myself a label. I will be what they need me to be. In doing so, I make good with my father-in-law and eliminate doubt that shadows my love for Rose and her love for me.
The real one: I never say one way or the other. The public will be left to wonder. I destroy relationships with Greg and Samantha, possibly damage my friendship with Lo. My love for Rose and her love for me may always be questioned.
My nineteen-year-old self wouldn’t have flinched at this ultimatum. I would’ve faked my way through the rest of my life, through the rest of my days, and I would’ve lost that last shred of humanity I’d let Rose keep safe for all those years.
Be real, Richard.
I placate people. I appease them. What happens when I stop, for a moment, to live in the comfort of my own skin? I may lose everything. But what if this is the sacrifice I have to make for Jane? What if I’m supposed to abandon who I am, to live a lie, so that she may live in peace?
The variables, the costs, the benefits, the lingering what ifs lead me to confusion—to a head-on collision with fear.
I rub my forehead that begins to perspire.
“It shouldn’t be this hard,” Samantha says.