=Chapter Twenty-Four=The Blame Game=

I groaned when I heard the yelling coming from downstairs. I couldn’t tell who the yelling was coming from but I knew what it was about. It was always about the same thing, it was always about me and how I had either messed everything up or done nothing wrong. The yelling had been going on for a few hours but it had reached a new level of yelling within the last several minutes. Why was my family torturing me like this? Why couldn’t I just wallow in my own self misery alone? Why did they all have to be there waiting around for me to come out of this “funk” as my father had called it. They had been trying to get me to come out of my room for weeks now but I wasn’t going anywhere.

I just wanted to die, I wanted nothing to do with anyone or anything. At some point during my last few weeks I had changed into my pajamas but had not done anything else. I laid in my bed either crying, sleeping or prayed to god that this was all just a horrible nightmare.

The yelling downstairs suddenly stopped but I knew that didn’t mean that they had finished, it just meant that one of them was on their way up to my room to come yell at me again. It happened at least once a day, sometimes more. I waited for my door to fly open and either my mother or father or Kenzie to come into the room screaming at me. The only two people that seemed to sympathize with me were Hayden and Emmy. They seemed to leave me alone and let me drowned in my own self pity. Emmy came in every once in a while to check to see if I needed anything, I always told her no. She always told me that she was worried about me, that I needed to eat something. That I needed to move on, that I needed to take care of myself. She hated seeing me like this. Which always made me feel even worse because I hated that she saw me like this. I hated the fact that I was letting myself be like this, that I was letting my family down. Especially Emmy and Hayden. They were the only family that I cared about at the moment. But with all that being said I couldn’t stop myself from feeling the way I do.

Believe me I have tried to stop feeling like a worthless piece of shit but it’s kind of hard sometimes. I’ve completely screwed up my life, nothing and I mean nothing will be the same. Especially once all of this gets out to the media because I know it will eventually. And when it does shit is going to hit the fan and not only my life will be fuck but everyone that I have ever had contact with in my life. Knowing the media the way that I do they will track down ever last person to interview them and find out about my character as a person. And ask them if they ever thought I would stoop so low, if they thought I would ever be the failure that I am today.

I glanced over at the door wondering when someone was going to come storming into the room. As soon as the thought made its way through my head the door flew open. I saw my sister standing there with her usual pissed off look on her face.

“You are a lazy ungrateful bitch! This is all your fucking fault, I hate you,” Kenzie yelled at the top of her lungs. I did like I always did whenever someone came in to yell at me; I zoned out. It was the only way that I could handle any of it. I know I shouldn’t let my family treat me this way but I was far too weak to stand up to them at this point in time. Mentally and physically. “You do know that the media is starting to figure things out. There was some dumb idiot that got footage of the little stunt that you pulled in Hawaii.” When I heard the last part I came out of my stupor. 

“What? How?” I asked as I looked over at Kenzie. How did that happen? There weren’t any cameras in the restaurant. That was one of the reason that he had picked that restaurant because they did not allow the media inside.

“Camera phone, and it has audio,” Kenzie explained. “We’re trying to get a hold of it so that the media doesn’t get it’s grubby hands on it. They got hold of Will somehow and told him that they have footage and audio from that night. They said that they know everything.” 

“How can they know everything? The audio on cell phones are not that good to be able to hear from across the room. They would’ve needed to be standing next to us to hear anything. We weren’t talking that loudly,” I explained as that night rushed back to me, the pain began to grow in the pit of my stomach. I started to fall back into my daze.

“I have no idea how they got it but they did and it’s your damn fault. Damn it, Lola, you need to grow up and take responsibility for your actions.” 

“I need to grow up? I need to take responsibility for my actions? What the fuck do you think you are doing, McKenzie?” I snapped. I hadn’t realized that I had gotten out of bed and was standing only a few inches away from my sister. “If you hadn’t been such a child and gotten yourself messed up in drugs I wouldn’t have had to cover your ass. So don’t you tell me that I need to grow up and need to take responsibility. You need to listen to your own damn advise.”

Kenzie stared at me with a slightly bewildered look on her face; I’m sure she didn’t expect me to move that fast and get that close to her. And to be honest, I was just as surprised as she was. Kenzie started to open up her mouth to argue with me but I stopped her before she could. 

“Don’t even. Don’t even go there because you know damn well that you are a big part of this. Yes, I was the one that fell in love with him but I wouldn’t have been in that situation if you hadn’t gotten yourself mixed up in the drugs and needed to go to rehab. So, you need to stop blaming me for everything because I am sick and tired of it.” I could see Kenzie’s face starting to turn red as she was holding back whatever she was going to say. I was a little surprised that she was holding it back, that wasn’t like her to hold things in. Especially when it came to what had happened, she had no problem going off on me when it came to the situation we were in.

She let out a little growl and stormed out of the room. I watched her go then shut the door behind her and went back over toward my bed. I climbed in and buried my head into the cool blankets as the tears started to flow again. 

=

I clinched my fists and ground my teeth as I made my way down the stairs. I’m not sure what had caused me to hold back what I had wanted to say to my sister but I had. Maybe it was the fact that she was right. Maybe it was the fact that I had been the one to screw everything up. But then again, I hadn’t fallen in love with a man that I couldn’t have.

I had never been in love with Justin, he had always been a friend to me. Nothing more than a friend, maybe a small crush but nothing other than that. I did at one point think about making him a friend with benefits but that had never happened. I was surprised when I heard that he and my sister had fallen in love. They did look good together but then that would be saying that I looked good with him at the same time. And I wasn’t about to admit that to anyone’s face. I was going to be against this whole thing because it had caused some major problems in my career and life. 

I cringed when I heard my mother speaking to Will on her cell phone. She was yelling at him about how he needed to get this apparent video of the exchange between Lola and Justin. I had never heard my mother speak to Will like she had the last several hours. She was calling him every name under the sun that she could think of. It was actually slightly scary to hear my mother talk that way.

“About time she stood up to you,” I heard Hayden mumble under his breath as he rolled his eyes. He continued to play his video game that was on the screen. I wanted to say something to him but decided against it because I didn’t want him to hate me more than he already did. Everyone in this family hated me at this very moment. They thought I was being too harsh on Lola. When in reality they were being to light on her, things would not be as bad as they are if she hadn’t have fallen in love with Justin. 

We would have been able to make this seamless switch when I came back and there would have been no problems. And if there were it wouldn’t be that hard to fix but this was one problem that was going to be a bitch to fix. I’m not even sure that we can even fix it. This is going to create major damage to my career. I’m beginning to think that I should have just come out and said that I was going to rehab. There have been plenty of other celebrities that have said that and had successful careers in the business. I should have just sucked it up and went but it’s far too late for that. Things were about to get out of control very soon. And I sort of envied Lola at this moment because she wasn’t going to have to deal with any of it because she was hulled up in her room feeling sorry for herself.

I was the one that was going to have to deal with the media outcry after they found out that it had been Lola performing on stage rather than me. I’m sure I was going to have to pay back millions of dollars back to the fans for the money that they had spend when it was Lola and not me. I was going to lose a lot of fans from this and possibly gain some. Although they wouldn’t be real fans, they would be the people that would follow me around to watch me screw up and fall on my face. I was going to be under a microscope even more than I already was. 

I still come back to fact that none of this would have happened if Lola had not fallen in love with Justin. She would not have made things so complicated. I know Justin will never talk to me again which actually makes me kind of sad because he was a pretty good friend. It wasn’t like we were like best friends but we were fairly close. I knew if I really needed someone that I could call him up and talk with him but that wasn’t going to happen any longer. This had been damaged beyond repair.

=

“This is not your fault, Justin, you need to stop blaming yourself for it. She deceived us all,” I heard my mother say into the earpiece of my phone. I sighed. She didn’t get it. Yes, it was my fault, I should have seen the signs. I saw the signs but chose to ignore them. 

I should have been suspicious the moment that she had agreed to give us a try because the real Kenzie didn’t think of me that way. She never had. But I was too blinded by the idea that I actually had a chance that I went along with it. I should have paid more attention to everything. There were several things that were screaming at me that something was going on. I should have opened my eyes and listened. But I didn’t and I had no one else to blame but myself for this mess.

“Justin, are you listening to me?” My mother asked. I sighed again. 

“Yes, Momma, I’m listening to you.” I heard her give a loud sigh on the other end of the telephone.

“Then what did I say?” 

“You said that none of this was my fault. That she deceived all of us.” There was a long pause on the other end of the phone.

“Justin, I’m not going to baby you . You’re an adult and you have been for a long time. I’m just worried about you. Trace says you haven’t come out of your house for a few weeks.” I grumbled under my breath, of course Trace said something to my mother. I made a mental note to myself to kill Trace the next time I saw him. 

“I’m just fine...okay I will be fine. Stop worrying about me.” I ran a hand through my hair sighed. This was much worse than I thought it would be. I mean I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised. I had wanted to marry the girl and spend the rest of my life with her. Then she goes and tells me that she’s been lying to me the last several months. I should be furious with her but in all honesty I can’t bring myself to be, at least not as much as I should be. I actually feel a little bad for her. She got thrown into this by her sister and then got mixed up with me. I wish she had told me about this from the beginning. I don’t know if I would have gone along with it but it would have been nice to know. That way, I might have been able to get to know the real Lola. Not the one that was pretending to be her sister. I sighed. “Momma, I got to go. I will talk to you later. I love you.”

“I love you too, honey,” was all she said. I knew she wanted to say more but she didn’t. I hung up the phone and groaned. Maybe I should call her, talk to her. Let her explain everything to me. I looked down at my phone. Only seconds later it rang and I felt my heart start to pound when I saw who it was.