Chapter 11 Julian #3
My throat aches as if I’ve been shouting for hours, raw and painful with words unsaid.
My heart punches too hard against my ribs, a desperate rhythm that is dangerously close to panic.
My hands are cold even under the covers, fingers stiff and bloodless, as if the memory has dragged me over hot jagged coals and left me there to tend my own wounds.
For a moment, I don’t know where I am, caught between past and present, between the boy who lost everything and the man who built something new from the ashes.
Then the sound hits me, sharp and insistent, cutting through the fog of memory.
My phone is vibrating on the bedside table, jumping wildly across the polished surface, as notification after notification chimes in a relentless cascade.
The blue glow of the screen pulses like a warning, like something alive and hungry.
I roll onto my side and stare at the screen until my vision stops warping, until the letters arrange themselves into words I can understand, words that make my stomach drop.
HEADLINE: MALIK CARTER AND JULIAN REED IN HEATED BACKSTAGE CLASH — “YOU STOLE FROM ME” CAUGHT ON VIDEO
Another alert stacks on top, the notifications piling up like accusations.
WHAT DID MALIK CARTER STEAL? INTERNET GOES INTO MELTDOWN AFTER LEAKED CLIP
Then another, each one worse than the last, each one spinning the story further out of my control.
JULIAN REED “UNHINGED”? FANS DIVIDED AFTER CHICAGO INCIDENT
My stomach rolls again, but this time it isn’t from a memory. It’s facing my reality, cold and unforgiving. My present has caught up with the past, colliding with enough force to shatter the careful boundaries I’ve maintained for years.
They clipped it exactly where I knew they would, where it would do the most damage, where it would generate the most speculation. They got the spectacle. They got the hook. They got the words that invite endless theories as the video ends abruptly, cutting off right when things were escalating.
You stole from me.
That is all the world has. A soundbite. A fragment torn without context. A mystery to unravel with eager, greedy hands. A reason to sharpen their teeth and tear into something they don’t understand but will happily devour anyway.
I swipe through videos with shaking fingers and see myself in grainy footage, my face twisted in rage, my voice clear even through the distortion of phone speakers.
I see Malik’s expression freeze, before shock and something deeper darkens his features.
I see my mother’s posture, rigid and offended, her spine straight enough to snap.
I see Portia’s hand on my arm, tight and protective, trying to pull me back from the edge.
I see the crew in the background, phones raised like weapons before Renee and Eli start barking orders to stop the filming, their faces masks of professional damage control.
I barely remember Renee and Eli cutting through the hallway like they owned it, moving with the efficiency of people who have handled crises before.
The threats issued in calm, measured voices.
The orders given with unquestionable authority.
The scramble of the unwanted spectators hiding their phones away as if they hadn’t already captured what they came for.
It hadn’t been enough. The damage was done. What was leaked to the world was enough to start a firestorm that would consume everything in its path.
I toss the phone onto the bed like it’s burned me and press my palms to my eyes until I see stars, until the pressure drowns out the chaos momentarily.
A knock comes at the door, light and careful, almost hesitant.
“Jules?” Portia’s voice calls out from the adjoining hotel room door, soft with concern.
My chest tightens at the familiar nickname, at the gentleness in his tone that I don’t deserve. “It’s open.”
The door clicks softly and he steps in, his slender figure silhouetted briefly against the light from his room.
I didn’t even realize he wasn’t in bed beside me, hadn’t noticed his absence until his presence reminded me.
I guess he chose to sleep in his own room, giving me space I hadn’t asked for but clearly needed.
He’s already up, already dressed most of the way, his slim body wrapped in clothes that look soft and comfortable rather than his usual.
His makeup scrubbed off, leaving his face bare and vulnerable.
He looks younger without the glitter, softer in a way that makes something ache in my ribs, a tenderness I have no right to feel.
He moves to the small table by the window where his phone sits face down beside his clutch, a deliberate positioning that speaks of someone avoiding bad news.
He slides his rings onto his fingers one by one, slow and deliberate, like he’s putting himself back together piece by piece, like armor being assembled for a battle he knows is coming.
He doesn’t rush, and that terrifies me more than panic would. His calm is worse than any outburst.
“You’ve been awake a while,” I say, stating the obvious because I don’t know what else to offer.
Portia glances at me, his expression quiet, composed in a way that hides as much as it reveals. “You haven’t? I could hear your phone going off through the walls. It’s been non-stop for the past hour.”
I don’t answer, because the truth is written all over me, in the shadows under my eyes, in the tension that holds my body rigid.
My body is here, supposedly resting, but my mind has been in that auditorium for hours, reliving the moment everything changed, the moment that set us all on this collision course seventeen years in the making.
Portia sits at the table, folding his hands neatly in front of him with a grace that seems effortless. His posture is calm, controlled, but his eyes are watchful, missing nothing.
“Are you going to make a statement?” he asks gently, without judgment, offering the question like a choice rather than a demand.
I let out a bitter breath, almost a laugh but too harsh for humor. “I don’t even know what I would say. ‘Sorry you saw me lose my shit’ doesn’t seem adequate.”
Portia’s gaze flicks to my phone on the bed, still vibrating periodically with new notifications. “They’re calling you unstable. Volatile. Some are saying it was a publicity stunt gone wrong.”
I laugh once, sharp and ugly, the sound scraping my throat. “That’s generous. At least ‘unstable’ sounds like a medical condition rather than a character flaw.”
He doesn’t smile, doesn’t offer false reassurance. “Eli has been on the phone since six. I saw him in the lobby when I went to get some coffee. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all. Guess he’s putting out fires, calling in favors, doing what he does best.”
Of course he is. Eli always does. Eli has spent twelve years taking my chaos and my secrets and my sharp edges and sanding them down until they fit into the world without cutting anyone, without drawing blood that might stain my carefully constructed image.
Portia’s voice stays soft, but there’s a firmness underneath that wasn’t there before.
“He said the label wants you quiet today. Completely quiet. They want no posts, no interviews, no candid moments, no chance for you to make things worse. They want you on lockdown until they can control the narrative, until they can spin this into something manageable. I’m sure he will be knocking on your door to repeat it, to make sure you understand the stakes. ”
My jaw tightens, frustration rising. “And what narrative is that? What story are they planning to tell about me?”
Portia hesitates, fingers tracing patterns on the tabletop, then answers anyway, direct as always.
“That you’re exhausted. Overworked. Under pressure from the tour.
That the clip was taken out of context and doesn’t represent who you really are.
That it was a misunderstanding between old friends blown out of proportion by social media. ”
I stare at him, unable to hide my bitterness. “It wasn’t out of context. It was exactly what it looked like.”
“I know,” he says, and the simplicity of his agreement makes my throat burn, the honesty in it more painful than any lie would have been.
Silence stretches between us. Not uncomfortable, just heavy, weighed down by things left unsaid, by truths we’ve both known but never acknowledged aloud.
Then Portia exhales softly and taps one finger lightly against the table, like he’s steadying himself, like he’s gathering courage for what comes next.
“I realized something last night,” he says, his voice quiet but clear.
I pull myself up into a sitting position, my back to the headboard, bracing myself for whatever revelation the chaos has brought him to.
“When everything went sideways in that hallway,” he continues, gaze steady on mine, “when your parents were there looking horrified and Malik stepped in with that expression I’ve never seen before, and the phones were used by the vultures circling.
. .my first instinct wasn’t detachment. I didn’t step back the way I usually do. ”
I swallow, throat tight. “What was it then?”
“To protect you,” he says quietly, giving me a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “To put myself between you and harm, whatever form it took.”
The words land slow and deep, sinking into me like a weight, like a truth I wasn’t prepared to face.
“I felt it before I thought it,” Portia says, his eyes steady on mine, unflinching in their honesty. “I wanted to pull you back from that edge. I wanted to put myself between you and them, between you and the cameras, between you and whatever was about to swallow you whole.”
My throat tightens painfully, emotion rising that I don’t have words for. “Portia—”
“Let me finish,” he says gently, holding up a hand. “Please.”
I nod, surrendering to whatever he needs to say, and he continues, voice steady despite the weight of his words.