Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Allison Buccieri,” George starts. His voice is relaxed, mirroring the way he’s leaning into his armrest. I can tell it’s all practiced and measured. “Long time no see.”
My hands, resting on my lap, start trembling. My throat hurts when I try to speak, as if I hadn’t done it in a long time. “Hi, George.”
I feel like a deer caught in headlights, even though I’m here willingly. My fingers are clammy, and I don’t think there’s enough oxygen in this room. Could they open a window? Are there even windows on TV sets?
“You’re anxious,” George observes out loud.
My only answer is a short nod.
“You’ve been hiding for six years,” he muses. “Why come out now?”
The set gets blurry, and a buzzing sensation travels to the tips of my fingers. My throat closes, as if protecting me from saying things I will regret.
“Do you need to take a moment?” George asks, dropping his interviewer mask for a moment.
I feel myself shaking my head no.
“All right.” He sits back in the armchair, folding one leg over the other. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I glance around me, at the crew whose attention is all on me, and I wish Travis were among them. If I’d been honest from the start, maybe he’d be. If I’d started living an authentic life after leaving California like I promised myself, maybe I’d have my happy, calm life with him.
George’s question echoes in my mind as my eyes find his again, and the fog in my head and my heart clears just enough.
Why come out now?
Because lies are no longer going to write my story.
“I made a promise to myself years ago,” I start, my voice quiet. But George doesn’t tell me to speak louder, doesn’t interrupt me at all. “That I was going to make this world a better place. I don’t want to hide behind lies anymore.”
George looks at me with intent. “You talk about lies, but what have you lied about, exactly? Other than changing your name to Smith, which isn’t a lie. It’s a legal process.”
“It still feels like a lie,” I argue.
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t…” I wet my lips. “I didn’t tell anyone that Smith wasn’t my real name. I never told anyone who my family was. I came up with a fake backstory because telling the truth wasn’t an option. And my name… I didn’t change it because I wanted to. I changed it along with my looks because I didn’t feel safe anymore.”
“Because of your family?”
Their threats are still fresh on my mind. I can only imagine what they’ll say, what they’ll do when they see this, but no part of me feels regretful right now. Whatever the consequences, I’m ready to face them. I’ll pay any price if it means I’ll finally be free from their shackles—and my own.
My voice is louder, surer. “Yes.”
George says nothing for a moment, only looks at me with those intense eyes I swear can see right through me. It’s so clear now, the industry shark lying beneath the surface.
“Where have you been, Allison?”
“I left Los Angeles when I was nineteen and moved to Texas. I spent a year there.” I remember my time with Jada’s sister fondly, but looking back, my soul splits in half just thinking how scared and lost I was. “I wanted to see new places and keep finding myself, so I moved away again. I spent nearly a year in Nashville until someone recognized me.”
“You’d dyed your hair by that point, yes?”
I nod. “I’d cut it short, too, brushing my shoulders. A little shorter than it looks right now. I’d always had long hair, so I thought I looked very different.”
“But you didn’t if someone recognized you,” he points out.
“I mean… I flew under the radar for almost two years before someone recognized me. It was bound to happen.”
“You say it like it’s an obvious thing that you weren’t particularly worried about because it was expected. Yet you moved away when someone recognized you. Why?”
“I was in survival mode,” I confess out loud for the first time. “I was lost, didn’t know what I was doing. I just wanted to be left alone, and moving felt like my only choice to achieve that.”
“I’m assuming you had to pay for rent and groceries, which means you had to get a job. Where did you work?”
“I mostly worked at restaurants and bars,” I tell him, feeling the nerves leaving my body with each second. Would therapy feel like this too? “As a receptionist at a tattoo parlor, at a bookshop—whatever I could find.”
“Those jobs require dealing with customers, though. If your goal was to hide to avoid being recognized, it feels contradictory.”
“I graduated high school, but I never went to college,” I explain. “I have some accounting certificates, but they weren’t enough to get me the sort of job I would’ve liked. I had to take risks to keep a roof over my head.”
“Mm,” he muses before adjusting his position so his legs aren’t crossed anymore. “Were you surprised someone recognized you?”
I frown. “I don’t understand the question.”
“Some may say it’s a little… dramatic to change your name and appearance and escape Los Angeles like that. Your parents are well-known, but they aren’t Hollywood A-listers.”
I realize what he’s doing right away. Last night, I saw several comments on forums saying how I’d been too dramatic in my change of identity. That nobody would recognize a social media figure in person, let alone their children all grown up. That I should get over myself.
“My face was on the news for a very long time because of my kidnapping. People knew who I was,” I tell George, something uncomfortable rolling in my stomach at the memory of Claudia and that warehouse. “And after it happened, the media still talked about me, and my parents kept posting pictures of my face until I turned nineteen and left. Maybe those people aren’t entirely wrong in calling me dramatic. Maybe it is unlikely to be recognized many years later—although it did happen—but I was paranoid. I wasn’t seeing things clearly and acted on impulse.”
“I certainly understand.” George nods. “So, Nashville, where you did get recognized. Where did you go after that?”
“I moved to a small town in North Carolina. With fewer people, I figured there was a lower risk of getting recognized. I stuck to small towns from then on.”
“You stayed there for a year too? That seems to be the pattern so far.”
“I wanted to move as far from California as possible.” My fingers aren’t shaking anymore, but the sweat on my hands remains. “Maine is the farthest state from California. That was always meant to be my final destination, but I wanted to live in other places first. To experience life independently, I guess. To gain self-confidence. I road-tripped my way to Maine over the span of five years, living in different states for about a year each.”
“Did you move around so much because, deep down, you didn’t feel safe anywhere?”
Dart, meet the bullseye.
“I think… I think I was avoiding reaching Maine too fast, as weird as that sounds. Because when I got there, it meant I’d have to rebuild my life for real. I’d have to settle down and find a stable job, and I was scared of not finding peace there when it’d been my plan all along.”
“And did you? Find peace in Maine?”
Travis’s face flashes in my head, constricting my lungs. His warm touch, the safety he provided, how validated he made me feel by trusting me with The Lair’s accounts, how he opened his heart to me, how right it felt to come home to him every night.
I didn’t only find peace in Maine—I found a life worth waking up for.
My throat closes, but I still manage to say, “I found a lot more than that.”
I found love. And then I lost it.
He leans on the armrest, his fingers holding his stubbled chin. “I’m fascinated, Allison. How can such a young girl make her way across the United States all by herself, while fearing getting recognized at every stop? That must have been stressful.”
His understanding makes me feel better. “It was, but at the time, I didn’t think about it. I just kept going, taking it day by day. I was too young to see the real dangers, and I think… I think I would’ve given up if I had thought about what I was doing for too long. Why I was forced to do it.”
“Given up? What do you mean?”
After I was recognized in Nashville, I briefly wondered why I was bothering to start a new life when my old one would follow me forever. My parents had ruined my past and my future. I was naive to think my story had a happy ending.
I will never forget that night. The moment I thought about how easy it would be to get my hands on some pills and…
Jada called me then to check on me, and the idea disappeared forever. A week later, I signed up for my first online accounting course, finding a purpose again.
My voice comes out raspy. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
George nods. “Did you have any kind of support during this time? Someone you could call?”
I tell him about Jada, how we got close while I was still in high school, what she and her husband have been doing for me all this time.
And I tell him about Claudia.
“Your kidnapping shocked the entire country,” he says, as if I could ever forget. “The news talked about a child trafficking ring.”
I swallow thickly. “The police thought that’s what it was.”
“And what did you think?”
The memory of that day is still fresh in my mind, heightened by the near break-in and the car window I now have a strong suspicion my brother was behind.
“I try not to think too much about it,” I admit. “It was the most terrifying thing that’s ever happened to me. How that woman knew everything about my family without knowing them. She was convincing enough to fool a twelve-year-old.”
“How did Claudia have access to that information?”
I have an inkling he knows the answer, but he wants me to say it. He wants me to confirm it and end the speculation once and for all.
I promised.
“My mother shared everything online. Still does.” My pulse quickens. It’s my first time talking about her in front of someone that isn’t Jada. In front of a camera that is recording my words for millions of people to see— she will see this. Yet not an ounce of regret fills me as I add, “She shared pictures of me with my school diplomas. In those photos, you could clearly see the name of the school and my grade. That may look harmless to people who don’t have bad intentions and may just follow her because they’re curious about her life, but evil people exist out there. People like Claudia. And you never know if they’re watching.”
“It’s always fascinated me,” George comments casually. “How we share all kinds of stuff on the internet as if it were a private diary. Live locations, pictures of the fronts of our houses, our cars. I feel like we’ve lost sight of the dangers of social media because we’re constantly exposed to it. We don’t think what we share could have life-endangering consequences, but it did in your case. Tell me, was your mother warned against sharing so much on social media after the kidnapping?”
“The police told her to share less stuff or do it more vaguely,” I recall. Jada told her the same thing. “But she said it was her job, so…”
“So, she didn’t care that her negligence got her daughter kidnapped and nearly sold into a trafficking ring, and she kept oversharing on social media,” he finishes the thought for me.
My hands start shaking again. “Something like that.”
“You’ve never agreed to being online.”
“I mean, she took pictures and videos of me when I was a kid, but I didn’t know what she was doing with them. I didn’t know what social media was or how many people had access to information about me. Eventually, getting so many pictures taken became annoying, and…and when I didn’t want to do it anymore, she got really mad. Threatened to send me to bed on an empty stomach and said we’d be homeless if I didn’t pose for her pictures because it was her job. I told her to stop as I got older, when I understood what was going on.”
“But she never stopped?”
I shake my head.
“What was your father’s role in all of this?” he asks next. “His social media presence isn’t as big as your mother’s, but he does share some things.”
“We never got along, my father and I. He wasn’t loving, supportive, or understanding. He was never on my side despite knowing that I wanted to be left alone. He said I should listen to my mother because she was right. It was her job, and it paid the bills. That I should stop being a brat and do as they said.”
George crosses his legs again. “You know, for a very long time, I also wondered what was up with showing minors on the internet for millions of people to see, criticize, and more. Why do families like yours still do it when it’s been proven that the internet isn’t as safe as it used to be? When asked, some parents said that by hiding their kids from their audience, they’d create a dangerous curiosity around them. That people would go out of their way to see what their children looked like, and that by showing their faces, they’d take control of the narrative. As one of those children—now an adult—do you have an opinion about this?”
I fidget with my fingers on my lap. It’s not something I’d heard before, but I can picture my mother saying it.
“I don’t like extremes,” I start carefully. “I always try to understand both sides, and in this case… I… I get it. I really do. I understand why some parents think they’re doing their kids a favor by showing their faces online. I want to believe most of them do so because their children are a part of their lives, and they feel proud of them and genuinely don’t think it’s dangerous. But at the same time, it’s so… so selfish . So irresponsible. The internet isn’t safe no matter how much we’ve convinced ourselves otherwise. We all know this by now. A little girl was almost abducted not long ago because her mother shared their address to hundreds of thousands of followers. And then what happened to me. I just…
“At the start, my mother made it sound like a fun thing. Taking pictures and videos bonded us, and I liked it until I didn’t. But the thing is, children can’t consent to things they don’t understand. And they don’t understand how unsafe it is to have their faces, pictures, and vulnerable moments out there for anyone to see—nor should they have to, either, at their age. Adults deal with online hate every day just for being a public figure, yet they expose their kids to that willingly. Why would anyone do that? It’s a sticky situation, I know that. But as someone who was on the other side, I need parents to understand it can ruin lives. It ruined mine.”
“So you’re saying it can be okay to show children in online spaces?” George presses.
“I’m not here to tell anyone how to raise their kids. Who even am I to do that? What I’m saying is that parents should think twice about what they share. Nothing more.” My voice wavers as I relive the bitter memories. “I don’t think it’s safe to post your children’s certificates, showing identifiable information. I don’t think it’s necessary to film your child’s temper tantrums or other vulnerable moments and post them online, whether you have a million followers or a hundred. I don’t think it’s fair to ignore your child when they say they don’t want to take pictures and dismiss them by saying they don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t think it should be legal to make money off your kids and never put that money toward their education or future.”
George frowns. “Your parents never gave you any money when you turned of age?”
I swallow because maybe I shouldn’t be confessing this on TV. But…
Fuck it.
“I don’t have a Coogan account, if that’s what you’re asking,” I tell him. Tell the world. “I wasn’t a child actor or an athlete or a performer or anything like that, so my parents didn’t open one. As far as I know, it isn’t a legal requirement for children in social media.”
“Yet,” George says. It sounds like a promise.
“I…” Deep breath, Allie. “I took ten thousand dollars in cash from my parents’ safe before escaping because I couldn’t risk them monitoring my location through my credit card, and I had no other way to get money. It felt like I was stealing, but it was my money too. I’d helped earn it by participating in advertising campaigns against my will.”
George shakes his head, a hint of sadness tainting his eyes. “You’re no thief, Allison. You took what was yours because it was your only chance at survival.”
I say nothing. I can’t. I’d never told anyone about the money, and I’d been terrified to discover that I was right all along—that I took what wasn’t mine.
“You’ve just mentioned child actors. Do you relate to them in any way?” he asks next. “Minors being exploited and abused in the entertainment industry has been a topic of discussion for years.”
“My heart breaks for them. I can understand what they’re going through.” I hesitate. “But at the same time, I believe our situations aren’t quite the same. It’s difficult to explain. From my limited understanding, even though there’s still a very long way to go, the law protects actors more than it protects us, probably because social media is such a new thing—Coogan accounts are an example. I’m not saying injustices don’t happen—they absolutely do—but I think things are different with social media.”
“How so?”
“Well… aside from different laws, realistically, how many children and teenagers can be actors? It’s a very restrictive industry. There’s no room for everyone. Social media is a whole different playing field because anyone can become influential overnight. Anyone can post pictures and videos of their kids and go viral. You don’t need to pass any audition or background check or be hired by a powerful network. Being an actor is unreachable to most, but anyone can be a social media personality nowadays.
“That’s also why I wanted to be here today. We need to protect children in as many ways as we can. The entertainment industry escapes me, but I’m grateful others are fighting for the safety of children in that landscape. Social media is where I, unfortunately, have experience. I don’t think we should be censoring these conversations but encouraging more and more people to speak out no matter what their situation is. Only the oppressors benefit from our silence.”
An emotion akin to respect shines in George’s eyes. Or maybe I’m just desperate for approval, for any sign telling me that this interview won’t be in vain. That I’m not about to ruin my life for nothing.
“What you’re confessing today is…” he starts after a beat of silence. “Heartbreaking. Honestly, it’s heartbreaking. Not only because it happened to you, but because it’s happening to other children right now, as we speak, and they’re powerless to stop it.”
“I really hope that changes,” I tell him honestly.
“That’s our wish as well,” he reassures me. “But inevitably, when these controversial conversations take place—particularly when they point fingers at a public persona for neglect and abuse—skeptics are known to accuse victims of lying. One could argue that you’re here because you want attention. That it’s your word against your parents’, and it wasn’t that bad. That you’re exaggerating.”
My chest constricts, knowing where he’s going with this.
George sits up straight, both of his feet planted on the ground. “Which is why you’ve brought irrefutable evidence to the studio.”
He turns to look directly into one of the cameras.
“In order to ensure a successful escape from her family home in Los Angeles, Allison Buccieri made a video showcasing her parents’ abuse over the years and threatened to release it to the press if they ever contacted her again. Which they did, only days ago. Eden Productions will now show you the video that protected Allison all these years.”