23. Naz #3
I look down to find my grandmother watching me closely, a solemn expression on her face. “Why didn’t we know?” she asks again.
“Because you don’t like to watch TV?” I offer jokingly.
She doesn’t look amused. She looks sad. Despite spending the last decade of my life wishing I had a way to show her how important this band is to me, I don’t want her to feel bad. Sitting down in the chair Simon brought me earlier, I scoot a little closer to her and take her hand in mine.
“Grandmother, I know neither of you loved that I chose this life. I think losing Dad stuck with us all in different ways, and I know it doesn’t help that I look so much like her.
I always thought that’s why you both kind of shut down whenever the band or my music came up. I’ve always understood, and it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” she says. “By doing so, we blocked out who you are. We missed out on all the ways we should have been supporting you and showing you how proud we are of the man you’ve become. Your father would have been proud, Nazario.”
“I always wished I could be more like him,” I admit. “That if maybe I was, I could make losing him a little less painful.”
“Your father used to talk about how happy he was that you took after her. He was so in love with both of you.” Grandmother’s eyes fall to our hands, and a tear falls down her cheek.
“What happened to them wasn’t your mother’s fault, and it was unfair of us to make you feel that being anything like her isn’t something to be proud of.
She was such a beautiful woman, and so full of life.
Like you,” she says, reaching a hand to touch my cheek.
My lips move into something that feels like a smile, but I’m not sure it reaches my eyes. Everything is blurry, and I feel like I haven’t taken a full breath in hours. If I’m being very honest, I’m not sure I’ve taken a full breath since I left Scott behind in New York.
“We’re going to do better,” Grandmother says, patting my hand. “I’m going to have one of you boys help me get my computer set up in the office, and then I’m going to do my own research and learn everything there is to know about my grandson.”
“Oh no, Grandmother. That’s really not necessary. Please don’t. There is stuff out there that you really don’t want to see. Some of it might be real, but a lot of it isn’t, and I don’t want you to think—”
“Oh, don’t you worry. We overheard your friends talking this morning, and William assured me that this recording that’s taken over the news is just another ploy to make you look bad.
I didn’t understand why anyone would want to do that before, but now I suppose it would discredit you to have something so unsavory out there.
I had no idea that… What did he call it?
Deep-fake AI pornography?” Her hand comes up to clutch her metaphorical pearls.
“Well, I just didn’t know that was a thing. It must be terribly embarrassing.”
“You have no idea.”
I’m not sure whether I want to hit or kiss Will for that.
We’re all sitting around the fire pit after the most surreal day of my life.
I just sat at the dinner table with my grandparents, my bandmates they’ve always hated, an NFL superstar, three bodyguards, and a nurse.
And the only time I wanted to gouge out my brain was when Jesse let slip that the entire world knows my bodyguard is in love with me.
I assured my grandparents it was just a silly internet game, but not one of my friends backed me up.
Instead, they all repeatedly, and loudly, mentioned all the times Scott has either done something ridiculously sweet for me, like being overly concerned about me being properly hydrated, or been caught sneaking out of my room.
Absolute assholes, all of them.
“We’ll have to make sure to meet this Mr. Riley,” my grandfather said. “Make sure he’s good enough for our grandson.”
“Honestly, you’ll probably worry about it being the other way around,” I joked humorlessly. “I’m the tattoo-covered hooligan. He looks like Captain America with Flynn Rider’s hair.”
“Who is Flynn Rider?”
“He’s a Disney prince,” Ari explained. “Very handsome. Very suave. Perfectly quaffed hair. It’s a pretty good description, actually.”
So now we have a family movie night planned for tomorrow.
I’m pretty sure I’m in some kind of Twilight Zone episode. Or maybe the bad place.
I’m almost relieved when Cory comes to let me know Scott is here. He told me earlier that they did find a recording device. It was inside the cell booster Scott brought with him. The one he got from Emmy before he came to meet me.
Things just keep getting messier and messier. I don’t know what to think, and Cory doesn’t have any answers either. Blake’s contact with the Waves App IT person just got access today, so hopefully they can track down what’s actually happening.
In the meantime, I have my own role to play. Acting has never been my strong suit, but if this is going to work, I have to make it good. I have to channel every bit of the rage, the fear, and the devastation I have felt over the past weeks.
It’s showtime.