Page 32 of Double Standard

“They might move on, but people don’tforget. They think I’m a liar, and in a few days’ time they’ll corroborate the story somehow, and there will be another round of ‘Manipulative Ana Barlow’ headlines.”

“Hey, slow down.” Levi glides his hand down the length of my arm. This time, it does nothing to calm my racing heart or stifle the words flying out of my mouth.

“And then there’s the same old shit about me being vain and controlling. Of course, Colt gets to do whatever he wants, and everyone fawns over him. I work out, and I’m a show-off; Colt’s an arrogant asshole who’s high on his own supply, and he’s a hero. Rinse and repeat everyfucking news cycle. For once, I’d like him to be on the other side. Maybe that makes me a bitch, but I can’t will myself to care.”

“You’re not—” Levi pauses, fills his lungs, and holds for a beat before releasing. His fingers drum staccato on my arm.

“What?” I ask.

He clenches his hands into fists but doesn’t respond.

“What is it? Please, just say it.”

The nervous energy in his hands spills out of his lips: “Colt’s a piece of shit, honestly.”

“Believe me, I know that.”

Levi pulls a face, like the words cause him physical pain. “No, he’s been a piece of shit toyou.”

He runs his hand through his hair, that anxious tick betraying him just before his mouth does. “He told me he tried to get you off the film.” The lines on his face deepen. “When the story broke in theStar, he asked Francesca directly to fire you.”

My heart stops. The world freezes, and his words hang in the air, suspended and swirling while everything else stays motionless. After a moment, I blink myself back into my body and turn to face him.

The swirling begins again. Heat floods my chest, my face, my knuckles. At first, it’s embarrassment, but it shifts quickly into anger.

Anger at Colt.

Anger at being a pawn.

Anger at the backstabbing.

Anger at Levi.

“Wait. Back up. You knew he’d tried to get me fired and didn’t tell me?” I stand up from the couch and resume my trail on the carpet. “This is a joke, right? You’re joking.”

“I thought maybe you already knew, and if you didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing you any favors by telling you. But whether or not you knew, what would you have done differently? Ana, you kept the role. You kept the press at bay, just like you wanted. Isn’t that what’s important?”

He leans forward with his forearms on his thighs, his hands clasped. He ought to drop his head between his knees in shame while he’s at it.

“So you decided I didn’t deserve to know that my co-star tried to ruin my career?” I seethe. “That ignorance is bliss, or some shit? I can’t believe this.”

“What was the alternative?” His voice is steely behind clenched teeth. “I tell you something I heard—a plan thatdidn’t actually happen—for what? I was trying to protect your feelings, and listen, I only decided to tell you now because you need to know that he’s been a bitch, not you. At the end of the day, his plan didn’t work. Your plan did. That’s what matters.”

That’s what matters.Are the words Levi’s or Roy’s? Levi’s rant brings me back in time, to my mom’s kitchen table fourteen years earlier, until I feel the hard back of a wooden chair bruising my spine and I see my former agent’s face, his lips forming the words, across from me.Both him and my mother trying to convince me that what they did—what they kept from me—wasn’t a big dealand howthe ends justify the meansand Icame out ahead, didn’t I?

Sticky sweat rises on my neck, the same as it did that day, and I feel the same roiling, churning in my stomach.

I stop marching and stand in front of Levi, the person who I thought was showing me, day after day, that I could trust him.

What a sucker I am.

“You had the choice,” I say, resentment clinging to each word, “between being honest with me and protecting your prospects. I’m not dumb, Levi. I know what we’re doing here. I suggested that this arrangement could be mutually beneficial for our careers, so let me be clear: I’m not upset that you were trying to get ahead by playing your cards right. It’s that you were willing to do itat my expense. I asked you to play this game with me so I could maintain control over just one piece of my life. Withholding something like this from me? That’syoutaking control, and that wasn’t the deal.”

I run my tongue over my teeth and swallow against a dry throat. He’s looking at me, and I want him to fight. Fight with me. Fightforme.

“You’re right,” is all he says.

“That’s it?You’re right?” I scoff. “God, you don’t get it. I told you about my mom, Levi. About Roy. About how crushing it was to learn that they were making decisions behind my back and then turning around and claimingI was better off not knowing. In reality, they kept things from me because it benefited them. Sound familiar?”