Away From the Spotlight by Tamara Carlisle

traffic, we stayed for the entire game to watch t he Dodgers w i n.  I therefore didn ’t get home until late, around 11:30.  My sister was, surprisingly, not asleep and caught me as I walked in the door.  I quickly learned why.
    “Will called while you were out at about eight o’clock and , again, fifteen minutes ago.  You probably want to call him.  He s ounded a little worried.”
    “Okay,” I said, appearing as if nothing was wrong.  I went into my room and shut the door.  I looked at my cell phone.  I had one new voicemail, five missed calls and two text messages.  Great .
    I listened to the voicemail first.  Unfortunately, I could never seem to delete a message without listening to it.  I held the phone away from my ear so that I didn’t have to really listen .  It was from Will and was mercifully short, something along the lines of his being back at the hotel and wanting me to call.  I t hen looked at my text messages.
    The first one was around eight o’clock my time and said, “Missin g u.  Call me when u get home.”
    The second one, from about 11 o’clock my time, said, “G etting worried.  R U OK?”
    Concerned that I would get a call in the middle of the night on the home phone that would wake up Kelly , I decid ed to respond via text message.
    “Saw ur pix 2 day in mag w/girlfriend .  Don’t call.  Going 2 sleep.”
    A few minutes later, my cell p hone rang.  I didn’t answer it.
    I received a nother text almost immediately.
    “PLEASE pick up the phone.”
    I responded, “No.”
    The nex t one said, “PLEASE talk 2 me.”
    I responded again, “No.  Going 2 sleep.  Turning off phone.  Don’t call house phone or u’ll wake Kelly .”
    I turned off my phone and l ay down on my bed.  I think I finally cr ied myself to sleep at about 2 a.m.

Chapter Nine
    The next day was very painful as I was tired and upset, and was not looking forward to a long difficult evening at home alone.  I returned home late that afternoon after my classes and practic e for my upcom ing mock trial final with Nell.
    Kelly got home around six-thirty and, while I was microwaving my dinner, asked me what was going on. I told her . H er reaction was more impressed that I had dated a movie star than sympath y for my situation.  She had actually seen both Midnight movies released so far a nd owned the DVD of the first.
    “The movie s w ere good, but the books were much better.”  In light of the vast amount of reading I did for school and work, I didn ’ t generally read for fun anymore like Kelly did . Kelly convinced me to watch the DVD with her while I choked down my diet chicken fettuccini .  I should have been studying, but I couldn’t help myself.
    “When you said you were dating Will MacKenzie, I had no idea you meant this Will MacKenzie,” she mentioned as we start ed the movie.
    In this romantic movie, Will was supposed to be one of the most beautiful men on the planet with a dangerous secret , datin g an ordinary Midwestern girl.   It was a huge stretch to call Katherine Sullivan, who could have been a supermodel but for the fact that she was so petite, an ordinary girl , b ut that’s the movies for you.  I t was an uncanny parallel as to what was happening in real life.  I truly was the ordinary girl. For me, t here would be no happy ending though.
    Early on in the movie , Kelly mentioned, “I think I read somewhere that he and Katherine met on this movie and have dated ever since .”
    Leave it to Kelly to be so dense as to not know that her words were killing me. I then thought about how upset I was considering I had only known Will for a few weeks.  How did I get so invested so fast?  It was completely unlike me.  The anger at myself for being so foolish was starting to match my anger at Will for lying to me and using me.
    When I finished all that I was going to eat of my dinner, I grabbed a sofa pillow and leaned back on the couch to watch.  I shouldn’t have been as