Rumours Ruin Reputations
With All These Rumours I Go Down
Everybody knew. It was all over the magazines, written about on every website, shown on countless of TV channels, discussed on YouTube gossip channels, but worst of all, talked about wherever I went. Somehow they found out; somehow the secret was no longer ours to tell. We had been wanting to do this without anybody intervening, and then we would make it public. But that couldn’t happen anymore. Everybody knew the divorce was happening, and we couldn’t hide it. This was it.
Our names were all over the headlines: Stevie and Travis Knight file Divorce! Scandal or Thought out? / Caught Cheating? Who’s to blame? / Travis and Stevie Spilt! Storming Out. People just didn’t understand to concept of privacy. You would expect me to get used to all the attention and paparazzi that always follow me, but I never did. Nobody could ever get used to that. People freak out as soon as they think the government is spying on them, yet they continue to look for the latest gossips, those fucking hypocrites.
Travis and I met on the set for the first big movie we both starred in. It was one of those typical high school romance movies. We were both 19 and so naive. Everything went too fast and before I knew it there was a big diamond ring on my left ring finger. I wish I could deny it, but we were deeply and madly in love. The small wedding happened and I couldn’t be happier. But that’s when the pressure started happening. The question about when we would be having kids immediately was asked wherever we went. Tabloids couldn’t stop freaking out about the cute couple that became reality. We managed to ignore it all for such a long time, but we grew up as well. Things weren’t going as well with our relationship anymore about half way through. It was the worst rough patch we ever went through. We were still married, but Travis would sleep with other girls. That was our agreement, however. After that we managed to fix it, but it didn’t last long. We just weren’t in love anymore. And that’s when we decided to get a divorce.
It all started three months prior. We lived apart, I got my own new house since I had been wanting to move for quite some time already, and we met the separation requirements. It wasn’t that difficult living far away from my husband, he wasn’t there most of the time already, so I just got to enjoy a new environment while doing what was needed. Everything was going well, and our divorce was in action. And then this happened. This was the last thing I needed while trying to finalize the entire thing!
I was sitting at the wooden bar I had in my modern black kitchen, my laptop open on my social media, freaking the fuck out about what was happening. Never had I ever been in a situation like this before. Rumours never had been that big and widespread about me. I had my fair share of things being said that weren’t true, but those things blew over or things would get fixed quickly. But this was a whole new level. It was even bigger than Beyonce suddenly bringing out an unexpected album! There were even quotes of things I apparently said, but obviously never did. I never mentioned the divorce between Travis and I, how the fuck would they find things of me talking about it?
This was all so stressful and I felt like I could burst out into tears at any moment. Luckily, I had my manager and best friend, Judy, here with me through everything. She was only a couple years older than me, 29 to be exact, so I immediately hit it off with her when she became my manager three years ago. We went through everything together. She was there when Travis first suggested we took a break, and at first I didn’t take it that well, but she helped me realise it was for the best. And I was there for her whenever she needed my help. It was difficult making new friends when you are surrounded by paparazzi and bodyguards all the time, but at least I had one good friend.
“There’s nothing you can do about this,” Judy was rubbing my back to comfort me while she looked over my shoulder at the computer screen, “people will expect you to make appearances and explain all about it, but you should just stay calm. There also isn’t anything we have to cover up; there was no cheating going on and no fighting. It was a mutual agreement.”
“I know,” I sighed and mumbled, running my fingers through my hair, which gradually went from black to blonde, and closed the laptop. Looking at all the things being said would only be worse, just as much as I really wanted to know what the rumours were. “It just sucks, you know? I wasn’t prepared for this yet. Travis and I were going to make it public as soon as it was all finished, and then I would have all the answers ready, but now I don’t. Things aren’t official yet and people are going to try their best to twist my words. I just wish I could go back to when I was 16 years old before this whole actor thing started, before I had my first audition. I want to go back to when I was that geeky theater kid, not the kid who got a role in the next hollywood movie, not the cute girl from the movie, not the main character of that one book that was turned into a movie. I just want to be myself, and I haven’t gotten the chance to be that.”
“But now you do, darling,” Judy encouraged me, causing me to look to my left so see her smiling at me, “you no longer have to keep up the reputation. You can be yourself now; you can be the fun girl I have gotten to known. There is no worrying about how you make Travis look now! This is all you. This is the new Stevie Elise Barrett!”
I laughed at her enthusiasm and nodded my head, “you are very right. This is my chance! I get to be who I want. No more bullshit about who I’m hanging out with, no more judgement of the clothes I wear. I’m just going to be who I want! And I’m going to start as soon as I have to make my first public appearance!”
“Which is tomorrow!” she added with much intensity and passion, like the short speeches we had both given before.
“Yes!” I exclaimed, standing up fully and proudly, before is suddenly hit me, “wait, what!?!”
“The APMAs, they are tomorrow. It’s the 21st of July, Stevie. I’ve been telling you about this for months now!” Judy seemed frustrated with my lack of capability to listen to her unless it really interested me.
I turned to her, giving her the weirdest look ever, my eyebrows were furrowed and my mouth was slightly ajar with confusion, “the APM-what?”
“APMAs,” she corrected, rolling her eyes and opening her laptop. Before I could ask what she was doing she opened a webpage showing us all about it, “the Alternative Press Music Awards. It’s an award show for mainly rock, punk, and all the subgenres. You are going to be doing that celebrity interviews other celebrity/celebrities thing. I’ve been telling you about this since we got the offer!”
I shuffled to the freezer and got a tub of ice cream and two large spoons so we could look at all the details of the event with a nice snack, “ok, so. I have to go to that place and interview some of the artists there. Ok, I can do that,” I nodded to myself, trying to convince myself that I could do this without any preparation, “do I get questions to ask or…?”
“You’ve got some basic questions for specific bands, who you have to try to get to you to interview, then there’s general questions you can ask anybody, and everything else you have to do by yourself,” Judy started explaining the whole process to me, which was a lot to take in. I was going to have to ask random bands I didn’t even know specific questions. This was so going to be a fail! Get ready tabloids, here’s more for you to write about.
I sat down at one of the barstools and inspected what I could already see on the webpage, stuffing a spoonful of cookie dough ice cream in my mouth, “so, who are the bands that I’m going to have to interview?”
“Oh gosh,” she shook her head and hid it in her hands, “there are so many, but how about I tell you which are the biggest, and then we can google some of them.”
And so we started to look and the line up and the specific awards they were nominated for. There were so many different bands, with so many different looks. Judy and I even listened to some of the songs, and I got into some of them, others not. We googled the basic facts and may or may not have stalked some of them on social media to see what they were like. This wasn’t my scene, but it was the perfect place to begin to start my whole new self… or my real self. Start small, go bigger, I would say.
“Oh, wait,” Judy suddenly gasped, “I totally forgot to show you one of the biggest bands! You know, the two guys who are presenting it? Yeah, they’re in that band.”
“Ok, show them to me,” I stirred around some of the softer ice cream with my spoon while Judy went to look for a couple of pictures. Google images loaded and I saw four guys. But, unlike many of the other bands, they looked very young in some of the photos, and older in some of the others. These guys must have been around for pretty long. “They’re pretty good looking.”
“They definitely are,” Judy gushed, scrolling endlessly through the photos, “and many fans of this music seem to think too, so you have to make sure you manage to interview them. They’re called All Time Low. It would be best if you get them for quite long. Sometimes they only answer one or two questions, but you’ve got to keep these guys around for longer.”
“With what? My charms or something?” I snorted, only imagining how bad that would be. But those guys actually looked really good. My teenage self would totally have a crush on all of them, there wasn’t one that wasn’t hot. “How old are they actually?”
“The 27 to 28 age range. Why? Do you have an eye on one of them or something?” she nudged me and gave me the most mischievous smirk I ever saw. Ever since I told her that Travis and I weren’t working out, which was a very long time ago, she had been hinting at setting me up with someone, but I didn’t really want it. “I can tell you two of them are taken, and I’m not sure about the other, but the guitarist is single and ready to mingle.”
“Who’s the guitarist?” I asked before starting to chew on my spoon, something I always did subconsciously.
She pointed at a tall man with deep black hair and a white streak through it. He had some scruff covering his face, but it seemed to suit him. I definitely understood why all those teenage girls would freak out over somebody like that.
“It’s so not going to happen, Judy,” I laughed, giving her a small eye roll, “I’m in the process of getting a divorce. Maybe when that’s all over, I’ll be ready to get back in the game, but I’m more focused on being myself now.”
“If you say so,” she shrugged, still not having stopped scrolling through all the photographs this band had taken.
Our names were all over the headlines: Stevie and Travis Knight file Divorce! Scandal or Thought out? / Caught Cheating? Who’s to blame? / Travis and Stevie Spilt! Storming Out. People just didn’t understand to concept of privacy. You would expect me to get used to all the attention and paparazzi that always follow me, but I never did. Nobody could ever get used to that. People freak out as soon as they think the government is spying on them, yet they continue to look for the latest gossips, those fucking hypocrites.
Travis and I met on the set for the first big movie we both starred in. It was one of those typical high school romance movies. We were both 19 and so naive. Everything went too fast and before I knew it there was a big diamond ring on my left ring finger. I wish I could deny it, but we were deeply and madly in love. The small wedding happened and I couldn’t be happier. But that’s when the pressure started happening. The question about when we would be having kids immediately was asked wherever we went. Tabloids couldn’t stop freaking out about the cute couple that became reality. We managed to ignore it all for such a long time, but we grew up as well. Things weren’t going as well with our relationship anymore about half way through. It was the worst rough patch we ever went through. We were still married, but Travis would sleep with other girls. That was our agreement, however. After that we managed to fix it, but it didn’t last long. We just weren’t in love anymore. And that’s when we decided to get a divorce.
It all started three months prior. We lived apart, I got my own new house since I had been wanting to move for quite some time already, and we met the separation requirements. It wasn’t that difficult living far away from my husband, he wasn’t there most of the time already, so I just got to enjoy a new environment while doing what was needed. Everything was going well, and our divorce was in action. And then this happened. This was the last thing I needed while trying to finalize the entire thing!
I was sitting at the wooden bar I had in my modern black kitchen, my laptop open on my social media, freaking the fuck out about what was happening. Never had I ever been in a situation like this before. Rumours never had been that big and widespread about me. I had my fair share of things being said that weren’t true, but those things blew over or things would get fixed quickly. But this was a whole new level. It was even bigger than Beyonce suddenly bringing out an unexpected album! There were even quotes of things I apparently said, but obviously never did. I never mentioned the divorce between Travis and I, how the fuck would they find things of me talking about it?
This was all so stressful and I felt like I could burst out into tears at any moment. Luckily, I had my manager and best friend, Judy, here with me through everything. She was only a couple years older than me, 29 to be exact, so I immediately hit it off with her when she became my manager three years ago. We went through everything together. She was there when Travis first suggested we took a break, and at first I didn’t take it that well, but she helped me realise it was for the best. And I was there for her whenever she needed my help. It was difficult making new friends when you are surrounded by paparazzi and bodyguards all the time, but at least I had one good friend.
“There’s nothing you can do about this,” Judy was rubbing my back to comfort me while she looked over my shoulder at the computer screen, “people will expect you to make appearances and explain all about it, but you should just stay calm. There also isn’t anything we have to cover up; there was no cheating going on and no fighting. It was a mutual agreement.”
“I know,” I sighed and mumbled, running my fingers through my hair, which gradually went from black to blonde, and closed the laptop. Looking at all the things being said would only be worse, just as much as I really wanted to know what the rumours were. “It just sucks, you know? I wasn’t prepared for this yet. Travis and I were going to make it public as soon as it was all finished, and then I would have all the answers ready, but now I don’t. Things aren’t official yet and people are going to try their best to twist my words. I just wish I could go back to when I was 16 years old before this whole actor thing started, before I had my first audition. I want to go back to when I was that geeky theater kid, not the kid who got a role in the next hollywood movie, not the cute girl from the movie, not the main character of that one book that was turned into a movie. I just want to be myself, and I haven’t gotten the chance to be that.”
“But now you do, darling,” Judy encouraged me, causing me to look to my left so see her smiling at me, “you no longer have to keep up the reputation. You can be yourself now; you can be the fun girl I have gotten to known. There is no worrying about how you make Travis look now! This is all you. This is the new Stevie Elise Barrett!”
I laughed at her enthusiasm and nodded my head, “you are very right. This is my chance! I get to be who I want. No more bullshit about who I’m hanging out with, no more judgement of the clothes I wear. I’m just going to be who I want! And I’m going to start as soon as I have to make my first public appearance!”
“Which is tomorrow!” she added with much intensity and passion, like the short speeches we had both given before.
“Yes!” I exclaimed, standing up fully and proudly, before is suddenly hit me, “wait, what!?!”
“The APMAs, they are tomorrow. It’s the 21st of July, Stevie. I’ve been telling you about this for months now!” Judy seemed frustrated with my lack of capability to listen to her unless it really interested me.
I turned to her, giving her the weirdest look ever, my eyebrows were furrowed and my mouth was slightly ajar with confusion, “the APM-what?”
“APMAs,” she corrected, rolling her eyes and opening her laptop. Before I could ask what she was doing she opened a webpage showing us all about it, “the Alternative Press Music Awards. It’s an award show for mainly rock, punk, and all the subgenres. You are going to be doing that celebrity interviews other celebrity/celebrities thing. I’ve been telling you about this since we got the offer!”
I shuffled to the freezer and got a tub of ice cream and two large spoons so we could look at all the details of the event with a nice snack, “ok, so. I have to go to that place and interview some of the artists there. Ok, I can do that,” I nodded to myself, trying to convince myself that I could do this without any preparation, “do I get questions to ask or…?”
“You’ve got some basic questions for specific bands, who you have to try to get to you to interview, then there’s general questions you can ask anybody, and everything else you have to do by yourself,” Judy started explaining the whole process to me, which was a lot to take in. I was going to have to ask random bands I didn’t even know specific questions. This was so going to be a fail! Get ready tabloids, here’s more for you to write about.
I sat down at one of the barstools and inspected what I could already see on the webpage, stuffing a spoonful of cookie dough ice cream in my mouth, “so, who are the bands that I’m going to have to interview?”
“Oh gosh,” she shook her head and hid it in her hands, “there are so many, but how about I tell you which are the biggest, and then we can google some of them.”
And so we started to look and the line up and the specific awards they were nominated for. There were so many different bands, with so many different looks. Judy and I even listened to some of the songs, and I got into some of them, others not. We googled the basic facts and may or may not have stalked some of them on social media to see what they were like. This wasn’t my scene, but it was the perfect place to begin to start my whole new self… or my real self. Start small, go bigger, I would say.
“Oh, wait,” Judy suddenly gasped, “I totally forgot to show you one of the biggest bands! You know, the two guys who are presenting it? Yeah, they’re in that band.”
“Ok, show them to me,” I stirred around some of the softer ice cream with my spoon while Judy went to look for a couple of pictures. Google images loaded and I saw four guys. But, unlike many of the other bands, they looked very young in some of the photos, and older in some of the others. These guys must have been around for pretty long. “They’re pretty good looking.”
“They definitely are,” Judy gushed, scrolling endlessly through the photos, “and many fans of this music seem to think too, so you have to make sure you manage to interview them. They’re called All Time Low. It would be best if you get them for quite long. Sometimes they only answer one or two questions, but you’ve got to keep these guys around for longer.”
“With what? My charms or something?” I snorted, only imagining how bad that would be. But those guys actually looked really good. My teenage self would totally have a crush on all of them, there wasn’t one that wasn’t hot. “How old are they actually?”
“The 27 to 28 age range. Why? Do you have an eye on one of them or something?” she nudged me and gave me the most mischievous smirk I ever saw. Ever since I told her that Travis and I weren’t working out, which was a very long time ago, she had been hinting at setting me up with someone, but I didn’t really want it. “I can tell you two of them are taken, and I’m not sure about the other, but the guitarist is single and ready to mingle.”
“Who’s the guitarist?” I asked before starting to chew on my spoon, something I always did subconsciously.
She pointed at a tall man with deep black hair and a white streak through it. He had some scruff covering his face, but it seemed to suit him. I definitely understood why all those teenage girls would freak out over somebody like that.
“It’s so not going to happen, Judy,” I laughed, giving her a small eye roll, “I’m in the process of getting a divorce. Maybe when that’s all over, I’ll be ready to get back in the game, but I’m more focused on being myself now.”
“If you say so,” she shrugged, still not having stopped scrolling through all the photographs this band had taken.
Notes
Yay! A new story!!! *Dances around room excitedly*
Ok, so I've been working on this for quite some time already. The chapters take me much longer to write than my other chapters on my other stories, so it probably won't be updated as frequently. I'm still going to try my best, though (I have 5 stories going on in total now...).
I've been debating if I should put it up or not, but somebody told me to just go for it (if you're reading this: Hiiiii Nicky!). I'll just see how people react to this story before I decided to write further than what I've already gotten. I actually planned out a story for once!!!
This is a fairly short chapter compared to the next ones, so be prepared for that ;)
So, I have an offer for somebody. Since these chapters take me so long to write, I often make weird mistakes that I don't realise. If somebody really likes this story and would like to edit, it be happy to do that with you. I'll send you the chapters weeks before anybody else gets to read them, since I write ahead of what I'm posting, and you'd already get all the chapters up until chapter 7 (I've started working on it right now). Just send me a message, and I'll get to you. If nobody wants to do it, it's fine as well, but I thought somebody might like to do it, and the story might not be as full as typos as all my other ones are... oops...
I love that
2/6/19