The screen door opens with a distant creak. "Amanda, is everything okay?" my mom calls out into the night.

I'm running out of time. Sheer surprise and my momentum are the only things that kept my family from mounting a stronger argument, and they're regrouping-I'm sure of it. "Yes, everything's fine, Mom. We're just working out some details."

"You should come back inside. We can talk about it some more," she says, and though the shrubbery is hiding her from view, I can easily picture her rubbing her arms up and down, like it's winter and freezing out here.

I ignore my mom and turn my attention back to Chase. "It's who you represent in my head. It's like..." I search my mind to come up with something that will make sense of the weird leaps and turns my brain made. "Is there someone you're close to? Someone in your family or..."

He shifts a little, shoving his hands into his pockets again. "My grandfather."

"Okay, is there a smell that reminds you of him?" God, if he says something like "farts" or "pork rinds," this is so not going to work. But I'm in it too far now to back off.

He nods reluctantly. "Pipe smoke. He used to smoke a pipe."

"So, when you smell that, um, smoke or tobacco, it reminds you of him, how you feel when he's around ... or how you felt?" I'm not sure if Chase's grandfather is still alive, and the voice in the back of my head is screaming, You're messing this up!

"Yeah," Chase says after a moment.

Wow, how very talkative Mr. Henry is. Maybe it's a good thing he has someone to script his lines for him. "Okay, it's like that. Seeing you reminds me of the Chase in my head. Gives me that extra push to be strong. And I ... I kind of need that right now."

Said out loud, it sounds ridiculously juvenile and fantasy-like. Of course the real person would have no bearing on a situation that existed only in my head. And we are total strangers. What on earth gave me the idea that this would work?

"I have plans," I blurt out. "I want to go to college, get my degree in psychology, art therapy, maybe. But I can't, not when I'm like this. And when you explained why you were really here, I thought there could be a mutual benefit." My face is hot with embarrassment.

"How do you know this won't make things worse?" Chase asks with a deep frown. "Like today."

I must have really freaked him out at the store. "That wasn't you, exactly. I get flashbacks sometimes, triggered by various and random things. It's PTSD, like what soldiers have?" I hesitate, but I figure I might as well be honest. "And I can't guarantee that won't happen again. But it won't be because of you. I was ... taken off guard today-that's all."

He stays silent for a long moment. Too long. I can't read his expression.

"Please," I say, holding steady against the urge to squirm. I hate begging. Hate the empty, cored-out feeling it creates in my middle, but I don't have a choice here. And when I hear the porch door squeak shut, I know my mom has gone in to get my dad. Time's up.

Chase stares at a point over my head, his mouth tightening. "All right," he says finally. "But we can skip the photo ops. That was just-"

"No," I say. "Definitely not. That's what you need, right?" The only thing keeping this from being a complete Amanda Grace freak show is that he's getting something out of it, too. I am clinging to that with everything I've got. But he does maybe have a small point. "If we can schedule something, though, rather than them creeping up on me, that would probably be better."

He flinches. "I am so-"

I cut off his apology. "It's fine. It'll be fine. It's just a few days, right?" I sound confident enough I almost believe me.

Chase nods.

"Obviously, if it doesn't work out, I've got plenty of people who'll be happy to come get me." And shout, What were you thinking? the entire sixty miles back home.

Chase is frowning at me again, and I realize suddenly I'm not sure who I'm trying to convince. He's already agreed.

I hold out my hand. "So, we have a deal."

He pulls his hand from his pocket but hesitates before touching me. He meets my gaze squarely. "Okay?" he asks.

That he remembers to ask-granted, it was only like two minutes ago that it first came up, but still-sends a weird little flutter through me. "Yeah," I say, "it's just when I don't see it coming." Which isn't exactly true. I tense up, even at the most casual contact, unless I'm really distracted. But that doesn't happen nearly often enough.

I steel myself for the brush of his skin against mine. But he takes my hand in his in one quick motion and shakes it firmly, with no attempt to linger and zero bone crushing. His palm is dry, and his touch is kind of ... pleasant.

"Deal," he says, releasing my hand immediately. Then he steps around me and leads the way to the car, letting me follow at my own pace with no worries about anyone behind me.

Huh. One thing I'll give the real Chase Henry: he's a quick learner. Not maybe as fast as "my" Chase, but that version lived in my head. This Chase probably deserves a little more credit for figuring out as much as he has.

Or maybe he's just as eager to get out of here as I am.

6.

Chase I'm going to hell for this.

I'm pretty sure I was headed that direction anyway, but now? There's no question.

Chase Henry Mroczek, latest designee for the lowest circle of fiery damnation, where all people who do crazy-stupid things for fame go. Not that it's fame I'm after, exactly.

I buckle my seat belt-it takes two tries to click, stupid rental car-as Amanda, who already has her belt in place, pushes her bag into the backseat through the gap between us.

"Everything-" I cut myself off from asking her, yet again, in one more way, if she's all right. "Ready to go?" I ask instead.

She nods, tugging her sleeves down over her wrists and using her fingertips to hold the cuffs in place.

God, there's nothing more awkward than being trapped in a car with a complete stranger. Except maybe being trapped with someone who sort of knows you, or knows a version of you. And in this case, that's both of us, I suppose. Amanda knows "Chase Henry," the public persona, and whatever idea she has of me in her head. And I've got pretty much the same thing for her.

Worst first-date-that-is-not-a-date ever.

I fumble getting the car into reverse. The gearshift has a weird notch cut out between park and reverse. Who's the genius responsible for that? If it's not a standard H stick shift, do we really need to get fancy for a fucking rental car?

The silence on Amanda's side of the car is deafening. "Sorry, it's a rental," I mumble. "Elise ... my, uh, former publicist took the car and the driver." I'm lucky she bothered to drop me off at the local Hertz. When Elise commits to an idea, she really commits.

Amanda lifts her shoulder. "It's fine. Better than I could do."

"Not used to shitty cars?" I ask, trying to make a joke.

"No license," she says.

Duh, Chase, because when she was sixteen, she wasn't exactly in driver's ed, and driving lessons probably weren't her first priority these days.

"Sorry," I mutter. I can't seem to speak more than ten words to her without shoving half my leg down my throat.

"It's okay," she says, her gaze fixed forward.

I move my arm to brace my hand against the passenger-side headrest, standard position for reversing out of a driveway, but I catch the almost imperceptible flinch from Amanda.

Shit. Right.

I snatch my arm back, though that makes me feel lopsided and dangerously close to taking out one of the millions of evergreens that line their property with my side of the car.

Add to that my absolute certainty that Amanda's huge father is going to come barreling out after us at any second, and we're lucky to make it out to the street without damage.

But we do, and the road is silent and still. No photographers. No angry dads. So that's something, at least.

"Are you warm enough?" I ask after a few minutes, hoping for something to do, to say. I could drag out adjusting the temperature into a few conversational exchanges.

"I'm fine," Amanda says.

Guess not.

I tap my fingers on the wheel. Can I turn on the radio? Or would she consider that rude? I have no idea. We're in this together ... sort of, but not really.

The only sounds in the car are the distinct non-purring of the engine and the rush of the tire treads on the road, and every second of silence that ticks by just makes me more and more uncomfortable. The next sixty miles are going to be brutal. No, forget that. The next twenty-four hours. That's probably the quickest turnaround that I can manage while still getting what I need out of this mess.

"Can you, uh, talk to me?" Amanda asks, her voice sounding strangely small.

"What?" I ask, startled. Looking over, I find her clutching tight to the armrest as if we're speeding along at ninety instead of a very sedate, and legal, forty-five miles an hour. We haven't even made it to the freeway yet.

"Just talk to me," she says again. In the blue glow of passing streetlights, she seems paler than earlier, her forehead pinched with effort.

"Is something-"

"I haven't been more than a few miles from my house in a long time, and I'm kind of having a hard time thinking about anything else right now, so can you please just talk about something?" she asks, enunciating each word with precision. "Anything," she adds, with a hint of temper, before I can ask. "The economy, who really slept with who on Starlight, or whatever. Just words, please."

"Okay, okay," I say quickly. But it feels more complicated than that. Like navigating a conversational minefield. Are there certain topics that act as triggers for her? I won't talk about Starlight, not that kind of stuff, anyway. But if I bring up anything I know about her, is it a reminder that I, along with most of the country, have details about her life that we normally wouldn't?

"Chase," she says through gritted teeth.

"What did 'we' talk about before?" I ask and immediately want to kick myself. Talk about reminders. I set off the minefield without even taking a step.

But Amanda gives a strangled laugh. "You were a figment of my imagination and not exactly a sparkling conversationalist."

"So not much different than reality," I mutter. I'm great with crowds or in front of a camera. But one-on-one, as a person, I kind of suck at it. I always have. Probably one of the reasons I feel more comfortable being someone else.

She lets out a slow, controlled breath, her feet jouncing on the floorboards with anxious energy, then inhales with that same deliberate effort. Obviously some kind of calming technique. "How about this? I'll ask you questions," she says.

"Yes, I can do that," I say, relieved. Press junkets. I'm used to those. Nothing but questions. Usually the same ones over and over again. Only this time, of course, there's no list of off-the-table topics.

"Brothers and sisters?" Amanda asks, hitting one of the forbidden topics on her first try.

But refusing to answer feels stingy, considering what I'm asking her to do. "One brother, younger. Aidan. He's..." I pause and do a quick calculation in my head, and then I have to double-check because it doesn't seem possible.

The memory of his small, pale, scared face peeking out between the banister spindles is so clear in my mind. But I haven't seen him since the night I left six years ago.

Which means the kindergartner I left behind, the one who followed me around everywhere, who begged for boots like mine, who watched silently from above as everything went down that night, is practically a teenager now. Probably sullen as hell and secretive, if I was any example.

"He's twelve," I say finally. I wonder if Layla stopped sending me the notes and the pictures he drew for me or if Aidan stopped creating them for me.

"Hometown?" Amanda asks quietly.

I wrestle my thoughts away from Aidan and my family to answer her question. "Tillman, Texas. It's a speck on the map, like a smudge on your screen. A few thousand people. Way more cows."

"Most disgusting thing you've ever seen."

A memory immediately leaps to mind, one I haven't thought about in years. It's like her questions have cracked open a dark closet in my mind where I've shoved everything from my life before.

I half-laugh, half-groan, remembering the smell, the warmth, and the splattering sound, all equally gross and exponentially terrible in combination. My grandfather's booming laugh had echoed through the whole barn when he saw me. "I can't ... give me a second to think."

"No, no censoring," she says. "Let's hear it. I'm intrigued."

And when I glance away from the road to her, she does seem to be sitting up straighter, her grip on the armrest not quite as punishing.

"Okay." I sigh. "Let's just say it involves being in the wrong place at the wrong time and a cow with too much grass."

She frowns, and I realize that the daughter of an engineer and a former preschool teacher is not going to understand what that means.

"Too much grass in a cow's diet has really nasty digestive consequences. Usually, uh, explosive consequences. And if you happen to be bent down nearby, mucking out the barn..." I shrug, feeling my face grow hot. Why, exactly, did I bring up diarrhea in this conversation?

Amanda twists in her seat to face me, her eyes bright with amusement in the dashboard lights and her mouth open in disbelief. "Seriously?"

I raise my eyebrows. "You think I'd make that up?"

She shudders. "I hope not. Did it get on you?"

"No way to really avoid that. The ears were the worst, though. So many places for it to get to."

"That is disgusting!" She's laughing, but she sounds delighted, more impressed than grossed out, as if she's ranked my answer against the others she's gotten for that question and I've come out ahead. "What were you doing that close to the business end of a cow?"

"Occupational hazard. It's the family business." It was, anyway.

She tips her head to one side, and I'm bracing myself for a series of questions along that line.

But Amanda Grace is a natural interviewer, maybe from being on the receiving end of so many questions for so many years. Or maybe she's just more perceptive than most.

After a quick glance at me, she pushes on to the next question instead. "Scariest moment in your life."

The prepared response is easy, right there on the tip of my tongue. The second audition for Starlight. It wasn't just the casting director, but a whole room full of studio executives and producers. My mouth had felt like it was coated in moss, and I thought I might literally choke.

I've told the story so many times it barely feels real anymore. But it is.

So that would be an honest answer. To a degree. And it would be the "official" answer.

But I've already strayed from official. My press sheet says very little about my family and absolutely nothing about cow diarrhea, both deliberate choices for entirely different reasons, obviously.