The Truth About Hollywood

"Danny...I..." I tried to say something, but it was as if my tongue was tied into a knot, making it pretty much impossible. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"I didn't want you to know," he mumbled, staring out the front windshield instead of looking at me. "Back at home, everyone treats me differently because of it. Everyone knew. Moving here...being in the show... it was a new start, you know? Nobody had to know what happened to my parents."

"Well, as your..." Pausing for a second, I realized that I had no idea where I stood with him, "whatever the hell I am, I want to know that sort of thing."

"But that, right there," he pointed at my eyes, "that's why I didn't want to tell you. I was so sick of people looking at me like that."

"You can't blame me for being a little upset to hear about what's happened to you. I care about you, so I'm upset that it happened to you."

"I didn't want to upset you," he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Don't worry about upsetting me," I responded, putting a hand on his arm. "You can't hold everything inside you, alright?"

He nodded, still refusing to look at me. "C'mon, let's go back inside," I whispered.

Instead of responding to what I said, he leaned over and kissed me. I was kind of shocked, wondering where, exactly, that had come from.

"Thanks for being so cool about it," he breathed a little heavily. "Thanks for not ditching me."

"I would never," I responded. After a silence settled between us, I opened the door. "Come on. I promised my dad that I'd be back, and we've been gone almost an hour."

"Whoops," he laughed, thankful for the subject change. We walked back into the hospital in silence, our footsteps making soft noises on the tiles.

"About time," Dad joked when we walked through the door again. It was good to see that he was acting a little more like his old self.

"Sorry. We got a little sidetracked," I apologized, pulling a chair closer to his bed.

Dad looked between Danny and me, then back again. Bursting into hysterics, I realized what he was thinking. "Not anything like that."

Danny let out a loud yawn, and I looked at him with my eyebrow raised. "Sorry," he smiled a little. "It's just kind of late."

Cocking an eyebrow, I turned to the clock on the wall near the door. Surely enough, it was a little past midnight. "Wow. We have to be to the set in the morning."

"Go ahead, sweetie," Dad patted my hand. "I'll see you tomorrow after you finish filming."

"Okay," I allowed. After kissing him on the forehead, Danny and I walked out to his car, not saying anything.

"You know," I started, trying to keep my voice even, "it would just be easier if you spent the night at my house. You shouldn't be driving all over the place in the dark at midnight."

He gave me a confused look, but nodded. "Sure. But tell the truth," finally the smirk I loved revisited his face, "you're just afraid to stay home alone at your house overnight, aren't you?"

"Caught me," I laughed. "Just don't tell my dad you stayed over, or he'll flip."

"Trust me. The last thing I want is for your dad to kill me."

"Yeah...then there would be blood everywhere, and it'd be this whole big mess," I shrugged.

"Good to know that you'd care if I was gone," he rolled his eyes.

"Oh, no problem." Glancing over at him, I grinned as we pulled into my driveway. He took out the key from the ignition and turned to look at me. "So let's get inside."

"Yup." I hopped out and pulled my keys out of my pocket. The second I stepped through the front door frame, I flicked on all the lights, making sure that I could see where I was going. Nothing scared me like the dark did. When there was no light, anything could happen. Murderers could pop out of nowhere and massacre me.

Okay, so maybe I was a little dramatic, but that was just the way I was.

"So..." Danny trailed off, breaking the silence. I stopped in my tracks, on the way to turn on the light to the staircase.

"So, what?" I urged.

"So..." He came over to me, putting his hands on either side of my head. "So we have the house alone tonight."

"Yeah?" Putting on a clear 'I'm humoring you here' face, I nodded, waiting for him to elaborate.

"Yeah, we do." He leaned in to kiss me, pulling me close to him.

I let him kiss me deeply for a few minutes before I pulled away, staring into his eyes. Trying to make my face look as seductive as possible, I whispered in his ear, "You are the most cliché person on the planet, you know that?"

Hesitating for a second, he finally voiced, "That a no?"

"That's a no." I kissed him quickly before brushing past him to go into the living room. Opening up the closet, I pulled out three different blankets and a couple of pillows. After dropping them on the couch, I started up the stairs.

"Goodnight!" I called, smiling at him.

"'NIght," he smiled, starting to make his bed. As my guest, I probably should have been the one to do that, but whatever. It didn't matter.

When I got upstairs, I spent a while staring at my ceiling, even though my brain kept yelling at me to go to sleep because I was going to be tired in the morning.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get myself to fall asleep. After all, a lot had happened that day. Dad in the hospital for a suicide attempt, though he seemed a little better when Danny and I left.

And Danny. How could he have hidden his past from me for so long? Shouldn't he have known that I would love him either way?

Whoa. I sat up in bed and stared into the distance.

Did I just say that I loved him? Oh, hell.