Fame ***

“Alright, Niall Horan, are you ready for the speed round of Fact or Fiction?” I settled down on my bed, lying on my stomach, my feet crossed at the ankles just in front of my pillows. It had been a fairly long day at work, but I’d promised Niall that I’d call when I got in, and there was no way I was going to go back on my word. It had been a few days since we’d last talked, and I was really starting to miss him.

“Oh, no. I didn’t know there was going to be a test. Should I have studied?”

I snickered shortly before saying, “I think you should know all these answers. Are you ready?”

“I guess.”

“Fact or Fiction: You and the rest of One Direction will be in California in a few weeks to tape your new music video.”

“Fact.” I could hear Niall’s grin in his voice, and I couldn’t help but smile, too. “Two weeks, actually. I was going to surprise you, but I guess that’s ruined now. Who told you?”

“My co-star, Jem. Which leads me to Fact of Fiction number two: It would be possible for me to bring Jem on set so he can fanboy over you guys.”

“Fact. I’m sure I can pull some strings, and we’ll make sure that we bring something that we can sign and give to him as a souvenir.”

“Oh my God, you’re the sweetest. I’m sure he’ll die.” My memory flashed back to the look on Jem’s face when I offered the possibility of bringing him to the set, and I actually felt a warm sensation in my stomach that I could add to his happiness. “Fact or Fiction: You saw my interview with Ellen.”

“Fiction,” he mumbled. “I haven’t had the time. But I swear I’ll watch it soon. Do you talk about me?”

“Of course.” I pulled myself into a seated position, bending my neck from side of side to ease the slight stiffness that had arisen. “How could I possibly go into an interview now and not talk about you?”

“Good point,” he agreed. “Okay, next question.”

I couldn’t actually think of another one, since he’d cleared up everything I wondered about, so I said with a smirk, “Fact or Fiction: You think Lilah Monroe is the sexiest, most beautiful and charming girl you’ve ever had the pleasure of acquainting yourself with.”

“Fiction,” he responded, though I could hear the laughter in his voice. “That honor definitely goes to Selena Gomez. But I guess you’re alright, too.”

“Alright,” I agreed, my voice taking on a sensual undercurrent, “when you’re in the United States, you can have sex with Selena Gomez then, if you’re so in love with her.”

There was a short moment of silence as Niall tried to sort out what, exactly, I’d just offered. “Wait, are you saying that you’ll have sex with me when I go to America?”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to see.”

“Lilah!” he gasped. “But…we just had our first kiss before I left! Are you trying to pressure me into doing things that I’m not ready to do?!” I had to admit, his fake anxiety was actually halfway decent, although he’d done such a terrible job of acting on that episode of iCarly he was on.

“Niall, stop before someone hears you!” I felt my face filling with a violent blush as I laughed again, picturing Harry walking in on Niall freaking out about his girlfriend possibly raping him. “You know I’ll wait for you, until you’re sure that you’re ready to take the next step.”

“I don’t know if I ever will be,” he whimpered. “I’m a virgin, you know.”

I didn’t know if he was still kidding, but I felt too uncomfortable to ask. “However long it takes, baby, I’ll wait for you.”

He started laughing, the infectious sound traveling through the receiver and making me chuckle, too. “I can’t believe how easily you went along with that.”

“Improv. I’ve taken, like, three different classes. They make you a much better actress.”

“I’m not a virgin, either, in case you were wondering. It just felt right to say in the moment.”

“If you had been a virgin, I easily could have cured you of that.”

I could almost feel the heat radiating from Niall’s face, knowing that he was flushing deeply on the other end of the line. “Alright, Lilah, I’m going to go back to sleep. I hope we can talk again soon, okay? And don’t get too close to that Jem kid, alright?”

“No worries about Jem,” I assured him. “We’re going to stay just friends. And I hope we can talk again soon. Text me later with the details of your flight and everything, okay?”

“Okay. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Same here. Maybe you should just move here permanently, and we won’t have to do that long distance thing.”

“Oh, yeah,” Niall agreed sarcastically. “I can just commute every day to the studio. Sounds like a solid plan.”

“Foolproof, really.” My lips dragged upwards in a smile again as I said, “Goodnight, Niall.”

“Goodnight and sweet dreams, lass.” And with that, he hung up, and I tossed my phone away from me on my bed.

God, I loved his accent. I loved his little jokes, no matter how embarrassing and lame they were. And I loved his easy, effortless charm.

And I still hated myself for feeling that way. Getting attached would do nothing to help me, ever. Instead of the pain of demeaning his character on the cover of every magazine feeling like the tug of a Band-Aid, it was starting to feel like the pain would be more equivalent to getting one of my limbs chopped off.

Maybe I deserved that pain. If I was actually willing to kill Niall’s reputation, then I deserved something equally awful in response. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, right? That was one of the very few things I actually remembered from school, and even then, it was only because I remembered the diagram we’d been shown, with a frog leaping off a lily pad.

I shook my head of the distraction and got to my feet. The thought crossed my mind to call Heather and tell her in the most straightforward way that I was done with the scheme. I could find fame on my own, without hitting Niall with an emotional steamroller. He didn’t deserve that pain, not in the least, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to go through with it.

But I chickened out. I was afraid of what she’d say back, whether she’d get back at me by publishing something demeaning about me in the media.

Just the thought stopped me in my tracks, right in the middle of the living room. I’d never really noticed a massive shift in my personality, maybe because I still had bouts of bitchiness, but I was basically an entirely new person. Not too long ago, the thought of any kind of publicity, bad or good, would have made my heart race and my veins pump adrenaline. Because it would mean that my face, my name, my whole self, was being broadcasted to the masses. Every story made me closer to being a household name.

But all it took was getting attached to another person, not even to the point of love, to get me to reevaluate everything I ever held dear. God, no wonder I always kept people at arm’s length. Changing to accommodate the people most important to me was strange, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it.

I still didn’t know which lifestyle was better.