Somewhere Only We Know

Jeremy had attempted to call Olivia the next morning, but he couldn't reach her. At first he wasn't too concerned, but when he was informed about what was being printed in the papers, he knew he had to talk to her.
He did his research for the better part of a day to try to find out where she lived. When he was able to locate the dingy apartments on the bad side of town, he hurried over as quickly as he could, and he stood knocking at her door for almost ten minutes before she answered.
"What the fuck, Jeremy?" She answered the door wrapped in an old hoody, her hair thrown up into a messy ponytail, a cigarette between her fingers and sunglasses on her eyes.
"Hey, I've been trying to reach you all morning!" he told her.
"Why? Don't you think if I wanted to talk to you I would have answered?"
"I guess," he said. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."
"I'm fine, why?" she backed away from the open door, a non-verbal invitation to enter.
"Why are you wearing sunglasses? And why are all the blinds shut?"
"What are you, a fucking detective today?" She sassed as she sat. "I have a headache."
He glanced toward the sink and noticed it was full of empty bottles. "You were drinking?"
She looked at him, or at least he thinks she did. It was hard to tell with those glasses.
"And what are you doing smoking this shit?" he pulled the cigarette away and crushed it into the ashtray. "I know there's no way your mom let's you smoke those things."
"You smoke, don't you?"
"No," he told her. "I had to quit a few years ago."
"Why?"
"Because I realized it was gonna kill me, and I didn't want to die. Not yet."
"You know, my grandma smokes like a chimney. And she's almost 75. Never had a bad day in her life, health-wise."
"Well, good for her," he said. "But you need to take care of yourself. It has other affects, too, you know."
"Like what? Bad teeth? Asthma? I smell bad?" She shook her head and reached for the pack. "I think I'm just fine as I am. You told me so, remember?"
"Olivia," he sat down next to her. "I just want you to take care of yourself, ok? I want you to live a nice, long, healthy life. And this is not the way to do it."
"Did it ever occur to you that I might have given up on the whole long, happy life thing? Maybe I just feel like giving a big fuck you to all the ideas I ever had that life should be precious and savored and that we should fucking hold on as long as we can because life is short and every moment is precious."
"You shouldn't say that," he told her gently. "You need to get out there and see how amazing life really is."
"Why are you here anyway?" she asked. "Come on, I never told you where I lived. And you said you'd been trying to reach me all morning. Why?"
He took in a deep breath before he tried to explain. He wanted to remain as calm as possible. "Well, you're in the magazines today," he said.
"I am?" she sat up and put out this cigarette as she heard. "That's awesome! Oh my god, what did they say about me?"
"Well, Liv, you're not in any of the big, popular magazines," he told her. "And the stories they're writing are... well, they aren't very nice."
"What do you mean? How could they be mean about me? They don't even know me?" The brief moment of pride had now become dejection. "I wanna see."
"I really don't think looking at the weeklies and reading things that aren't true is going to help you any," he told her. "I think it's just best that I tell you not to worry about the things you hear because people are mean, and soon they'll find someone else to pick on. And I worried when I tried calling you that maybe you'd seen them and were avoiding me."
"Ok, come on," she threw her hands in the air in exasperation, "I need to see these things!" She stood up and retrieved her shoes, throwing them on so quickly that Jeremy barely noticed when she'd walked out the door.
"No, no, no..." he said as he held her back by the arm, "You don't go out there!"
She pulled her arm away. "Don't touch me!" She ran down to her sedan before he could stop her.
He followed after her, obviously still quite capable of a competitive run, chasing her down in his car and finally stopping at a news booth. She grabbed a few gossip papers before Jeremy finally got to her. He could see by her face that she had read the rough stuff already by the time he caught up to her.
"Olivia..."
"They think I'm your GIRLFRIEND?" she curled her lips as she read how they described her. "Spoiled brat heiress gold-digger? And you're a cradle-robbing pervert who can't let the younger years go?"
"I'm so sorry you have to see that," he frowned.
"This is crazy!"
"I know, honey, they never get that stuff right."
"Oh my god my mom was right," she told him.
"Your mom? What did your mom say?"
She smiled as she placed the papers back in the booth. "She never used to let me read these things or watch the gossip shows because she says that 90% of what they say is false." She put her hands in her pockets and headed back to her car as he followed. "Did they use to print stuff about her?"
"Um," he knew he had to tell the truth, but he hated to. "Yeah. Yeah they did."
"Why? Because you guys were dating?"
"Well, yeah. And when she got pregnant is was actually a much bigger deal."
She leaned silently against her car for a while. Jeremy wanted to speak, but as usual, he opted to wait for her to talk first.
"So, I'm the reason my mom made me look like a dork in front of my friends when they wanted to talk about movie stars and stuff? It's because she had experiences with them when she was pregnant?"
"No, it started before that, I promise."
She pulled her hair down and combed through it with her fingers. Jeremy recognized this sign of uncomfortability.
"I think I just need to go home for a while," she said as she turned to get in the car.
"Come on, now, don't run away from me again. Like I said, they'll find someone new to pick on soon, and you won't even remember all this stuff."
She was very quiet for a while before speaking. "I just wish Riley was here. He always knows how to make me happy."
"Riley? That your boyfriend guy?"
"Yeah, that's my boyfriend guy."
"Well Riley's not here, so I guess you'll have to learn how to be happy all on your own."
"You don't get it, do you? Riley and I are in love, ok? We're getting married as soon as he graduates college."
"Oh really?" He asked in disbelief, and rightfully so. "And what does your mom have to say about this?"
"Mom doesn't know. And she doesn't need to. She'd flip."
He was very quiet in thought for a while, debating whether or not he should make the offer he was about to.
"You know, she'd probably feel better about it if she knew you'd met him, right?"
"Yeah," she answered, "I guess so."
"So why don't we find a solution for that?"
"You mean lie? No. She'd want to see a photo of us together."
"No, I don't mean lie. I mean have a photo taken with him so you could show her that you met him."
"You mean like Photo Shop?"
"I mean like actually meeting him," he told her. "Why don't we fly out to Chicago and meet him?"