Kissed by Reality by Carrie Aarons Read Free Book Online

someone you get engaged to after two months of knowing them!”
    I kicked the spilled popcorn and it went skittering across the floor as Leighton walked to me and tried to brush her hand down my arm. I shrugged her off, almost violently, and she flinched.
    I try to reign it in, feeling the monster inside of me biting at its leash. I roll my neck, walking all the way across the room and urging myself not to pry the Kansas City Royals vintage framed picture off the wall. My fingers tingle with the need to rip something limb-from-limb. Leighton has never seen it, has only gotten a dose of it in the nightmares I wake up screaming from.
    “I’m sorry, Finn. I’m so sorry. It’s no excuse that I was drinking, I wasn’t…the producers suggested just flirting with someone, making my storyline interesting. You know it was always you. It’s only ever going to be you.”
    She moved closer, the pleading tone in her voice allowing me to tamp down on the beast flexing its muscles inside of my chest. She looks small and fragile, and I notice that she’s shaking.
    “Please…Finn, I can’t…can’t lose you…” Leighton chokes on a sob and I see the big, fat tears dropping from her eyes. She tries to hold them back, but I can practically smell the desperation and sadness coming off of her.
    And it breaks me. Her sorrow always breaks me. I rub her shoulders, stooping down to eye level and running the tip of my nose up against hers.
    “You’re not losing me. We just need to communicate. This doesn’t work if you keep secrets from me. I love you, Leighton. I want to spend my life with you. We have to figure this out as it comes. No more secrets?”
    “I promise. I love you, Finn. No more secrets.”
    How wrong I had been to believe that.

Chapter Eight
Leighton
    I wasn’t neglected as a child. I had a normal, average life, with normal, average parents who had loved me just the same as any other person who had a normal, average family. Sure, they had their bad parenting moments and I’d had the usual temper tantrums in my teenage years. But my life had been good. Normal.
    I say this because that was one of the first things the media attacked when my relationship imploded in front of the entire country, splayed out in six-page spreads any Sally Homemaker could browse on her trip through the grocery store checkout line.
    Going on Mr. Right, and then Right Now Island, had nothing to do with wanting attention, with feeling neglected in my youth. Flirting with Ian had nothing to do with my daddy issues.
    Sure, he’d left my mother and I when I was in my freshman year of high school. We were sad, but we’d moved on. I didn’t harbor any resentment towards him or his new family, we still spoke, just not often. Like I said, normal, average childhood. Tons of kids grew up with divorce and survived perfectly well. Thrived actually.
    On Right Now Island, I’d simply put my trust in the wrong people, been too naive about the beast that was this reality TV franchise, or show business in general. I thought that I’d always be the franchise darling, that they’d give me good cuts and I’d be able to fall in love. That they were happy for Finn and I.
    But Mitchell, Chuck and their minions were teddy-bears with razor sharp teeth and poisonous smiles. Their venom and cruelty were masked behind supportive hand holds and gentle coaxing.
    I had been in love with Finn by the time they asked me to start flirting with the other men on the show. I didn’t think they’d give me a bad edit. I didn’t they’d use it all against me, only to bring my relationship, and my world, crumbling down around me.
    So I flirted and teased. I shook my ass and scampered around in teeny tiny bathing suits while Finn slept, probably dreaming of our life after the show. I let the show and the producers make me the person I never wanted to become.
    Don’t get me wrong, I loved being on each show, being part of this franchise. I’d never really had anything I