“It’s okay.”
I get a notification. Briggs’s texted a link. I press it, and it takes me to his social. He has strips of tape on his cuts, and his bruises have gotten darker over the past few days. His expression is sullen.
“I have an apology to make,” Briggs says. “I was angry at Logan Gray for the way that he attacked me when I posted my original video a few days ago. I did not, like Gray said, assault him, but I might have been inappropriate. I don’t think it excuses his response, beating the shit out of me like he did, but I apologize if I misled anyone.”
Matt’s pissed. “That’s his apology?”
“I think it’s the best we’re going to get.”
It doesn’t matter, in the end. The video is enough to stop the onslaught online. The focus shifts to Briggs, and a new conversation begins: what does it mean to be inappropriate? Some people suggest it’s possible Briggs made a flirtatious comment and I started to beat the shit out of him, but enough people acknowledge what I looked like in my video. The bruises I have, too, and the hollow look in my eyes that was strange for me to see from the outside. More than a few people guess correctly what I really meant by assault, but at this point, it’s pure speculation. Any other actor, and there probably would’ve been an outpouring of apologies, but I think people assume I deserve whatever happened—that the character I play as Logan Gray deserves all the hatred that followed.
“I’m not even sure who I am,” I tell Mattie. “It’s like all the shit that happened when I was a kid stripped away who I might’ve been. I don’t even remember who I was before.”
Mattie hugs me. He hasn’t kissed me since he came over. I didn’t want to be touched like that at first, but I want his comfort now. A reminder that I don’t have to be afraid of another person’s body. He hesitates when I begin to lean in, but he presses his lips to mine softly, for just a moment.
AN APOLOGY
This back and forth with Logan Gray and Briggs Stevenson has been CONFUSING, to say the least. Accusations are flying left and right, and I don’t know what to believe, so I will be pulling my latest blog post about Gray’s assault on Briggs.
I apologize to my fans for moving forward with assumptions without having the full scope of information. （TBH, I don’t know if you can exactly blame me. Logan Gray has always been a trash fire of a human being, so it’s not very hard to believe.）
But, still, maybe there’s more to the situation than meets the eye…
Until next time,
Angel
Happily Ever After: A Memoir
by Matthew Cole I never did well with fame. I always felt uncomfortable with others placing me on a pedestal. I wanted love from others, but fame meant that their love was conditional—that I could only be the Matthew Cole others expected me to be. I would not admit it, but I was afraid to fall.
I eventually learned the hard way that conditional love is never truly love. I realized that the pedestal I was placed on was never about acceptance. As I grew in fame, I became a reflection to other people: a person that others could look at, instead of looking at themselves.
We don’t like to look at the truth within us—the ways that we hurt others, the pains we need to heal, how we each need to grow and learn. It feels easier, better, to look at a celebrity’s flaws rather than our own—or to put a celebrity on a platform as if they’re a god, as if fame makes them extraordinary, when the fact is that we are all human beings. I’ve always hated the sense that I am praised and idolized by the very people who should be praising and idolizing themselves, loving themselves unconditionally instead of giving that love to a falsely perfect Matthew Cole that they created in their imaginations.
Project X Schedule
November 15: Wrap party. Rest up on your months off. You’ll need it.
February 5: Joint interview with Us Weekly—you love each other, excited for the world to see your film, etc.
February 9: Joint interview with People—standard photoshoot, look hot together February 17: MC interview with Cosmopolitan, drop hints that things are not as perfect as they seem February 20: Some gossip about you two fighting to be leaked
March 7: Promo tour begins
March 12: MC breaks up with LG for one last attention boost. Celebrity breakups = big money.
Mattie
I know that Logan also got Dave’s newest schedule handed to him on set, but neither of us talk about it. It seems that’s the story for everything right now: no one’s talking about what happened with Gray and Briggs. It’s been a week, but no one’s talking about how Keith and a bunch of other actors went online to post their support of Briggs, but when the truth came out, they only took their posts down without making a single apology to Logan. Even Dave pretends nothing happened. I know that, behind the scenes, he and Reynolds and the PR team were likely scrambling to figure out what to do—fire Gray and hire Phillip Desmond to reshoot all of the scenes? Cancel the movie altogether and cut their losses? But now that the heat is off Logan, it’s like no one cares enough to ask if Logan is okay.
When we’re on our lunch break, I knock on his trailer door. He opens it a crack, then lets me in without a word, closing the door behind me. The trailer is a lot cleaner than I thought it would be. Logan’s still in his white shirt and slouchy sweatpants from the scene. He gestures at the couch opposite him. I sit, and we’re silent for a moment together.
“How’re you?” I ask him.
He swallows. “Pretty fucked.”
My heart hurts, hearing the pain in his voice. He was given the week to rest, last scenes that didn’t involve him shot instead, though the schedule still ended up delayed. I’d suggested that he tell Dave that he needs more time and offered to continue staying with him as he recovered, but he refused. “I need this,” he said. I’m still not sure what that means.
I take a breath. “Is there anything I can do?”
He sighs, like he’s letting out the breath I took. “What’re we doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“You,” he says. “Me. What is this? What are we?”
That’s a hell of a question. I don’t know how to respond.
“This shit was already complicated enough, and—you know, I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I’m grateful for you, Matt. Everything you’ve been helping me with.”
“I’m grateful that you’re letting me.”
He eyes me for a second, and his expression looks strangled. “Did you get the new schedule?”
I hesitate. Maybe a part of me liked that we were ignoring it. “Yeah. I did.”
“They want us to break up,” Logan says.
I nod slowly. I don’t like the direction this is going.
He leans back in the couch, hands on his knees. “Maybe we should stop…this. Whatever this is. We’ll have to eventually anyway, right?”
I sit straighter, tension in my back. My heart’s pounding, beating harder and harder, until I force myself to say the words. “I don’t know what we are,” I tell him. “But I do know I love you.”
His gaze snaps to mine. He blinks, looks away with a clenched jaw. “Come on, Matt. Don’t do that.”