“Brendan Davis, with an e and an a. My parents thought it sounded more ‘Hollywood’ than regular Brandon.” He grins. “They thought they were protecting their privacy when they gave me the stage name. It never occurred to them that people would develop such an obsession with a little kid. Luckily, my real name never leaked. When the show ended, I continued with homeschooling. By the time I went to college, I’d grown up enough to be unrecognizable.”
“But what about all the time in between?” I shake my head, the math not adding up. “That had to be seven or eight years. Are you saying your parents just locked you away like some witness to a mafia murder? All so some little girl with pigtails wouldn’t go into hysterics when she spotted you?”
Deiss is quiet for a moment, and I cringe, remembering belatedly that this is his life I’m being so flippant about.
“It wasn’t just little girls with pigtails they were worried about,” he says finally. “There were salary negotiations in the final season. The cast’s decision to stick together made the news. Unsurprisingly, a kid raking in that kind of money makes for a pretty big target. None of the threats turned into anything, but it scared my parents enough to cause them to pack up the house and start over somewhere new. Continuing to homeschool me after the show ended was an obvious choice.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “That’s terrible.”
Deiss shrugs. “For my parents, maybe. I didn’t mind, though. After a lifetime of being on a studio’s schedule, it was nice being at home. And I was so used to being around adults that it didn’t even occur to me that I was missing out on having friends my age. My mom is as obsessed with music as I am, and we’d spend hours listening to albums or competing over who could make the best playlist for the day. By the time I realized there was a reason I never left the house, poolside studying and the ability to grade my own tests seemed like a pretty sweet trade-off for a lifetime of anonymity.”
“And nobody has ever figured out that you were Noah?”
“Not a soul knows,” he says. “Until tonight. So, as I’m sure you realize, you now have leverage over me. What do you say, Liv? Care to even the playing field with a secret of your own?”
I don’t care to. Obviously, I don’t. Except that there’s something about this night. His grand gesture. The specialness of my being the person he’s finally chosen to open up to. The darkness. And the way we’re holed up against the wildness outside. The breaths we shared, and the long-awaited glimpse into Deiss’s past, so different from anything I would’ve ever imagined. The combination of all of it pulls at me, makes me want to lean deeper in. It makes me feel reckless and alive.
“I quit my job.” I blurt the words out, not aware until I hear them aloud how paltry a confession it makes. People leave their jobs every day. It’s nothing like admitting to having a whole other identity.
“Did you?” To his credit, Deiss manages to infuse enough surprise in the question that it seems like I’ve said something interesting.
“I did. Well, mostly,” I say, embarrassed. “They’re not paying me now. And I’m not going back. So, I’ve quit, even if they don’t necessarily realize it yet. And I know it was just a job, but I was supposed to stick with it, you know? The security it offered, and the salary, it all fit perfectly into my plan. And now I’ve walked away from it, and it feels like the first time in my life that I’m completely off book.”
“And is that scary? Or exhilarating?” Deiss says the last word in a way that makes it sound infinitely appealing.
“Exhilarating,” I repeat without thinking. My brain catches up, so I add, “And scary,” because it feels important that I be honest. Anything less would cheapen the moment.
“Is it scarier that you’ve lost your income or that you’re off the perfect plan?”
I freeze in the face of this line of interrogation. It’s unsurprising that Deiss would be so perceptive, but still—admitting to quitting my job only reshapes the image of my life. To admit the rest will reshape the image of my personality.
The darkness gives me the strength to answer him. “It’s scariest that I’m off the plan. All of a sudden, there are these questions in my head. And there used to be obvious answers, because they were fed to me by articles or books or podcasts, all of these instruction manuals for life. But now it’s just me, trying to figure out what I want to do, or say, and it’s freeing, but it also feels like I’m taking steps that might not be able to be retraced.”