The Vanity Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

one? It'll be great. Apparently Prince Harry is going to be in the same issue."
    "Yeah? But do we really want everyone to read about our second anniversary?"
    I'm watching her scoop the brown milkshake into a glass, stopping mid-scoop as I say this.
    "What?" She raises her thin eyebrows in surprise, "Well, yeah, why not?"
    "Because I'm kind of done with Chic! shoots. And Peek! shoots, and all those other magazine shoots."
    In the silence between us the microwave whirs as it heats up my glorified ready meal.
    Finally, she laughs.
    "But darling, I thought you liked doing magazine shoots?"
    "Not really. To be honest, Krystal, they make me feel uncomfortable."
    The pain in my head is so bad it makes my eyes water.
    "Oh," is all she can say.
    The microwave pings, but I don't get my meal out. I lean against the worktop and wait for her to say something else.
    "You're too sensitive. Everyone does them, they're great for our profile."
    Sensitive. Yeah right.
    "Well I don't like them and I don't want to do any more."
    She walks over to where I'm standing and puts her hand on my arm.
    "But baby, you know it's great exposure for me, after everything I've been through."
    "Everything you've been through? You know most people aren't that sympathetic to minor celebrities with coke habits … and stop calling me 'baby' won't you?"
    She takes her arm away and scowls at me. For a second, I have the urge to laugh.
    "How can you say that? You know my life's not been perfect."
    "Oh and mine has I suppose?"
    "No, and that's why we're both so messed up now ain't it?"
    Tears are forming in her eyes. I hate it when she cries.
    "Well you don't need to broadcast it in fucking Chic! magazine."
    "And you don't need to deal with it by getting high and … and … I saw you following that waitress last night." She starts hitting me, laying weak punches on my chest. I grab her arms.
    "You don't know what you're talking about."
    "I know more than you think."
    "Yeah, like what?"
    She's wriggled free and is trying to hit me again.
    "Like the stuff you do behind my back…you think you can do anything you want. You think the world owes you one, just 'cos your Dad walked out on you when you was two, well it happens to a lot of people, Beaumont – deal with it."
    She hits me in the face, her sharp nails scratching me, then she takes another swipe and I think she's going for the eyes. Instinctively I grab the nearest thing to me to on the worktop to fend her off, and then there's a flash of red between us, a scream somewhere in there, and she's falling into me. I grip the thing I'm holding tighter and realise it's the knife I used to cut open the plastic lid on my meal, the Wusthof carving knife. Shit.
    She falls back and the knife is glistening red, real shiny. Time stops, I'm staring at the knife for an eternity, and time starts again, but slower, like everything's underwater.
    Deal with it.
    Krystal staggers back a bit then falls down against the unit, with one hand across her stomach, the other propping her up on the kitchen floor. Her head is bowed and her blonde hair falls over her face. As I stare at the hand on her stomach, the gaps between her fingers fill with deep red, which then seeps over, and at the same time a scarlet colour is flowering around her hand through the fabric of her white dress like a big ink stain. I'm thinking of an Alka Seltzer erupting in water, atomic bombs, millions of people screaming, pain, agony, hell. What have I done?
    She raises her head. In her blue eyes I see wild fear and confusion.
    "Beaumont," she whispers, her voice tiny and tight in her throat.
    I'm seeing every girl that's ever knelt in front of me flash past my eyes.
    I watch the colour seeping out of her bronzed skin. The blood is now forming a small puddle around her and she's starting to shuffle forward through it, towards me.
    "Beaumont," she says, "help me."
    I take a step back.
    Right now questions, choices and scenarios are forming and breaking up in my