16. Aaron
SIXTEEN
AARON
For a low-budget indie film, The Sabbatical sure is beating the shit out of me.
Day sixteen of thirty-nine, and it feels like I’ve been here for three months already.
It both does and doesn’t help that the entire movie is essentially just me. It’s about a young artist who’s having problems coming up with original ideas and decides to move to an abandoned castle on his own for an extended period to reset himself. Some days it’s just filming montages of doing manual labor in the fields, the gorgeous Carpathian Mountains as the backdrop, helping create some top-tier cinematography. Other days, I’m sipping apple juice in a dark and dusty castle room, pretending to slowly lose my mind in a descent of madness and dependency on a local alcohol called ?uic?.
It’s not such a far stretch for me, to be honest.
This role has been challenging, exploring new emotional depths my previous roles haven’t allowed me to, but there have been other challenges lately adding to my mental strain. There was a… minor hiccup , let’s call it, where my newest assistant, Shirley, fumbled getting my hotel reservations taken care of, due to some mishap I still don’t understand. What I do know is that it meant I was homeless my first night here, and I couldn’t reach her for some God-forsaken reason. She didn’t travel with me—which was probably for the best all around—but it meant I was stranded in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language, with minimal support from the skeleton crew on the ground here and no one to help me back home either.
Thankfully, I was able to find a charming hotel for the night and the next day she got me all sorted out, but it’s just one in a long string of fuck-ups lately that have me missing the smoothness my life used to hold, the one I never realized I had until it was gone.
The rhythm Gem and I had going was second nature for both of us. It was more like a river flowing, no dams or pile-ups to stop the current. We hopped from one project to the next, whether it was one of a dozen smaller tasks in a day, or going from film project to TV show to another film year in and year out.
Now it feels more like every hour presents new problems, more things that inhibit my plans and my already tight schedule. I’m starting to realize my life has always been complicated. The thing that’s changed is really just who is helping me navigate it.
With Gem, it probably helped that we never got sick of each other, so the long days of travel or shooting were never irritating to us, just a part of life. We’d kill time between takes by prepping for the next shot, or if that (and the rest of my life) was under control (it usually was), we’d share memes, trailers of upcoming video games we wanted to play, or just shoot the shit.
Truth be told, I’m kind of relieved to have a few weeks away from Shirley. She just, kind of, stands there watching while I’m prepping, or filming, and it weirds me out. I know she’s there to assist me, and is just on standby for my next order, but Gem never used to do that. It’s kind of creepy.
It’s taking me longer than I’d hoped to get into that same rhythm with this one, and every time there’s another…hiccup, my patience wanes even further. I’m starting to lose hope for this working out at all.
As I pace the neutral, monochromatic hotel room that has become my sanctuary these past weeks, my mind races with possible solutions, wishing I had someone to talk it out with.
Maybe I just need to hire someone who focuses on my home and daily life, and another who helps with work-related jobs?
But you already had someone who could handle it all themselves …
That voice in my head taunts me, reminds me of my biggest mistake.
My harsh words to Gemma haunt me daily, especially every time I’m faced with the fact that anyone else I’ve hired since her hasn’t been half as competent at her job as she was, regardless of their previous experience or the recommendations they came with from others in the industry I trust.
Did I really tell her she wasn’t doing her job? A grimace of shame washes over my features and I let my head hang and shake it to try to chase the embarrassment away.
Even worse is I don’t think that’s the nastiest thing I said.
I must’ve blacked out that day, or maybe it’s just too painful of a memory and my mind has done me the solid of shrouding it from my own view. I can’t even remember two-thirds of what I told her.
For as much as I miss having her in my corner as my assistant, the one helping me keep every area of my life on track, making my existence feel more like a game than a chore, I miss her five times as much as my friend. I lost track of how many times a day I turn to share something with her, or my thumb absently pulls up our message chain, ready to text her something I saw, or remembered, that she would appreciate.
There were a few weeks of downtime in between Midnight Empire wrapping for the season and leaving for Romania, and I spent most of that with Kayla. Of course it was great, but it only drove home the differences between the women in my life. As much fun as I have with Kayla, there are things that I’ve learned aren’t for sharing with her. Turns out her humor isn’t quite the same as mine, and she gets offended at things Gem never did. I’ve never had to filter myself around the girl I spent all my time with before, but then again, I never had this kind of intimate relationship with said girl, either, and maybe that’s the difference?
Alex’s ass-reaming still plays on repeat in my head most days, and I haven’t quite figured out what to do with the new perspective I feel blooming on the horizon after our talk. Some of those realizations are still settling, taking root within me, not fully developed yet, though I feel them trying like hell to get me to see something, it’s just not clear what that is. In the meantime, I have been focusing on getting Gemma to let me back in, however I can, because that’s one thing I have come to grips with. The lack of her presence in my life is not a good thing.
The tiniest ray of hope fills my chest with warmth when I check the views on my Instagram stories and see that she watched not just one, but all of the stories I posted today. Pretty sure this makes it a couple weeks in a row that I’ve scrolled through the ridiculous number of profiles Instagram told me have viewed my story until I found her name among them.
Interesting.
Despite the fact that she hasn’t answered a single of my texts since that day, she clearly doesn’t want nothing to do with me, or she wouldn’t be keeping an eye on me.
My stories have been getting more and more geared for her viewing pleasure. Once I knew I had her as an audience, I started taking more and more pictures that might mean something to her. Call-outs to moments we’ve shared, inside jokes, hints to things from our past. At first, it was things I came across I was snapping pics of for her. Then, it became seeking them out, and even staging pictures for her. It’s my only way to get through to her right now, and I’m not wasting it.
I need her to know I don’t want her out of my life.
I know I fucked up those last couple months before she quit, but surely I deserve another chance at being her friend? Please tell me I have enough of the positive banked with her that my string of impatience won’t wash out the years of good? Or did I cross the line, hop right over the border into the land of no return with a few stupid words?
With a heavy sigh, I fall backward onto the soft bed in my temporary home away from home, being nearly swallowed by the lush bedding. Fluffing and propping a pillow under my head for a better angle, my thumb flicks open my camera roll, pulling up the collection of memes I saved to my phone on tonight’s cull from Instagram. The desire to send a few to Gem is strong, but I’m not convinced she’s receptive to normal texts from me yet.
Instead, I decide to do a FaceTime with Kayla and screen share them with her, hoping this is a safe enough haul that she’ll appreciate them with me before we get into our usual video call activities.
Lucky for me, she giggled at almost all of them (excluding the one or two I scrolled by too fast for her to take notice of), and the hunter-gatherer impulse in my DNA was satiated by not only scavenging but sharing the ripe memes of the day with my chosen mate.
It’s just before I go to turn off the screen sharing function when my calendar notification pops up. The label is nothing but a shark emoji and “tomorrow at 9:00 AM”; it happens every month at nine PM the night before I need to be prepared. Shark week starts tomorrow, AKA bring almond croissants to sate the beast, and be ready for a feistier than usual Gem. Sadly for me, Kayla didn’t miss that pop-up.
That’s what I get for not putting my phone on DND before sharing my screen.
“What is that supposed to be?” Kayla’s voice tells me she isn’t sure whether to laugh or suspect me of something. “Are you going swimming with sharks in the Dead Sea?”
She knows I’m particularly looking forward to the final days of the shoot, once we’re done with all the castle sequences, when we’ll be on the shores of the Black Sea, filming some shots of my character doing a metaphorical cleanse in the waters there. Personally, I just think it’s gonna be absolutely gorgeous based off of my own Google searches and the storyboards I’ve been shown. But that’s not tomorrow, and there definitely aren’t sharks in those waters.
“No, baby, I don’t get to go to the Black Sea until late next week.” Hopefully she accepts my brushing it off, and I work quickly to distract her onto the next topic. Discussing Gem with her has made me uncomfortable since our falling out, but particularly since that talk with Alex. Plus, I really can’t see my girlfriend thinking a shark week notification in my phone’s calendar—about another woman at that—is particularly endearing. “So how was your day? Did that brand accept your new terms?”
Not to make myself sound like more of an asshole, but that should keep her going for a while.
Don’t get me wrong—I care about her and her life, I’m not just acting like a good boyfriend. I just don’t want to risk upsetting her when I’m halfway around the world and unable to hold her close and make things right if needed.
Dating in the industry has never been easy, but I’m lucky enough to be based in Atlanta (a.k.a. the Hollywood of the South) most of the year, which helps. When I travel for shoots? It makes me admire the fuck out of any actors—or crew for that matter—who have made long-distance relationships work. No way I could pull this off on a regular basis.
Kayla tells me all about her latest sponsorship—it’s one she’s proud of—and when she’s done, we make the most of the FaceTime. The time change has been weird for her, it’s only like two PM on the east coast right now, but I have early call times this entire month, which means I’m almost always unavailable during her night time. I do my best to wear her out from five thousand miles away, and I’m pretty sure we’re both falling asleep with a smile on our faces tonight.
I wake up with a smile on my face too, realizing what today is, why my alarm was set an extra forty-five minutes early. It gives me the added boost to all but jump out of bed this morning. The faintest hints of impending sunlight filter in through the nearly translucent window coverings, giving a minor glow to the darkened space. Putting my feet on the cool, tiled floor, I stand and make quick work of my morning routine, showering, shaving, shitting and brushing my teeth in less than ten minutes. Once I’m dressed, I walk to the nearby cafe that I picked out on Google last night. One that has exactly what I’m looking for.
The fact that American culture isn’t such a big deal in this part of Europe strikes me as a boon as I feel the freedom anonymity grants me; the rare ability to be a normal fucking person who can walk down a street without someone looking twice, unless it’s to smile and say bun? diminea?a (good morning). It’s refreshing.
I take in a deep breath through my nose, enjoying the comforting warmth of the air, much less humid than the Georgia summers I’m used to.
It’s gonna be a good day .
Because for the first time in nearly two months, I foresee having my best friend back.
And after I orchestrate a little photo shoot for her and post it to my stories, I draft a text to send her before I go to bed tonight, once she’s had time to see today’s story.
Me
Save the latest episode to watch with me?
And when I wake up the next morning to a reply, I know it’s going to be okay.
Gem
You got it, kid.
I can get through these next three weeks. Because my Gem is waiting for me when I get home.