7. Millie
MILLIE
The green room at Late Night with Seth Meyers smells like stale coffee. I'm sitting in the makeup chair getting my face touched up when LaToya walks in with her phone pressed to her ear and a look that means something just shifted.
She ends the call and crosses to me. "They want to bring Duncan on for the second segment. Surprise guest situation, play up the relationship angle."
"What? No, that wasn't the plan."
"It is now. Seth's producers got wind that you two are together and they want the moment. Think about it, Millie. First time you're publicly together on television, completely organic." She uses air quotes around organic. "It's perfect."
I stare at my reflection in the mirror. The makeup artist is doing something with highlighter on my cheekbones and I look like a different version of myself, polished and camera-ready and approximately thirty seconds from walking onto a stage where Duncan Ellington is apparently going to ambush me.
"Where is he?"
"Getting mic'd in the other green room." LaToya checks her watch. "You go on in four minutes. He comes out halfway through the interview. Seth's going to play it like he just found out Duncan's in the building and couldn't resist bringing him out."
"And Duncan agreed to this?"
"His publicist called mine an hour ago. It was their idea."
Of course it was.
I close my eyes and take a breath. This is fine.
I've done a hundred interviews, I know how to pivot, and if Duncan does something stupid I'll just smile and fix it later.
The makeup artist steps back and declares me done.
I stand, smooth down the front of my dress—black with clean lines, nothing that will distract from my face—and follow LaToya toward the stage entrance.
The audience sounds massive from backstage, their laughter rolling through the walls during Seth's monologue.
A production assistant with a headset and a clipboard checks me in, counts down from ten, and then I'm walking out into the lights with the band playing and Seth rising from his desk to greet me.
The first half of the interview goes exactly how these things always go.
Seth asks about the film, I give thoughtful answers that sound spontaneous even though I've rehearsed them a dozen times.
He brings up the Oscar buzz and I deflect gracefully, say something about just being grateful the work is connecting with people.
The audience laughs in the right places. Everything is smooth.
Then Seth leans back in his chair with a grin that makes my stomach drop.
"So I have to ask," he says, "because I was doing some research before you came on tonight, and I stumbled across something pretty interesting."
Here it comes.
"You and Duncan Ellington went to the same high school, is that right?"
The audience murmurs. I keep my face neutral. "We did, yeah. Long time ago."
"And I'm told—correct me if I'm wrong—that Duncan is actually in the building right now."
More murmurs, louder this time. I laugh like this is news to me, even though I've had four minutes to prepare.
"Is he?"
"He is. Should we bring him out?"
The audience erupts before I can answer.
Seth is already gesturing toward the wings and Duncan walks out in dark jeans and a fitted navy shirt, waving at the crowd like he does this every day.
He shakes Seth's hand, then crosses to me and kisses my cheek in a move that looks natural enough to sell but still makes my skin prickle.
He takes the seat next to mine, angling his body toward me in a way that reads as attentive. Seth waits for the applause to die down, clearly enjoying himself.
"So, Duncan Ellington. Venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and—from what I'm hearing—Millie's boyfriend?"
Duncan glances at me, then back at Seth. "That's right."
"How long has this been going on?"
"We reconnected recently and it kind of went from there."
Seth nods, then picks up a card from his desk. "Okay, so here's the thing. I was looking through your high school yearbook—because we're thorough here at Late Night—and I found something. Duncan, you wrote a quote next to Millie's senior photo."
My entire body goes cold.
Seth holds up a blown-up image on the screen behind us. There's my seventeen-year-old face, hair in a twist-out, wearing the smile I used to practice in the mirror because it made me look confident. And next to it, in Duncan's handwriting: "Most likely to give up."
The audience gasps, then laughs nervously. I feel my jaw tighten and force it to relax. This is fine. I can spin this. People wrote stupid things in yearbooks all the time, it doesn't mean anything now.
Except it does. It means everything.
Duncan's face goes blank for half a second before he recovers, but I catch it. Seth is watching us both, clearly delighted by the tension.
"Wow," Seth says. "That's, uh, pretty harsh. Millie, did you know he wrote that?"
I pivot into the laugh I've perfected over years of deflecting questions I don't want to answer. "I didn't, actually. But you know how high school is. Everyone's trying to be clever and edgy, and most of it doesn't age well."
"Duncan, do you remember writing that?"
Duncan doesn't hesitate. "I do."
The room goes quiet.
"I was seventeen and an asshole," he continues, his voice steady.
"Millie was incredibly talented even then, and I think some part of me knew she was going to be successful and I wasn't ready to deal with that.
So I said something cruel because it made me feel better about myself.
Which is about as pathetic as it sounds. "
Seth blinks. The audience is silent now, hanging on every word.
"That's, uh, very honest of you to admit."
"It's the truth." Duncan looks at me, and there's something in his eyes that I can't quite read. "I'm sorry, Millie. I should have said that a long time ago."
I don't know what to say. My brain is moving too fast, trying to calculate whether this is real or just another performance, whether he's doing this because he means it or because his publicist told him vulnerability plays well on late-night television.
Seth breaks the moment. "Well, clearly you've moved past it if you're together now."
"We're working on it," I say, finding my voice. "Ancient history, you know? People change."
Duncan nods, but he doesn't look away from me.
The rest of the interview blurs. Seth asks a few more questions, we laugh at the right moments, and then we're walking offstage together while the audience applauds. The second we're out of sight, I round on him.
"Did you know they were going to show that?"
"No. Jeremiah didn't say anything, I swear."
"But you knew about the yearbook quote."
"Of course I did. Millie, I'm not an idiot. I knew someone would dig that up eventually."
I'm shaking, which is stupid because I'm not sad and I'm not scared, I'm just angry. Angry that he wrote it in the first place, angry that it's out there now for millions of people to dissect and that he apologized on national television and part of me actually believed him.
"Don't do that," I say.
"Do what?"
"Apologize like you mean it when there are cameras around. If you're going to say you're sorry, say it when it's just us. Not when it gets you points with an audience."
His jaw tightens. "You think I did that for points?"
"I don't know what you did it for."
We're standing too close now, close enough that I can see the muscle working in his jaw, the way his shoulders are pulled tight. A production assistant walks past with a headset and we both take a step back.
"We should go," I say. "LaToya's probably waiting."
"Millie—"
"I said we should go."
I turn and walk toward the green room before he can say anything else. My hands are still shaking and I shove them into the pockets of my dress so no one will notice.
LaToya is waiting with her phone out, already scrolling through social media reactions. She looks up when I walk in and her expression shifts.
"That was good," she says. "Really good, actually. Twitter's going insane. People are calling it the most honest moment they've seen on late night in years."
"Great."
"Millie, what's wrong?"
I shake my head. "Nothing. I'm fine. Can we just get out of here?"
She studies me for another beat, then nods and starts gathering her things. Duncan appears in the doorway behind me and I don't turn around.
"Millie," he whispers. "Can we talk?"
"Not here."
"Then where?"
I finally look at him. His face is open in a way I'm not used to, like he's actually asking instead of performing the ask.
"Backstage," I say. "Two minutes."
LaToya raises an eyebrow but doesn't argue. Duncan follows me down the hall to a corner near the loading dock where the noise from the studio fades and we're alone except for a guy smoking a cigarette twenty feet away.
I cross my arms. "What?"
"I didn't know they were going to show that yearbook page. I'm not trying to blindside you."
I search his face for the lie, for the angle, for the performance. But all I see is a man who looks tired and maybe a little scared, and I don't know what to do with that.
"Do you actually feel bad about it?" I ask. "Or do you just feel bad that it's public now?"
"Both," he says. "I've felt bad about it for years, Millie. But yeah, seeing it on a screen in front of three million people makes it worse."
We stand there in the dim hallway with the sound of traffic filtering in from outside. The guy with the cigarette finishes and goes back inside, leaving us completely alone.
"I'm going to ask you something," I say, "and I need you to answer honestly."
"Okay."
"Are you doing this—all of this, the apologies, the vulnerable moments—because your publicist told you it would work? Or because you actually want to be different?"
He doesn't answer right away, which I appreciate more than if he'd rushed to defend himself.
"Little bit of both," he says finally. "Jeremiah did tell me to be more open, to stop performing all the time. But he can't make me mean it. That part's on me."
"…Okay, I believe you. For now." I drop my arms and step back. "But if you pull something like that again without warning me first, I'm done. Relationship over, contract void, and I'll make sure everyone knows you're the reason it ended."
"Understood."
"Good."
We walk back to the green room together in silence. LaToya is waiting by the door with both our coats and a car service already idling outside. She hands me mine and gives Duncan a look that suggests she knows exactly what just happened even though she wasn't there.
The car ride is quiet. Duncan sits across from me, staring out the window while the city slides past in streaks of light. I pull out my phone and scroll through Twitter, watching the clip from the interview rack up retweets and comments.
"Duncan Ellington really just apologized for being a dick in high school on live TV. Respect."
"Millie Harris is a better person than me because I would have slapped him."
I close the app and look up to find Duncan watching me.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing. Just wondering if you're okay."
"I'm fine."
"You don't look fine."
"Well, I am."
He nods slowly, like he doesn't believe me but knows better than to push. When the car stops in front of my building, he gets out first and holds the door.
"Goodnight, Millie."
"Goodnight."
I walk inside without looking back, past the doorman who nods politely, into the elevator that takes me up to my floor. My apartment is dark and quiet and exactly the same as I left it this morning.
I drop my coat on the couch and stand in the middle of the living room with my phone still in my hand. The interview is already trending. People are dissecting every word and moment of hesitation.
They think it's romantic. A love story born from rivalry and redeemed by honesty.
They have no idea what they're really watching.