1. Adaline Three Years Later
I’ve signed thousands of contracts over my twenty-five years on this planet.
Lots of them when I was a child, with my parents hovering over each shoulder, as Iscribbled my wannabe cursive signature across the dotted line. The majority of them as a fully-fledged A-list actress in a window-walled office in the tallest building of whatever city I was in. A fair few of them where I’ve had to pinch the skin of my wrist under the table out of sheer panic that I’d dreamed I’d been offered another lead role.
And all of them with the gut feeling in my stomach that this wasn’t the way mylife was meant to be.
That includes the contract that’s sitting in front of me now. The contract that I want to lighton fire until it’s nothing but a smoky pile of ashes. The contract that, although it offers me a career-defining, Oscar-worthy, star-on-the-Hollywood-Walk-of-Fame-deserving kind of role, has me wanting to bolt out of the glass doors I just walked through, back down the elevator, and out into the safety and familiarity of Fifth Avenue.
Even the memory of clutching the book to ”Forever and Always” in my hands after I”d devoured all five-hundred and seventy-seven pages in a single afternoon, tears streaming down my face at the thought that I could have a shot at playing the main character I”d fallen in love with, wasn”t even enough to rid my body of the fear it was doused in.
My hand subtly swoops to my stomach, clutching it like I’m about to hurl my avocadotoast across the terms and conditions. It feels like a knot, constructed of the thickest nautical rope, has formed in there, ties of dread intertwining themselves around it.
I should be used to the feeling by now. I shouldn’t think twice about it showing up at sporadic moments and ruining my day… but I’m not. No matter how many times it makes an appearance, I’ll always convince myself that it’s nerves, that I’m just being silly, and that I’ll eventually grow out of these hesitations that have consumed me since I was six years old.
I’ll remind myself that it’s all of those things combined, and not the overwhelming realisation that perhaps a career as one of the most famous actresses in the world wasn’t the best choice.
I say that like it was me who decided that this was my destiny. My purpose. But it wasn’t. That award goes to my parents.
While other parents were just praying their children would maintain a solid GPA and hopefully, maybe, get into an IVY league school, James and Betty Moore’s only wish was for their eldest daughter to have a career in the limelight that they never had.
Mom left home at eighteen, moved from her tiny town in Kansas to the bright and over-hyped lights of Los Angeles, and despite sleeping with every casting director, agent and actor that passed through the city in the late seventies, or so the tabloids from the time say, the closest she ever got to making it big was renting an apartment that overlooked a production studio.
Dad, on the other hand, was your classic case of nepotism. His father worked on tonnes of movies during the golden age of Hollywood, working his way up to become one of the top producers of his time. His mother was an actress, a Hollywood starlet, a true Hepburn and Monroe clone. My grandparents eventually crossed paths on one of the many sets they stumbled onto during their careers, falling in love and ultimately ditching their fame for a quiet life in some small town.
Dad always tried to name-drop his way to the top, but it never got him further than being a studio assistant.
That studio was the one my mom lived above.
Fast forward ten years, and I came along; a little bundle of fiery red hair and a billion and one freckles on my face, with the most angelic smile to grace ward seventy-two of the Los Angeles General (so I’m told). But to my parents… that smile was a lightbulb, and once its wattage had blinded them, I think I was rarely ever seen as their child.
Sure, they loved me in their own special way, but to them, I was a tool. Another opportunity for stardom. I was a fast pass to early retirement. I was the cheat code for living the high life. I was a child star turned A-lister with parents who only cared about—
“Ms Moore? Are you feeling okay?” A voice echoed in my ear, from which mouth I have no idea.
I lift my head to face the rest of the table; every eye from all twenty heads is burning through me like a tractor beam, every brow drawn inwards with confusion as to why I’ve been supposedly reading the final page of the contract for ten minutes.
I haven’t, I’ve been letting my eyes drift apart and go lazy as I contemplate my escape route and remembering what happens when I lift my sweaty hand and drag the now sweaty pen across the dotted line that’s taunting me.
But they don’t need to know that.
“Ms Moore?”
I turn my head to face the voice, which I now realise is coming from a lady who I think is the casting director, or she could be the actual director. Whoever she is, she curves her lips to a sympathetic smile as she patiently waits for my response.
I smile back. “Yes, sorry. Just… recalling how wonderful this role is, and how grateful I am for this… wonderful opportunity.” My eyes shuffled from side to side, holding onto the dusky blue sky before acknowledging all the eyes that were still fixed on me. “I’m wonderful. Really wonderful.”
Is wonderful even a word anymore?
“Well then… wonderful!” she giggles, encouraging the rest of the table to follow in pursuit.
I let out a forced laugh and take the well-needed lightheartedness that engulfs the room to my full advantage, relaxing my curved spine against the padded leather back of the spinny chair I”m perched on and pulling at the fabric of my cropped vest in an attempt to minimise any boob sweat that could very well manifest.
Truthfully, there’s more than one reason that I’m prolonging the inevitable of signing the next year of my life away for this role.
It’s the reason I originally said no to the role in the first place. It’s the reason that’s had me falling asleep at 5:00 AM after overthinking the night away. It’s why I’ve gained a few pounds after comfort-eating my way through the stress of running the same pros and cons over and over again in my head. Its—
“Hey, everyone. Sorry I’m late.”
It’s him.
“Not a problem, Mr. Patricks. Ms. Moore is still reading over hers. Take your time.” The lady next to me says in his direction, her smile morphing from sorry to flirty, her eyes, along with everyone else’s, following him as he emerges through the door.
I bolt my gaze from her and back down to the contract, reluctant to move my eyes even an inch at the risk of catching a glimpse of Nate. I know if I do, my body will go into panic mode. Like it always does when he’s near. My fingers will go numb; my ears will start to hum, my back will stiffen…
Like the dread that’s pooling in my stomach, I should be used to this sensation too, given how close we’ve gotten while filming the Defenders Of Time movies, but I’m not. I’m positive I never will be.
Ironic, considering how much I used to crave resting my head on his shoulder.
As I’m re-reading the last line from the final paragraph on the last page of the contract, it occurs to me that the only seat available on the table is the one next to me. Without thinking, I bolt my head upwards, my eyes finding his immediately.
Lethal things.
I catch the muscles in his jaw tick, and tighten, as he nears the only empty chair in the room. It’s almost offensive—the subtle look of uncertainty that masks his face at the realisation he has to sit with me. But after a second more of holding my stare, he wheels out the identical chair to my right, and takes a seat without a single glint of hesitation in his eyes.
After years of keeping up this civil act, you’d think I be used to him treating me like anormal person when we’re in the company of others, but sometimes it throws me off balance.Tricks my mind into thinking things between us weren”t as restless as I remembered.
But when it’s just us, you could feel the temperature of the room drop below zero. Thingsturned icy and rigid. His stares suddenly had meaning. The tension builds and becomes so thick that not even a freshly sharpened chainsaw could slice through it.
“Adaline,” he mutters to me with a freshly polished smile.
“Nate,” I smile back, pearly whites on full display.
If someone were to capture this moment, we’d look like nothing more than co-stars whowere excited to work together, prepared and happy to act opposite each other. How the world expects us to be. How we would be if it weren’t for our past.
I slyly adjust my eyes, tracing the edges of his outfit and carefully taking in how different helooks compared to the last time I saw him. His stubble has vanished, and the freckles on his nose double than what I remember, like he’s spent his time away from filming avoiding the New York winter and chasing the sun. His chestnut hair was longer than usual, draping over his forehead and curling slightly at the ends, brushing his temples.
He looks… good. Annoyingly, and unfairly good.
I pull my head away from him, leaning further over to my left, trying not to let hisnostalgic scent float towards me, and break down the barrier I’ve built up against him over the last seven years. But that barrier I thought was made of steel was a net at this moment, allowing whatever fresh yet musky fragrance he was wearing to twirl up my nose and flood my mind with every memory of us, washing away those hateful feelings I so badly wanted to stay.
My head is now a jumbled mess of pastel skies, summer nights on Sunfall Pier, and manuscripts that weren”t spell-checked. We found out it was called Sunfall Pier purely because of its location. It was the best spot in the whole of California to see the purest of sunsets. The sunrises were great too, but the cliff that perched out to the east of the beach blocked the beginning moments of them.
But the sunsets? They were magical.
I thought I could feel the sensation of waves washing over my bare feet, ridding me of the sand between my toes. My eyes fluttered shut as I dipped my head, basking in the memories before they started to rot.
There’s only a certain amount of time before nostalgia starts to sour, and make you remember that your childhood wasn’t all you wanted it to be. Soon comes the memories of me waiting on the worn-out panels of the pier, on the very same shoreline, waiting for him for what felt like a lifetime, wearing the white cotton dress he said he loved until the sky was eventually painted black, crying as my dad drove me home on the PCH highway, and accepting that Nate was never coming back for me.
“So!” My head shoots up in the direction of a loud, clearly a smoker’s voice.“It’s our understanding that you two are already familiar with one another?” My eyesdrift over to the man whom I’ve never seen before, taking in his rough features and bald head, before his question smacks me in the face and makes my hands go moist again.
“Uhh…” I croak, my eyes side-eying Nate, who has the same ‘I’m not sure how toapproach this question either’ look on his face that I do. “You could say that.”
I twist my head fully to face Nate, ignoring the forced smile and insteaddropping my gaze to his hands, resting under the table.
Twitching. Tapping. Pulling at each other.
And despite everything, as I trace the creases in his fingers, my heart breaks for him.
To the average person, leading man Nate Patricks would be the last person you’d think ofto get nervous. On camera, he oozes confidence, and not in a cocky or smug way either, as most actors I’ve met do. He’s confident in the sense that he knows what he wants, knows how to get it too, and all his words are smothered in charm and the right dose of cheekiness, like a perfectly baked cupcake that has the precise dose of each ingredient to make you want a dozen more.
None of that confidence is shining through now, though.
It makes me feel uneasy. I rarely see this side of him anymore. He always had a habit ofkeeping his true feelings hidden from everyone except me, and I did the same with him. We were each other’s safety blanket. So seeing him stretch out his hands to calm his shaking leg and skillfully take those three calming breaths I taught him to do when he was overwhelmed almost makes me want to forget the past.
Almost.
One of those hands covers his mouth as he clears his throat. “Yeah, we know each other quite well.” His eyes flick to me for a heartbeat, beforeshooting straight back to the contract that’s in front of him. I try my best to ignore how my cheeks feel like he’s just struck a match to them, but they’re burning up so quickly it’s impossible not to.
“That’s great! Nothing worse than production being delayed due to actors not getting on.Glad we won’t have that issue here!”
Oh, if only you knew, man I don’t know.
I almost want to giggle at how ironic his statement is, but not wanting to offend him, I optfor a bite of my lip and a shake of my head. “Absolutely.”
I’m a professional. I’ve been in this career for long enough to know the golden rule:always leave your personal lives at the entrance to every set and studio you step foot into. I know Nate knows that too. That”s why we don’t need to say a thing to each other; we know that we don’t bring up what happened that summer, ever.
“Well, shall we make it official?” The man lifts his hand, gesturing us to hurry up andsign our contracts.
I can practically feel my heart in my throat, choking me like the whimsicalsummer memories were.It’s like the windows are closing in on me, and the one that houses the escape route toback out of this project is closing along with them.
In my heart of hearts, I know I don’t want to sign this contract. Not only is the big Hollywood dream that was never mine to begin with rapidly fading away, but having Nate so close to me again is hard. It’s resurfacing all those horrible feelings I still feel towards him, reminding me how broken my heart still is because of him.
If I don’t turn it down now, I’ll be trapped. It’s not like I can test the waters for a whileand pull out halfway through filming if I don’t like it. That would completely go against my ‘staying professional’ approach. I have to get out of this now.
I sit up straighter as I clear my throat. “Actually, I’m not sure—” My voice halts, but mymouth remains gaped.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Nate, fully hunched over and etching his signatureonto the dotted line. I watch him as he finishes writing with such ease, clicking his pen shut and placing it neatly next to the contract before settling back into his chair.
How on earth did he sign that so quickly? Why did he sign it that quickly? Does he nothave that feeling of dread in his stomach? Does he truly want to do this?
“Not sure of what, Ms. Moore?” the lady next to me asks.
“Oh… uh.” I’m convinced the boob sweat has officially become visible now.“I’m not sure… that my pen works.”
And the Oscar goes too.
As the rest of the table scrambles to find a pen to replace the perfectly good one in myhand, I feel Nate shuffle next to me, causing my head to softly tilt in his direction. Wishing now that I didn’t.
“Have mine,” he insists, like he somehow knows the one in my hand works just fine.
Like he wants me to stay.
Does he?
A million subtle yet powerful digs and insults hike their way to the tip of my tongue,ready to jab him, but given the situation and the twenty authority figures gawking at us, I refrain. Instead, I reach my hand out for his, and because I’m an idiot, my fingers graze his more than I would have liked, sending electric shocks up my hand and tattooing my arm with goosebumps.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I try my hardest to avoid making eye contact with him, but I fail, miserably, falling victimto those jaded whirlpools that suck me in, steal my breath and set my cheeks on fire again. I hold his gaze for no longer than a few seconds, all my heart can manage, before stealing the pen from his hands and clicking it on.
If I’m going to sign this, I need to stay focused. I need to remind myself that I love thisjob and I want to grow as an actress. I am so lucky to have this life. I seriously need to invest in anti-sweat tops while I’m listing things off.
But most importantly, I need to remember the thing I told myself three years ago whenNate Patricks walked back into my life, the thing I remind myself every time I catch his eyes or I feel those butterflies take flight in my stomach whenever he’s around, the thing that has kept me from asking him why he never met me on the pier the summer after he left for college, like he promised.
He doesn’t love you anymore, Addy.
“Ms. Moore?”
I sucked in a breath and scribbled my half-assed signature across the dotted line. “Done.”