34. Adaline
Ithought the whole point of a location shoot was to film somewhere specific to thelocation.
If we had a scene set in the Hollywood Hills, with the white capital letters looming in thebackground of the shot, I would understand the need to film in L.A. Or on the Santa Monica Pier, or Melrose, or any other iconic location that the city was known for… I would have understood dragging all of us out here to La La Land.
But where my driver had just pulled into, I’d seen plenty of these back in New York.
“Are you sure this is the place?” I asked my driver, leaning my forehead against thelukewarm glass of the window, my eyes scanning the high school football field before us.
“It’s the address I have here.” My driver said through the rear-view mirror, catching myeyes as I rolled down the window and stuck my head out slightly.
Did they drag us all the way here for a football field? A football field that looks nodifferent from the ones I’ve been to back in New York.
And before the frustration could so much as make my lips purse, I realised that theycould have brought us out here to film a minute of the movie, in some random back ally that could belong to the West Coast of Australia for all the audience knew, but as long as it meant I was closer to Goldie, I wouldn’t have minded.
Still, this made no sense.
The car came to a halt, and a figure on the other side of my door pulled the thing open forme, the cerulean sky beating down on the set.
“Miss Moore, a pleasure,” I passed a friendly smile back to the woman I’d never seenbefore. “Makeup and wardrobe are just over there, and someone will take you to your trailer later on.” Her chirpy voice was nearly enough to bring a smile out of me. Almost.
“Thank you,” I muttered to her, and followed in step behind her, slyly taking in the setaround me.
I was in the makeup chair before I knew it, my face being tinted and highlighted andwhatever else the sweet makeup lady was doing to erase the bags under my eyes and make my skin look less grey. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a familiar collection of blonde curls and a cloud of pink.
“Morning Addy! How are you after last night?” Amber chirped as she came in the trailer,two iced coffees in her hand until she placed one on the vanity before me.
I passed her the most genuine smile I’d let show since finding out Goldie was going to college.
I took her up on her offer to go surfing with me last night, after hours of pacing andmental debating, until I realised that if I carried that on any longer, we’d be surfing with only the moonlight to guide us. The thoughts that felt like onyx clouds had parted since going to see my parents and Goldie, and I figured that a sunset surfing session would only quicken the breeze that was pushing them away.
And it did, although most of the night I spent floating over the waves with my legsstraddling the board Amber brought me, watching her cruise them like an ocean angel.
But still, it was a good night.
“I’m okay… although I don’t think I’ll be starting a professional surfing career anytimesoon.” I smiled up at her as I took a sip of coffee, the Rolling Pin logo that was pressed onto the side of the cup making my heart do a little flip.
Amber falls down into the makeup chair next to me. “If there was a sport for lookingpretty just sitting on the surfboard, then you’d be a world champ, I’m sure of it.” Her smile makes mine tug higher, and soon enough, I’m leaning forward as a laugh or two spews out of me.
“How’re you feeling about today?”
I turned my head to face her, the memories from last night filtering through my mind likea silent movie.
It took barely any time at all for my facade to crumble, the bricks and tears toppling in acircle around me the second Amber asked if I was okay. I fell into her outstretched arms and cried to her like the sea breeze had nudged me.
I don’t know why I was so emotional. I’d been content up until that moment. But damsdon’t give you any warning before they burst and flood the nearby villages, and I suppose not letting myself think about what happened, the years wasted, that it all just overflowed, and spilled out onto the girl in front of me.
After a minute of my quiet sobs dancing with the sounds of the nearby tides, I eventuallycalmed down, Amber smoothing out my hair and nestling me into her shoulder, before I eventually pulled back, not flinching when she wiped away the tears that had coated my face.
And I told her everything.
I showed her the annotation tabs of our story, not thinking to touch on the fact I thoughtthey were together, it slipped my mind entirely when Amber confessed that she was having a tough time at the minute too, in matters of the heart.
So once I’d stopped sobbing, the sniffles drying up, we ran through the waves and let thesalt water wash away the bad thoughts, and memories we didn’t want to focus on.
I know Amber and I hadn’t had the most normal friendship. I mean, I hated her at onepoint in time. But I think I saw the same thing that I saw in Flo: a woman who knew what it was to be a woman going through heartbreak.
Someone who understood.
I took another sip of the sweetened coffee. “Yeah… okay, I guess. Any excuse to screamat a man is… well, it’s practically self-care, isn’t it?”
She let out a sweet chuckle. “Even better when you know you’re being paid for it.” Myhead fell forward with a soft grunt, realising how right she was. “Well,” she announced, standing up from the chair and resting a hand on my shoulder, our eyes meeting in the mirror’s reflection. “I did stop by to ask if you’d seen him?”
I shook my head, quick as anything, before a tight-lipped smile appeared on her face.
“Well, if you do see him, if you can speak to him… let him know that my dad’s back in townfor a few days, and that he wants to speak with him about those books that he needed help with.”
‘Books’ was my trigger word, it always was. No matter what the conversation. Ifsomeone mentions books, I get as giddy as a child does on Christmas morning. But this time… it was different. The context of it all.
My ears pricked up, and my head snapped around so fast that the sweet makeup lady swipedblusher right into my hair.
“What books?” I asked her, even though I had a pretty good idea what books she wastalking about.
“I’m not sure, he never mentioned it. He just knew my dad worked in publishing, so hepulled me aside and asked for a favour.” She said it so casually, shrugging like it was nothing.
Meanwhile, in my head, things were clearing. Dark clouds that loomed over whatever quick situationship Nate and Amber had were fading, and the corner of my brain where those images were hung was catching fire.
“Your dad knows how to make books?”
Amber leaned back in her chair. “He works in publishing. Not at the top of the company,but he has the right contacts to get them made… yes.”
“Oh… that’s cool,” I muttered, leaning back in my chair before I felt her hand leave myshoulder. But before she slipped out of the trailer, I had one more question.
“Amber?” The poor makeup lady was probably sick of my fidgeting, but I had to ask,hopefully, to seal the final nail of the coffin on whatever I thought was between them. “When was this?”
Another shrug; so casual and yet… so powerful. “About two months ago.” she said, in away that made me think she knew what I was asking.
I’d never questioned her directly about her and Nate, but something about how her lipswere in a crescent smile, a radiant, content expression, told me that she wasn’t trying to cover up a quick affair.
And I smiled right back at her.
I stumbled onto the field half an hour later, a hint of a spring in my step, surprisingly,although I knew the sudden cheeriness had come from finding out that Amber and Nate were never really together in the way it came across.
I felt silly, admittedly, that I’d run away with those pictures, believed what I saw andconvinced myself they were in love. And it did look like they were, the way their smiles were sickly pink and flirty, but I suppose that could have been my mind, evil thing that it is, playing tricks on me.
Then I remembered that was probably how Nate felt. The feelings of guilt andfoolishness that had painted my cheeks redder than the makeup lady ever could, were probably swimming around him at ten times the speed.
The grass beneath the ballet flats on my feet rustled as I walked further into the middle ofthe field, a myriad of box lights and cameras circling the centre markings.
I knew he was here, I’d caught a glimpse of him when I stepped foot onto the field, thenbrought my eyes back down and into a stare-off with my steps, before slowly cranking my head up to see him again with each step I took.
What hurt most, I think, about all the revelations and realisations of the past week wasthat, despite what had happened, despite everything Nate had done over the lost years because he thought I’d betrayed him… not a single ounce of the love I’d built up for him, since the moment I met him, not a drop was leaving my heart.
I’d screamed and cried into several pristine white hotel pillows when I realised that ourlove was outweighing the hurt. The hurt was a grain of sand compared to the dunes of love I still felt for him. I couldn’t figure out why. I couldn’t understand why the man who’d spent so much time hating me for something I never did, setting fire to our potential, still had my heart wrapped around his little finger.
I was angry. I was angry that I couldn’t find a way to detach myself from it all. I should havebeen furious with him, and in the moment, when that last puzzle piece clicked into place, I was. I was overcome with anger in the moment, but… I’m sure it died the moment I got back to my hotel room and my eyes fluttered closed as I ran to the safety of the bed.
Time and space, especially on your own, have a funny way of healing you without yourealising… don’t you think? The time I was unbothered by the outside world gave me clarity, and if this morning’s revelations were anything to go by, I think I finally know now why I couldn’t pry myself away from the feelings fluttering in my heart.
Our actions don’t complete us. They don’t define who we are inside.
I couldn’t control the way he hurt me, or the ways I hurt him, but I hope he knows howmuch I don’t hold it against him. I hope he knows that his actions don’t complete him, or make me think less of him.
Yes, he screwed up. He wasted so much time hating a version of me that never existed.
But so did I. Granted, our mistakes were light years apart, but... does that matter?
We both screwed up.
Does one bad thing take away from all the good this man has brought into my life?
Does it take away from the hours he spent cradling me in this very city while I cried in his arms?
I could stand here, walk towards him and decide to spend the next seven years hatingNate Patricks for screwing up, only to realise after all that time the love I felt for him then was the same kind, same ferocity, that was beating around my body now.
My mind told me to stop right there, to never forgive him. That there was no comingback from this.
But that kind of ignorance that was brewing inside my heart was what had gotten usinto this mess in the first place. If we’d been honest from the moment we saw how things were different, how our paths had shifted, the charting of our hearts off course, we wouldn’t be here right now.
I suppose this is the part where I’m supposed to say everything happens for a reason, andmaybe it does. Maybe fate had to be cruel to be kind to us.
A call from one of the crew members racing past me to join the crowd in the centre of the fieldknocked me out of my thoughts. I was breaching the edge of where the cameras had been set up, spotted Sebastian and exchanged pearly smiles, before walking into the glow of the lights.
It’s the way I want to squirm and my skin goes itchy that makes me shuffle on my feet,that undeniable feeling that I’m not meant to be here settling over me like a fire blanket. Then comes the familiar knot in my stomach, thick and tight, constructed of the same heavy-duty nautical rope it always is. My hand swoops to my stomach, clutching it subtly.
Not like anyone would notice my discomfort. I”ve been miserable for years and nobody knows.
It’s not like the people around me whoclaim to be huge fans know that I’m miserable. I’d been coping with these feelings for years and not once had anyone questioned why I always looked like I was about to hurl every time I was under a spotlight and the weight of every camera ever made. No one looked twice if they caught me hunched over and panting.
I did question, though, how much longer I could take this. The panicking. The dread. Theoverthinking. The pleasing. The second guessing. The wishing that I was tucked away in my office, snuggled up on my bean bag, writing, and writing and writing until I fell asleep.
Who was thriving from this torture?
Who am I doing this for now?
I certainly wasn’t doing it for myself. I wasn’t doing it for my parents anymore. I wasn’teven doing it because I knew writing would always be a forgotten dream. It wasn’t… it was a dream that had everything going for it, proof that I could do it. I think seeing my books, all bound and shiny and real, helped me see what they could be.
What that dream could be.
I felt like a chick in an incubator, burning under the lights surrounding me, baking me like the California sun was. We couldn’t be in a more open space, but somehow it felt like the stands were closing in on me, the crowds of crew members were growing. The chatter coming from them was all muffled, a foreign language I had no idea how to translate.
The knot that was in the pit of my stomach began to rise, like a snake slithering throughmy body and finding its way to my heart, constricting and tightening and making my head feel heavy. I couldn’t breathe, my chest was heaving, and a feeling of nothingness descended through my arms until it reached the tips of my fingers. I had no idea what was happening. Oh my God, what the hell was happening to me?—
“Hey, hey… you’re okay.” A voice that wasn’t like the others said from beside me, ashands that weren’t my own held my shoulders steady.
I dragged my eyes up, only for them to find Nate, standing over me and blocking the sun. Ifeel my eyes go wide, everything we haven’t spoken about hanging in the space between us.
“Breathe… take a deep breath for me, Addy,” he urged, so softly. His eyes were scanningmine, like he was trying to find something in them. His hands slid down my shoulders and cupped my elbows, before falling to my hands that were trembling.
His eyes shot down to them for a second, feeling just how badly they were shaking,before connecting our eyes again. “Breathe.”
I tried to. I tried to suck in and steady myself but…
“You”re okay, Addy.” His voice was soft, a delicate reassurance. “Take a breath andhold it, then think of something good. Okay?” I think I nodded. “Think of somewhere, someone safe, something familiar and happy. Think about it for a second or two and breathe out.”
“I… I don’t…” The words felt like knives slashing my throat as they tried to leave. “Idon’t know what… t-to think… of.”
I was panting at this point, so hard and heavy that I felt Nate pull me to the side, awayfrom the commotion and the lights, off to the side, in a bubble of our own.
“You can, Firefly; you”re doing so well.” One of his hands slipped from mine and landed under my chin, keepingmy head from dropping, taking away from how heavy it felt. It also meant I had no choice but to look directly into those glacier-green eyes. “Think of anything that makes you happy.”
I think I gasped when a version of him played across my mind, although I couldn’t besure. But he was there.
He was there, in every form I’d ever known him. The twelve-year-old I’d hit in the facewith a water balloon. The thirteen-year-old who confessed that he hated birthdays. The eighteen-year-old who gave me my first kiss and told me he loved me. The twenty-one-year-old I saw on a billboard for the first time. The twenty-three-year-old I saw when I walked into that table read. The twenty-six-year-old who defended me and my sister the other night.
And every version I loved even more than the last.
The longer I held those memories in my mind, the easier it was to breathe. The venomoussnake that had wrapped itself around my heart slithered away, the knots untied, and the dread melted away. Things felt airy, and light. The clouds in my brain turned into bluer skies than the one that was on display today, feeling trickling back into my fingers.
I held Nate’s eyes the entire time, as he kept one hand under my chin and the other in myhand.
“How…” I muttered, shaking my head at him. “How did that work?”
As his hand fell from my chin, his head fell forward with a smile, big and beautiful, one Irarely get to see, before it stared right back at me. “It’s not hard to notice when someone’s having a panic attack when you’ve had them since you were four.”
Silence hummed between us. Not the kind we’d grown comfortable with; the neededkind. The kind of quiet moments that you need to let the words sink into your brain. It was my turn to search his eyes now, pools of green with flecks of sunlit gold, swimming in memories, drowning in coping techniques for what I just went through, that have plagued him his whole life.
I let a sniffle break the needed silence, my lungs taking in as much air as they could hold,savouring every breath. My eyes dipped to the grass, measuring up every blade, before I felt that pull to look back into his.
My lips, dry and quivering, barely pried open. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”
Even without me scanning the set around us, he knew what I meant. I could tell. His facedidn’t move, just the tiniest tug on the corner of his mouth. If I’d have blinked, I would have missed it. “You know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Addy.”
I felt my head shake. “I’m not meant to be here.” The words came out like Iwas trying to convince myself. Almost like I was finally saying what had been rotting in my head for years.
The only thing Nate did was smile, one that lit up his face as he said, “No, I don’t think you are.”
I couldn’t help but hang on to his smile—the way it sparkled, like he’d been saving it forthis moment. I held his eyes. “What do I do?”
The hand that was still holding mine squeezed gently, the pad of his thumb calmlyskating over my skin. Both our eyes fell onto it before I felt his return to me. “I’ve spent so much time with you, Addy, that I’m confident that you know exactly what you need to do.”
I lifted my head to his, my eyes searching his for an answer that I shouldalready know, before I watched his head nod to the left, my eyes breaking from his and twisting my head to see where he gestured.
The exit.
My head twisted back to him, my hair nearly whipping me. “I can’t just leave, Nate—”
“Says who?” He whispered, like he was talking to my heart. His spine arches forward,levelling our heights. “You can do it, Addy.” His thumb rises to my face and swats away the tear I didn’t even realise had fallen. “You’ve got this, Firefly.”
Firefly.
“They’re lucky charms, you know? And they are a symbol of hope and rebirth.” Nate hadonce told me, as he read aloud from the encyclopedia, that was way too big for his hands. We were on the pier, soaking up the last moments of sun, doing some project for biology.
“You’re kinda like a firefly.”He’d said, lifting his head from the pages.
“How?” I’d asked, lifting mine from my notepad.
“Well, you’re hair. It’s like fire.” I rolled my eyes at that, but it didn’t stop the goofysmile from taking over my face. “And I suppose when you finally get through to your parents about acting, you’ll have your rebirth, and you’ll be much more hopeful.”
I’d always remembered that moment as the one where I felt my feelings change for Nate.
Every time he called me Firefly, I suppose, was another piece of my heart being broken off and handed over to him. This time was no exception either.
“So,” His voice caught my attention, my eyes focusing on his. “What are you waitingfor?”
My head fell forward with a smile, stretching ear to ear and probably making me looklike a fool. I felt like anything but a fool, as I lifted my head to Nate and shook my head. “Nothing.”
I felt his grip on my hand drop as he took a step back from me. I surveyed the chaosaround me, crew members and cameras and chairs and boom mics and lights… and I twisted my body toward the exit, toward the sea of trailers I could see lining the parking lot. I took one last look at Nate before I started walking, who nodded his head at me with a smile.
Then, step by step, I started walking back the way I came. I started to leave the set. I wasleaving. I’d never be back on one again. I was finally doing it.
Adrenaline coursed through me, powering my steps, turning them into strides as Istormed across the field. I picked up my pace the closer the exit became, that smile not budging from my face.
I caught eyes with Asher as I looked to my left, and tossed him a wink, earning me asweet smile. My eyes scanned past the trailers, searching for the car that had dropped me off, praying it was still there to make a quick escape. It was, luckily, the shiny black surface gleaming in the sunlight.
My steps quickened, my escape route confirmed, and all the weights I’d kept slung overmy shoulders fell off one by one—
“Adaline?”
My feet froze, still tingling from the energy I had surfing my body, as I turned around tomeet the voice that had called me.
Eleanor.
Her perfectly cut hair swished above her shoulders as she stopped before me, her creamgingham dress swaying in the sudden breeze. “Off so soon? Have they already filmed the scene?” she asked, looking down at the watch on her wrist. “I could have sworn Sebastian said they were shooting at—”
“Eleanor, I’m quitting.”
The sun hid behind the clouds, which seemed to have appeared from nowhere, themoment I stopped talking. I thought it was because Eleanor was about to scream the set down, become the ice queen she pretended to be that day I met her. Her face certainly told that story, the drop of her smile, the colour drained from her plump cheeks. Like she’d made eye contact with Medusa and turned to stone.
And then… as the sun crept back from out of the shield of the clouds, a smile, bright andrelived, bloomed across her face. “Well, that is just music to my ears.”
My brows tangled and knitted. “What?”
A quick chuckle fell from her mouth, highlighted nose tipping in the air as she said, “Iread what you sent me, Adaline.”
Oh God. I had sent her some of my work.
On the day of the improvised line, when she said I was a genius, she demanded I send her a sampleof what I’d written. I hadn’t thought much of it, the memory of my shaking whilst I pressed the send button only filtering through my mind in sections.
I met her icy stare, the contrast from her bright smile almost making me lose my balance.
But before I could say anything, let alone ask what she thought, her head pulled back. “And it was… it was breathtaking.”
My eyes dove left and right before I jolted my head forward. “Really?”
“Yes,” she nodded down at me, the sun backing her, making her glow. “And I’ll tell yousomething Adaline; a talent like that should just be hidden away.” Her airy voice fought against the breeze as she carried on. “Take it from someone who was told that they’d never get anywhere with their writing, that it was a waste of time and nothing great would ever come from it.” I didn’t miss the way the memories glazed over her eyes, before her head rattled, remembering where she was. “And well….” she lifted her hands and gestured to everything I’d just walked away from.
This was her dream.
Pulling at the fingers that had fully regained their feeling, I tiled my head and rushed out,“I’m so—”
Her palm stretched out. “Oh, don’t you dare even think about apologising, you don’t needto.” The delayed shame pushed my head down. But one quick reminder of what I was finally doing slowly brought it back up, along with Eleanor’s voice. “And don’t worry about the movie. I can make some changes to the script, we’ve already filmed the ending so it shouldn’t be too hard to tweak some scenes.”
Her laugh was a spawn of a mischief that I hadn’t known could be so innocent. “We’lltell them it was a mutual agreement, a conversation about artistic differences or some crap like that.”
She nods at me, a proud look playing across her face.
I couldn’t help but smile, the beauty of the unknown dancing in the edges of my mind asI locked eyes with Eleanor. “Thank you, for the opportunity.”
Her head dipped to reach mine, levelling our heights as a motherly smile stretched acrossher mouth. “And thank you, for writing my new favourite book series.”
The words hung there, in the gap between us, unharmed by the chaos that was only a fewfeet behind us. I hadn’t known it before now, but it was as if her words were a signal, the starting horn for the rest of my life. That picture that was titled The Unknown, the one that hung in some abandoned gallery up in my mind, it was painted with a shade of prospect, sprinkled with hope and sealed with freedom.
It was all the beautiful metaphors that I hadn’t had the time to understand, finally makingsense.
It was years of self-doubt parting, making way for the path I hadn’t dared to trek.
It was my dream. Clear as day.
I reached Eleanor’s warm gaze, her nod being the piston to get my feet moving. I shuffledmy body around her and set my sights on the exit, on the car that had dropped me off, on the life I was finally leaving.
No one batted an eyelid as I left, no one seemed to notice, too caught up with the day tosee me sneak into the car and shuffle along the leather seat.
I muttered an apology to the driver who I’d startled as I slammed the door closed, giving him a few seconds before I caught my breath and said through a teary voice,“Sunfall Pier.”