11. Chapter 11
LONDYN
I'M STARING AT NUMBERS THAT blur together on my screen. My shoulders ache from hunching over my laptop for the past several hours, and my mind keeps skipping away from the spreadsheet like a little kid eager for recess.
Adulting really sucks.
At least I'm home now, where the only eyes on me are the ones I've agreed to.
This morning was a different story. It was my first time leaving the apartment since Sean and Mike arrived, and my nerves were completely shot.
Not because of them—they were invisible, exactly as promised—but because I kept feeling like everyone knew .
Like I had a neon sign above my head flashing 'PROTECTED BY SECURITY' for any potential stalker to see.
My usual subway ride was torture. Mike had texted that he was on the same car, but I couldn't spot him anywhere among the morning commuters.
Every time someone glanced my way, I wondered if they could sense the invisible shield around me and the man tracking my every move.
My paranoia whispered that if I knew Mike was there, then everyone else did too.
When I emerged from the station, Sean had texted.
Sean: Parked my motorcycle at a garage. Have eyes on you.
But walking into my usual coffee shop, I couldn't find him anywhere. Not near the counter, not at any of the tables, not lingering outside. These men were ghosts, and somehow that made me more anxious than if they'd been obviously following me.
Work was a little better. I managed to focus during the meeting about the Henderson account audit, and Maria cornered me afterward to discuss discrepancies in the Zhao Industries invoices.
Somehow, their Q2 expenses were off by nearly forty thousand, which meant someone made a massive error.
I don't handle that account, but I promised to dig deeper.
By noon, the stress had triggered a migraine that felt like someone was driving nails into my temples.
I told Stacy I'd finish the day at home and she didn't care. She barely looked up from her computer screen.
The trip back was easier, knowing I'd soon be in my safe space. Mike texted that he was three people behind me on the subway. Sean confirmed he'd take his motorcycle and watch for anyone waiting for me outside the subway station near my apartment.
Now, three hours later, my head feels better, I'm trying to wrap up work, and I'm ready for some relaxation this evening.
From my little nook, which is really just a dining area I've transformed into a makeshift office with a simple IKEA desk, I glance up at the small black dome on the ceiling.
It's my new camera companion, positioned to capture the entire living room.
Someone is watching me right now. Someone male.
I should really hate that and feel the familiar crawl of discomfort up my spine from being observed.
But I don't. I guess because I know them and know they're decent men.
Which one is it right now, I wonder? Sean, the stoic action hero type, or Mike, with all his dad-energy, which would be perfect for a comedy movie? Maybe it's both.
I hope it's only Sean.
That thought startles me and makes my brain tingle with something like guilt. The male gaze has been my enemy for six years. Yet somehow, knowing Sean is watching through that small electronic eye brings a strange comfort. It's the distance, maybe. The safety of being seen without being touchable.
God, I am so messed up. How can I hate being watched and yet simultaneously love it?
I push away from my desk, needing to move and shake these thoughts loose. My laptop chimes with an email notification. It's probably my boss, Stacy, sending another unnecessary update. I ignore it and grab a notepad instead, uncapping a pen with my teeth.
The pen moves across the paper like it has its own ideas, though they're kind of boring.
I wish I was an artist and someone with the skills to draw stuff, but all I can do are squares and triangles and a wobbly blob circle.
I doodle geometric patterns that connect and form some attempt at abstract art.
My mind wanders as my hand dances around the paper, and suddenly I'm somewhere far away.
I'm on set. Stage 12. The lights are hot and focused, carving me and my co-stars out of the darkness like sculptures revealed from stone. I'm hitting my mark perfectly, the blocking so ingrained in this fake family living room that it's like muscle memory.
"And… action!"
The director's voice—not him , but Deborah, a brilliant woman who helmed several of our episodes—sends a familiar electric current through my body.
The clapboard sounds, the cameras start, and I step into someone else's skin, someone else's life.
The character, who's a quick-witted, sassy lead, flows through me like she's always been there deep inside, waiting to get out.
The sitcom is about two families who live next door to each other, who grew up together, and who form an odd mix of friendships, enemies, and lovers. My character is always in the middle of the chaos, always trying to mediate yet failing miserably, but in a heartwarming way.
My co-star, Trent, whose character was a potential love interest for mine, walks in and says, "Our moms are going to kill each other."
I deliver my punchline: "Can they do it before three, though? I need to borrow the car for girl's night."
Someone laughs off-camera at my delivery. Pride blooms warm in my chest. I made that happen. I created that moment. And when viewers are sitting at home after a long day and streaming the sitcom, my character, my delivery, will give them a little joy.
When we wrap for the day, the crew applauds a particularly difficult scene we nailed in two takes. Deborah hugs me, tells me I'm 'fucking brilliant,' and I float home that night knowing I finally belong somewhere.
Those were good days. Days when people's attention felt like a boost to my soul.
I stop doodling and sit back in my creaky office chair. My vision is blurring while my mind is stuck in the past.
The Sundance premiere. God, that was a glorious night.
The movie was my first truly dramatic role after years of sitcom work.
It was a small independent film about grief and redemption with a director no one had heard of but everyone would know soon.
I played a woman unraveling after her twin sister's suicide, desperate to understand why.
The role had gutted me and forced me to explore darkness I'd been avoiding in myself.
I had to channel moments of loss in my own life: my grandparents dying, friends abandoning me when I moved to Hollywood, even my own parents growing distant when I pursued acting instead of a 'suitable' career.
They stopped talking to me when I was hired for the TV sitcom, and we've been estranged ever since.
I never experience the kind of loss my movie character had experienced, but I knew grief. I tapped into as much pain and heartbreak as I could to portray a person in my character's situation.
During the premiere, I sat in that theater, watching myself and wincing at all the mistakes I thought everyone noticed: moments where my expressions were stiff, where I'd rushed through dialogue that should have breathed, the awkward pause where I'd forgotten my line and had to improvise.
I just knew the audience would say I was awful and laugh at me for trying to be anything but a dumb TV actress.
Why had I aimed my sights so high? Why did I think I could be somebody? I was an imposter.
When the lights came up after the credits, my nails dug into the armrest like talons. The silence was deafening—that sacred pause before the audience gives their final judgement. I closed my eyes, expecting boos.
Applause erupted, rolling through the theater like thunder. The director pulled me into a tight hug as we stood for the Q&A. Critics used words like 'revelatory' and 'transformative' to describe my performance.
That night changed everything. Suddenly, I wasn't merely a sitcom actress. I was an artist. Studios that had ignored me were calling my agent. Directors wanted meetings. And then came the offer: an audition for the summer tentpole movie everyone said would get an Academy Award nomination.
After years of high school plays, community theater, moving away from everything I'd known, working late hours as a bartender between auditions, losing my parents to follow my dreams… I was finally about to break through that invisible ceiling.
The satisfaction of it was indescribable. All those hours studying craft, all those rejections, all those moments of doubt… they suddenly made sense, like pieces of a puzzle finally revealing the full picture.
I was on the verge of making it.
But it was more than ambition or pride. While on the set of that Sundance film, something extraordinary happened. I disappeared. Not in a frightening way, but in the most liberating sense possible. The boundary between 'me' and the 'character' blurred until there was only the truth of the moment.
There was a particular scene where my character found her sister's journal and read it out loud to herself as she sobbed.
We shot it as the sun was setting, golden hour casting everything in amber.
The words caught in my throat, not because I couldn't remember them, but because I was feeling them so intensely.
The director didn't cut. She just let the camera roll as I worked through it, finding the rhythm of grief, letting it wash through me in waves.
When she finally called cut, I couldn't stop crying. Not because I was sad, but because I had never felt so completely myself while being someone else. It was like all the fragmented pieces of me had aligned perfectly for those precious minutes.
This, I knew, was my life's calling.