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15
It’s beentwenty-five days since Eli kissed me while we were standing in the Caribbean Sea. Since my heart fully emerged from the depths of the darkness. My walls have been crumbling piece by piece since that day. Welcoming him in little by little.
Sixteen days since we returned from paradise. Since the first night I slept next to him, woke up in his arms. Arms that are strong and secure. That make me feel like I can handle anything that’s thrown my way.
Which is what I’ve been faced with since that night. Dealing with the drama that has become my life every waking hour of the day.
Dealing with my mother’s constant text messages and voicemails. I refuse to have this conversation with her over the phone. I need to look in her eyes when she answers me. To see that she’s telling me the truth. That she’s not sheltering me or hiding anything.
Especially since she tends to feed me information I don’t want. Like … who was with my father when he died.
Steve.
Who held him as he took his last breath?
Steve.
She wants me to hate him; I get it. She needs me on her side. But I’m starting to realize there doesn’t need to be two sides to this tragedy. They both loved my father. Their grief should have united them, but instead, my mother pushed him away.
She pushed everyone away.
On top of all that, work has been a shit show. Every single day since returning from the Bahamas, something has gone wrong. Equipment is breaking. Sets designers are behind schedule. Costumes have gone missing.
If it’ll set us behind, it’s happened. Add it all up and we’ve officially lost five days of filming.
Plus, Celia is in a constant state of irritation, shouting orders at me more often than Ansen. Her devoted followers, Zoe and Kate, have begun acting like mini versions of her, making demands of their own. It’s easier to appease them than to take the time to fight.
To explain I’m not at their beck and call.
That Kate isn’t even a part of the film.
Or how kindness will get you further in life than acting like a bitch.
Nope, not wasting my breath on all that. So, I’ve been accommodating their ‘requests’ as often as I can.
But not today.
Today I’ve hit my limit for bullshit.
We have three hours to nail the final two scenes on today’s call sheet before we all have to rush to the airport to make our late-afternoon flight to Seattle. Celia has screwed up the same lines the last twelve takes. Has she apologized? Not a chance. She just smiles, slips her clothes back on, and takes her starting mark.
It’s an intimate scene. The main characters, Jackson and Jessa, are playing a game. Jessa got a tattoo, and Jackson is trying to guess where by having her remove articles of clothing. The game actually sounds like fun. Well, the first few takes it did. Now Celia is making it the most annoying game on the planet by dragging the scene out.
And every time Ansen yells cut, her smile is directed at me. It didn’t take me long to pick up on the fact she was doing it on purpose. To get under my skin, as if she doesn’t live there permanently already. Because she’s naked. Eli’s partially naked. And he’s touching her.
Yes, it’s uncomfortable. No, I don’t like it. But what Celia fails to realize is that I know how Eli feels about her. I’m learning that no matter how great his performance is, she’s not the one he wants to wrap his arms around at the end of an exceptionally long day.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. In fact, if she redirected her attention to Eli after each take, she’d see the irritation etched in his features. All she’s doing is creating a bigger divide between the two of them.
Celia fumbles her lines again, and the pages of Ansen’s script go flying through the air as he storms toward the set, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Your line is: You should be taking your clothes off, too. Is it that hard to remember?” Ansen’s question is rhetorical, but Celia answers him anyway.
“It’s chilly in here, and I get distracted without my pants on.”
Right. That’s the problem. It’s well over eighty degrees outside right now and she’s cold. I’m wearing a tank top and shorts. There’s a sheen on sweat on my forehead.
And I’m standing still!
