Page 73 of Beyond the Bright Lights

I don’t want to talk about my relationship with the man who’s about to play her dead brother on the big screen.

“Actually, tell me what’s up with you and Jensen first.”

She rolls her eyes, her earlier disgust reappearing. “Okay, so getting the movie made has been a legit nightmare. Every director who previously signed on bowed out because they wanted the script to go a certain way, and I wasn’t budging. My one stipulation when selling the rights to the book was me having a final say in the screenplay. This isn’t a piece of fiction they’re messing with, it’s real-life, my life. Right?”

I nod, looking around to see people staring at us as Rebecca speaks with her outside voice.

“Well, Jensen was hired, and this was it. If he dropped out like the others, the movie wasn’t going to get made. It started out with the same ole bullshit. He came to the table with a list of changes. Unnecessary changes. It took two weeks of meetings and so, so many compromises, to finalize the script. I relented. I had to. Anyway, the point is, Jensen is frustrating and freaking bossy. I want to rip my hair out when he’s around. He's young, and he thinks he’s some hot shit know-it-all, but he’s not. He’s a baby director, not Steven Spielberg.”

“Steven Spielberg would have quit the moment you opened your mouth.” Jensen says with boredom, walking up behind Rebecca. If I'd have seen him approaching, I would have warned her.

She points her hand at him. “See what I mean?”

Jensen ignores her mounting fury and continues his prep work, whatever that may be. He holds that same short stack of papers in his hands that I see everyone carrying around.

Rebecca must see my confusion. “Those are called sides, like mini versions of the script for the scenes being shot today.”

I follow Rebecca to the row of director chairs. I spot one with my name placed next to hers.

“We have our own chairs?”

Rebecca smiles and sits. “Pretty cool, right?”

It takes me a lot longer than I want to admit to sit my ass in the flimsy chair. Now I'm worried it’s going to collapse beneath me.

“Okay, spill,” Rebecca says, referencing back to Mylan.

“He’s going to be amazing. I brought him up here to talk to Harold, remember him? He was Tyler’s teammate and now he’s the football coach here. I think he was a senior when you were a freshman.” Rebecca nods. “We also talked to people around town. Did your parents tell you we visited?”

“They did. They said Mylan was a nice young man. Very respectable. Said he took a lot of notes.” She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “They also said you looked happy.”

My heart clenches at that because most people in this town know I'm a bit of a grump. A bitter bitch who can’t move on.

“You’re not worried about . . . his problem?”

I scrunch up my nose. “Yes, always, but he’s been clean since I met him.” Minus that first night.

She thinks about that and nods.

“Well, if you’re happy then I’m happy.”

I wave off her words. “It’s . . . nothing serious.”

Why do I have to keep convincing people of this? Or maybe I’m trying to convince myself. Four days, and I let him touch me. Eight days, and I let him inside me. Two weeks, and I find myself falling for him. Three months left, and I may never find my way back to the surface.

Chapter 18 - Mylan

I wring my hands, and worry my lip, and shake my knees as Mary, the hair stylist, sprays some blonde highlights into my hair. I refused to wear a wig, and I wouldn’t let them permanently dye it to match Tyler Taylor’s light brown locks so this was the alternative.

“Son, I’m going to need you to stop moving,” Mary says, frustrated. She rests her hand on her round hip, blush tinting her pale face as she shakes her white bobbed head at me.

“Sorry, Mary,” I mumble.

I can only imagine the filth Jensen is feeding Lana right now. What if he’s telling her about my darkest days? He should know, he’s seen most of them. What if he tells her about the last relationship I was in? How it broke me. How she let me love her and trust her and ruined everything all for her own personal gain.

What if he tells Lana I’m a poison that infects those close to me? I’m on edge every day, waiting for my toxic life to push Bruno away, to force Eloise to quit, because eventually, they all do.

Like Jensen. After nearly nine years of friendship, he left me when I needed him the most.

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