Page 6 of The Fate Of Us

But seeing her there, her face the picture of dread and fear, her auburn waves sitting soprettily above her shoulders, her hands juggling the pen like it was a ticking time bomb, her mouth so beautifully parted, the emotions that captured my body the day I met her held me tight.

I take one last breath, deep and slow and no shorter than five seconds long, before lettingit all back out again, getting to my feet and wandering back inside the apartment, heading for the kitchen. The screech from the balcony door as it closes drowns out the sound of my ringtone, but when I notice the incessant melody, I reach my hand into my back jeans pocket and pull it out, swiping it to accept when I see it’s Jacob.

“Hey man, what’s up?” I ask, ditching the kitchen and heading for the comfort of my bedinstead.

"Hey, just calling to see how you are. How did the meeting go?” He asks, raising hisvoice with each word that leaves his mouth, attempting but failing to cover the commotion of Flo trying to calm down Bagel in the background.

“It was fine.” We both don’t speak for a solid seven seconds. “Really.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, his tone turning curious.

“Yeah, it was fine. Why?”

“Oh, no reason… just that Flo’s been on the phone to Addy for an hour.” I hear Flo on theother end shout something. “Scratch that, an hour and twenty-seven minutes to be exact. Just wanted to see if there was anything to report on your end?”

Great. “Oh… um. Well, I can’t say if anything happened before I got there, but after I satdown next to her, she was fine.” I lie, knowing full well the smile Addy gave me as I stole the seat next to her was nothing but synthetic.

I perch on the edge of the bed, nestling my phone between my ear and shoulder as I startuntying my sneakers. “Did Flo say what they talked about?”

“Nope, won’t tell me anything. The only thing she said was that she sounded eighty percentguttedand twenty percentchuffed.” My best friend hums, his pitch going higher on the words ‘gutted’ and ‘chuffed’, which tells me he has no idea what they mean either.

“Oh, well tell Flo I said thank you for using her brit slang again, it really helps me outhere.”

Jacob lets out a breathy laugh before changing the subject. “Anyway, I figured you coulddo with a walk or something after today, I’m taking Bagel to the dog park in Central if you want to join us?”

I look down at the sneakers that I’d just kicked off and internally groan at the thought ofdoing them up again. But then comes the realisation that if I don’t say yes to him, I’ll likely spend the next however-many-hours falling victim to the mountain of sheets and pillows that stay on my bed at all times, binge watching that English regency romance series I’d become obsessed with over the holidays, again, and without a doubt start dwelling on what these next few months are going to be like.

On set. With Addy. Pretending to love her.

I shook the thoughts free from my head, a mental breeze whisking them away. “Sure, I’llmeet you in twenty.”

Chapter three

Adaline

Internallypanickingaboutwhetheryour life is going down the path it's meant to suredoes take it out of you. And after letting the annoying debate team in my head be the substitute for the audiobook I’d usually listen to during car rides home, I seriously needed some me time.

Which was what, as soon as the last thread of my jeans breezed through my apartment,had me switching my outfit for my dusty pink dressing down, shopping my shelf of vinyl records and plucking out my well-loved Dolly Parton disc, making a gallon of iced coffee, before slumping back into my couch and letting the gorgeous chords of ‘Here You Come Again’ engulf my living room.

Ahh, hello, my favourite pastime.

This was exactly what I needed after this morning, something easy and familiar to calm mynerves and distract me from wondering whether or not I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.I thought that a call with Florence would be enough of a distraction, the alluring twang from her English accent putting me in a trance and making the doubts in my head float away. But it wasn’t.

It doesn’t take long for the novelty of having my record player on to wear off. And noshame to Dolly, but the lyrics were too similar, too on the nose to make me forget my morning. Not even wandering over to the window and staring down at the street below, free of tourists now that December had passed and the Times Square Ball had dropped two weeks ago, is enough to quiet my mind and stop me from rolling onto the floor and zoning out completely.

The only sound breaking through louder than Dolly was that of the woman sitting next tome at the signing (who actuallywasthe casting director) repeating what a wonderful, career-defining opportunity this was.

I’m sure, though, that all the benefits of this role could be read to me a thousand timesand I still wouldn’t remember them. Because deep down, I knew I couldn’t care less.

When the role was first offered up to me, I was interested. I’d read the book when it wascircling the globe and getting the attention it well and truly deserved, and I immediately fell in love with the female lead, Anastasia. She was a little spitfire, a fiery redhead who refused to take anyone’s bullshit, especially from her lifelong academic enemy, Harry. Who she eventually falls for, and realises that all her years of denying her feelings for him were a waste of time.

She reminded me a lot of myself; a secret, hopeless romantic, loyal as anything,overachiever, with chronic eldest daughter syndrome with a people-pleasing tendency, who spent her mornings daydreaming, and nights making up silly scenarios in her head to fall asleep to… I related to her more than I’d ever admit to anyone out loud.

It was almost as if the author, Miss Eleanor Winthrop, had secret cameras hidden aroundmy apartment, had hired private investigators to track my every move, capture every word that left my mouth, steal my personality and publish it for millions to get lost in.

So naturally, I said yes to the role when I was first offered it, seeing as though I was,unknowing to most, being paid to act as myself. Better than that? It was just another role for me to delay the inevitable of admitting that I perhaps didn’t love this career as much as I used to, if I ever did.

But it would be my easiest job to date.Or so my naive little heart thought.

---