Page 1 of Hearts Adrift
Chapter 1 - River
Yep, that’s me, looking like I’m gonna rob a bank.
That’s what fame does to you, my agent once warned me over drinks, long ago. You start off as the hot shit new actor in town. Photo shoots peel you down like a potato, sex you up, set you on fire for the cameras. Everyone wants a piece, your phone’s blowing up, countless DMs a day of nameless faces wanting to fuck you in every way. You can’t believe this is happening and never feel like you deserve it, but everyone keeps insisting you do while they powder your nose in front of different makeup mirrors.
Fast-forward to present day, and you’re asked to sit at a table in front of six thousand microphones and a room full of journalists to address a crazy rumor that you’re having a secret baby with the new assistant to one of Hollywood’s biggest directors whose set you just stormed off of. Your agent is in your ear, asking over and over if you’re ready, if you remember your script, because ever since signing with him, everything in your life has become a script, on and off set. There are no boundaries anymore. No personal space. Your own life is the role you’re playing now.
Listening to the hum of the reporters in that room, you wish you peed when you had the chance. There’s no way in hell you’re gonna hold it through whatever interrogation awaits you in there.
“Just a sec,” you tell your agent before heading for thebathroom—then passing it entirely and bolting.
Your new role: a celebrity fugitive.
That’s me, driving in a cheap rental down the coast of the Gulf of Mexico from a remote location in Texas where we’d been filming, salty air whistling through the cracked windows, enormous sunglasses covering my eyes, wearing a hoodie with its hood drawn over my head and pulled so tight, my pretty face is reduced to a tiny, squished circle of secrecy, and the radio is blasting 90s rage music.
And when I stop at a red light, a lady in the car next to me looks over, and I don’t blame her for the expression she gives. I’d be afraid of me too, how I’m dressed in this heat, coursing suspiciously through a quiet beach town like a creep tracking down his ex-boyfriend.
My disguise is absolutely necessary. No one can know who I am—for a few obvious reasons. A nonstop ringing phone sitting in the passenger seat next to an untouched bag of hot Cheetos is one reason. And the seventy urgent emails flooding my inbox are seventy other reasons. Right, and let’s not forget a growing mountain of unread text messages, most of which are from my agent threatening to end our “long and beautiful journey together” if I don’t return his calls right-the-fuck-now. There’s no telling how ass-deep I am in contract and union violations at this point.
But I couldn’t stand by. I had to do what I did. Even if it blew up my career and turned me into a trending hashtag.
Now I’m a creeper in a hoodie and shades in hundred-degree weather, slowly navigating down the backstreets of a weird beach town looking for an address, which I swear is not the address of a bank to rob.
And before I know it, I’m there—right in front of the bungalow I rented under the name Cal Mason. Not my real name, obviously. Cal’s my childhood cat that hated me and triedto gouge out my left eye when I was eight, and Mason is my brother whom I haven’t spoken to in over a year, and I guess when I’m under pressure, the first thing that pops into my head is what flies right out, and now Cal Mason’s renting an old bungalow in a place called Dreamwood Isle.
Doesn’t look the way it did in the ad. What really ever does? But its rotted wooden siding and depressing front porch has an undeniable charm, I have to admit. One of the front windows looks shinier than the other, suggesting it’s been recently replaced. I bet a local kid threw a rock at it on a dare. Buried deep in the comments section was some nonsense about this bungalow being cursed—“love begins and ends in that nook”—“its walls absorb heartbreak”—“if you put an ear to the floorboards, you can hear evil spirits whispering”—it goes on and on. No one ever rents it. Even the locals go out of their way to avoid the place.
That last part’s exactly what sealed the deal for me.
When I’m certain no one’s outside, I slip out of the car, tug my backpack over my shoulder, and scurry up a set of creaky front steps. I check under the third potted geranium as instructed, fetch the little key, then pop it into the door.
Only for the key to not turn.
I give the door a gentle shove. Then a less than gentle shove. Then a not-gentle-at-all shove. Won’t budge. When I try taking the key out, I find it’s stuck. I wiggle it. Yank on it. Twist and fondle it like I’m trying to turn it on. Then I recommit full-force to turning the damned key, desperate for it to work. What do I have to do to get this door open? “Listen, you sexy little key.” I’ve resorted to sweet-talking it. “I’m out here in the open for anyone passing by to snap a shot of and report to one of the millions of people looking for me—and that isnota good thing. So it would be super-duper swell if you could do youronejob and justopenthis door. Can you do that? Can you do that for daddy?”
It doesn’t reply.
Thankfully. Otherwise we’d have other problems.
I spot two guys on bicycles turning the corner, heading down the road nearby. On my other side, a car just stopped at the intersection and seems to be stalling. I don’t know if they’re staring at me. I can’t tell because their windows are too tinted. They could be live streamers and followed me here, and I was too careless to notice. Or they’re just locals who swear they know me from somewhere but can’t put their finger on it. Yet. I’m cursed with distinctively high cheekbones no set of shades can hide. Even my posture is unique—my unmistakable too-cool-for-school slouch the photographers can’t get enough of. It was the bane of my existence back in school, and now I get paid for it.
I can’t be recognized. I need to get inside this house.
On another note, this would be pretty exciting and fun, were my circumstances not so dire. Isn’t this just like a role I always wanted? Man on the run, no one to trust, each and every corner lurks a suspicious face. I once dreamed a role like that would be what leads to me standing on a stage with a tiny gold-plated naked man in my grip thanking my mother and my “team” and then cracking some joke about the music playing me off because my speech is too long.
Dreams of that speech are out the window now.
With renewed determination, I grab that key and twist it even harder—and it snaps right off, leaving me with a nub of metal pinched between my shaking fingers.
If I didn’t look like a burglar before, I sure do now.
Giving up on the front door and the imaginary crowd I swear is forming behind me, I make my way around to the side of the bungalow—Hey, there’s a porch swing, nice—and sidestep to the back door. I whip off my shades, cup my eyes, and press my face to the six-paned window on the door. I can barely see inside, but I don’t spot anyone.
Fun fact: I actually did play the role of a burglar once in this low-budget indie film, many years ago in my early twenties, fresh out of school, and I remember thinking how stupidly burglars are always written.
That’s what I’m thinking right now as I peel off my hoodie, wrap my whole arm in it, and elbow the window, breaking the lower-right pane of glass. I reach through its shattered remains and unlock the door, letting myself in.
I brush aside the glass on the floor with my boot before shutting the door behind me. There’s a kitchen to my left with outdated everything, except for the fridge which looks out of place with its shiny, new-looking door, and long windows overlooking the rocky shore. On the counter next to the fridge sits a case of water bottles. To the right is a circular teak table surrounded by matching chairs, and the one nearest to me wobbles when I set my backpack onto it along with my hoodie after unwrapping it from my arm. A wide archway leads into the front room, which has a couch, coffee table, and a 50-or-so-inch TV mounted on the wall with paintings hung on either side of it, everything beach-colored—sandy beige paired with all shades of sky blue to saltwater green, all of it kinda going together and clashing at the same time. On the coffee table sits a large gift basket of fruit and goodies from local stores next to a bottle of sparkling wine, which rests atop a handwritten letter:
