Page 51 of Total Obsession

I pulled Google Flights up on my phone to try and see what would get me to New York the fastest. There was a Spirit flight leaving in 30 minutes. If I pleaded, maybe they would still sell me the ticket even though it was past check-in time.

I ran up to the counter, frantic, and the gentleman on the other side could see my panic.

"Miss, is everything alright?" he asked me. If this were a normal day, I would have taken a moment to talk to him and ask him how his day was, but today was not a normal day.

"I'm so sorry. I just am really late for something, and I need to get to New York as soon as possible."

"Okay, I understand," he said, his eyes looking down at the screen. "We've got a flight leaving in an hour, will that work?"

As much as I knew Miranda was going to tell everyone that I was deathly ill if I could somehow manage to still show up today, I wanted to. Even if I looked like death, which wouldn't be hard to pull off.

"I saw there's a flight leaving in 30 minutes. Can I make that one?"

"That flight is currently boarding," the gentleman said.

I didn't even respond to him, I just gave him a look of absolutely desperation.

"Okay," he said.

"Thank you so much," I replied, handing him my credit card.

He ran it through quickly and handed it back to me with a bright yellow slip. "Take this. It's a pre-check card. I'm not supposed to give those out, but it looks like you could really use it."

"Oh my gosh, thank you so much!" I exclaimed. That would save me a lot of time getting through security. I ran off towards the checkpoint and tried to calm my nerves. The last thing I needed was TSA pulling me aside for questioning because I was an anxious, suspicious mess.

By some miracle, I made it on the plane just before they closed the doors.

Coach. Middle Seat.

It was definitely a lot different than the way I flew down here just last night, but that didn't matter to me. What mattered to me was my career and begging for forgiveness for missing the morning's read-throughs.

For the several hours of air time, I read through my lines using my phone. I wished I had my computer, but Axe had whisked me away to Miami so quickly, I hadn't brought anything with me. I was doing the best I could given the circumstances. Maybe if I knew my lines backward and forwards, they could forgive me for missing a day.

I tried to put thoughts of why Axe might do this to me out of my head. I kept waffling between "there has to be some explanation" and "he did this to sabotage you." I didn't have enough information to jump to either conclusion, so I figured I better just wait until I could ask the questions I needed to.

Even still, I was so hurt right now, I wasn't sure that I even wanted to see him.

The plane jerking as the wheels touched the ground startled me out of my thoughts. I all but ran through the airport and opted to jump into the first cab I could find to get to the studio, rather than try and wait for the subway or an Uber, which no doubt would have been cheaper.

When I finally rushed into the studio, everyone was about to break to get into hair and makeup to do some actual filming.

"Well, well, well, look who decided to show up," Matt called out from where he was sitting in the director's chair behind a camera.

I didn't particularly like Matt. I also didn't dislike him. He was sort of a hard ass, but I understood that you had to be in this industry. He wore the same thing pretty much every single day. A dark blue polo that was a little too tight for his dad-bod frame, a pair of worn-out jeans, and sandals, no matter the time of year. His dark brown beard was pretty scraggly at this point and he always had some sort of trucker-type hat on, so I never knew what his hair situation was.

"I'm really sorry," I said, not even having to fake that I was out of breath. "Did Miranda tell you?"

"That you were sick? Yeah, nice try."

I grimaced. I wasn't sure how to proceed at this point. Did he know I was in Florida? Had Axe talked to him?

"I'm really sorry," was what I decided to say again.

"It doesn't matter," Matt said dismissively. "We decided to do scenes that didn't involve you today so that we could keep on schedule. Don't let it happen again."

"Okay. I won't. I promise," I said to him. I made my way over to my chair and sat down, trying to catch my breath. Miranda made her way over to me.

"I can't believe you made it here," she whispered.

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