She leans against the counter and lets out a long breath as she chews on her thumbnail. I meet her eye and hold it, trying to make her understand that no matter what happens, one damn movie with Cowan isn’t going to fix anything in our lives, and sure as hell won’t make getting hurt or killed worth it.
Her voice is soft and exhausted when she finally speaks. “I used to think the only way I could get people to care about me was to succeed. That’s what my father drilled into us since we were little. I always thought nobody could ever give a damn about some silly rich girl, especially not one without any credentials or skills or whatever. I mean, what’s good about me? Why care about anything I think or feel if I’m not giving back to the world? But I also know I can never be like my father. I’ll never have that ruthless, single-minded, obsessive drive.”
“Is that why you’re doing this? Because you think squeezing one more movie from Tony Cowan will make your life meaningful?”
She nods slowly. “Yeah, Baptist. Pretty much. It’s fucked up, right?”
“It’s fucked up,” I agree, and I know exactly what she means. It breaks my heart and makes me wish I could punch her father in the face for making her think she’s anything but incredible.
“I still feel that way though. Like, what’s the point of going on if I’m just drifting from one day to the next? Every night I go to sleep and wonder, did I just waste today?”
“You’re not a waste,” I say, shifting my weight toward her. “You can’t really believe that about yourself.”
“My father sure as hell thinks so.”
“Your father is a selfish prick.” I move closer and she doesn’t back down, even though I’m shirtless and damp with sweat. Even though we shouldn’t get this near each other, because every time we do, something very bad happens. She only stares at me, her eyes drifting down to my chest, gazing along my tattoos. “Your father doesn’t know a damn thing about being a decent person.”
“You do?” She doesn’t ask it like a challenge. She sounds more like she genuinely wants to know.
I reach out and touch her cheek. She turns into it, closing her eyes. I linger there, wanting to kiss her, but I know the deal we made. I accepted that deal in order to have one more night with her, and now I regret it intensely, because that night only ignited all my desire for her and made the hunger in my soul that much more intense. It takes all my self-control to step past her and wander into my living room. She follows at a distance, cautious and careful.
I stare at the window as I talk. The words bubble up from my guts and as much as I want to turn away from them or shove them back down, it’s time I finally talked about it. I need to tell someone, and I want it to be her.
“How much do you know about my family?”
“Not a lot, honestly.”
I take a steadying breath. This is harder than I anticipated, but I force myself forward. “My father owned a regional theater for years. I grew up around show business and that theater was our entire life. He renovated it, marketed it, built it into a thriving business. One day, when he got older, a man named Magnus Crawford bought it from him and began to run it into the ground. That killed my father, and he was never the same, especially after he got into a car accident and hurt his back.”
“I knew about the Crawfords and the theater, but I had no clue your father got into an accident.”
I close my eyes. She doesn’t know because I never, ever speak of it.
And now the words feel like lava sliding up my throat.
“I don’t talk about this part, but there’s a reason I hated the Crawford family so much. Even beyond ruining my father and destroying the one thing he loved the most. Business is business, but this killed my father. After the crash, he was prescribed opiates for the pain, and I watched him slowly descend into an addiction I still believe was caused by his emotional distress, not by his physical symptoms.”
“Oh, shit, Baptist. I didn’t know.” She covers her mouth, eyes going wide. “Rodrick. Oh my god.”
I shrug and look at the windowsill, at the small pots of herbs I have growing there. Now she’s beginning to understand the complicated emotions I feel over our addicted star. “I didn’t notice it at first, but Dad got worse and worse. Eventually, I tried to step in, but the fights were horrible. We’d scream at each other and he’d say every hurtful thing you can imagine, all so he didn’t have to go to rehab, so he could keep using. He was too old and too ashamed, and he turned into a man I didn’t recognize. My father has been loving and kind and he taught me to be the man I am today. But after years of grueling heartbreak, I accepted that I couldn’t change him, even if I wanted to. Mom left a week before he overdosed alone in a piece-of-shit apartment, still using to the very end.”
The silence is a thick spiderweb of conflicting emotions between us. I slowly turn around and her face is twisted in a mask of pity and uncertainty. I can’t blame her—how can I be so cavalier about Rodrick’s drug use, when my own father died of the same hellish disease?
She’ll never understand the desperation and the helplessness. Trying to get an addict to see that their behavior is broken and that they’re self-destructing is impossible—they have to reach that conclusion on their own. The hardest part is wanting to help them, wanting to give them whatever they need, and knowing they’ll only turn around and get more drugs. My father didn’t want to see the truth about himself because he already believed he was finished and dead. Crawford took the one thing my father loved and destroyed it, and my father turned to opiates to drown out his feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy.
I’m afraid this film will be like that for Blair.
I can’t fix Rodrick. I’m painfully aware of my limitations. I can only try to make sure he doesn’t kill himself until he realizes how bad he’s gotten, even if it hurts me every time I see the man lost in the drug haze. I remember my father like that, and I doubt I’ll ever forget the suffering he went through, or forgive myself for failing him.
I step toward her and spread my hands wide. “We’re not perfect. Nobody is ever perfect. Some people get lucky and succeed and others don’t. But if you measure your life by the wins, you’ll have a sad and miserable existence, like your old man. Life is about more than that.”
She looks away and crosses her arms over her chest. “I know you’re right. And I still can’t help it.”
“It took my dad’s death to accept that I don’t have control over the world. I do what I can, but there’s too much outside of my hands, and if I sit around and worry about all that shit, I’ll never be happy. I try to live with what I have and make my meaning where I can.”
“This is just a movie for you then?”
I walk toward her. “No. This is freedom.”