late night dreamer

Chapter Ten 

The stage is already hot when I walk in. Lights hum like a swarm. Cables snake across the concrete floor in black veins that the grips step over without looking. Someone calls for quiet and no one quiets, they just change the volume of their chaos. Makeup powder hangs in the air near the monitor village like fog. I blink it off my lashes and keep moving. 

Rowan catches me before I can pretend I know where I am going. Clipboard tucked to their chest, headset crooked, they look like sleep and caffeine. “Good, you are here. Wardrobe says you are picture ready. Go straight to monitors for continuity on Scene 53A. Then hair will check flyaways for your Scene 34 reshoot. You are not shooting this scene. Second love interest scene.” 

I do not remember this scene. I do not remember a second love interest. This is not my world, and I keep pretending I know how to move inside it. 

Devyn appears and presses a cold bottle into my palm. She slides a chair toward me with her foot and smooths a hand over my shoulder. 

“Sit,” she says. “Sip. Blink like you meant to. If you feel like you might throw the bottle, hand it to me first.” 

I take the chair. The monitors glow with the empty booth. Across the set, Elle Monroe slips in like a dress being zipped. Low twisted hair, cream slip dress, coat the color of rose tea. She hugs the script supervisor. She kisses the director on the cheek. And then she reaches Isaiah. 

He is in a black T-shirt under an easy jacket. He says something I cannot hear. Elle touches his forearm and laughs like she has laughed with him before. He tips his head and the smile he gives her is smooth, the one that makes strangers feel lucky. My chest tightens like a fist. 

Jealousy is stupid. Stop. You do not own him. He is not yours. You do not even want him to be. You told him to be professional. Remember that. 

The director claps once. Voices fall to a working hush. 

“Alright. Scene fifty-three A. Tom meets Lydia after hours. She knows too much about him. She knows exactly how to pull him. She is telling herself it is for the greater good, which is why it is fun to watch. Keep it honest. Keep it small. We will steal the heat in the pauses.” 

“Speed.” 

“Rolling.” 

“Fifty-three A. Alpha. Take one.” 

The clap slices the air. It leaves a clean edge. 

Isaiah slides into the booth. He leans forward on his elbows like he is tired of being careful. Elle sets her coat down and sits across from him. One ankle crosses over the other. Her knee points at him. The cameraman moans quietly through his nose like he forgot to breathe. 

Isaiah speaks first, voice low and even. “So you invited me here because…?” 

Elle smiles without showing teeth. “You like this place. Calliope told me you loved this place.” 

“Oh, she did? You two have gotten close pretty fast. I am glad to see she made a new friend.” 

“Of course. She used to tell me a lot about you. How good-looking you are. How strong you are. God.” Elle laughs at her own comment. It feels too real. It lands like a whisper meant for me. 

He watches her. “Oh… used to.” 

“I should not even be telling you this, but she is not herself lately.” Elle lowers her voice like a secret she is pretending to protect. “She calls me at two in the morning asking if you are with someone. Says she sees things. I think she is just scared of losing you.” 

He sits back. “You two are still fighting, huh.” 

“You should not be in the middle of that.” 

“I am not in the middle. I am on your side.” Elle glances at his mouth and back up. The movement is small. The camera eats it. “Someone has to be. She is… exhausting. You know that, right?” 

“She is passionate. That is all. And it is none of your business.” Isaiah scrunches his nose without meaning to. 

“You are right.” Elle lets it slide, then hooks him. “I just cannot help wondering what it feels like to be wanted that hard. I would be gentler. Slower. You would still remember it in the morning, though.” 

He does not take the bait. The silence is quiet and mean to himself. “What do you want from me.” 

“I am helping you out, Tom.” She says it gently. She means it like a needle. “You give and give until there is nothing left to touch. Let me give something back.” 

“I do not need—” 

“You need to breathe.” She slides his untouched cup closer, fingertip grazing his knuckle. “You look tense through the shoulders. That is not love. That is a cramp.” 

He does not move his hand. He does not pull away either. 

“Pick one,” Elle says, almost playful. “A drink. Or a distraction.” 

“You are drunk.” 

“I am honest.” She tilts her head. “Sorry. Guess we have a dirty little secret Calliope cannot know about.” She winks. 

His eyes flick to her mouth. It is quick and it is enough. People around me lean in without meaning to. The air gets warm on my skin. 

Elle keeps her voice velvet and sharp. “She checks your phone when you shower. She told me that. She cries when the pillow is cold. She loves you like a lock loves a door. I am offering a key.” 

“Cut,” the director calls, delighted. “God, I love both of you. Let us go again tighter, then break. Elle, soften the ‘key’ line. Make me hate myself for liking you.” 

They reset. The second take is worse for me. Better for them. Elle sweetens the knife at the end, eyes shining like she might cry for him. Isaiah gives the look of a man walking into a mistake with his eyes open. 

“Print,” the director says. “Lunch. Back at two for thirty-four with Brielle and Isaiah. Do not wander far.” 

Elle slides out of the booth. She is careful not to step on her hem. She smiles at me as she passes, a warm, bright thing that would photograph beautifully. Then she drops it one degree, just for me. “I always wanted to be the kind of girl who can do one take. You know.” 

I keep my mouth neutral. “You looked great.” 

“I try,” she says. “Some of us have to.” 

“Lunch,” Isaiah says, appearing at her shoulder like he was conjured. He looks at me, directly now. “You good.” 

“I am delicious,” I say. “Go eat.” 

For half a beat, he almost smiles. Then he nods, politely, and falls into step with Elle. She touches his sleeve as they pass the grips and says something under her breath that makes him laugh again. 

Devyn exhales. “I hate her.” 

“You do not know her.” 

“I have eyes.” She taps my shin with the back of her knuckles. “And ears. That scene is sabotage disguised as care. It is a mirror. Do not let it convince you that you are the girl who needs saving.” 

“I will be the one doing the saving,” I say, and mean it more than I want to. 

Lunch is a row of sad salads and heroic cookies. I pick at both. I keep seeing the way Elle looked at him when the camera was not rolling and he was still giving her the easy version of himself. I keep telling myself it is all part of this machine. 

After lunch, wardrobe checks my shirt falls right on the shoulder. Hair spritzes and pats. I walk toward the back corridor for air. Paint and sawdust. The thud of a distant dolly. The low rattle of a fan. 

Footsteps. He stops in front of me. It is private back here. No one hides in this corridor unless they want to be alone or they want to be found. 

“You sure you are good,” he says. His voice is low. His face gives me nothing and gives me everything. 

“I went to find my professionalism.” 

“Did it run in here.” 

“I do not know. Did yours.” 

He huffs, a sound that might be a laugh if he let it be. “So that is how we are talking today.” 

“I am talking the way we agreed. Professional. Clear.” 

“Clear would be saying you are jealous and skipping the theater.” 

“I am not jealous,” I say. “I am annoyed that you flirt on camera and then keep going when they yell cut.” 

His eyes flicker. “I was not flirting.” 

“She touched your wrist, and you leaned in like you were reading a secret off her skin. That scene felt way too fucking real to be acting.” 

“That is called eye line.” 

“It looked like hunger.” 

“It looked like acting.” 

“It looked like you forgot I was in the room.” 

He studies me for a long beat. People pass the mouth of the corridor and no one looks in. It is just us and the fan and the smell of paint and the weight of words we should not say. 

“I cannot make this easy for you,” he says finally. “You do not trust me.” 

“You earned that.” 

“I offered you something. You threw it away.” 

“I protected myself. That is different.” 

“From what.” 

“From you.” 

He steps in like he might touch my arm and then does not. I hate him for not and I hate myself for wanting him to. “I am not the one who keeps running.” 

“Say that to me one more time and I will make a scene on your precious set.” 

He smiles then, quick and involuntary. “There she is. Cold one second, hot the next.” 

“I hate you.” 

“Feeling is fucking mutual. You made it clear last time.” 

“Fuck you.” 

“Yeah,” he says, and the word is soft, almost fond. “Changing your mind again.” 

“Why can you not learn me. Truly.” 

His mouth opens. He swallows whatever was about to change both our lives. A PA yells our names from the main stage. The moment slips through our hands. 

Scene 34 is our argument. The one where our characters tear each other open and then stitch the wound before the end of the page. We take our marks in the apartment set, a little living room that looks curated by people who do not live anywhere. The light is warm. The camera sits in the doorway like a nosy neighbor. 

The director walks us through blocking. “Start wide. She is packing to leave. He is trying not to beg. We cut into close for the apology that is not quite an apology. At the end, you two find the gravity you are trying to fake. Kisses are implied. Do not give it to me. Save it for the hotel room scene two days from now.” He grins. “You know, if the world lets us keep you alive that long.” 

We take our marks. A small fan pretends to be a city breeze through a window. The lamp is warm and makes our skin look like memory. 

“Picture.” 

“Speed.” 

“Mark.” 

The first pass, I start at a nine. He meets me at eight and climbs. The words are familiar in my mouth and foreign in my bones. The director paces just out of frame with his hands behind his back because he likes to pretend he is not controlling the weather. 

“You never tell me the truth,” I say, and the line is the characters, but it is not. 

“You do not ask the right questions,” he says, and it is him and not him. 

“Were there even any.” 

“Do not do that,” he says, too soft to be anger. 

“I am not doing anything.” 

“You are leaving.” 

“I am leaving for air.” 

“You do not need air. You need to say the thing you refuse to say.” 

“Oh, you know what I need.” I turn so the lamp hits my face and lets the camera see the truth I am not saying. “You and your savior complex can go to hell.” 

His jaw ticks. “Stop pretending you do not want this.” 

“I do not want you.” 

Lies have a taste. This one is metal. He steps into my space like he has a right to. The blocking says he can. The part of me that is not acting wants to step into him first. 

“I know how you look at me when you are not trying so hard to hate me.” 

“I do not hate you,” I say, and the line on the page matches the line in my head and I hate that. “I hate that you think you deserve me without earning me.” 

His breath hitches. It is not on the page. He recovers, eyes dark. “Then let me earn it.” 

Silence eats the room. The camera breathes. I feel the fan on my wrist and the sweat at my spine and the way my mouth wants to say things that will break us. The script tells me to touch his face. I put my hand to his chest instead like I am trying to catch my own heartbeat. He covers my hand with his and the electricity is not a metaphor. 

The director waits a heartbeat longer than he should and then calls cut. Crew claps. Someone whistles. Devyn says, “Jesus Christ,” very quietly. Rowan lifts both eyebrows and gives me a you are playing with matches look. 

We stand there too close and panting. He looks at my mouth and then at my eyes like he is asking permission he will not take. I look at his throat because looking at his mouth would be a mistake. The space between us buzzes like a live wire. I step back first. He lets me. 

The director thanks us and tells us to go home before fatigue ruins his pretty scene. People scatter. The set becomes lumber again. I take the long way around the soundstage because I need to be alone for an inch and I keep running into bodies that want to tell me what I already felt. “You two killed it.” “Whatever you are doing, keep doing it.” “If that is not real, teach a class.” 

Outside, the air is syrupy and wet. The sky sits low on the lot. I pull my car door open and pause. 

Isaiah laughs. Not the polite one. The deep one from long nights and early mornings. He stands with Elle by a black SUV. She touches his sleeve the way women do when they have already decided how the night ends. He opens the door for her. She says something close to his ear. His mouth softens in a way that makes my stomach drop. 

My driver asks, “Home.” 

“Home,” I say. 

He is playing with you. Or he is playing a role. Or he is playing both because he can. In every world a man who can get away with it does. Stop pretending you are special in a place that does not even belong to you. 

By the time I reach my room the noise has moved online. Headlines stack like cards on my lock screen. 

ISAIAH CARTER AND ELLE MONROE SPOTTED LEAVING SET TOGETHER. 

NEW COUPLE OR CLEVER PR. 

LOVE TRIANGLE HEATS UP BEFORE PREMIERE. 

Player trends under his name like a sticker that will not peel. I do not know if this is who he is here. I do not know anything except the way my chest feels like a fist. 

I toss my phone on the bed and head for the mirror. I strip out of wardrobe and step into a black silk slip that fits like a decision. I let my hair down so it falls over one shoulder. I adjust the chain at my throat until it sits exactly where I want eyes to land. I turn off the overhead and open the curtains so the city throws jewelry across my skin. I stand in the cool blue light and breathe until the anger looks good on my mouth. 

Think. What story do you tell when you are tired of being made into one. Own the frame. Choose the version. 

I take five pictures. Shoulder turned to the window. Hip curved like a question. Chin tipped. One hand on the glass. No smile. Mouth soft and a little cruel. I pick the third. I do not filter. I check for stray hair, for dust on the mirror edge, for the line of the city stacked behind me like proof. 

I open Instagram. I type a caption that tastes like salt and sugar. “The plot looks good tonight.” Heart. Match. I stare at it for one breath, then post. 

Notifications bloom like sparks. I let them burn. The vanity mirror shows me the person the machine wants to eat. I let her look back at me without flinching. 

My phone buzzes. I check the banners without opening anything. 

Devyn: That picture will feed nations gurlllll. 

Rowan: You look insane. In a good way. Mostly. Please do not start a war before I sleep. 

I heart Devyn. I ignore Rowan for a minute. 

I open X. The timeline is already a bonfire. People crop my face next to hers. People crop him between us like a choice. People I do not know are voting on my life with little heart emojis. 

I type slow so I do not delete it. “Crazy how some of you talk about honesty then go practice in public with whoever your team hands you. May your lies be tight and your angles be right.” I post. I stare at it until my eyes sting. 

I lock the phone and toss it onto the bed. The room is quiet except for the AC and my pulse. I go back to the window. The city throws light over glass. In the reflection my mouth is still a little cruel. I like it that way tonight. 

The phone buzzes on the bed again. Again. Again. I let it. When it does not stop, I flip it. 

Rowan: For the love of God, do not reply to accounts named TeaRoom. Turn off your comments if you must be spicy. 

Devyn: Breathe. Eat something with salt. You already won. 

I send Devyn a picture of a container of fries and a black heart. I leave Rowan on read because I can already hear the speech about optics and I am not in the mood to be saved. 

I take a fry. I swallow champagne from a tiny bottle. It tastes like a dare. I sit on the floor with my back against the bed and close my eyes. He is the same in every universe. Or I am the same in every universe for choosing him. You knew the risk. You chose the fire. 

The phone hums like a small animal. I do not look. I stand and go to the mirror again and look at my own eyes until they look like mine. The city paints me in blue and white. I lift my chin and make a promise to the stranger who keeps wearing my face. 

Tomorrow I smile for cameras and survive. Tonight I let them talk. 

Chapter Nine 

“Picture. Action.” The words snapped the air the same way they had at the end of the last take, like a rubber band let go and flinging back to strike. Brielle lifted the mug again and let the prop steam kiss her nose, found her mark with her hips, felt the floor tape through the sole of her sneaker. Isaiah moved in from the fridge, light catching in the low of his cheek, voice pitched to the register they had found all morning. Calm partners. Clean read. No extra anything. She followed, hit the beat, heard the AD cut, and the set spilled into that low tide of footsteps and chatter that meant people were already thinking about what happened next. 

She kept her face even as she slipped her phone back into her pocket. Maeve’s last text still burned on the inside of her skull. If you die again, do not fight it. It had been a joke, a warning, a command, or all three. She could not tell. She lifted her shoulders, let them fall. The lights pressed warm against her scalp. Powder clung to the edge of her jaw where makeup had been rushed between pickups. 

Rowan slid in, softer than earlier, tablet against their forearm. “Wrap on this scene. Good. You did not implode. Five minute reset and then upstairs for the debrief.” 

“Debrief,” she repeated. 

“Management meeting,” Rowan amended. “Conference room B. Isaiah, you too.” They flicked their gaze between them like a teacher with favorite students who refused to sit next to each other. “Whole crew of people with opinions on your lives.” 

Brielle nodded. Her skin felt too tight by half a size. Isaiah glanced over a stack of light cases and caught her eye. He did not hold it. He looked at his watch instead. The small movement felt louder than it was. 

Conference room B had walls of glass and chairs that made her sit straighter than she wanted to. It smelled faintly like sanitizer and coffee that had been poured from a carafe at seven and ignored. On one side of the table, Isaiah’s publicist in navy, a studio marketing lead she recognized from an email signature, his manager with a neat beard and a folder already open. On her side, Rowan and her own manager Ora, glossy hair tucked behind one ear, a pair of assistants with laptops and five different color-coded documents open like a chorus. A PR coordinator with a stack of sell sheets. Two social media strategists who looked exactly like themselves and no one else. Someone from distribution on a screen in the corner with their mic off. 

“Thank you for being here,” the marketing lead said, and even that sounded like rehearsal. “You two know we have the Glass House anniversary screening on Friday. The studio would love to position it as a celebration of craft and longevity. You are central to that story. We’re proposing you arrive together, walk the carpet as a pair, do three stops only, no long form, no profiles. Strong visuals. Short soundbites. We’ve lined up style press to focus on looks and legacy rather than romance.” 

“Cohesive palette,” the PR coordinator said, sliding a page to Rowan. “They do not have to match, but complement. Think conversation rather than costume.” 

“Timing is precise,” said the assistant with the tabs. “Drop at 6:40. Carpet 6:45 to 6:58. Photo call 6:50. Exit at 7 sharp. You will use the east entrance, not the main, to avoid a logjam with the alumni cast. Security has been briefed. We are not anticipating aggressive fan behavior, but we are prepared.” 

The social strategist cleared his throat. “The public loves you together. Not in a creepy stan way. In a new and exciting chemistry way. Captions will be neutral. We’ll push a carousel with copy about reunion energy and mutual respect. If you want to repost, we have language you can use.” 

Isaiah’s manager raised a hand. “We want guardrails. No leading questions. If someone veers into personal, we pivot to the work. We will not be baited.” 

Ora nodded. “Agreed. Also, there will be a lot of cameras for Brielle. She is new to carpets on this scale. We will get a walk-through beforehand.” 

Rowan made a mark with a pencil. “We’ll rehearse poses in the studio. Angles are physics. We respect physics.” 

Brielle listened to all of it the way you listen to rain through a car roof, registering the pattern and not the individual drops. She watched Isaiah watch the table. His face did that polite-focus thing that promised nothing and offended no one. He nodded at exactly the right times. He said, “Happy to support the film,” the way a person says the rules on a flight safety card. She thought, say something to me that is not a press line. Ask me if I slept. Ask me if I am scared. Say the thing only we understood once. The thought clattered and died. He turned his wrist and checked his watch again. 

“Questions,” the marketing lead asked. 

“We will need a staging room nearby,” Ora said. “Quiet. Water. A mirror that doesn’t lie.” 

“We can provide a holding suite,” the coordinator said. “Catering will check dietary. For looks, we’re thinking clean, sculptural, not bridal, not costume.” 

“Not bridal,” Rowan echoed, emphasizing it for someone who might try. 

Isaiah’s publicist folded her hands. “This is good for both of you. The public is paying attention. They are rooting for you as artists. Two rising stars showing up for their first big film together again. Simple story. The right kind.” 

Brielle felt a small needle of heat in her chest at rising stars. It embarrassed her. It thrilled her. It made her want to leave and go to a library and put her hands on real paper and remember she had a brain that did not require an algorithm to love it. It also made her want to find a dress that would put all of them on their knees. 

The meeting ended with nods and the polite shuffle of chairs. People filed toward coffee or phones. In the doorway, Isaiah stopped because she had stopped and they could not both pass. 

“Friday,” he said, voice even. “We will be fine.” 

“Of course,” she said, too quickly. “We are professionals.” The sentence felt like a towel over a spill. 

He searched her face and then looked past her shoulder at nothing. “Let’s not make it weird,” he said. 

“I’m not making it weird,” she said, softer. Be nice to him now. Try. At least try. “I thought maybe we could coordinate answers. Or just coordinate. So we’re not stepping on each other.” 

He nodded slowly, like the idea had to pass through six doors before it reached him. “Talk to Nora and Rowan. They can sync our teams.” He gave a small smile that meant thank you for being cooperative and turned away toward his manager. She watched his back and let a dozen versions of herself chase him and die in the hall carpet. She told herself not to be dramatic. She told herself she was too smart to bleed over something easy to define. Her brain did the math of it. If she pursued him and he returned to softness and it felt like that second where the camera favored them and the room held its breath, would that be the right thing or the thing that resets it all. If she did not, would the universe punish her for choosing herself. If she waited, would waiting count as progress or as fear. The equation refused to solve. 

Styling swallowed her an hour later. The studio where her stylist worked smelled like clean hair and fresh flowers and the ghost of hairspray from five other women who had stood here and let themselves be polished into an idea. The rack rolled out like a parade of possible lives. The stylist, Devyn, greeted her with a grin that took the sting out of the afternoon and the kind of hug that said I am going to make you look like a problem in heels. 

“You,” Devyn said, eyes already scanning her face. “Didn’t sleep. I love it for the look, not for you. Sit. We are visiting the altar of God Is A Black Woman On A Carpet.” 

Brielle sat and let Devyn lift her chin with two fingers. Brushes whispered. The first pass of a cool contour brush along her cheekbone sent a shiver down her neck. There was something holy about the quiet concentration of someone who wanted you to be seen and knew how light worked. 

“Talk to me,” Devyn said. “Do we want clean and mean or soft and unbothered.” 

“What do you want,” Brielle asked, already making room for the answer. 

Devyn smiled into the mirror. “I want you like a low-slung comet. Hair pulled back low with a razor part. Gloss that looks like trouble. Eyes with depth, not drama. Skin that looks like you drank a gallon of water and minded your business all week. For dress, custom black with structure. Not boring. Body conscious without yelling. I have a silk with weight. If you move it will talk. Jewelry minimal but rude. A chain at the throat that suggests you own the room and will rent it to others at cost if you feel generous. Nails short and glossy like a secret. Heels that make noise on marble.” 

Brielle let the words drape over her. She watched Devyn’s hands pin and smooth and press. Devyn talked while she worked, not gossip but an easy stream of life. A niece who had decided she would be a shark doctor. A neighbor who played sax at night and made the building sound like movies. Clients who cried when they saw themselves because someone had finally shown them their own face right. 

The dress Devyn finally chose was a sculpted column of wine-red silk net threaded with glass and metallic embroidery that caught every hint of light. The neckline cut high but opened in the center, a teardrop slit outlined in stones that shifted from dark amber to violet when she moved. The sides curved open at the waist, each edge latticed with beadwork so fine it looked alive, the kind of detail that made people stare without knowing where to start. The fabric clung and then dropped into a narrow train that whispered behind her like smoke. 

Devyn called it danger made polite. The color looked almost black until a flash went off, then the red bloomed like something breathing. Against Brielle’s skin it turned rich and impossible—cool shadows over warmth. She wore no earrings, only a slim chain of dark gold at her throat that met the halter line as if welded there. Her hair went low and sleek, parted sharp, lips glossed the same shade as the dress. 

When she stepped under the test lights the gown threw back fire instead of reflection. Even standing still, she looked like motion—something between a storm and a secret. 

“You look like the kind of woman who does not call back,” Devyn said, pleased. “Do with that what you want.” 

Brielle took a breath and felt it all the way to her toes. The dress had weight. So did the attention she could already feel vibrating at its future. This is the trap, she thought, and the thought did not make her want to move. This is the thing I never thought I would have and it tastes like a promise and a dare. It felt like relief in her skin after a day of being careful. She let herself want it for exactly five heartbeats. Then she tucked the want behind her teeth and focused on the ghost of toner on the air. 

Devyn had opinions about photos and showed her without condescension. Chin down a hair, mouth relaxed like you know something, shoulders slightly forward to show collarbone, weight on back foot so the line sings. They practiced in front of the mirror not for vanity but for control. It felt like choreography. It felt like notes on a page. 

By the time Devyn wrapped the dress and made a plan for pins and alternatives and the precise angle the chain should sit, the sky had moved from late gold to that diluted blue that means the day will let go soon. Rowan texted Car to pick you up at 6 on Friday. Run of show attached. Please do not get lost between your front door and the sedan. Brielle sent back a heart and a middle finger. 

On the ride home, the city slid by like a tape on fast-forward. She watched strangers hold hands at a crosswalk and felt a small ache somewhere soft. She told herself it could wait. Answers first, heart after. The thought clicked in her head like a key. It sounded responsible. It sounded adult. It sounded almost exactly like the lie Maeve had warned her about without using the word. 

Back in the apartment, Lia had left a note by the sink in tight neat letters that made everything look like it belonged in textbooks.  

Picked up your dry cleaning. Drink water. Proud of you.  

Bailey had set out a bowl of grapes the way moms do. The normalness of it steadied her and made her restless at the same time. She washed her face. She stared at herself in a plain tee and shorts and saw the chain put away on the dresser and tried to decide which one felt closer to a person. 

Her phone lit in her palm. She opened Maeve’s thread and typed, then erased, then typed again. 

Are you awake.  

She waited. The little dots did not appear. She typed again.  

I want to see if we can model it. I want to test something. Old library. Big one with the lions.  

She added Please and felt juvenile. She added Tonight and felt manic. She stared at the screen until her eyes burned and then she grabbed a hoodie, shoved her feet into quiet shoes, and left a text for Lia  

Went to clear my head. lock the door, because it felt nicer than disappearing. 

The library at night held its breath the way churches do. The stone stairs were cold through the rubber of her soles. The bronze plate at the entrance kissed her knuckles when she pushed. Inside, the information desk lights burned low. The reading room was a dark lake of tables. She could hear the building humming to itself. She skirted the main path and found the side stairwell Devyn had told her to use once when she mentioned she liked doing illegal things quietly. The service door had an old alarm that had stopped believing in its own purpose. She slipped through. 

Upstairs, she found a table under a lamp she could switch on without calling a guard from nowhere and set out a stack of blank printouts from production and a pen she had taken from the meeting. The pen wrote a little ragged. It did not matter. She drew the frame of her device from memory without the specifics. She wrote labels instead of numbers. stimulus. response. delay. correction. She wrote feelings as variables the way she had wanted to earlier. she wrote want and truth and fear. It looked stupid and she kept writing. 

Feet on the stairs. She went still, head lifted like a deer. Not a guard. The tread was too careful for someone with keys. Maeve appeared around the banister with a coffee and a look that said she did not find herself surprising anymore. 

“You could have sent fewer messages,” Maeve said, keeping her voice level to match the room. “I would still have come.” 

“I did not want to give you the option to forget,” Brielle said. She heard the edge in it and let it live. “Thank you.” 

Maeve sat like someone who knew exactly how to take up space without making a sound. Up close, she looked older than that first café moment had allowed. Not in her skin. In her eyes. There was a lot of memory sitting behind them like a quiet party no one else was invited to. 

“You wanted a story,” Maeve said. “A real one. Not a metaphor.” 

“I want to know what you lost,” Brielle said, surprising herself, then tried again. “I want to know what you did wrong so I do not do it the same way.” 

Maeve nodded like that was a cleaner way to say let me hold your mistakes. “I loved proving people wrong more than I loved anything else. I built a career on making numbers perform. I had a professor who thought women should be grateful to do the work and let men publish it. I decided to out-everything him. When a data set refused to sing, I tuned it until it did. I told myself I was correcting noise. I lied. The day I presented, I watched a room of men look at me with the face they reserve for themselves. That look is intoxicating if you have never had it. I woke the next morning in a version of my life where I had not cheated and still gotten everything I wanted. It was cleaner, prettier, full of light. I told myself I would stay a week, fix the part of me that needed to be applauded, and go home. I did not leave. Every time something felt hard, the world flattened the wrinkle for me. It is addictive when your effort always looks like grace.” 

“What did you lose first,” Brielle asked. 

“Names,” Maeve said. “I lost the names of things I did alone. The laundromat I liked even though the dryers ate quarters. The late night deli I called Church because it is where I confessed my worst choices to a plastic booth and a ham sandwich. I lost the words I used for myself when no one listened. Then I lost the discipline of thinking in sentences instead of headlines. Then I lost the ability to be bored. Then I lost my people. I thought about calling my mother and the thought did not move my hands. You can get used to anything if the world keeps petting your head.” 

Brielle let the table edge press into her hip until it hurt. “You could have gone back.” 

“I stopped hearing my other life,” Maeve said. “At first the bleed was there. Small sounds. An old song when I brushed my teeth. The weight of a key I did not need anymore. Then it went quiet. I did not notice the day it went quiet because I was busy. You want the math. The math is this.” She took the pen and wrote a line across the paper. “There is a distance between the thing you want and the thing you need. The longer you spend sanding that distance into a surface you can skate on, the less friction you can feel. The less friction you can feel, the easier it is to forget heat. No heat, no life.” She set the pen down. “I can write you equations. They will be pretty. They will be lies unless you attach them to choices.” 

Brielle looked at the variables she had written and felt ridiculous and stubborn and alive. “I like choices,” she said. “Science is choices. Hypotheses are promises you make to yourself and then break if you have to.” 

Maeve smiled for real this time, a flash of teeth that reminded Brielle of joy before it gets named. “I like you,” Maeve said. “I wish I had met me when I still spoke like that.” She turned the paper and drew a crude wave interference. “Here. This was the closest I got to useful. You cannot measure time here, not really. You can measure lag. The moment between when you know and when you act. That lag lengthens right before a correction. I do not know if you can use that. We will need equipment. A lab that is quiet enough to hear something smaller than a breath and honest enough to spit back when we lie to it.” 

“I can get us in somewhere,” Brielle said. The certainty surprised her and felt like blood sugar after a fast. “I am not sure where yet. I can ask. Rowan knows people. Devyn knows people. I can be useful to someone and borrow their machines.” 

“Fame makes doors think they are yours,” Maeve said, not cruel, not kind, just true. “Use it. Do not marry it.” 

They worked for another hour, not on numbers because numbers were not ready for them, but on the shapes of questions. When do you tell yourself the truth. Where does your body tell it first. What if the world has been honest the whole time and you are the liar. The lamp hummed. The room kept their secrets. When the coffee went cold, they stood. 

“I’m not going to sleep,” Brielle said. 

“You might dream better if you did,” Maeve said. She lifted her hood, then lowered it again. “I know you want answers. Be careful with that hunger. It feels like discipline. Sometimes it is avoidance with a better outfit.” 

Brielle almost laughed. “You are not wrong. I am choosing to pretend you are not right for the next twenty-four hours.” 

“Deal,” Maeve said. “Text me when you have a line on a lab. I will pretend to be a normal person until then.” 

They parted at the side door. Outside, the street smelled like wet concrete and bakery sugar and a little like diesel. The lions watched no one. The sky was the color of a bruise healing. Brielle tucked her hands into her hoodie pocket and started walking. Her phone buzzed with a new calendar invite. Wardrobe meet. Publicist call. Photo approvals. She skimmed, did not open. She thought about Isaiah’s careful voice and the way he had chosen to be a colleague instead of a friend. She thought about telling him the thing that was true. She thought about solving the machine first so she could earn the conversation later. The thought felt like virtue. It felt like oxygen. It felt like the cleanest way to lie to herself without having to admit it. 

Chapter Eight

Brielle woke to soft light pooling across her sheets. Mascara smudged faintly under her eyes. Hair mostly intact, one curl bent the wrong way like it had decided to rebel while she slept. Her dress from last night was folded neatly over the chair with her necklace curled on top like a comma. The last clear thing in her head was Isaiah walking her to the door, his voice low, the hall light catching in his hair. After that, blank.

Her body did not get the memo. Her wrists throbbed when she stretched. A dull ache lived along her thigh. Her ribs felt tight, like she had held her breath all night. She let out a quiet laugh to slice through the unease. Wine. Stress. Long day. Move on.

The apartment sounded normal. Coffee hissed in the kitchen. Someone hummed over a low playlist. She padded out barefoot and found Marina and Bailey at the counter in sleep shirts, Lia on the couch in a hoodie with a plate balanced on her knees.

“You ghosted wine night,” Bailey said through toast. “You opened the bottle and pulled a fucking Houdini.”

Marina leaned into the counter, an eyebrow high. “We considered a wellness check. Then remembered your ‘leave me alone or I will kill you’ face.”

“You could have texted,” Brielle said, pouring water. Her wrist complained at the weight. She kept her expression calm.

“We did,” Lia said without looking up. “You sent a heart, then radio silence. Which means you were either asleep or ignoring us.”

“As a treat,” Bailey said, bumping Brielle’s shoulder.

Brielle fed them the version that fit. Headache. Early call time. Needed quiet. As she talked, she tested herself. Turn, reach, lean. Pain sang in small places. Nothing dramatic enough to show. She shoved the worry into a box and sat on the lid.

Her phone buzzed.

Rowan: Be ten minutes early. Wear something camera friendly. If you bring undereye bags I’ll bill you for concealer.

Brielle smiled at the screen and texted back a heart. The reply came instantly. 

I'll bring coffee don't be late.

In the shower, hot water loosened her muscles but did not explain the bruises she found like soft fingerprints along her forearm. She touched them and searched her memory for a doorframe or a stumble. Nothing. Do not be weird, she told herself. No ghosts. No drama.

Wardrobe for set was a black cropped tank top, some velvet track pants with a zip up hoodie, a delicate chain at her throat, chunky sneaky that added sleekness to her outfit. She twisted her hair into a low braid, rolled something cool under her eyes, and practiced a neutral face that did not say what the hell is wrong with me.

Rowan was waiting at the stage door with coffee. “Miracle. You went to bed with a face and woke up with the same one. I’ll allow it.”

“Good morning to you too.” She took the cup, hiding her smile. “This is almost nice.”

“Don’t spread lies. I’ve got a reputation,” Rowan muttered, then leaned closer. “Hold your ground today. He works better when you don’t chase. Also, posture. I can’t CGI you a spine.”

Brielle laughed softly. “Noted.”

The soundstage smelled like hot metal and coffee. The lights felt hotter than usual, the script lines too flat on the page. A makeup artist dusted powder at her temple and stepped back with a satisfied nod. Wardrobe pulled her limbs left and right slipping her into a polished pearl low hanging top, dark blue low rise jeans, and sandy wedges.

Isaiah arrived in dark denim and a fitted shirt with sleeves rolled to his forearms. Whatever the wardrobe team was paid, it was not enough. He moved through the crew with quiet thanks and chin lifts, easy and stupidly magnetic. When his gaze found her, he paused just long enough to register something. Then he nodded once and moved to his mark.

He was not an asshole about it. Not cold, not punishing. He just turned the volume down. Short answers. Clipped lines. No extra leaning in. The kinder version of backing off. It should have made her feel dismissed. Instead it pulled her closer like a radio picking up a frequency under static. He was giving her space and somehow that made her chest hitch.

They ran the scene three times. Their characters argued across a kitchen island and met in the middle at the exact same second, like magnets finally allowed to touch. On the page, the dialogue felt clunky. In his eyes, it felt alive. She caught the small things the camera loved. The half smile he never let all the way loose. The quick flare of his nostrils when he swallowed a retort. The precise angle of his jaw when he pretended he was fine. Her mind flashed to her real world, nights walking uneven sidewalks in the rain, shoulders almost touching, talking about dumb songs and big futures. She had never watched him this close with this much permission. Heat rose in her chest and settled behind her ribs.

They cut for notes. The crew rustled. Someone adjusted a flag. A hair stylist smoothed a curl at Isaiah’s temple. He thanked her with a soft grin that showed dimples he hid from the world on purpose. The stylist laughed and touched his arm again. The sound hit Brielle like a small pinch under the ribs. Jealousy, quick and stupid. 

NO  rang out in her head. Why do I feel this?  She looked down and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her blouse. When she glanced up, Isaiah was already watching her. He had seen it. A ghost of a smile tugged his mouth, then faded. He looked away first.

Rowan slipped in to fix a strand of hair and murmured, “Hold your ground. He likes the fight.”

“You meddling now?” she whispered.

“Managing,” Rowan said simply. “And fans are outside. Keep focus.”

They reset the island. Between takes, extras tried sneaking photos. Rowan intercepted smoothly, smiling just enough. “She’s working. If you want a photo, come at lunch. I’ll pose for you and I’m cheaper.” The group laughed and drifted back.

Still, one girl caught a photo of Brielle and Isaiah standing close, her hand brushing his sleeve as they reset. Brielle’s stomach twisted at the thought of it online. Gossip traveled faster than anything.

Isaiah brushed her elbow when he passed her water. It was nothing, but it was something. She let it happen.

Halfway through rehearsal, Brielle’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Then again. The crew turned as one toward a lighting note. She slipped a hand to her hip, tilted the screen, and glanced down.

Her phone buzzed again. Then twice. She slid it open, hiding the screen with her palm.

Unknown number: It’s me. From the forum. We need to meet.

Her pulse jumped. She typed fast, fingers shaking. How the fuck did you get my number?

Reply: You’re easier to find now. We shouldn’t talk here. Will you come?

Rowan’s voice cut through as they dressed down a brand rep who had mentioned Brielle’s “chemistry” with Isaiah. “She’s not here to be gossip fodder. Respect the work.”

For once, Brielle felt defended instead of managed.

She walked over, voice steady. “Bathroom. Two minutes.”

Rowan studied her, then nodded. “Three. If you faint, I’m kicking the door down.”

In the corridor the air cooled. The noise of set fell to a hum. Brielle ducked into the restroom and locked herself in a stall. Where, she typed.

Unknown number: Stillwater. Corner table. Thirty minutes. Come alone.

Stillwater was six blocks away. Ivy on brick. Frosted glass. Baristas who minded their own business. She pressed her palms to her cheeks until the heat left them, washed her hands, fixed her lipstick, and walked out with her spine straight enough to cut glass.

“I will be right back,” she told Rowan. “Emergency. Ten minutes.”

Rowan weighed it. “Seven,” they said. “At eight I send a search party.”

Brielle slid on sunglasses, pulled a cap low, and cut through the side exit with her phone clutched tight. The street’s cool air stitched across her neck. Every step punched the sore spot in her thigh. She did not adjust. She moved.

Stillwater chimed when she pushed the door. Ferns in the window. The grind of beans. Vanilla in the air. In the corner, a girl her age sat with a chipped mug between both hands. Pretty but unpolished. Normal, except for the eyes. The eyes looked older.

“Brielle,” the girl said, like they had a class together and were about to compare notes. “I was not sure you would come.”

“How did you get my number,” Brielle asked, staying standing long enough to scan the room. A man with a newspaper, two students, barista with headphones as a headband. No lenses. She sat.

“I know how to look,” the girl said. “And once it starts, you do not stay hidden. Sit. Please.”

“What is your name.”

“Maeve,” she said. “Yours is not exactly a mystery.”

“Fine. Talk.” Brielle’s voice was cooler than she felt. The table was cool under her hands. “You said you had answers.”

Maeve let out a small, tired laugh. “There is not much to explain. People who pass through, whatever you call it, a portal, a fold, an error, do it because something unfinished in their original world kept pulling on them. This place gives you a shot to fix it. No one can tell you what yours is. No one can hand you steps. Every problem is different. Every message is different. Every outcome is different. That is why some of us never leave.”

“How do you know,” Brielle asked. She kept her hands flat to keep them from shaking.

“Because I have been here for years,” Maeve said, eyes flicking to the window and back. “At first I tried to fix my thing. Then I tasted what this world gives. I had money and rooms full of people saying my name and a face that cameras loved. I told myself I would stay long enough to solve it. Then I stopped looking for the seam. I stopped asking to go back.”

Brielle’s mouth felt dry. “So why are you warning me?”

Maeve twisted the sleeve of her sweater until it stretched. “Because my real world died. I’ve been here for years. At first I tried to fix my shit. That is the only word that fits. It stopped sending echoes. For a while I would dream pieces of home. A door closing. My mother is stirring tea. The sound of my best friend’s laugh. Little flashes that felt like feedback from a machine still running somewhere. One morning I woke up and there was nothing. No bleeding. No static. Only this. I do not know if my body is alive there. I think the thread was cut because I let it fray too long.”

The café noise thinned. Brielle stared at the pale line of a scar along Maeve’s knuckle and could not place which machine might make a mark like that. “You sound sure.”

“I am a scientist,” Maeve said with a shrug that carried old pride. “Or I was. Physics major. You too, right. You do not post like a conspiracy theorist. You stack your questions. You keep your assumptions marked in pencil. I recognized it.”

Brielle sat up a little straighter in her chair. “If this is a system, then there should be rules. Variables. Something measurable. If resets happen, something triggers them. We can find the inputs and change the output.”

Maeve lifted her cup and set it down again without drinking. “Physics here bends. It follows your intention more than your equations. The resets feel untouched, like no one has studied them long enough to write a paper. We are the data and the experiment and the conclusion.”

“Experiments can be changed,” Brielle said. Her heart beat faster. Just saying the words steadied her. “If we can test them, we can break a pattern.”

Maeve’s mouth twisted. “If you are brave enough to test them. If you are willing to lose something to find the edge. Most people get comfortable here before they ever get curious. Comfort is glue. It keeps you. It kept me.”

Brielle thought of her friends on the couch, wine glasses in their hands, laughter stuck to their cheeks like glitter. She thought of the way the cliff wind had lifted her hair and cooled her anger and how Isaiah had looked at her like a question he did not want to answer. She thought of the ache in her wrists, the way her skin remembered something her mind refused to show her.

“Stay with me,” she said quietly. “I do not mean move in. I mean keep a line open. You are the only person who understands what this feels like. I do not want to be an experiment alone.”

Maeve studied her, eyes flicking over the set of her shoulders and the way she held the table as if it could anchor her. “It does not work like that. We are all alone in our tests.”

“I do not believe that,” Brielle said. “Patterns exist. If patterns exist, we can find them. If we can find them, we can change them. You said you were a scientist. Say yes to the method.”

Maeve smiled without humor. “You are very persuasive,” she said. “Fine. We can stay in touch. But listen to me. Do not grow too comfortable. Comfort is how this world keeps you. It will feed you and praise you and lull you to sleep. You will wake up one day and realize your real world stopped humming. It will be quiet in a way that feels like grief.”

Brielle nodded. The bell over the door chimed when someone left. Sunlight shifted on the table in a white square.

“How did you find me,” Brielle asked again.

Maeve leaned back, the chair creaking softly. “You are louder now. When you crossed over you were a whisper in a crowd. After the first reset the current catches your name and carries it. People like me hear it. That is all I will say.”

“What is the trigger,” Brielle asked, voice low. “What starts a reset.”

Maeve’s gaze slipped to the window, where a woman outside laughed into her phone, head thrown back. “You will not like the answer,” she said. “But you already feel it. When you pull too hard away from what you are supposed to move toward, this place corrects the line. It is not punishment. It is a straightening. Accidents are the easiest tool.”

The words hit like cold water. Brielle thought of a wheel, a stage, glass. She had typed the list herself. It looked like a theory. It felt like a threat.

Maeve stood. “I have to go. You have a life to film. I will text you from this number. If I do not answer, it is because I am remembering to forget.”

“That is not a thing,” Brielle said, half a laugh.

“It is here,” Maeve said. “Be careful who you let walk you home.”

Brielle watched her slip into the street and vanish behind a bus stop. The sounds of the café came back in layers. Spoon in cup. Grinder growl. The soft murmur of a barista to a regular. She looked at the time and swore. She ran.

Rowan clocked her the second she stepped back onto the stage. “Seven minutes and thirty seconds,” they said. “I will forgive the thirty if you make the next take sing.”

“I will,” she said, breathing even as if she had only crossed a room.

Isaiah stood at his mark, chin lifted toward the key light. His eyes found her and slid away, then returned. Not cold. Not warm. A line that felt like he had drawn it and then stood back three inches. Respect shaped into distance. She wanted to reach across the space and pull, but the cameras were already rolling.

“Picture,” the AD called. “And action.”

They stepped into the choreography of the scene and it brought them closer than conversation ever did. He handed her a mug with his fingers brushing the inside of her wrist, a fraction of a second longer than necessary. She delivered the line that always landed harder than the script intended and watched him receive it, eyes sharpening in that way that made the crew whisper later. She caught herself cataloging the way his lower lashes are darker at the outer corners, the way he breathes through his nose when a retort wants to jump. Her body remembered walking next to him on cracked sidewalks that never made it into this world. It remembered laughing at nothing and everything. It remembered choosing space every time touch was offered. Even here, with light catching in her hair and cameras capturing the parts of them that glowed, something ruined it before it could fall into place.

They wrapped the scene clean. Crew clapped shoulders. Someone called for lunch in thirty. Isaiah passed within a foot of her and paused. He could have kept walking. He did not.

“You looked good on that last beat,” he said quietly. “You let it breathe.”

“Thank you,” she said. The words came out softer than she meant. “You did not push it either.”

He nodded, a small acknowledgment of a pact. His eyes moved to her mouth and away so quickly it could have been a blink. She felt the afterglow of it like sun on the side of her face.

Across the room their guest actor walked over and complimented Brielle on that shot, and Isaiah’s jaw tightened. He set his water bottle down with care that looked like calculation. Jealousy slipped through the space and vanished before it was a scene. She was not the only person learning where to stand.

They reset for pickups. The day folded into notes and marks and the quiet clatter of a machine that had learned to run whether she was ready or not. Beneath everything, her body ached like a song stuck under the melody. She told herself she was tired. She told herself to stay on the rails.

Her phone buzzed near the end of the day. She glanced down during a reset of props.

Maeve: If you die again, do not fight it. Fighting makes it worse.

Brielle stared at the words until they blurred. She did not remember dying at all. Her fingers went cold on the screen. She tucked the phone away when the AD called for silence, looked up into the light, and set her face in the shape the camera expected.

“Picture,” the room answered.

Chapter Seven

“…are you in love?”

The host’s grin gleamed too wide, the lights biting at Brielle’s skin. The audience leaned forward in one collective breath.

“I am in love with sleep,” she said, voice smooth. “Eight hours, uninterrupted. That is the only relationship I am committed to.”

Laughter rolled across the studio. For a heartbeat she felt the trap loosen.

“Sleep does not walk you out of a party,” the host said, eyes glittering. “Which is why everyone is buzzing about these.”

The screen burned to life behind them. Isaiah Bardot’s arm across her shoulders. His smile aimed at her like a dare. Paparazzi flash exploding like a storm.

Screams swelled from the audience. The curtain lifted.

Isaiah strolled onstage as if the world had asked for him by name. Curls pushed back, the line of his shirt open just far enough to suggest trouble. He slid into the chair beside her and caught the mic with a lazy smile.

“I would have ironed my shirt if I knew I was going to be your surprise,” he said, voice syrupy enough to stick.

“You own an iron?” Brielle asked, keeping her smile sharp.

“I own many things,” he murmured, eyes tipping over her dress and back to her face. “Not that you ever asked.”

A wave of squeals crashed through the crowd.

“So,” the host said, delighted, “what are we calling this? Friends. Rivals. Something more interesting.”

“She is my favorite rival,” Isaiah said. He tipped in closer, elbow to knee. “And my favorite distraction.”

More screaming. Phones lifted like stars.

“Distraction,” Brielle said, sweet as sugar and just as cutting. “You could not distract me if you tried.”

“Really,” he said. “You are staring pretty hard right now.”

“I was staring at your shirt. I did not realize casual Friday arrives on a Tuesday.”

He laughed and shook his head, then let the sound fade as he looked at her. “Admit it. We would make sense.”

“In what world.”

“In this one.” His voice dipped, softer and private.

“Dream on,” she said, and turned back to the host.

“You two are lightning,” the host proclaimed. “A rom-com in real time.”

“It is only because it is real,” Isaiah said, eyes still on her.

“Real is not the word I would use,” Brielle answered, smile gone.

The audience groaned, hungry for more. The red tally light winked out. Applause thundered. The host shook their hands and whisked away, already giddy about the clips.

Backstage smelled like hot cables and coffee. Brielle tugged off her mic and started for the corridor.

“That was fun,” Isaiah said, catching up.

“You were not ambushed,” she answered without looking at him.

“You handled it. You always do.” His tone was even, unreadable.

Rowan stepped into their path, posture tight, phone clenched in one hand. “Do you want to ruin yourself.”

“Excuse me.”

“You let them bait you. You let him turn it into gossip. Investors do not pay for chaos. They pay for certainty.”

“I am not a puppet,” Brielle said, pulse rising. “If you want someone who never slips, hire a mannequin.”

Silence balanced on a wire. Isaiah glanced between them. Rowan studied her, the set of their mouth shifting.

“Finally,” Rowan said quietly. “Some spine.”

They moved on, already rattling off the next stop. In the car to the brand lunch, the city slid by like a reel of bright shapes. Brielle watched her reflection double in the glass and thought of her other life. In that world she would have swallowed the sting and apologized. In this one she had met the blow and stayed standing. It felt like a win she could hold in her palm.

Lunch tasted like buzzwords. Authenticity. Alignment. Synergy. She said the right things and nodded at the right times, but under it all she cataloged what had shifted. Rowan’s glance had changed. Not warmer, exactly. Willing to believe she might carry her own weight. It mattered.

By evening she reached the apartment with a skull-deep ache. The fairy lights glowed like tame stars. The living room was empty. In her room she opened her laptop and typed into a forum she had found at the bottom of a search hole.

Has anyone ever felt like they slipped into the wrong version of their life. Like everything is brighter, but it does not belong to you.

The reply came almost instantly.

It happened to me. Not fate. Correction.

Correction of what.

Balance. Too much weight one way and the system resets. Always through accidents.

What accidents.

Any. Glass breaking. A stage giving way. A wheel spinning too fast. A fall. The body does not matter. The break does.

Can we meet.

A blinking bubble. Then nothing. The account went quiet, cursor winking at her like a joke.

She closed the laptop. Turned off the lamp. The room breathed wrong.

Her textbooks, usually stacked on the desk, lay in a perfect row across her pillow. Spines aligned, titles facing up like a message.

She had not moved them.

Morning peeled back the dark. Marina bounced on the bed in leggings and a slate sports bra, hair slicked into a ponytail. “Gym. Up. Now.”

By seven, the four of them ran in a row of treadmills. Bailey sang into her water bottle between intervals, curls flying. Lia walked at an incline and scrolled, muttering about cardio being a pyramid scheme. Marina coached from her lane without breaking pace. Brielle’s lungs burned until the burn turned into rhythm, into a simple proof that her body could still carry her.

They showered and emerged new. Fresh perfume. Slick buns. Oversized hoodies over ribbed tanks. Gold hoops catching the light when they laughed in the elevator mirror.

The café downtown hummed with the smell of espresso and warm sugar. Marble tables. Skylight diamonds on glassware. Cappuccinos arrived with cocoa dust hearts, pancakes stacked like little architecture.

Marina tilted her plate toward the sun and raised her phone. “Do not,” Brielle warned, already smiling.

“Too late,” Marina said. “The world deserves to know I survived the treadmill for this.”

Bailey pointed with her fork. “Also the world deserves to know that Isaiah Bardot walked onto a stage like a rude magician.”

“Cockiest magician,” Lia said, sipping slowly.

“B, tell me you do not like him,” Bailey insisted. “Because you looked like you were about to kiss him or strangle him.”

“Which would have proved my point,” Brielle said into her toast.

Marina grinned. “The hashtag is already out there. Rivals to lovers. I did not make it up.”

“We are not in a fanfiction,” Brielle said, but she heard the warmth in her own voice and felt the tug in her chest she refused to name.

“Fame makes people weird,” Lia added, softer now. “I watched a girl cry in a bathroom because a stranger said her jaw looked different in person. Strangers say anything when they think your life belongs to them.”

Bailey touched her shoulder. “We are your people. That does not change.”

The laughter that followed had weight. It rang off the marble and stuck to their cheeks until they were pink and tearful. Brielle leaned back and watched them, a slow heat unfurling under her ribs. Everything else had shifted. This had not. In every version of her life, these were the voices that filled the empty spaces.

Outside, paparazzi flared against the tinted glass. On the sidewalk, they linked arms and pushed through. Bailey threw a hand up and struck a ridiculous pose.

“You are a menace,” Lia said, tugging her along.

“Let me give them angles,” Bailey replied. “I refuse to be caught mid-chew.”

Marina fell in step with Brielle. “You pretend to hate it,” she murmured, “but you were made for a camera.”

“I was made to eat pancakes in peace,” Brielle said, and let the grin escape.

The nail salon smelled like lavender and acetone. Velvet chairs. Warm towels. The gentle rasp of files. Bailey picked neon yellow on a dare to herself. Marina went baby pink and demanded an oval shape that made her fingers look like slender shells. Lia chose glitter silver and declared it armor.

Brielle scanned the bottles and took a deep red that looked hot against her skin.

“Dangerous,” Marina said, eyes bright.

“It is giving main character,” Bailey said, kicking her footrest so the chair purred. “Also I have a confession. I almost texted Jakob last night.”

Lia groaned. “Jakob whose favorite shoe is a loafer with a chain. You have to stop collecting men who look like they own restaurants that fail.”

“He is good in a hoodie,” Bailey argued.

“Ugly face, good shoes,” Marina said, nodding. “We have all been there.”

They slid from jokes into something more tender without warning. Marina admitted she almost texted her ex at three in the morning and had drafted six versions of nothing. Lia told a story about a fan who had tried to follow her into a fitting room and how she had stood very still until the manager arrived, and only then let her hands shake. Bailey described a family group chat that could ruin any mood with one word. They piled their stories on each other and pried them apart again, messy and honest.

Brielle laughed until she forgot she was famous. Thank God this part did not change, she thought. In every world, this was the same. The safe center.

Evening softened the windows of the apartment. Brielle opened a bottle and announced wine night. Lia blinked like someone had changed the weather.

“You. Staying in.”

“Maybe I am learning to like boring things,” Brielle said, pouring.

“To growth,” Bailey said. “And to me finishing both breakfasts.”

Marina cackled and almost spilled. They curled into the couch with blankets and a playlist that knew their moods, trading secrets they would deny in daylight. The second glass hit warm and slow. Brielle felt herself sink into the cushions and into them.

Her phone lit. Isaiah Bardot.

“What,” she said when she answered.

“I want to apologize,” he said. No grin in his voice. “Let me pick you up.”

“Fine,” she said, and felt her friends’ stares like a chorus she would ignore.

The car slid to the curb like a thought. Black and quiet, leather smelling faintly of clean polish and cologne. Inside, the dashboard glowed in elegant lines. She ran her fingers over the seam of the seat and felt a ghost of another life press against her. In her real world they had walked to everything. She had never seen him behind a wheel. This felt like a secret she had missed.

“Nice car,” she said as he pulled away.

“Thanks,” he said. His eyes flicked to her, then back to the road. “You look different tonight.”

City light stitched across her knees as the streets unwound. They rode in a pocket of silence that was not hostile. It was careful.

He turned off the boulevard and climbed a hill that twisted toward night. At the top, the world opened. A cliffside outlook, the city thrown below them like a scatter of diamonds on black velvet. The wind lifted her curls and cooled the heat that had lived in her all day.

“It is beautiful,” she whispered.

“I come here to think,” he said, leaning against the hood. The grin was gone. The voice was honest.

For a minute they let the quiet hold them. The city hummed up from below like a low note.

“I am sorry,” he said finally. “About the show. About the pictures. I did not plan that entrance. I should have told them to leave it alone.”

She nodded and looked at the glittering streets. “Thank you.”

He slid a glance at her mouth, then away. “Why do we keep pretending this is nothing.”

“Because it is nothing.”

“It could be something.”

“You only want what you cannot have.”

“That is not true.”

“Then prove it.”

He huffed out a breath and looked at the city. “You keep walls up like they are a job.”

“And you think pushing is the same thing as staying,” she said.

The edges of their voices sharpened. Banter tilted toward bite and back again, care braided with pride. She could feel it, the tenderness under his defense, the way he watched her like he already knew her. She also felt the solid weight of herself, the way her life held shape without anyone else’s hands. They hovered between closeness and refusal like a coin spinning and refusing to fall.

By the time he drove her home the car had gone quiet again. She reached for the handle.

“I am walking you up,” he said.

The apartment slept behind its door. Brielle keyed in, moved through the soft dark with Isaiah a step behind. Her room waited with its familiar outline. The hallway light edged the threshold in pale gold.

She stepped inside and froze.

Drawers gaped open. Clothes were strewn like discarded skins. A book lay facedown on the carpet.

A man stood at her desk, one of her shirts pressed to his face. He turned slowly, devotion twisted with mania in his eyes.

“You finally came back,” he whispered. “You are mine. You were always mine.”

“Get out,” Brielle choked, throat tight.

Isaiah started forward. “What the—”

The stalker swung fast. A heavy object—one of Brielle’s glass paperweights—slammed into Isaiah’s temple. The sound was sickening. Isaiah crumpled against the doorframe, groaning once before falling still.

Brielle’s scream caught in her throat.

The stalker dropped the paperweight and lunged at her.

She snatched the lamp from her nightstand and swung. The bulb burst like thunder, shards raining across his shoulder. He laughed, high and jagged, and caught her wrist. They crashed onto the bed, the frame rattling beneath them.

“You do not understand,” he panted, breath sour with sweat and something chemical. “The universe made you for me. I waited. I watched. You belong to me. Say it.”

“Never,” she hissed, twisting hard. The lamp cord snaked around her forearm, biting into skin. She raked her nails down his cheek and felt them catch. He snarled and shoved her flat. air tore from her chest in a single broken rush.

She kicked again. He pinned her thigh with his knee. The drawers banged shut under his shove. The room echoed in small, terrible sounds. Her bracelet snapped. A button skittered under the dresser. She clawed for his eyes and felt the slick of blood and the awful warmth of his skin. He only pressed closer.

“You are mine,” he breathed against her ear. “Even if I have to break you to keep you.”

Her vision freckled with light. Panic roared in her ribs. Her hands weakened. The cord tightened with each struggle, cutting small crescents into her arm. She tasted metal. The ceiling blurred and narrowed. She fought until the fight slid out of her like water.

The last thing she saw was his grin, sharp and satisfied.

Chapter Six

Saturday did not ask if she was ready. It just showed up at her door with a schedule and a car.

Rowan called at 7:02. “Driver at the curb in ten. Bring the garment bag I sent last night.”

Brielle stared at the phone after the line clicked off. Ten minutes. She brushed her teeth, twisted her curls with quick, practiced hands, and tugged on sweats over a ribbed tank. The mirror gave her a face that looked awake even when she was not. It felt like cheating. It felt like pressure.

In the elevator she caught herself thinking about flashcards and lab goggles, then laughed under her breath.

You are not going to orgo lab.

You are going to a studio where strangers know your smile like it belongs to them.

The black SUV idled with hazard lights winking. The driver jumped out to open the door.

“Morning, Miss Brielle.”

“Morning,” she said, trying it on like a coat that might not fit.

Her phone buzzed. A text thread from “Team” stacked with reminders.

Rowan: 10 a.m. test shots for the cover. 12:30 content lunch. 2:00 fitting. Rest before event. No interviews in transit.

PR: Talking points attached. Keep it light. No politics today. If asked about last night, you were at a friend’s birthday for twenty minutes. Do not mention location.

Assistant: Sending smoothie to set. Peanut allergy on the photographer’s crew. Don’t bring outside food.

Brielle pinched the bridge of her nose. This world had notes for her personality.

The studio sat on the eighth floor of a warehouse that had been turned into light. Glass from wall to wall. White floors. A cyclorama so clean it made her nervous to breathe. People turned as one when she walked in.

“There she is,” someone sang. “Golden hour, human edition.”

A stylist with silver hair waved her over. “Sit. We have thirty minutes to make you measurable perfection. I need to see your skin.”

“Good morning to you too,” Brielle said, easing into the chair.

The stylist laughed. “There it is. Keep the sarcasm. It reads as mysterious.”

Brushes dusted across her cheeks. Warm hands massaged oil along her jaw. Another person tugged her curls into a halo and let them fall. Someone else unzipped the garment bag and revealed a gown that looked poured, not sewn.

“Is this… heavy?” Brielle asked, because it looked like it could anchor a small boat.

“Fashion’s not cardio,” the stylist said. “We suffer and serve.”

She caught her reflection. The girl in the mirror was her and also the version of her she would have drawn on notebook margins in high school when she was bored. Clean liner. Skin like a light source. Collarbone sharp under glassy fabric. She swallowed.

I can do hard things. I have done hard things. This is just different math.

The photographer slapped the side of a camera. “Brielle. Center. Let’s build the mythology.”

She stepped onto the white curve. The lights hummed. The first click landed like a tiny thunderclap. She tilted her chin. The second click felt easier. The third turned into a rhythm her body recognized before her brain did. She knew where to put her hands. She knew how to breathe through her mouth so her lips looked soft. Who taught me this. When did I learn.

“Chin down. Eyes up. No, softer. Pretend you almost told a secret,” the photographer said.

She did. The room made a sound. People do not make that sound for chemistry midterms.

A makeup artist leaned in between shots and whispered, “Drink this or Rowan will materialize.”

The smoothie tasted like banana and money. Brielle held poses until her calves trembled. When they called a break she stepped off the curve and pressed her palm to the cool wall. Her phone pinged with previews.

Rowan: That’s the cover. Do not sneeze. Do not trip. Do not blink incorrectly.

Brielle texted back before she could stop herself. I am a human being, not a bomb.

A typing bubble appeared. Then disappeared. Then a new message.

Rowan: You are a human being who detonates in the right room. Stay focused.

The shoot dissolved into applause and a mess of garment bags. Outside, the city was a sheet of heat. She climbed into the SUV with a sigh that felt like it used to live in stairwells between classes.

The lunch was at a rooftop restaurant where the wind clipped the ends of words. A brand team in coordinated neutrals waited at a table already set with sparkling water and flatware that reflected her face back at her in miniature.

“Brielle,” said a woman with an easy smile and bracelets that chimed. “We’re obsessed with the concept of ‘soft power’ right now. We think you are the blueprint. Feminine. Academic. Untouchable but relatable.”

Brielle blinked. “That is a lot of adjectives.”

The woman laughed and tapped a tablet. “We want a capsule with real fabric stories. Organic. Recycled. They don’t need to know which. In the campaign, we show you reading in a crowded place like you are alone.”

“I can read,” Brielle said. “That part is accurate.”

They talked deliverables. They said the word authenticity so many times it lost its bones. She forked a salad and tried not to notice when the table beside them tilted phones for a discreet snap.

A man from the brand leaned in. “Quick selfie? For our socials?”

PR coughed. “We’ll do set content later,” she said smoothly.

After lunch, the driver threaded through city streets to a fitting in a closet that called itself a showroom. Clothes lived on racks in color families. A tailor marked hems while a publicist friend of a friend floated in and narrated.

“You had the whole room last night,” the publicist said. “Half the girls were watching you, half the guys were trying not to be obvious.”

“Sounds like a math problem,” Brielle said.

“What do you do when you are not golden?” the publicist asked. “Like what is your secret real life hobby.”

Brielle thought of pipettes and brainwave simulations and a night where the air bent. She swallowed. “I cook,” she said. “And I like quiet.”

The publicist tilted her head. “We can sell that.”

The tailor knelt to pin the gown. “Don’t breathe,” he said.

The day layered itself. Car to room to car to room. Everywhere she went people said her name like a password that opened doors. She found her smile in pockets and passed it around. She learned to inhale before the paparazzi flash so she did not look startled. She learned to nod without agreeing to anything.

At five, Rowan insisted on a break. “Ninety minutes. Hydrate. Ice your face. I expect you on carpet at nine. We are not leaving photos to chance.”

Back at the apartment, the girls were sprawled across the couch like a pile of glittering cats. Marina had a sheet mask on and scrolled with damp fingers. Bailey lay upside down so her hair hung off the cushion like a curtain. Lia had a laptop open with three tabs and a side-eye ready.

“You were everywhere,” Marina said, without looking up. “My hairstylist’s cousin texted me a screenshot from a group chat called She Is Mother. It is apparently about you.”

Bailey snorted. “Send it to me. I want to see the memes.”

Lia shut her laptop. “You good?”

Brielle toed off her shoes and collapsed into the armchair. “Define good.”

“Are you breathing,” Lia said.

“Yes.”

“Then you are good enough. Eat a snack.”

Bailey flipped right-side up and handed her a container of cut mango. “You are going to be a fruit person now. I decided. Vitamin C is your brand.”

Marina peeled off the mask and studied Brielle’s face. “You look like you need a nap.”

“I need a new skeleton,” Brielle said, chewing. “And maybe a clone.”

“Clones are out,” Lia said calmly. “Bad press.”

They laughed. The sound untied something in her chest. The apartment smelled like candles and laundry and a little like nail polish. She felt the ghost of yesterday, when the worst part of a day could be a printer jam.

“Do you like it,” Bailey asked suddenly. “Like, any of it. The lights. The way people look at you.”

Brielle thought about the tiny thrill when the photographer said that’s the cover. She thought about the smooth machine of it all. She thought about the feeling like her skin hummed at a frequency just above normal, and how it never turned off.

“I like parts,” she said. “I like being good at things. I like that I walk into a room and feel like I belong to the room. I do not like that the room thinks it belongs to me.”

“That is a bar,” Marina said. “Put it on a tee.”

Lia nudged her knee. “You can like a thing and still keep your brain. People pretend those are opposites.”

Brielle nodded. Keep your brain. Remember who you were in the lab. The thought arrived with a twist in her stomach.

By eight-thirty she was zipped into a new gown, lighter than the morning’s, like water sewn into a dress. The SUV slid them to the event. Flashbulbs stitched the night together. A publicist pressed notes into her palm right before the carpet.

“Smile. Walk. Pause. This outlet will ask about your skincare. This one will ask about secrecy. Say you believe in the art of privacy. It sounds profound and means nothing.”

“What if they ask what I actually do when I am not doing this,” Brielle said.

“Say you read,” the publicist said. “It photographs well.”

The carpet was a tunnel of light. People called her name from both sides. She found the camera like it was a person she could trust. The interviews blurred. She said words that were true enough to live next to her real life.

Inside, a singer performed on a stage made of smoke. Brielle felt the bass in her ribs. People she had only seen in thumbnails drifted by and nodded like classmates in a hallway.

A guy in a suit leaned close at the bar. “You are shorter than I expected.”

“Gravity likes me,” she said.

He laughed and asked for her number. She smiled like the polite version of no and let herself be pulled back toward her friends.

By midnight, her cheeks hurt and her feet had negotiated a ceasefire. Back home, she wiped eyeliner off with cotton rounds until the mirror gave her the face that belonged to her. She turned out the light and the room made sense again.

In bed, the blue square of her laptop lit the ceiling. She typed into the search bar and watched the suggestions try to guess her fear. Multiverse accident proof. Brain waves parallel reality. Lab malfunction dimensional overlap. The results were either math she could not access with a runway pass or message boards that treated science like mythology.

She read a post about how déjà vu might be bleed-through. She read a comment that said every choice creates a corridor and some corridors connect. She read a story about a person who claimed they lost a month to a version of themselves who lived louder. She read until her eyes ached and none of it felt like a door she could open.

She rubbed her temples. In her world, she would have emailed her advisor. She would have booked lab time. She would have pulled a paper apart until the methodology told her where it could break. Here, she was a headline first and a student last.

Fine. Build your own method. She made a list in her notes app.

Recreate conditions without frying anything. Not here. Not yet.

Track anomalies. Lights. Sound. Time slippage. Headaches.

Compare language. What people assume I know here vs what I actually know.

Interview my friends without sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

Find a library that is quiet enough for thinking.

She stared at the fifth line and smiled. Reading does photograph well. It also saves lives.

Her messages vibrated the nightstand.

Rowan: Great work. Trending in six countries. Sleep.

Bailey: Tomorrow brunch at eleven. Wear sunglasses. I am ordering pancakes like a child.

Lia: Answer if you need me. I am not kidding.

Marina: I am stealing your shampoo.

Brielle typed back to each and set the phone face down. The ceiling was a calm rectangle. Her mind was not.

Her thoughts looped.

You could run. Hide in a beach town with a name that sounds like a vitamin. Get a terrible haircut. Change your number. Show up in your own world on a Wednesday and pretend you never left. Or you could accept that you are stuck and build a ladder out of questions. Learn the topography of this place. Map the edges. If there is a door, you will find it faster with a light and a plan than with panic.

She flipped the pillow to the cool side and pressed her cheek to it.

I am not a sad girl. I am a curious one. I am not broken. I am out of context.

The room thinned with quiet. Her eyelids tugged. Sleep should have taken her, but something tugged back. A single thread of thought that would not let go.

If the universe brought me here, what did it do with him.

She blinked at the dark, heart ticking against her ribs like a metronome marking a decision she had not made.

Chapter Five

The crowd outside the library was swelling, not shrinking.

Brielle’s pulse hammered as faces pressed closer, phones rising into the air, camera flashes popping like sparks. She kept catching words that made her dizzy.

“That’s Brielle. It has to be.” “Why would she even be here?” “She looks different. Tired maybe.”

Someone leaned forward and asked, “Are you okay?”

Her mouth opened before her brain could catch up. “I was just… finishing some work.”

Work. The word sounded wrong the moment it left her tongue. The girl frowned and whispered to her friend.

Brielle wanted to run, but her phone rang and she answered on instinct.

“Brielle,” the voice snapped. Smooth, commanding, cold. “What the hell are you doing?”

Chapter 4

The lab always felt different at night.

During the day, it buzzed with voices, equipment humming, chairs scraping across the floor. But after midnight, it was hollow and sharp. The fluorescent lights hummed too loud, the air smelled faintly of bleach, and every sound seemed to echo against the tile. Brielle swiped her ID to unlock the door, the click of the mechanism startling her in the quiet.

She told herself this was practical. She needed more hours logged for her independent study, needed something concrete to show on her med school applications. Everyone else padded their resumes with shadowing hours, but Brielle wanted something more unique. Something that stood out.

Her project was small, technically only under the umbrella of her advisor’s research: studying neurological responses under simulated environments. But she’d pushed it further, digging into articles that blurred the line between neuroscience and theoretical physics. Parallel cognition. Multiverse modeling. Not real science, her advisor had said with a smile, more philosophy than biology. But he let her keep at it as long as she backed it with medical applications.

Chapter Three

By Wednesday, Brielle’s planner was already drowning. Pages filled with scribbled notes, labs penciled in tight, readings highlighted in colors that blurred when she looked too long. College had a way of turning “syllabus week” into a sprint, and senior year wasn’t about to cut her any slack.

Still, the grind came with its rituals.

On campus, she’d meet Lia and Marina in the dining hall between classes, sliding into sticky booths with trays of food neither of them ever finished. Bailey always showed up late, grinning with her curls tied in a loose bun, balancing a stack of napkins under her plate.

“I hate this salad,” Marina said one afternoon, stabbing a piece of lettuce. “It tastes like grass.”

“Then why’d you get it?” Brielle asked, sipping from her water bottle.

“Because I like to believe I’m a better person than I am,” Marina replied. “And then I’m reminded I’m not.”

“Just get fries,” Lia said flatly, scrolling on her phone. “You’re not impressing anyone.”

Bailey laughed, leaning across the table. “Marina impresses herself. That’s what matters.”

Brielle smirked, but mostly listened. She liked moments like this, when she didn’t have to say much. Just being surrounded by them made the chaos of school feel softer.

Chapter Two

Brielle spent the rest of the lecture pretending to take notes while her pen hovered uselessly above the page. Words blurred on the screen at the front of the room, the professor’s voice fading into a dull hum. She caught herself glancing toward Isaiah’s row more than once, her pulse jumping every time he shifted in his seat.

Don’t look at him. Focus.

Easier said than done.

When the lecture ended, students flooded out, the aisles clogged with chatter and the sound of bags zipping shut. Brielle tucked her notebook against her chest and made a beeline for the door. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.

The rest of her day blurred into motion.

Her next class was across campus, forcing her into a brisk walk in the late-summer heat. Students crowded the sidewalks, the air thick with the energy of first-day nerves and excitement. Flyers for club meetings slapped against bulletin boards, people called out to old friends, and everywhere she looked, someone was laughing too loudly.

By the time she made it to her second lecture hall, her shirt clung to her back. She slipped into a seat near the edge, tugging her hair into a quick bun, and tried to focus. This time, at least, there was no ghost from her past staring at her.

Still, her thoughts wandered.

HI EVERYONE!

This is my new story I have been working one! Please enjoy this is just for fun and out of boredom being at school.

CHAPTER ONE

Brielle had always lived between two worlds. On the surface, her life looked simple — quiet, steady, cushioned by the kind of wealth that took care of the bills before she even knew they existed. But simplicity didn’t mean peace.

Her parents had divorced when she was young, and though both remained well-off, neither had been present in ways that mattered. Their houses were beautiful, their fridges full, their bank accounts comfortably padded — but attention was something they rationed like a luxury. They left her in the care of nannies, tutors, coaches, anyone who could keep her busy and out of the way.

She learned early to fill her own time: painting classes one year, horseback lessons the next, endless hours of hobbies that kept her occupied but never left her feeling whole. Her life became a collection of moments that looked polished from the outside but were hollow at the core.

Love had been no different.

Her history with relationships read like a string of unfinished stories: hookups that blurred into awkward silences, situationships that dragged on long after they’d lost meaning, the quiet ache of wanting someone who never quite wanted her enough. Each time, she told herself she was fine with it, that keeping her guard up was easier than risking the disappointment that came with being left behind.

And then came Isaiah.