Say You'll Be Nine

I was sure a large part of my mixed-up mood was not being able to communicate adequately with Nine. At first, he replied to my messages just fine, but then the responses got shorter. Finally, they were so few and far between, I got up the nerve to call him even though I knew hearing his voice on the phone would probably make me cry like a baby.

He hadn’t answered.

And then he’d stopped texting too. I’d been wrong. It wasn’t hearing his voice on the other end of the line that made me cry like a baby, it was not hearing it.

Evie had been the one to find me curled up on the floor between the sofa and the corner of the room.

“Who do I need to kill?” she’d asked in a growl.

“Me,” I’d admitted with a wet sniff. “It’s just my own chickens coming home to roost, is all.” Which of course made me think of Sir Pecks-A-Lot which only set me off more.

Needless to say, I was a mess. The emotional upheaval of everything with Nine on top of the tenuous medical situation with Jacks was wearing me down quickly. Thankfully, Nine had been right and the production crew had managed to schedule my filming to be done in time for the bone marrow procedure in mid-July. But it had meant working extra hard to get all the scenes in by then.

Despite feeling overwhelmed, I was grateful. I’d spent almost eight years fantasizing about being an actor in LA, and I’d finally landed a decent part in a film. Not only that, but the other cast members were cool as hell and super professional. Bane McKenner played the male lead, and I had to admit I was a little awestruck. He’d just wrapped the film version of a bestselling book called Colt which I remembered Eli joking about since he had a brother by the same name. The book had been a huge teen hit, and being cast as the lead in that movie meant Bane McKenner was already on his way to being the hottest celebrity among teens in the world.

Filming with Sam Gwan was also a dream come true, or it should have been. He was brilliant and eager, open and genuine. He was young enough not to have the strong opinions of a seasoned director, but he’d been in the business long enough to really know what he was doing. I was surrounded by talent and energy.

But it was hard fucking work, and I wasn’t great at it. Not in this particular role.

I wasn’t just saying that to be modest. Pretending to be a nurse to a dying young man was not a great choice for me.

Not at this time in my life anyway.

Thankfully, Jarrod worked with me almost every night to help me prepare for the following day. Without him, I would have probably been escorted off the set as both a third-rate actor and a basket case. I had no business being involved in a group of such talented actors in the first place, and being there with them brought home to me just how naive I’d been. I’d honestly thought getting a decent role in a film would fill the hole in my life.

What a joke. Landing this role made me realize that I’d pinned all my hopes and dreams on a myth. It was like finally grabbing hold of the brass ring and finding out it was a hologram all along. I came home every afternoon no more fulfilled than I’d left that morning. And why would I? I’d just come from a monthlong stint of being on camera every day, only with the Stallion vlog, I’d been able to be on camera as myself.

Discovering this wasn’t the life for me was freeing in a way. Like finally I didn’t feel torn between two places anymore. I knew I wanted to be back home, at least until Jacks was completely recovered and my mom wasn’t stretched so thin.

As long as I’d been at the cabin near Shale Falls, I’d known I was only a few-hour drive from my family if they needed me. Being in LA made me feel a million miles away.

And then there was Nine.

I remembered my mom telling me what it was like when she’d finally taken off her wedding ring for good after Dad had left the last time.

She’d said, “I keep reaching for it with my other fingers and finding it missing. It’s like a part of me has been left behind and my body somehow senses the loss and can’t get over it.” It took her a year before she stopped reaching for it with her other fingers.

That’s how I felt about Isaac Winshed. He was a part of me, ingrained into my skin like the tiny cluster of stars tattooed on my hip, except he was missing. My body reached for him every fucking night, and I landed with a crash on the floor from where I’d been sleeping on Van and Evie’s sofa. Every morning Evie would give me a tally of the number of times she’d heard me hit the ground. Van had even offered to switch with me so I could have his bed.