“Which do you think?” she asked. “Hollywood or Broadway?”
“Whichever will take me.”
She frowned. “You don’t care? Wouldn’t it be really different to act on film as opposed to being on stage? Wouldn’t you miss the energy of a live audience?”
“Yeah, I guess I would,” I said. “But I’ve never really thought about acting beyond as a means to an end. Using it to get out.”
“Really?” Her face scrunched up as if she had just smelled something rotten. She fell silent, but with more questions behind her eyes.
“Go ahead,” I said. “You can say it. I’m egotistical. Or ungrateful for what I have.”
She shot me a look. “Now that you mention it…”
A small laugh ground out of me like a rusty gear. Instead of feeling insulted, I loved that I didn’t intimidate her.
“I get it,” I said. “But I do
n’t think of what I can do as talent or a gift. It’s an escape.”
“But can’t you feel what it does to the people who watch you act? It’s like a gift of transportation. An escape for us too.”
I stopped walking and looked down at her. “I’m glad it can be that for you. For anyone watching. But for me…” I shrugged. “It’s all I have.”
“I feel the same,” she said. “Like I was a little bit lost and then Hamlet fell into my lap. To help me find my way again.” Her laugh was nervous. “That sounds all kinds of dramatic. And probably silly.”
“It’s not silly,” I said. “Things happen for a reason, I guess.”
“You think?” Her voice suddenly went sharp. She stopped, her expression twisting in confusion and disbelief. “Everything happens for a reason?”
I blinked at her sudden fury. “I don’t know. Martin’s always telling me—”
“Your perfectly healthy mom having a stroke and dying happened for a reason? You said yourself, it was meaningless.”
My jaw clenched, my own blood rising. I jabbed a finger at my chest. “I get to say what that meant to me. Not you. Not anyone.”
“Exactly,” she fired back. “It’s your story. I hate ‘everything happens for a reason.’ Like someone’s pain doesn’t mean anything yet, but someday it will and then everything will be all right again. It’s bullshit.” She looked up at me, and her expression changed again, tear-filled eyes almost begging me. “What do we do in the meantime?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Try to get by. To survive.”
She held my gaze a moment, then nodded. “I’m sorry but…” She ran her fingertips beneath her wet eyes. “Some things happen and it’s like the power going out. Or the volume turns down to mute.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“Until.”
“Until?”
“It’s something my grandmother told me once. She said every story has an until. Something bad happens that shows the character what they want most. But where is the until that puts everything back together? When does the character actually get what they want most?”
“When they allow themselves to have it,” I said. My hands itched to brush the lock of hair that had fallen over her cheek. “Or when they go and take it.”
“That’s why you’re leaving Harmony,” she said.
“Yes.”
She nodded, then huffed a sigh. The strength returned to her voice. “I wish I was as brave as you.”
“Auditioning for a part in Shakespeare’s most famous play without having acted a day in your life sounds pretty brave.”