INTUITIVE, austin butler

17

I woke up with a dreadful pit in my stomach.

One of those feelings where you try and drink some water, and you try to shower, but nothing curbs it. And when I heard Lana moving around in her room, which reminded me I promised her a trip to set today, my anxiety only grew higher.

I have bad dreams frequently. Less often recently, but still often enough that I've had to see a therapist about it my whole life. They usually are about whatever's stressing me at the time. As a kid it was vivid dreams of my mom yelling at my dad, or being stranded at a court house after their divorce trial... but in the most recent years, it's either been about having no money and everyone forgetting about me, or the incident.

Last night was a moderately bad one. Not one that's going to make me rekindle with my therapist, but bad enough to make me anxious for the next couple of days.

As Lana and I drove to set, and I could see her childish smile from the corner of my eye, I knew I'd just have to buck-up and do this for her. I am glad I gave her my own pre-written list of set rules last night so I didn't have to talk much this morning.

"Ok, now let's go over the rules again-" I finally speak as we exit that car once we've made it to set. Once thing making my mood improve slightly is the chilly weather, and the fact that I do not have any scenes to film today.

Lana rolls her eyes at me, "No jokes about strippers, handcuffs, viagra, or any other drugs." She huffs at me.

"And?"

"No asking Austin anything related to sex." She says in a mocking tone.

"Perfect," I clasp my hands together, "And what are you going to say when you meet Austin?"

"Doggy or missionary?"

"Ha! Funny." I pretend to laugh.

"Cant you just be normal and let me say what I want to say?" Lana sighs and takes a drink of the water in her hand. "I don't like having to act like I'm some preppy person."

"I don't want you to be preppy," I turn the corner that leads to my trailer, "These are the people I work with Lana, and I know you have compulsive-sex-joke-disorder."

"I don't care what these people think of me." She shrugs and continues to walk behind me. "I'll agree to no dirty jokes this time, but next time I'm on set, I'm letting loose. I am your manager, after all."

I frequently forget that Lana does technically have the upper hand. She gets me auditions and casting, and since she is my boss at some level, I really can't tell her how to act at the end of the day. But since above all she is my friend, I'm hoping she can at least keep her impulsive jokes to a low level for the sake of my sanity.

"Fine, just be appropriate." I compromise with her.

"Oh, I can be appropriate. I'm always appropriate." I look back at her as we walk, her eyes darting around the gigantic set as we walk.

"Yes, you're the most appropriate of them all!" I place my hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze as we walk side by side.

"Look who the cat dragged in!" Tayler yells as we round a corner and he sees us from a distance.

"Tayler Russo!" Lana widely opens her arms, hugging Tayler. Luckily, she's previously met him, so I don't have to do any introducing here. One of the main reasons I also got this part was because Lana's family and Tayler are close, so she's known him since she was around 16.

"What are you doin' here?" He asks in his loud Italian voice.

"Well, I convinced Miss Boston over here to let me come meet the cast finally." I roll my eyes at her. She hasn't even asked to come in before.