to make things awkward | fillie

17 | moments in time

Undeterred by the hectic start to her day, Millie felt that she was being quite productive. She met with her management team and agreed to two interviews for next week as long as she landed the cameo she was pining for. Never did she think she'd be so hell bent on ten seconds of screen-time.

Noah reassured her that this was all just part of the natural ebb and flow of the industry, but she reminded him that he seemed to be all flow and no ebb.

"It's not all it's cracked up to be." He told her over lunch.

Millie dropped her fork onto her salad, "You can't tell me that because I've been in the flow. I've had success before and I know how gratifying it is to be making things I'm not only proud of, but things that people love and respond to."

"What does it matter what other people like or dislike? Or what they think of you at all?"

She rolled her eyes toward the high ceiling of the French cafe, "Noah, you can't be serious. We work in an industry that you can only be successful in if people like you."

Noah angled his head toward his shoulder, "I mean, to a degree. . .What if your team is right though. You know, about what they said earlier, about your workload? What if you just took a break? Maybe come back with something original. I've seen your writing, you're good."

Millie's eyebrow rose into a cynical curve as she sniggered at her friend, "Do you remember the last time I took a break? Yeah, no thank you."

"I didn't say 'take a break and have another kid' did I?"

She hushed him, looking around with paranoia and whispered, "All I meant was that breaks don't seem to agree with me. . .that's all."

Stroking his bearded jaw, Noah said, "Lightning doesn't hit in the same place twice, Mil. Maybe this time it would be exactly what you need."

To allow herself a break from this annoying conversation, she took a large bite of her salad. As she chewed she actually considered what Noah was saying, but only because this was now the third time she'd been told this in a span of just six days. Would a break really be so bad? Or would it render her completely irrelevant? And how bad would that really be? She loved acting and singing and being creative, but lately, it's just felt like work. Of course, it had always been her work—her job—but it used to be more than that. It used to be her passion and she wanted that again. How could a break help with that? What could spending time away from something help to reignite your passion for it? She didn't know, but she didn't want to keep talking to Noah about it. It had been nearly a year since she last saw him, she didn't want to spend all their time together arguing over her floundering career.

"How's Chloe?" she asked.

It looked like Noah wanted to call out her obvious and abrupt change in topic but he knew her well enough, and cared about her sanity enough, to roll with her lead.

"Ah, let's see." He said, bubbling his lips, "She graduated with her masters a few months ago and has been contemplating staying at her current job, teaching at a college level, or taking her talents to help some non-profit."

"What would she do at a non-profit?"

"Well between her experience in social media and content writing, there's a ton of potential."

Millie nodded. She admired Chloe's attitude toward life. When one thing wasn't working for her, she wasn't afraid to switch it up. Yes, most of her endeavors were related to each other, but she started new things without hesitation. From her point of view, it looked like king Midas had touched Chloe's soul and that a golden thread was leading her to constant success. She never had a misstep. How Millie yearned to know how to live life the same way.