Crystal Clear

DAY ONE

Deep breath in. Hold. Exhale. Try it again, but less shaky this time.

I tapped on my phone screen to get a glimpse of the ocean, a photo I took my first day in LA. I had dropped my bags off at my new shared apartment with Jenna (which was way too fucking expensive for a two bedroom/one bathroom but also felt as big as a castle to me), and then we'd scuttled back for the car even though we'd just finished a 36-hour road trip. The closest beach had been Venice, which was crowded and the heavy kind of hot from the cloudless blue sky. Jenna and I had laughed as we raced down to the waves, our shirts billowing behind us as I witnessed the vastness of the ocean for the very first time. Between that and the multiple groups of strangers around me, I felt so small and insignificant, and it was brilliant.

As always, the photo I took that day helped my lungs loosen up a bit. You've been preparing for this for forever, I reminded myself. You're ready.

I knocked on the door and walked in without waiting to be greeted, waving meekly as I took in my surroundings. I'd been in this room before, for the first chemistry read they'd had me do with Jamie, Patrick, and Ellis, who I'd be in the most scenes with since they would be playing my on-screen siblings. I'd been called in for one more, reading a scene the writers had just added this week as a tentative experiment. It was between my character Harry (short for Harriet), and a character named Matthew, who had apparently been Harry's childhood best friend. Matthew was being portrayed by a guy named Rory Burnstead, and I was praying that I wouldn't call him Matt outside of the script. It was difficult enough learning a bunch of new names for people I'd never seen before, much less adding in their character names, as well.

"Hey, Mara," the head writer, Emmy, greeted me. "Good to see you again. We appreciate you stopping in on such short notice."

I shrugged casually. "No problem. I actually didn't have a lot else going on today."

It was a blatant lie, because I'd had to beg Cyrus to swap shifts with me at the coffee shop by my apartment. Since I wasn't 100% signed on yet, however, I tried to be carefully enthusiastic whenever possible to show how much of a Professional Actor in the Industry I could be.

"We didn't see it before," Emmy was explaining to me, "but we really think there could be a budding romance between Matthew and Harry. I think their personalities would really suit each other. He brings her out of her shell, she humbles him, etc. There are just a few paragraphs to run through, so we can see if the vibe translates. Sound good?"

I nodded and flipped to the first full page of text. "Is Rory here?"

The door opened again, and Emmy beamed. "That would be him now."

There have been people who come into my life that I get a certain feeling about within our very first interaction. I had that feeling when I first saw Rory, his cinnamon hair tousled and his eyes tired but bright. He'd only been a name on a piece of paper to me before this moment, but now he was a person I'd possibly be working closely with for the foreseeable future.

Emmy waved a careless hand as she began to retreat towards the writer's table. "Rory Burnstead, Mara Valentine."

Rory was dangling a beat up backpack over one shoulder, which he pushed aside before sweeping his hair off of his forehead and reaching his hand out for my own. "Nice to meet you. That's a cool name."

I shook his hand as I chuckled, hoping my own wasn't sweaty. "Thanks, I changed it myself."

He laughed, too, his eyes trained on my face. It wasn't uncommon for names to be changed to be "more marketable," and I'd decided myself long ago that "Archambeau" wouldn't roll off the tongue. Rory replied, "I've recently been wondering if I should've switched up the 'Burnstead,' myself."

"Nah," I smiled. "It's got charm."

As he turned away to set his bag off to the side, something inside of me knew. Rory Burnstead was going to be a big part of my life. I just never would've guessed the enormity of the space he'd fill.