What if I told you I'm a Mastermind

Chapter 2: And all the stars aligned

Ava's flight was canceled. Which would have been fine, except her flight had already been delayed three times before they finally canceled, so it was now 2:00 am, and she was stranded at JFK without a plan. Honestly, she didn't really have a plan if the flight had taken off either.

Ava bought a one-way ticket to Chicago this morning. She just needed some time away. It's just a reset, she promised herself. Last night, her boyfriend broke up with her. Well, it was more like they broke up, got drunk together, hooked up, and then he unceremoniously kicked out of bed the following day with the confirmation that they were still over. Ava isn't exactly proud of her relationship with JC, but he isn't a bad person. Besides, New York City is a fucking expensive place to live, so it was just easier to couch surf for a few weeks every time they broke up than finally get over him and rent her own place.

She moved to the city to study acting at CUNY on her 18th birthday and fell in love with the city. Ava was never able to sit still, and New York City was the first place that stayed awake with her. She never minded the actor's grind. Ava pulled herself out of bed morning after morning for auditions, poured her heart out in dramatic monologues to casting directors that wouldn't look up from their phones, and hid in the corners of coffee shops studying poorly written lines for roles she didn't want.

When money got tight, she found a dive bar that hired her as a bartender despite her lack of experience—most of the time, people just ordered a rum and coke or a beer anyways. So, Ava treated it as an improv class and got very good at making up wild stories that filled the tip jar. Those tips eventually hired her a manager, Camila, and Ava went on to act in a few small projects here and there. None of the roles were groundbreaking, few of them even excited Ava to perform, but a gig was a gig, and it was often enough that Ava could still call herself an actor instead of a bartender.

Until this year, that is. Ava was in a bit of a dry spell. It had been seven months straight of auditions with nothing to show for her work. Ava had been particularly devastated when Camila called her to tell her that she didn't get a call back for her most recent audition. There was nothing special about it; they didn't even give her the name of the character she was playing. And yet, something about those lines, that character, it settled within her chest— it felt like it fit in a hole she didn't know was there.

Ava was pulled from her thoughts when she felt her phone vibrating in her pocket— Camila was calling. "How did you know my flight was canceled?" Ava joked as soon as she answered.

"Ava, Hi! I'm sorry to be calling you so late— wait, did you say flight?" Camila seemed to begin talking without thinking.

"It doesn't matter. What's up?"

"You just weren't going to tell me you were going somewhere?"

"It's not like I had any auditions anyways," Ava chuckled. She lifted her duffle bag onto her shoulder and began walking. To where? She wasn't sure.

"Ava, you literally have an audition scheduled for tomorrow morning."

"I do?"

"Yes, Ava. I sent you the sides last night." Camila sounded exhausted.

"Well, we're in luck because my flight just got canceled, so now I won't miss it!"

"Yes, you will."

"I'm confused." Ava stopped walking in the middle of the terminal, causing them to nearly trip as they dodged her at the last second.

"That's why I was calling at 2:00 am. You need to miss your audition tomorrow."

"Is this some sort of time travel thing?"

"What?" Camila seemed genuinely lost.

"Like someone came back from the future and was like, 'Ava must miss this audition or the world will end in 50 years,' but you can't tell me that because then it will bring about the apocalypse in an even more disastrous way, so you have to convince me not to go but in a way that won't tip me off that—"