Finding Us (Christian Interracial Romance)

The High Cost of Grit Art

Jeremy

The buzz of Los Angeles is usually a sound I find comforting, but lately, it feels like a low frequency hum designed to give me a migraine. 

I'm sitting on my bed, my door closed as the midday sun hits the floors of my room. My phone is buzzing incessantly. A month ago, the world has seen me as the "Internet's Boyfriend" again because of my appearance in Amaya's music video. This time, I played the romantic lead—someone soft, someone who actually smiles. The fans went feral for it. They loved seeing me "light."

But the industry? The industry prefers me in the dark. 

I swipe through a trade article on my phone. My stomach twists.

"Damien O'Brien Slams Former Lead Jeremy Miller: 'Some Actors Lack the Grit for True Art.'" 

 The creator of The Murder Diaries, Voices In the Skyline, and so on is on a press tour for his new project and he's using my name as a fucking footstool. He's already telling everyone who will listen that I've "lost my edge" because I turned down the Netflix limited series to play another serial killer. 

He doesn't get it. He thinks it's about "grit." He doesn't know what it's like to wake up at 3:00 AM drenched in sweat because you can't shake the head-space of a man who hunts people. For nine years, I invited those shadows in. I studied them. I mirrored them. I gave them my face and my voice. 

And now, they won't leave. 

I haven't stepped foot in church in a long time. The more famous I got for playing the macabre, the further I drifted from the pews I grew up in. God felt like someone you talked to when you were "good," and I had spent a decade pretending to be the worst kind of evil. 

I need a distraction . I find myself scrolling through YouTube, looking for something—anything—that isn't a headline about my "Career suicide." I see a thumbnail that catches my eye. Three Afro-Latina women, vibrant and sharp-eyed, sitting around a professional mic setup. 

The Anointed Mic: The High Cost of Hollywood: Why Your Soul Isn't for Sale.

I recognize them immediately. Stella, Lizzy, and Reagan. The last time I saw them was at  Athena's and my birthday party a few days ago, but I'd know  those Vega-Perez features anywhere. Stella, the oldest, looks like she hasn't aged a day since she was thirty—she's forty four now, radiating a kind of authority that makes me sit up straighter.

I click. 

"—and that's the thing people don't realize," Stella is saying, her voice rich and steady. "Hollywood calls it 'Method Acting.' They call it 'losing yourself in the craft.' But as Christians, we have to ask: what are you actually opening yourself up to?" 

"Exactly," Lizzy, the twenty nine year old, chimes in. She's leaning forward, her hoops catching the studio light. "We see these actors talking about how they 'channeled' a spirit to play a role, or how they couldn't shake a character for months after the cameras stopped rolling. In the spiritual realm, that's called an invitation. You can't play with fire—you can't dress up as a demon for ten hours a day—and expect the Holy Spirit to just sit there and watch." 

My heart hammers against my ribs. It feels like she's looking through the screen, straight into my room. 

Reagan, the youngest at twenty seven, shakes her head. "I think about the ones who started in the church. The ones who grew up with the Word, and then they get these roles that mock everything they were raised on. They think they're just 'exploring the human condition,' but they're actually feeding their spirits darkness. And then we wonder why their mental health is in shambles. We wonder why they're depressed, anxious, and isolated."