Five Minutes

Broken Wings

She woke up in the middle of the night with her hair matted against her face and her legs practically drenched in sweat. She wiped away the perspiration on her face.

She had a dream. He was on top of her and she couldn't move. Her mouth opening, her screams silent. She couldn't even say no while her mind hollered desperately for it to be over. Her mouth simply wouldn't submit to the demands of her brain.

Relief swept over her when she realized it wasn't real. She turned to look at Ralston, who was asleep and left undisrupted. Collecting her calm, she removed the covers completely. Her skin was still boiling.

How long was this going to torment her? She'd heard of women suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, taking years confronting their fears and their anxieties. Would it take her that long too?

She closed her eyes, hoping to fall back asleep.

She lay awake until the sun rose.

__________

"This role is perfect for you, Ronnie. I know what you're capable of and the rest of the world needs to see it. It's obvious Oscar bait material."

The role her agent was on the phone talking about was the first big project she'd been offered since Extraneous finished filming. Veronica did say she wanted some weeks off before dipping her toes back into challenging roles.

Veronica was sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of French toast in front of her. It was the first time in a while she'd put effort into making breakfast.

"What do you say?"

"I don't think so," Veronica replied.

"You don't think so?" her agent asked in disbelief. "Do you have any idea how much convincing and phone interviews it took for me to try and book this audition for you?"

"I didn't tell you that," Veronica said.

"You specifically told me to book you any good gigs I come across without question a few months ago."

Damn it. She had forgotten about that. Even with her agent rehashing it now, she still had no recollection of it.

"I'm not ready to go back. I need more time."

"More time? You need more time? You already had a few months for that. This isn't an opportunity you can pass up."

"Okay, I'll see the sides then," she said, forfeiting.

The sides of the film were sent to her immediately. It was about a young woman who becomes a drug addict and an alcoholic after watching her husband and her child get savagely murdered. But after being sober for about a month and trying to clean herself up, she meets a self-destructive man and begins a toxic relationship with him.

It was not role Veronica was equipped to play; she wasn't in a good headspace and she didn't want to tap in any authentic pain for a character.

The day of the audition she practiced the lines for her chosen monologue repeatedly but nothing stuck. Why was it so hard? She was usually good at committing her lines to memory.

She even brought Ralston with her and tried to rehearse her monologue. She was not successful. "Fuck, I'm gonna pass out. I can't do this."

"It's just an audition. If you don't do well, who cares?"

She was glad he didn't say some cliched optimistic comment, like she'd do well or that it was going to be okay. Although he knew that she hated that positive reinforcement garbage. It never worked on her.

"Veronica Pryde?"

Great. The woman who spoke her name looked to be no older than nineteen, but the no nonsense expression upped her intimidation level.

She got up and headed into the audition room. Confidence didn't ooze out of her, but she was never this apprehensive and convinced she'd embarrass herself. 

It began the way any other audition did. She stated her name in the camera as she was instructed.

But after that she froze. The casting director, Sara Jones, whose name she recognized from countless films, was waiting. Veronica wasn't that well versed in casting directors but Sara Jones was one of the better known ones. Her name popped up for many dark dramas.

"Shit," she muttered under her breath, covering her face in frustration for a moment before placing her hands awkwardly on her hips. "I swear I had this down pat."

"Take your time," Sara said. She didn't even sound that irritated.

It should have put Veronica at ease, but it didn't. She stood there, wondering what the first line was.

"Some time in the afternoon I raised my head." She paused immediately. What came after that? Why couldn't her mind form the next line? The practice and rehearsing the monologue aside, she'd read Jane Eyre countless times.

"Let me start over," she said. "Some time in the afternoon I read my head...and looking around and seeing the western sun..." Managing to get slightly further didn't assuage he'd unease.

If Sara was annoyed now or if her patience was thinning, her expression was too stoic for Veronica to tell.

She thought about running out, but that seemed unprofessional. And her agent would get aggravated and yell at her; she could easily imagine that but didn't want to endure it.

"Gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, What am I to do?" Her starting back mid sentence broke the flow of the monologue. She was really running this audition into the ground, wasn't she?

"But the answer my mind gave, Leave Thornfield at once, was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now." God, what followed? Her chest tightened. That was never a good sign. Her anxiety was skyrocketing and she could feel her face warm up.

And suddenly she was back at her audition callback with Daniel Sanders staring at her, watching her, watching and smiling like he was thoroughly impressed by her abilities.  

She was crying now but she kept on. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part of my woe, I alleged, that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."

Jane was stupid. After all the lying and the way she'd been treated by Edward, why did she marry him? He was an asshole who kept his crazy wife locked up in the attic and didn't even tell Jane. He could have hidden many other secrets. Numerous others. Why would she marry him?

The thoughts distracted her from her audition.

"Are you all right?" Sara asked. This was supposed to be a happy scene and Veronica was reciting the lines with a saddened tone while crying

"I'm fine," she said.

The remainder of the audition didn't go terribly, though it was not exceptional either. Veronica continued to cry, as if she grossly misinterpreted the scene. She didn't expect to be getting a callback and she didn't care either.