Spotlight

43

***Mae's POV***

Mid-September morning. The waves of water sprung into my face as if I was eleven and on summer vacation all over again. Only I wasn't. And I had to maintain a full face of makeup in the water, which was never a skill I mastered when I was eleven and on summer vacation.

The directors called me to another filming call at ten a.m. I climbed out of the small makeshift caravan we had parked on the gravel carpark of the beach after another one of my surfing scenes. A group of girls my age ran towards me with a towel and covered my body in a triangular formation. I quickly followed routine and slipped out of the blue bikini I was in and threw a bright yellow bikini over my body.

The towels dropped and my skin was sprayed with a special tan that made me glow instantly in the filming lights. My hair was brushed as I walked back to the main scene we were filming today.

My co-star that I had barely gotten to know was lounging on a red towel watching the surf when my character walked up to him and threw her own towel down. I followed all the directors orders and then returned back to the caravan where all my makeup for the day was removed. This was typically how my days went. I filmed for most of the morning and then was finished by midafternoon and free to do whatever I pleased.

Filming led into late November when the weather was getting especially cold on the coast.

I had nowhere to live, so I was living in an apartment further in from the beach. It was between Los Angeles and San Francisco, so I had to travel quite a bit each morning to film before five a.m.

November twenty third, we had a filming call at three a.m. in the morning. We wrapped up filming the night before at around five p.m. Some of the other cast members were staying at one of the surfers houses for the night but I wasn't invited. I hadn't especially gone out of my way to get to know much of the cast because I was never really in the mood to. I wasn't the same person I used to be.

I contemplated snuggling up on the beach with a towel for a few hours in the dark until the film crew set up to film a scene in the early hours of the morning.

An idea struck my mind after about the three hundredth time I'd tossed to face the other way in the sand. I looked along the coast of the beach to a house with its lights on. It was among a string of fancy and neatly upkept mansions along the beach. I collected my towel and my other valuables and trudged up the beach to the string of houses.

I made my way to the fourth house along the beach and stood below the deck. I knew he would be home because all the lights were on. We hadn't spoke much over the past few months since we rekindled in New York so I wasn't sure how he felt about me. I prayed he wasn't in the vicinity of someone else's company.

I called out his name to the above deck. After a few moments of no reply, I found my way around the rocky side of the house. I climbed up the rocks and flung my towel over the deck railing. My handbag was also tossed onto the deck.

I threw my left leg over the railing of the deck, and pulled myself over with one arm. Resting my towel over the wooden railing to dry, I walked around to where the deck door was. I noticed a deck chair was sitting on the deck gaining rust as the rain had weathered the house over the past months.

When I peeped inside there was nobody in the main room, which used to be filled of recording microphones and sheet music. The room was now empty with a flat screen television and a crescent shaped couch.

I knocked on the sliding door and waited. The wind was blowing my hair all over my face, so I continued to push it back over my ears.

I noticed the latch on the inside of the door was unlocked.

Would it be rude to enter without permission?