The Other One {Harry Styles AU}

4. Now

I am up so early, shuffling through my empty house with crust in my eyes and a hole in my chest. I fill the sink with warm water and scrub my face, erasing the mucus but not the ache. I dress quickly and leave, filled with an urgent need to be around other people. A desperate clawing need not to be alone.

My call time today is 5 am, so I can leave the set and get to class by noon. We filmed the first few seasons of "Turning Pages" in front of a live studio audience, but for the last six years, we've had a closed set. Six years. My breath hitches in my chest. I steady my gaze on the freeway in front of me, so I don't lose control of my car, and focus on thinking about how the show has changed. In those early days, it was a cheesy comedy show. I was just nine years old, chubby and nerdy. People wear those horrible glasses now as if it's cool.

But the writing on the show was fundamentally good, with a lot of heart, and that's what kept people watching. As I got older, and more sarcastic, the show took a bit of a darker tone, too. But the audience stuck with us, and I grew up with the world watching every week.

This ninth season will be my last. They are planning to run one more next year, without me, the inspiration for the show. The title character. Sort of. Maddie Turner. Turning Pages. I play a nerdy girl who reads all the time (myself). My tv brother, Dylan Porter, and sister, Samantha Rouse, are the cute and annoying foils. My tv parents, played by Sam Caldwell and Jenna Lucas, run a bookstore called "Page Turners." The Turners. Insert comedic rimshot here.

I think the title "Turning Pages" is meant to represent so much more than just books or the characters' names, though. It's about life moving forward, the way we move forward in a book. We turn the pages of our lives, and we can go back and re-read that page, but it is already written. We can't change it. We just have to keep reading. Or writing. Or we can throw the fucking book into a pit of fire like he did.

I slam the door of my Range Rover and try to push his purple face and clawed hands and bulging eyes out of my mind.

"Hey, doll," the hair and makeup tech says as I enter my trailer. Yeah. I have my own trailer. And yeah. I have my own hair and makeup technician.

"Hey, Lou." I slump into the swivel chair in front of the mirror.

She fluffs her hands through my reddish brown hair. "Shall we go lavender today?"

I grin at her but shake my head. "Let's not get me fired before my grand farewell, yeah?"

She shrugs and begins spraying, brushing, dabbing my face until my flaws are hidden well enough so as not to be detected on camera. Then she teases and curls my hair, adding clip-on extensions so that it appears as though I have thick, luscious locks, not the thin wisps that usually frame my face.

An hour later, I head over to the sound stage where my fake house, fake family, fake school, and fake job all wait for me. My fake parents greet me as I enter the fake bookstore filled with real books. It's awesome that I can sit and read real books between takes.

"How's school, sweetie?" Jenna asks me as we wait for the start of a new scene.

"Oh, it's fine." There's that word again. Is it fine? I don't know anymore. I have spent my whole life pretending, and now I can't identify my real feelings.

She smiles at me as if there is not an internal struggle greater than the Civil War shredding me apart. As if I am indeed fine.

We film most of my scenes for the episode without retakes, and I am dismissed early. Either I'm good at this (which Erin would dispute), or they just don't care how it looks anymore. She's leaving anyway.

"Back at the same time tomorrow, okay?" Mitch, the producer calls as I walk away.

I wave my hand and consider flipping him off. But I give a thumbs-up instead, shaking my head. I don't really know why my thoughts are so dark and rebellious today. Mitch has been around for more than half my life, and he has been nothing but patient and understanding with me. Through all my drama, anger, tears. He usually just waits out whatever sort of tantrum I'm throwing. Then quietly prompts me back to work. The work distracts me from-Stop. No.