"She reads so well. How old is she?"
"Just three last month."
"And she can read? I mean, she actually just read that."
I sat in the large white office on the sofa in my frilly pink dress, my hair curled into ringlets and my lips made rosy with lipstick. The lady with long nails pointed to a different page and asked me to read.
"But mom," I whined. Because the paper said she whined. "It's not fair. How come she gets to stay up later." I pouted.
The adults smiled and laughed and looked at each other. My mother smiled at me. She didn't usually smile. Not at me, not at anyone. But that day she smiled at me, and I wanted more. I wanted so desperately to please her.
I read the next line, "come on, mommy, just this once, please."
Matty taught me how to read before I could really even walk. He was learning in his pre-school class, and he showed me. He taught me the sounds the letters make. He read picture books and then novels with me. I read independently starting at about two. I liked The Ghost with the Halloween Hiccups. And The Muffin Man. And Harry Potter. I didn't always understand what I read, but Matty would explain. Or the dictionary would. Matty showed me how to use that when I asked him what livid meant and he didn't know either.
"Mrs. Turner, she is extraordinary. We want her for this part," my mother was so happy, she clapped her hands. "We'll call you with the details."
My heart was fluttering in my chest, excitement and fear and anxiety churning in my veins, pushed along by its pulsing beats. It was that sweet but terrifying feeling at the start of something new.
"Good girl, Maddie. Good girl," my mother praised me, resting her hand on my shoulder.
That was the first of many. So many. And the more auditions and movies and shows I did, the less I felt like a real person. No one listened to me unless I was in front of a camera, reading lines. And it might have all been worth it, it might just have been worth losing myself, if she kept smiling at me. But she didn't. She should have. But she didn't.
YOU ARE READING
The Other One {Harry Styles AU}
FanfictionBook One (complete). Haunted by the suicide of her older brother, Maddie Turner's life is in shambles. Her overbearing mother pushed her into acting when she was a child, and Maddie has spent the last 8 years playing herself in the biggest sitcom in...
