Breaking Free (Tom Holland) BOOK ONE [COMPLETED]

Breaking Free Chapter 15

"Are you alright? Zac said you were crying!" Tom exclaimed as he grabbed me by the shoulders.

"Correction, I said ONE of them was crying. Turns out it wasn't her," Zac said. He was hiding what I knew was a grin behind my script.

I snatched the script out of his hands. "Zac I am going to murder you," I said through gritted teeth.

"And with that I think it is time for me to go!" Zac laughed while weaving himself through Tom and I. He shouted that he would call me before disappearing into the night.

An awkward silence fell between the two of us. I broke it when I finally invited Tom inside. "So, you and Zac... have you known each other for a long time?" Tom asked as we made our way to the living room.

"We've been best friends since we were five. We literally did everything together when we were in growing up. Zac, Valerie, Alice, and me."

"Alice?"

"My sister's best friend. She's away at college right now so we haven't seen her in a while. They still talk every day."

"Makes sense. So back to Zac. Did you two ever... you know..."

I tilted my head in confusion. "Ever what?"

Tom bit his lip. "Have you two ever dated?"

I let out a loud laugh. "No of course not. We would never work."

"How do you know? Maybe he secretly loves you?"

"First of all, Zac does nothing secretly. Secondly, he's 100% gay. We would LITERALLY never work. Why are you asking this anyway?"

"No reason," Tom replied. He grabbed my script from the coffee table and held it up. "Have you had a chance to read over the script yet?"

I shook my head. "Zac kind of bombarded me as soon as I got home."

"Do you want to try rehearsing a little? I know we don't have any filming to do tomorrow but it's best to start as soon as possible."

I opened my mouth to respond. Before I could get the words out the front door opened. Soon after Uncle Travis appeared in the entrance to the living room. He took one look from me to Tom and let out a sigh. "It's getting late. I think that it is time for you to head home," he said addressing Tom.

"But he just got here," I argued.

Uncle Travis shook his head. "I don't care. It's time for him to go."

Tom stood. He handed my script back to me and gave me a small smile. "He's right it is getting late. We can always rehearse tomorrow. It'll probably be better anyway since you'll have a chance to look over the script. Have a good night."

Once Tom was gone Uncle Travis joined me on the couch. "Listen," he said, "it's not that I don't trust you. I just need to be extra cautious right now. We barely scraped by today and I don't want to have to do anything like that anytime soon."

"I understand. I'll try to not do anything that'll raise public suspicions. The last thing we need is rumors and lies spreading around. I'll do my best," I beamed. I was glad my uncle was finally confiding in me.

Uncle Travis patted my head. "Oh my innocent princess. Don't ever change," he laughed. Then he headed upstairs to go to bed.

The next day I met my acting coach Alex. He took his job VERY seriously and was not too happy with what he had to work with. To make matters worse, they had given him the near impossible task of perfecting my acting in a week's time. As such, he wanted to begin "molding" me into a proper actress as soon as possible. Tom had also been called in so that we could work on a few scenes, but so far we hadn't been able to get through one scene unscathed.

"Vanessa could you try to not look like you're in pain?" Alex requested.

"But I'm not?" I said obviously confused.

"But you are," Alex countered. When the confusion didn't disappear from my face he sighed. He clapped his hands and called for us to take a break. I ran over to the refreshment table and grabbed a bottle of water. I had already downed half of it by the time Tom joined me.

"You're actually doing a lot better than I thought you would," he said as he grabbed a bagel. "No offense," he added after realizing what he had just said.

"Offense taken," I scoffed. "I think it's because there are no cameras. Their absence takes a little bit of the pressure off. I'm not going to lie, I don't think I'll be able to master acting within a week."

"You don't need to master it. You just need to get good enough to give a good performance for the director. As long as he says your acting is okay that's all that matters."

"But I feel as if I'm letting my sister down if I don't do a phenomenal job."

Tom put his hands on my shoulders. "Stop getting into your own head. You're going to stress yourself out."

I chugged the rest of my water bottle. As if I wasn't stressed enough. I had read over the entire script the night before. There were scenes in it I was 100% sure I wasn't going to be able to do. Especially since I couldn't even do the simple scenes.

"Let's get back to work!" Alex shouted, snapping me out of my trance. I threw the water bottle in the trash and made my way back to the center of the room.

By the time practice was over I wasn't feeling any better. I tried not to wear my heart on my sleeve. When I saw Tom's face upon exiting my trailer I knew I was failing. He had offered to give me a ride since Uncle Travis was tied up at the agency. Now I wasn't so sure that had been a good idea.

We rode in silence for quite a while. Tom had attempted to start up several conversations but they had all fallen flat. I stared out of the car window allowing the flowing scenery to take my mind away. After a while I began to realize that the scenery we were passing wasn't familiar at all.

"Where are we going?" I asked. "This isn't the way to my house."

Tom flashed a grin that nearly sent me into cardiac arrest. "We're taking a little detour. You need to get your mind off of work and let loose a little."

We drove a little more, each mile making me more and more anxious. Tom expertly dodged every attempt I made to find out our destination. It was actually impressive given his track record with keeping secrets. It wasn't until we had pulled up outside that I found out. Tom hopped out of the car and practically yanked me from my seat. He grabbed my hand and led me into the biggest trampoline park I had ever seen.

A/N: Here you go! Hope you like it! Next update will be on Monday as usual~