lost in you (chris evans)

part one

Tonight was the night. I sat anxiously on the centre of my sofa in the living room of my one bedroom flat, my leg bouncing as I stared intensely at my phone on the coffee table. I guess I should take a minute to clue you up on who I am and what I'm doing here.

My name is Margot Peters, I'm 27 years old, I live in London and I'm an actress. I grew up loving singing and dancing, so when it came picking a career path I followed musical theatre and ended up getting quite a few small parts in some pretty big west end shows. However, I recently turned more towards acting as a couple years back I was cast to lead in what turned out to be a pretty successful TV show in the UK. Unfortunately all good things come to an end - the show ended up being cancelled and I've been auditioning like crazy trying to land a new role, but I've not had much luck so far.

You know how I said I was in some west end shows? Well, I did a short stint in Billy Elliot in 2008, and met the now infamous Tom Holland during my time there and we hit it off pretty well. We just kinda clicked. Quickly, we became really close and over time he turned into my (actually younger) older brother and we've kept in touch since. Anyway, not long ago he let me know about an audition for a new role in the MCU, and somehow convinced me to go for it. I went to the initial audition a month or so ago, and miraculously attended call backs a little over a week ago, and as you may have guessed, tonight's supposed to be the night I get the call letting me know if I've got the role or not. I've never gone for anything this big before and I'm really fucking nervous.

The role is to play Riley Miller - an sort of spy/assassin who works for a high level crime organisation and conspires against SHEILD and the US government after being told they'd been responsible for the death of her family. Basically throughout the film she realises she's been lied to and ends up teaming up with the avengers to take down her old organisation as they try to blow up the world or some other supervillain shit.

*RING*

My eyes widen as my phone turn on and blinks with a call from an unknown number. This was it.

*RING*

The future of the rest of my career and probably life depends on what the person on the other end of the line has to say.

*RING*

SO WHY HAVEN'T YOU PICKED UP THE FUCKING PHONE YET!

I fumble with my phone and slide to accept the call, I can practically feel my heart beating out my chest at this point "Hello?" I ask nervously.

"Is this Miss Peters?" The woman on the other end says.

"Yes, speaking." I reply.

"Hi there! I've called to inform you that you've successfully got the role of Riley Miller in the next Avengers movie!"

"HOLY SHIT!" I exclaim. "Sorry... I mean... um... wow thank you so much, like so so much". I can hear her giggle from the other end.

"No problem - you should be excited. Anyway you'll probably receive a call or email soon concerning contract details, script, training rehearsals, shoots etc. so look out for that. I think that's about it, so congratulations and good luck!"

"Okay, sounds great. Thank you!" I say.

"My pleasure! goodbye!" 

"Bye!"

The call ends and I let out a very unaldult-like squeal bouncing up and down, then pick my phone back up from the sofa and hastily type out a text.

MARGOT - better watch out holland, ur not the only superhero around here anymore

TOM - YOU GOT IT !!?!?! knew u could do it M [nickname for Margot] im proud of u

I started to type out a reply when he sent another text that caused me to freeze for a second.

TOM - u told ur dad?

I hadn't, it hadn't even crossed my mind. I let out a breath I didn't realise I was holding in.

MARGOT - no... should I?

TOM - idk M, maybe this is a good time to talk to him again

MARGOT - maybe...

MARGOT - i g2g tom im getting a call

Which was a lie.

TOM - ok, speak soon?

MARGOT - sure, thanks tom

TOM - anytime

I put my phone down and sighed. Tom knew that the relationship I had with my dad was strained, and although I hate to admit it, he was probably right about talking to him. I'd been out of contact with my dad for about 6 years now, and we'd barely spoken for the 3 before that. My mum died when I was 16, and whilst that sucked by itself, it ultimately led to me falling out with my dad.  Her death completely changed him, it was like he'd switched off. I took up some pretty unhealthy coping mechanisms after her death and ended up spending most of my time when I was at home shouting with my dad - it kinda went downhill from there. We spoke very little when I moved out to uni in at 18, and basically lost contact when my career gained traction and I moved to London at 21. It's not like I was completely estranged from my family though, I'm still pretty close with my brother, Will, who's two years older than me, and he's still in closer contact with our dad. I guess he sort of lets me know what dad's up to and vice versa - I guess its sometimes nice to now he hasn't dropped dead.

When mum died Will did his best to keep normality, he was always pretty grounded like that, but I took it really hard and spiralled a bit, and so did dad. I don't want to get into the depressing details but in short he started drinking and I couldn't cope. I threw myself into training for theatre so I was distracted and at home as little as possible. My dad argued with me about me being out all the time and I argued with him about drinking all the time, to me, home was like hell. Despite trying to remove myself from any and all social situations, unsurprisingly my mental health didn't cope very well. I often found myself in very anxious episodes and constant panic attacks. Eventually Will began to notice. I began to see a therapist regularly where I realised just how badly I'd been coping, and learned how to use my love for dance as a more healthy coping mechanism, and whilst that helped me come to terms with my mums death, it didn't exactly fix my relationship with my dad. These days I'm much better, sometimes I find myself slipping into anxious episodes, but I've gotten better at coping with my brain noise.

I yawned and looked at the clock. It was 8:52pm. I was strangely really tired considering the time, but I shouldn't be surprised considering how exhausted I can get when I'm stressed - and waiting for the news this evening had made me more stressed than I had been in a while. I trudged to my bedroom and changed out of my clothes into an old oversized t-shirt and made my way to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror and sighed. I scraped my brown hair back into a poorly constructed bun on the top of my head, grabbed my toothbrush and began brushing my teeth as my mind started to wonder.

I knew that this movie was going to be big but I hadn't really began to think of what the repercussions of that would be. Just how well known would I become, I'm not exactly used to being recognised in public, and I know how hard all this fame is from Tom. In a way I see that he sort of likes it - it suits him, and you can tell he really loves his fans and how passionate they are about his work. I'm not Tom though, and I'm unsure to how I'll take it.

I spit out my toothpaste and make my way back into my bedroom and flop down onto my bed and curl up under the covers.

What if I'm not good enough.

What if the fans hate me.

What if my co-stars hate me.

Anxious thoughts fill my mind as I drift off to a restless night of sleep.