Part 1: The Premiere

Zoe is an established screenwriter who is about to work on a film with the ultra-famous Cooper Douglas. But what nobody else knows is that they've met before, 8 years ago.

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward,

some are strong at the broken places."

- E.Hemingway

Chapter One

I can hear the faucet dripping from where I'm sitting on the bed. The hollow, metallic sound of the drip drip drop carries around the corner from the hotel bathroom, clear and crisp in the eerily silent room.

The bed linen feels rough underneath me, in stark contrast to the silky, silvery evening gown that drapes from my collarbone to toes. My back is exposed and, despite the heat blasting from the radiator to combat the October chill, a shiver ripples up my spine to the base of my skull. The shiver makes me clutch even more tightly to the crumpled note that's squeezed between my hands. I haven't lost sight of it for days.

"Five more minutes." A fluffy-haired girl leans through the doorway to bark an update, but doesn't step inside the room. A ghostly voice scratches out from the headset over her ears and she disappears just as quickly as she appeared.

I nod in her direction, even though she's gone, in an attempt to keep control of the situation. But I'm not fooling myself, I have no idea what will happen today. I wrap my hands around my shoulders in a hug and take a deep breath. It seems to suppress the tumbling feeling in my stomach so I hold tighter, not caring that the rough paper in my fist scratches my arm.

My shaky reflection looks back from the mirror in front of me. I smooth my hand along my thigh to coax my heeled foot to stop tapping the floor so violently. Beneath the mirror there's a mini-bar. I know this because I've opened the door several times, the magnet on the door sucking as it opens. But I've left the bottles untouched. I could have just one gin and tonic. It's my preference these days, since the days of bourbon are long past. Just the scent of the spicy honey liquid would remind me of summers, burning wood and wisteria. I almost reach for the fridge door but remember my mother so I stop myself, dropping my hands to my lap.

The yellow paper in my lap is tattered at the edges, I notice for the thousandth time. It looks like one of the papers in the tall stacks of newspaper in every corner of the Tribune office. I'm not sure I can do this.

The paper is only about eight years old, but it looks ancient. Sometimes I wonder whether it came from an oak tree and whether that tree was chopped down brutally. I hoped it had. The paper has been read on airplanes, on trains and in cars. It's been crumpled into handbags and stuffed into luggage. All these things have added to its age, the sticky adhesive that was once on the other side all but gone completely. This piece of paper has seen more of the world than most people ever will. And the few words scrawled across it changed everything for me.

"Just a couple more minutes." All I see is a flash of bouncy, blonde curls this time. I've seen her toss it from shoulder to shoulder if she stops moving long enough.

The dripping faucet is getting louder. Maybe the room will flood and I won't have to go. You would think an expensive hotel like this would have perfect plumbing. You'd expect all noise, smell or stain to be violently erased. Sometimes it surprises me that these imperfections existed outside of cracked and tattered Beausville, my hometown.

"Two more minutes," she interrupts my thoughts about how falling water can sound so much different on a tin roof. Wasn't it two more minutes, two minutes ago?

I stand up and walk to the window. I had closed the curtains as soon as I'd checked into the room, not wanting to deal with the possibility of seeing him o there by accident. It was ridiculous, of course, because I was so high up that no one could ever see in or out from the street below.

Trying to touch the sky again, sweetpea? A pang of guilt hits me in the stomach as I remember Pops yelling up to where I sat on the roof as I scribbled away in one of my notebooks. Then I remember Ryan, which is an easier thought these days. But then I remember him again and the butterflies hit my stomach. I can do this.

I was late for the event, but this was partially my fault. I had hoped that by the time I arrived no one would take any notice of me and I could shuffle straight into the theater and skip the red carpet completely. But there were people waiting for me. I had ignored the ringing of the hotel phone several times in the last few minutes. Alan and Jack were no doubt in a panic wondering whether I'd missed my flight or if I was following through on my threats not to show up to my own premiere.

I pull the curtains open a few inches. There's not much to see, so it's a fairly anticlimactic moment. I realize now that my apprehension was silly because the red carpet is very far away and barely visible. It's almost evening, so the flashes of the photographers are starting to light up the cloudless sky.

He's down there. Somewhere.

"Okay, the car is here," bouncy hair blurts out breathily, her eyes wide with exasperation as she chews her bottom lip. She holds an arm out and waves it towards the door impatiently. I imagine she's annoyed at being charged with helping me get to the event. After all, I'm not one of the actors. I'm not even the director. I'm just the lowly screenwriter.

I'm guided into the hotel elevator and down to the ground floor. A gridlock of limousines is outside the entrance of the hotel. As I exit, a flurry of flashes crack and pop in my direction, but thankfully they wane as soon as the photographers realize I'm not a famous face.

I plunk into the thankfully empty car and look up to fluffy-haired girl. I open my mouth to thank her for her help but she slams the door shut nearly on my nose. I'm left staring at my own reflection in the tinted windows with my mouth agape, the glass inches away from my nose.

"Hmph." I settle more comfortably into my seat, leaning my head back and closing my eyes as the car begins to move. This is it.