Page 30 of Merciless Prince
I swallowed thickly and lifted my palms. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I—”
“Shut up and let me talk!” she snapped, nostrils flaring. She shook a finger at my face. “Iknewit was a bad idea to let you do the show without coming to any of the rehearsals. It’s totally unheard of. I told them fifty times to scrap the whole skit, so I have literally no fucking idea why the higher-ups pushed for us to let you do it. I was honestly expecting some sort of savant after all that. Instead we ended up with an incompetent fucking moron on our stage. We might as well have dumped a mob of stray cats onto the stage to play your part. At least that would’ve been slightly funny.”
Hot tears spilled out over my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I murmured weakly, dropping my head in shame.
“So is that it? You’re incompetent?” she said. “Or were you intentionally sabotaging the show?”
“It wasn’t intentional, I swear,” I said, voice quavering. “I was just going by the script I was given. I guess I was sent the wrong one. But I shouldn’t have frozen like that out there. I should have realized what was happening and picked up the—”
Samantha cut me off again. “What?” she said. “You got a different script?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
“I… I need to get my phone. It’s in my emails.”
She rolled her eyes and briskly turned on her heel. “Fine. Come on.”
Three minutes later, I was in Samantha’s cramped office, holding my phone in my trembling hands. “Here,” I said, barely able to choke the word out as I opened the email at the top of my inbox. “This is the script I was given.”
Samantha took my phone and scanned the screen with narrowed eyes. Then she let out a sigh and scrubbed a hand across her face. “This is an old skit. It got scrapped for the men in cages one instead. The production assistant was meant to send you that one.”
I didn’t reply. I was too close to bursting into tears.
Samantha’s face softened, but only a little bit. “Look, this script thing obviously isn’t your fault. Someone else messed that up,” she said. “But you still fucked up out there. You froze in front of all our viewers and made a fool out of yourself. That’s what people are going to remember, even if they find out you were sent the wrong script.”
“I know,” I murmured, unable to meet her eyes. Every word she spoke felt like salt pouring into my mental wounds. I’d never been so humiliated and ashamed in my life. On top of that, I knew she was right about me. I should have adjusted to the scene and done my best to play along as soon as I realized there was something off about it. Good actors could do that.
Apparently, I couldn’t.
“If it makes you feel any better, the production assistant who sent the script to you is definitely going to lose their job,” Samantha added, laying a hand on my shoulder.
That didn’t make me feel any better at all.
“You should probably lie low for a few days. No doubt the netizens are already making memes about what a shit-show this episode was. But don’t worry—it can’t be as bad as the time Jana Clarkson was caught lip-syncing and tried to deny it. She still hasn’t lived that down.” Samantha let out another sigh and rubbed her forehead again. “Make sure you give the costume back before you go.”
With that, I was dismissed.
I changed back into my own clothes and fled the studio, keeping my head down to avoid everyone’s judgmental gazes. There were no trains running back to Bellingham at this time of night, so I had to go uptown to my parents’ old apartment to hide out.
After I let myself in, I crumpled onto the floor by the door. I was completely overwhelmed with emotions, and it was messy as hell, leaking and tumbling out of me like a series of volcanic eruptions as I shook and sobbed on the tiles.
I was never going to live this down. Four million people across the country had just witnessed me making a total fool of myself on live TV, and hundreds of thousands more were probably going to watch the online re-run after they heard how bad it was.
I should’ve known better. I should’ve known I wasn’t ready for such a big appearance, especially with no rehearsal, and I should’ve listened to the little voice in the back of my head that told me everything seemed a little too good to be true.
When my tears finally dried up, I dared to take a look at my phone. I had sixteen missed calls and countless messages from my friends, which alternated between sympathizing with me and asking what happened. There was an email from Kelsey as well. All it said was ‘Call me’.
Samantha was right about the internet cruelty, too. There was already a hashtag about the incident circulating on Twitter—#SNSfail—and several people had taken screenshots of me and turned them into mocking meme images.
I sighed, turned my phone off, and stuffed it behind a couch cushion. Then I wearily dragged myself into the bathroom, wishing I could wash away the whole evening along with the black mascara that had streaked all over my face.
I turned the hot water in the shower onto full blast before slowly trudging over to the vanity to grab some face wash. In my emotionally-fraught state, I’d forgotten to turn the exhaust fan on, so the room was already starting to fill with steam.
I was too exhausted and sad to give a crap.
I knelt in front of the cupboard under the vanity and rummaged around inside it. After I found what I was looking for, I stood up straight and caught a glimpse of the mirror. Steam had coated every inch of it except a section in the middle, where someone had written four words in big capital letters.
