Page 42 of One Happy Summer

“Seen too many movies with bratty, entitled actors?”

He nods, looking back toward me. “And real stories on social media.”

“I wouldn’t put too much stock into those. Fame is a weird thing. Most everybody wants a piece of it, and if they can hitch themselves up on your downfall, they’ll do it.”

There are so many TikToks now of people who’ve said I was rude to them at restaurants and stores, and it’s all a bunch of lies.

He crosses a leg over the other. “That’s the thing, though. The video—”

“Oh gosh,” I say dramatically, looking up toward the sky, cutting him off. The truth is, I’ve hardly thought about thatstupid video over the past few days. And it’s not because I’ve been avoiding it—it simply hasn’t entered my mind.

“Hear me out,” he says. “That video of you is more like what people expect of stars, what we’re, I guess, taught to expect. But spending time with you, that’s not you at all.”

I shake my head. “That video was me, Briggs. One hundred percent. I wish I could say it was AI or a body double or something. But it was me having a moment, a real, human moment where I just . . . lost it. I haven’t done that in fifteen years, since I started working.”

Since I’ve been working nonstop. Which is why I’m now currently on an island, sitting with a man I’ve just recently met, eating roasted marshmallow-and-chocolate sandwiches and feeling contented for the first time in a long time. Maybe instead of working so hard, instead of taking every role that came my way to keep my career on an upward trend, I could have taken more time to do things like this. To just be.

“You’d never lost your temper until that moment?” Briggs asks, his brows peeking out from behind his glasses.

“No,” I say through a chuckle. “Of course not. But I’d gotten really good at holding it in, and then letting it out when I’m alone. I have a very nice soundproof closet at my place in LA that gets the brunt of it. And when I’m on set, which is a lot of the time, the bathroom in my trailer is usually a good place.Although I have to be more cautious there. People are always around, always listening.”

“I’m . . . not sure if that’s terrible or maybe sort of healthy,” he says.

“It’s not, because you saw what happened. Millions of people have seen it. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“So, what happened?” he asks. But then quickly adds, “I mean, if you want to talk about it. We don’t have to.”

I rest my chin on the tops of my knees, watching the embers of the fire dancing in the sea breeze. I think talking about it might ruin this lovely night, and I definitely don’t want to ruin it. But also, I kind of do want to tell Briggs. Mostly because he’s not expecting anything, and I don’t think he’d judge me. Actually, I’m pretty sure of that. He’s seen the video, after all, and he was madder about the possibility that I was cheating on freaking Declan Stone than about my viral actions.

I haven’t fully said out loud what went down that day on set. I didn’t want to feel the shame of it, mostly. Maybe if I did, though, it would set it free. I could release all the feelings and emotions from that day that have been sitting deep inside me somewhere.

I sigh. “To give you the full picture, I’ll have to go back to the beginning of my career.”

“Okay,” he says, turning just slightly in his chair, demonstrating that I have his full attention.

Actually, that’s kind of a unique thing about Briggs. He listens—like genuinely listens. In my world, people are always half listening to you, their minds always on other things, or looking at their phones, trying to multitask. Ill-mannered Betty with her big-brimmed hat was right about no one looking up anymore. It’s a sad fact.

“So, I have a very . . . interesting relationship with my mom,” I start. “When I first got signed, she was very supportive of everything. She made sure every contract we signed was good, worked with my agent because I was too young to do it myself, and she hired any staff I needed. She had my back, for the most part. And then, I’m not sure when it shifted, or if it had always been that way and I just finally noticed, but my acting career had become basically her entire personality.”

It was more than that, really. Didi Shermerhorn sort of became obsessed with it all. My career was her career. My highs were her highs, and my lows . . . well, those were all mine. She was, and I guess still is, the quintessential stage mom.

“Anyway,” I continue. “I’ve been working pretty much nonstop since I was fourteen, hence why I may have never had a s’more—the jury’s still out on that—with only a few breaks here and there. Don’t get me wrong, that sounds like I hate it, but I really do enjoy my career. I love acting; it’s hard at times for sure, but it’s also a lot of fun.”

“Is that what you wanted to be when you were younger? An actress?”

I shake my head. “No, I wanted to be a heart surgeon, actually.”

“Really?” Briggs asks, a soft smile on his face.

“Right up until I did my first play in middle school, which was basically how I got started. But”—I hold up an index finger—“I did get to play a heart surgeon in a movie once. It was on a pirate spaceship, and I was a green alien doctor.”

“Galactic Heist?”

“That’s the one,” I say. “Getting into that makeup was not fun. It took three hours. But still, I loved it. I love acting. I don’t care about the other stuff—the fame or the money, although that is nice.”

“I’m glad you added that caveat,” he says.

“But it’s not why I do it.”

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