Page 2 of The Fate Of Us

Jacob’s eyes flick to me, and quick as anything, I shoot back. “Used to.” I keep my eyes laser-focused on Nate, knowing what would slip from my lips next would win whatever joust we were caught in.

“He used to know me.”

Chapter one

Adaline Three Years Later

I’vesignedthousandsofcontracts over my twenty-five years on this planet.

Lots of them when I was a child, with my parents hovering over each shoulder, as Iscribbled my wannabe cursive signature across the dotted line. The majority of them as a fully-fledged A-list actress in a window-walled office in the tallest building of whatever city I was in. A fair few of them where I’ve had to pinch the skin of my wrist under the table out of sheer panic that I’d dreamed I’d been offered another lead role.

And all of them with the gut feeling in my stomach that this wasn’t the way mylife was meant to be.

That includes the contract that’s sitting in front of me now. The contract that I want to lighton fire until it’s nothing but a smoky pile of ashes. The contract that, although it offers me a career-defining, Oscar-worthy, star-on-the-Hollywood-Walk-of-Fame-deserving kind of role, has me wanting to bolt out of the glass doors I just walked through, back down the elevator, and out into the safety and familiarity of Fifth Avenue.

Even the memory of clutching the book to'Forever and Always'in my hands after I'd devoured all five-hundred and seventy-seven pages in a single afternoon, tears streaming down my face at the thought that I could have a shot at playing the main character I'd fallen in love with, wasn't even enough to rid my body of the fear it was doused in.

My hand subtly swoops to my stomach, clutching it like I’m about to hurl my avocadotoast across the terms and conditions. It feels like a knot, constructed of the thickest nautical rope, has formed in there, ties of dread intertwining themselves around it.

I should be used to the feeling by now. I shouldn’t think twice about it showing up at sporadic moments and ruining my day… but I’m not. No matter how many times it makes an appearance, I’ll always convince myself that it’s nerves, that I’m just being silly, and that I’ll eventually grow out of these hesitations that have consumed me since I was six years old.

I’ll remind myself that it’s all of those things combined, and not the overwhelming realisation that perhaps a career as one of the most famous actresses in the world wasn’t the best choice.

I say that like it was me who decided that this was my destiny. My purpose. But it wasn’t. That award goes to my parents.

While other parents were just praying their children would maintain a solid GPA and hopefully, maybe, get into an IVY league school, James and Betty Moore’s only wish was for their eldest daughter to have a career in the limelight that they never had.

Mom left home at eighteen, moved from her tiny town in Kansas to the bright and over-hyped lights of Los Angeles, and despite sleeping with every casting director, agent and actor that passed through the city in the late seventies, or so the tabloids from the time say, the closest she ever got to making it big was renting an apartment that overlooked a production studio.

Dad, on the other hand, was your classic case of nepotism. His father worked on tonnes of movies during the golden age of Hollywood, working his way up to become one of the top producers of his time. His mother was an actress, a Hollywood starlet, a true Hepburn and Monroe clone. My grandparents eventually crossed paths on one of the many sets they stumbled onto during their careers, falling in love and ultimately ditching their fame for a quiet life in some small town.

Dad always tried to name-drop his way to the top, but it never got him further than being a studio assistant.

That studio was the one my mom lived above.

Fast forward ten years, and I came along; a little bundle of fiery red hair and a billion and one freckles on my face, with the most angelic smile to grace ward seventy-two of the Los Angeles General (so I’m told). But to my parents… that smile was a lightbulb, and once its wattage had blinded them, I think I was rarely ever seen as their child.

Sure, they loved me in their own special way, but to them, I was a tool. Another opportunity for stardom. I was a fast pass to early retirement. I was the cheat code for living the high life. I was a child star turned A-lister with parents who only cared about—

“Ms Moore? Are you feeling okay?” A voice echoed in my ear, from which mouth I have no idea.

I lift my head to face the rest of the table; every eye from all twenty heads is burning through me like a tractor beam, every brow drawn inwards with confusion as to why I’ve been supposedly reading the final page of the contract for ten minutes.

I haven’t, I’ve been letting my eyes drift apart and go lazy as I contemplate my escape route and remembering what happens when I lift my sweaty hand and drag the now sweaty pen across the dotted line that’s taunting me.

But they don’t need to know that.

“Ms Moore?”

I turn my head to face the voice, which I now realise is coming from a lady who I think is the casting director, or she could be the actual director. Whoever she is, she curves her lips to a sympathetic smile as she patiently waits for my response.

I smile back. “Yes, sorry. Just… recalling how wonderful this role is, and how grateful I am for this… wonderful opportunity.” My eyes shuffled from side to side, holding onto the dusky blue sky before acknowledging all the eyes that were still fixed on me. “I’m wonderful. Really wonderful.”

Is wonderful even a word anymore?

“Well then… wonderful!” she giggles, encouraging the rest of the table to follow in pursuit.

I let out a forced laugh and take the well-needed lightheartedness that engulfs the room to my full advantage, relaxing my curved spine against the padded leather back of the spinny chair I'm perched on and pulling at the fabric of my cropped vest in an attempt to minimise any boob sweat that could very well manifest.

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