Page 20 of The Fate Of Us

“Nate! So glad to see you again, buddy. Are we ready to get started?” Sebastianbeamed, flicking his head between me and Nigel as he did.

“I think so,” I cracked a smile, dishing it to both of them, getting a curt nod fromNigel in return.

“Amazing!” Seb boomed as he clapped a hand on my shoulder, patting it once beforedoing a one-eighty and heading for the crowd of crew members. “Alright, folks let’s go ahead and get the scene lit. Jerry and Angie, will you get cameras A and C positioned…” His low, southern voice faded out as he merged with the crowd.

Nigel and I started the small talk as we headed to the middle of the set, constructed asa basic kitchen with an island in the middle. The glow from the lights that were dotted above us illuminated the scene, the way it felt like daylight, like someone had lifted off the roof, made me slip into that easy comfort I always felt with acting.

I don’t question why I feel so normal when I'm in a situation like this, surrounded by eyesand cameras and judgement. It shouldn’t make sense. But it does. It’s like an escape from the person I am, pretending to be the confident hero, the love interest who’s never known what it was to feel anxious…

I shake the thoughts free from my head, arching my back as I rest my elbows on theisland. I suck in a breath, hold it there, think about what I always think about when I get like this, then release it. I do that until I spot Seb rounding the corner and sinking himself into his director’s chair, flexing the script in his hands before calling ‘action’ not a second later.

Nigel twists his head towards me, a deep scowl masking his face. “You can’t baseyour life on a girl you won’t even think about in a year’s time, Harry. You need to think like an adult. What’s more important, your future or some girl—”

“She’ll always be more important than anything, Dad! She comes before everything,and she always will!” I felt the room go deadly silent as I screamed that into Nigel’s face.

A laugh so condescending, one of pure evil, left Nigel’s mouth. “You’re an idiot. Iknow girls like that, Harry; she’ll leave you the second she lays eyes on some jacked-up frat guy who has a few more inches than you and then you’ll be fucked.” The man pretending to be my dad gets right up in my face when he delivers those lines, intimidating me so much I have to blink, which makes me know we’re doing a good job.

The fact he’s so close allows me to shove him with more force than I should have. I’llapologise to him when someone calls cut, but I know it’s made his whole fight seem so much more real.

“Don’t you dare talk about her like that! You have no idea what you’re talking about.”I rush my breathing, my chest rising and falling so quickly it makes me feel a bit dizzy. “Look where you are; sure, you have the big house and jackass size bank balance, but Mom left you. I’d rather have Anastasia than be a millionaire any day.”

As I go to turn around, to storm out of the ‘kitchen’, my throat closes up.

That’s whenI spot her, watching me from one of the many dark corners of the set, a hint of a smile resting on her lips that I can still make out through the darkness surrounding her.

Suddenly, my heavy breaths aren't fake anymore.

Every time I catch her staring, I feel like I’m twelve again, standing in the side garden,dripping wet, with her golden and fiery gaze fixed on me. I felt so vulnerable. So seen. That day we met was the first time I’d ever felt truly comfortable around someone who wasn’t family.

Almost like we had this invisible string that had connected us our entire lives, and thatday she threw the balloon at me, our ends of the strings finally crossed. And when she let me throw a water balloon back at her, our ends never unravelled again.

But, like always, in the back of my mind is the day that string was cut in two. It’s notlong before her stare starts to hurt, and all the betrayal she sent my way comes crawling out from the hole I stuff it in every time I think about it. My hands get shaky. Sweat slicks my skin. My heart rate picks up. I remember all the smiles and ‘I love you’s’ weren’t real.

They wereneverreal.

I can tell when she remembers it all too. I can see the day I left for college, when I promised, that after letting each other see the world on our own for a while, I'd meet her at Sunfall Pier, a year from that day, play across her eyes. I can see her remembering that I didn’t come theday I promised to. Like we’d sworn to.

I know it must have hurt her, but she must’ve been insane if she thought I was going to turn up and face her again, after she fed me a future that she never really saw, tearing away the hope of us and casting it into the ocean.After she lied to me, for months on end.

I can tell when those memories are cast across her mind. Her eyes dip to her shoes,her knee knocking inwards, as her hands play with nothing. She hesitates before I see her turn around and head into the darkness.

My heart sinks a little every time I spot that in her, but I don’t know if I’ll ever feelready enough to ask about what happened, why it happened, and what I did for her to cheat on me with Asher Hartford.

Chapter eight

Nate

AsherHartfordhadbeena pain in my ass since I was sixteen.

Not only had he plagued the mind of every girl in my high school, meaning I couldn’tget through a single lunch hour without hearing his name being whispered in every corner of the cafeteria, but he had to take it one step further and steal away the only one of those girls I actually gave a shit about.

And just who is the asshole who ruined my life? Just another one of Hollywood’sleading men. He had been since he was fourteen.

It would have been fine if Asher had stayed as the boy on the billboard I saw everyonce in a while, or the name I heard being giggled at lunch. If he’d remained this figment of a movie star, then things between me and Addy would have probably turned out differently.

That was until they both got cast in a coming-of-age movie where they played loveinterests.

His stupid face had irritated me from that moment onwards, like it’s doing now, as Istare out the window of my car, zeroing in on the bus ad that has that same stupid face, but with more facial hair and less acne, stretched across it.

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