Page 23 of For My Finale
Blossom looked down at the skillet in her hand. “Beating murderers around the head with.”
“Oh,” said Lilah. “That’s alright then.” She closed her eyesagain.
Blossom hesitated, looking back toward her house. She could go. Probably she should go. She could pretend that she hadn’t even seen this. Like Lilah said, she wasn’t even supposed to be at home. Lilah had thought she wasn’t around. That would avoid the clearly Lilah-sized headache that was about to come her way if she stuck around.
Then Lilah groaned, and despite everything, despite all logic, Blossom found herself stepping forward and dropping onto the grass beside her.
“So… are we summoning demons, or is this more of an existential crisis sort of situation?” she asked.
Lilah made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and another groan. “Crisis. Definitely.”
Blossom nodded solemnly. “Just as well. I don’t have enough salt for protective circles, and it’s unwise to do a demon summoning without them.”
Lilah huffed something that might have been a laugh this time, but didn’t move.
“Wanna talk about it?” Blossom asked, picking at the grass beside her.
There was the sound of a deep intake of breath and then Lilah opened her mouth and screamed again, fully projecting her voice out into the evening air. Blossom wondered if she should ring someone. The police, perhaps. Or an ambulance? Maybe Lilah was having some sort of fit, or breakdown, or… something.
Then Lilah slammed her mouth shut, cutting off her scream. She sighed and opened her eyes.
“Do you know why I left Hollywood?”
“Nope,” Blossom said, crossing her legs and leaning in. “I told you, it’s none of my business.”
“It’s relevant to the situation at hand,” Lilah said tartly. “I left because it’s all fake. It’s supposed to be fake, that’s its role, no one thinks movies are real. But it was all so false and I’d spent so long living in it that I was worried that I might forget who I was. Forget the real me, the one that I was when I wasn’t pretendingto be someone else.”
Blossom considered this. “Makes sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” Lilah said. “And I thought I’d walk away from it all and be myself and find meaning in my life and… And now this. I came all this way, had all these intentions, but honestly, it’s all so boring. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Do English days have more hours in them? Because that’s honestly what it feels like. I haven’t found anything, I’m just… Just as lost as I was before.”
Still picking at the grass, Blossom tilted her head. Then she said, “So, you’re just sitting around waiting for meaning to find you?”
Lilah finally moved properly, propping herself up on her elbows in order to glare at Blossom. “Excuse me?”
“That’s…” Blossom shrugged. “That’s really stupid.”
Lilah sat up properly. “Wow. Just, wow. I open my heart to you and you call me stupid. The English aren’t a sympathetic people, are they?”
“Not generally,” Blossom agreed. “We’re more practical. Unless you’re a dog. We’re very sympathetic to animals.”
“Woof,” Lilah said dismally.
“Listen,” said Blossom. “If you want to find meaning, then you have to, well, find it. Find is an active verb, not a stative one. You have to act. You have to do something. Get a job, volunteer, meet people, live a life.”
Lilah made a face. “Get a job? I’ve never worked a day in my life.”
Blossom laughed. “Seriously? So you haven’t learned lines and acted and done press junkets and all the rest of it. Being an actress is easy, is it? Not work at all?”
“No!” Lilah said, looking stung. “It’s actually really hard. It’s not all getting awards and…”
“And kissing Chris Hemsworth?” Blossom put in.
“No,” Lilah agreed. “It’s actually tough. A lot of long days, a lot of early mornings, a lot of pretending to be happy when you’re not. A lot of pretending full stop.”
“There you go then,” Blossom said. She could smell the grass, could smell the damp earth and the crisping leaves. “You know how to work. Filling your day is the first step, isn’t it? Find yourself something to do. Whatever it is, I can practically guarantee that it’ll be easier than being an actress. I mean, most people don’t have pictures taken of them when they’re trying to do their jobs, and as a general rule, the public is not allowed to comment on whether or not you’re any good at it.”
“True,” Lilah said. “You make a point.” She looked down at her hands. “So where do I start?”
