Page 61 of My Lucky Star
My body stiffened, but he tightened his hold, not giving in an inch. “What, you watched my showreel?”
“And anything else I could find. It’s only fair. You watched my show.”
I grunted. There was nothing I could say. He had the right to watch whatever was freely available online. Like I’d looked up his dick pic, which was disappointingly grainy, taken with a long lens in low lighting.
“What I don’t understand is why you’re not jumping on this chance to audition for the film. Why you’d rather make coffees and chauffeur people around.”
“You make me sound like a butler.” I attempted to turn around, to give him a dirty look, but was met by a wall of muscle. Despite my indignation, his stroke-hold sent a delicious hum through my body. I didn’t want to escape.
“I’m joking.” He murmured into my ear. “There’s nothing wrong with what you do, but I can see it’s not your true passion.”
I relaxed into his grip, filling my lungs with the crisp air. “I don’t want to get sucked back into that vortex. That life of constant hoping and wishing and dreaming.”
“What’s wrong with dreaming?”
My muscles stiffened. “Dreaming is toxic.”
“Why?”
A hot stirring rose in my gut. This was it. What I’d been wrestling with and what would eventually make him lose interest. Better I got it out now. “Because... we’re taught that dreams come true. That if you follow your dreams and work hard, anything is possible. You can be anything. An astronaut. A movie star. But if you look at the numbers, it doesn’t add up. There are billions of us. If everyone dreams of stardom, most of us will fail. Billions of people will fail. Their dreams never come true. So, why do we encourage our kids to dreambig? I used to hang out with a lot of actors, and I came across hundreds of people who all thought they had what it takes. Every one of them genuinely believed that they would beat the odds and become household names... It’s not possible. If everyone’s a celebrity, no one’s a celebrity.”
It was easier to speak without seeing his face. His celebrity face.
After a moment, his soft voice travelled into my ear. “Yeah, but not everyone dreams of that. I didn’t, yet it happened.”
My irritation boiled over, giving me superhuman strength. I twisted on the bench to eyeball him with all my might. “You’re one in a billion! And because you’re a celebrity, your story is elevated above millions of ordinary stories like mine. Your story is told by the media, and it becomes a narrative people hang on to, a story about hard work and passion being rewarded by this... unfathomable success.” The droplets of my spit landed on Cem’s shirt front. “Yet, it’s so rare that it doesn’t matter. It’s an anomaly.”
He nodded, a little amused by my outburst. “I know, I’m lucky. No need to burn me to a crisp with your laser eyes.”
I scoffed, shivering from the breeze that now hit my exposed back, but I wasn’t done. “Luckydoesn’t even scrape the surface.Luckyis winning a gift basket at a town fair. I don’t have a word for what you are, but I’m willing to make one up. Super... charmed. Kissed by the gods? Triple Irish?”
Okay, not great, but I narrowed my eyes to drive the point home.
“Fair enough.” Cem’s agreeable smile began eroding my resolve. “But I’m pretty sure triple Irish is a type of whiskey, so I’m not sure I can claim that.”
He waited for me to catch my breath, then gently scooped me back inside the blanket, hugging my shoulder against his chest. The warmth felt heavenly, and I found myself back in that dangerous place, inhaling his spicy, heady scent.
“I’m sorry you haven’t found success yet,” he murmured.
I tried to shake my head, my muscles still stiff and fighting. “I’m not looking for it anymore and honestly, it feels better that way. That’s why I moved to Napier and took this job. It was like someone finally turned on the lights and I saw my odds for what they really were and then I couldn’t unsee it.”
We sat in silence for a long time.
Finally, Cem spoke. Thoughtfully. Carefully. “I think you’re throwing the baby out in the bath.”
“I’m what?”
“Did I not say it right? You know when you throw away something important with something that’s not.”
I laughed until tears sprung from my eyes. “You meanthrowing the baby out with the bathwater?”
Cem laughed with me. “That makes more sense! But you know what I’m talking about. Those big dreams about what we want to achieve or become... Money, power, influence. It’s largely stuff we can’t control. That’s where luck and chance play a part, but passion is different, I think. It’s what you enjoy, what gives you purpose. The one thing that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning. If you follow your passion, you’re already living your dream, not dreaming of something that may never happen. That way, you can’t really fail. Not unless you lose your passion.”
I hated that he was right.
“It’s funny,” I said. “With our acting class, we used to sign emails with ‘living the dream’. It was usually sarcastic. Like, when someone got a job as a barista or paid a fortune for new headshots, but when you put it like that, you’re right. So often when I went to my scene group or acted in a student film, there was a high, an incredible feeling of being in the zone, becoming the character, making the story come alive. Even when it was unpaid and didn’t lead to anything, I loved those moments. I lived for those moments, and I think that’s how I kept going for as long as I did. I told myself one day it would all pay off. I would book my first big job and then I could say I’d paid my dues. All the crap I went through would become my inspiring backstory or whatever.”
My face flushed with heat as I thought about how I’d interviewed myself in my own head. How delusional I’d been.
