I narrowed my eyes and focused in on a small white cottage with a dark grey roof on the other side of the valley.
“That’s because it was hard to see all the way down there from this hill,” I said, pointing toward where we had hiked before.
“Do you think anyone lives there?”
“Hard to tell,” I replied. “Want to go check it out?”
“Another time, maybe. I kind of like sitting here in the heather,” she said, giving me a look.
“Aye, you better enjoy it now, because it’s not going to last long.” She glared at me. “What did I say?” I asked with a laugh.
“Winter is coming. I get it, okay? California girl here, have some mercy,” she said as she pointed at herself, a smile stretching across her beautiful face.
“Fine. I won’t mention it anymore. Do you want me to leave?” I asked, and her smile fell. She shook her head.
“No. I don’t want you to leave. Stay.” Her voice sounded sweet and…sincere. She took something out of her bag and handed it to me. “Peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”
“Thank you.” I took the sandwich from her hand. Her skin was soft, but cold. “Would you like to trade your sandwich for an apple?”
“Why, yes, I would,” she replied. “Thank you.”
I bit into the sandwich she had given me as she bit into the apple I gave her in return. My eyes focused on her mouth, on her soft lips pressed against the skin of the apple, and I had to make a conscious effort to direct my gaze elsewhere.
“This is delicious, by the way.”
“Thanks,” she replied.
“How long have you been up here?” I asked her when I was nearly done.
“A while. All the girls went to Edinburgh, but I wasn’t in the mood for it. I felt like I needed to spend some time by myself.” A patch of clouds covered the sun, and she frowned, looking at me as if I had brought them on.
“Wasn’t me, I swear.”
She laughed, and I loved the way she tilted her head back as she did. I found myself studying her profile, her beautiful, impeccable caramel skin. Her bright smile created such a stark contrast with her skin and black hair, and her hair framed her face so perfectly, especially now that it was tied in a pretty braid.
“So, you wanted some alone time. Are you sure you want me to stay? I completely understand if you don’t want me here. ‘I love man no less, but nature more.’”
She frowned, her eyebrows pulled together. She gave me a long look, seemingly trying to figure out whom I was quoting.
“Lord Byron.”
She nodded, and then smiled with a light shake of her head. “Handsome, chivalrous, and quotes poetry—what else?”
“Aye, Lord Byron was of Scottish descent. It’s basically a sin not to know his verses.” Then, I thought about what she had said, and I suddenly felt my cheeks redden. “Chivalrous?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “You helped keep me from landing on my face a few days ago up on this hill, and then you held my hand the entire time. That counts as chivalrous in my book.” Her eyebrows shot up, a flirty smile illuminating her face. I hadn’t thought about it at the time—had done it simply because it was the right thing to do—but then I’d kept holding her hand because it felt right. “And I’ve seen you taking care of Margaret on set, always making sure she’s all right,” she added.
I shrugged. “It’s the least I can do,” I said, looking down, feeling suddenly shy. I looked up, and our eyes met. The amused gaze in her eyes puzzled me.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice coming out huskier than I intended.
“This blush,” she said, reaching for my cheek and brushing my skin with her forefinger. “It’s the cutest thing.” I smiled, letting out a shaky breath, and I looked down, mostly afraid that my blush would deepen. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I was just trying to pay you a compliment,” she added.
I grinned, and her smile widened.
“Thank ye,” I told her with a grin, still red in the face, and she laughed. “So, how are you liking Scotland?”
“It’s beautiful. I love it here.” She let out a breath, but her eyes were betraying something else: longing.
“Do you miss yer family?”
“I do, actually, more than I ever thought possible.” She looked to her side and cut off a small branch from a heather plant next to her. She fiddled with it between her fingers. “I know it sounds silly. I’m an adult, and I have the chance of a lifetime working here.”
“It doesna sound silly to me. It’s nice that you have such a strong bond with your parents and your siblings. I miss my own family, and they’re just a short trip away.”
“I guess I hadn’t realized how hard it would be to keep in touch with the time difference. I’m used to talking to my sister on a daily basis, but I don’t want to complain. This is what’s best for me. I needed a break from LA, anyway.” She looked at me and frowned. “Do you like LA?” she asked with a curious look on her face.
I let out a breath and smiled. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s the United States—the land of opportunity. For an actor, Los Angeles is like Mecca. It doesn’t get better than that. I do like the city, but I guess if I had to consider it without thinking about the business side of it, I would pick New York over LA in a heartbeat. It’s just an older city, and it has so much history. I don’t mean to offend you in any way. I’m probably missing out on something special LA has to offer. After all, I just spent about a year there.”
“No, I get it. You’re right, sort of. It’s a tough city to live in, especially if you have no ties to it. I guess I love it more than any other place because it’s home. And of course, I’ve been lucky, growing up in a family that has been in the business for so long…I have so many wonderful memories of visiting my parents on set. From a child’s perspective, it always looked so magical. I loved it. I have been chasing the magic ever since.” The tone of her voice was nostalgic, but the smile on her face was so bright, it reached her eyes.
“You’re beautiful. Why not try acting?” The words were out of my mouth before I could realize what I was saying. Her eyes widened, but she gave me a small nod, ignoring my compliment.
“Acting is not for everyone,” she said shyly.
“True, but you’ve been around the business your whole life. You never had any desire to try?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said with a small smile, her eyes fixed on the branch of heather between her fingers. “I suppose I found the magic somewhere else.” She glanced my way and raised an eyebrow. “What you create on set, it’s beautiful. It’s an enchantment, really. Actors are like magicians, but I love the magic that happens backstage. That’s what I fell in love with when I was a little girl—the chaos, the preparation, the moment before everyone is ready for a scene, the very instant before someone says ‘Action!’”
I nodded and stared into her eyes, captivated by her words.
“Besides,” she continued, “I did take acting classes with Amira. It wasn’t for me. I froze on more than one occasion. I wasn’t able to evoke emotion, and I hated having everyone’s eyes on me.”
“But you don’t mind singing in front of a crowd?”
“I don’t mind singing in front of friends. I could never act in front of strangers.”
“So when did you realize you wanted to choose this career?”
“I narrowed it down when I was in high school. I knew I wanted to either be a makeup artist or a costume designer, and let’s just say I found out rather quickly I was better with the brush than I was with the needle. Did you always want to be an actor?” she asked.
“Aye, for as long as I can remember.”
“This must be a dream come true for you. It’s the role of a lifetime.”
“It is, and I’m determined to make it great. I want to make Abarath unforgettable.”
Sam
I used to be a person who enjoyed being on her own. I was in a relationship for what amounte
d to almost a fourth of my life at that point, and I loved being by myself from time to time. However, as of late, I had a hard time being on my own. Maybe it was just because I was homesick and was still getting used to being there. I was surrounded by people all day long, yet I dreaded the moment I’d be alone.
After Eric and I broke up, I had the hardest time sleeping on my own, and it was safe to say I was still not used to having the bed all to myself.
Lately, I didn’t enjoy my company as much. I noticed that my mind would sometimes go to a very dark place. Occasionally, the memories of that night at the Golden Globes would flash in front of my eyes.
The betrayal, the heartbreak, the anger—I relived it all over again.
I replayed the whole breakup, including the mayhem of epic proportions that followed a few months later. Eric firing insults at me in a conference room filled with attorneys, their blank stares…I had wanted to feel vindicated, and yet, I felt humiliated.
My heart felt as if it had shriveled to the size of a prune. It felt smaller, but heavy as lead. I had been living with that feeling for weeks.
I felt smaller. I felt insignificant. I felt as if I didn’t matter.
And to think I had been so ballsy when I’d delivered the blow. In the aftermath, I looked like the wounded one.
Earlier in the week, I had made plans with Margaret, Blair, and a few other girls. I suspected Cecilia and Oliver were finally hooking up, even though she hadn’t confessed yet. I believed I was right simply based on the fact that she hadn’t been around all weekend.
When I woke up on Sunday morning, I was in one of my dark moods, and I felt the need to come to a place I knew would make me happy. I had been thinking about the heather-covered glen for days, ever since I had been up there with Hugh. I had been longing to go back, but the weather had been horrible. Finally, it was a fabulous, almost spring-like day. It seemed to be the perfect time. I felt sure going up there would help me get out of my dark mood.
And it worked. The hills covered in purple flowers had such a soothing effect on my soul. Being out in the wilderness seemed to have a calming effect on me. As hippie as it might sound, I felt in sync with nature and all the elements.
I hadn’t expected to see Hugh up there, much less that he would come sit down with me. My body hummed with excitement at his nearness. I got heady just on his smell, musky and masculine, tinged with peppermint.
We were alone. Completely alone.
Our shoulders were less than two inches apart. He only had to lean in and kiss me. He only had to make a move, and I would be his.
I wouldn’t have minded rolling in the heather, kissing Hugh MacLeod.
Too bad he never did.
There are certain patterns you fall into when you live your life away from home. Some people take a lover, like Cecilia did, while other people surround themselves with friends. I found both things to be appealing. I would have liked to have a lover—Cecilia seemed even more cheerful than usual—and yes, I sort of had my eye on one guy in particular, but I enjoyed the fact that I relied on my colleagues more than I’d ever thought. We were a tight-knit group, much more than all the other people I had worked with in the past. We were all quite different, each one with a different story and upbringing, yet we seemed to get along better than most families.
When I was surrounded by the amazing women I worked with, I suddenly didn’t feel lost or homesick anymore. It didn’t matter that we were born decades and continents apart; there were other things that united us—a love for storytelling and for movies, for one, as well as a passion for anything regarding our craft. Of course, what united us above everything else was the desire to make this one of the best shows ever. We shared other passions, too: an unhealthy love for food, wine, and chocolate—although some of my colleagues did prefer whisky—and a passion for music. Along with wine, music was what helped us unwind the most. It wasn’t unusual for some of us to start singing and dancing even when it wasn’t karaoke night.
Music helped us forget everything. Tiredness and frustration would automatically be washed away with a good sing-along.
It was during one of those nights after a long work day that we found ourselves at the pub, and Adele’s “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)” came on. As soon as the first notes came through the speakers, everyone cheered and Blair asked Angus, the owner of the pub, to turn it up. Everyone around me started swaying and singing immediately, trying to mimic Adele’s moves from the video. We all sang together at the top of our lungs without a care in the world. All the people around us stopped and stared, but we didn’t mind. We were enjoying the moment too much, singing a song that was sort of a kind diss to an ex-boyfriend. We were different, yet we were the same. I looked at the women singing around me.
We had differences, but we all had one thing in common.
A broken heart. A love story that had left us scarred. A lover who didn’t deliver on a promise. We’d all been there.
Heartbreak, the universal denominator.
A couple weeks passed, and I longed to see the valley covered in heather again, but I didn’t get another sunny Sunday. It had rained so much in the last two weeks, we had to reschedule a shoot in Gullane, on the west coast of Scotland. Thankfully, a few days later, the forecast improved and production told us we’d be heading out early the next morning. The producers were confident we would get everything we needed in one day. We were scheduled to shoot on Gullane’s beach first and then by the remains of St. Andrew’s Church. There was only a small group of us, a skeleton crew compared to our usual numbers. Still, we needed two buses to fit everyone.
We were up at four, and by four thirty, we boarded the bus that would take us there. You could tell no one wanted to be up that early. The crew was usually so cheerful in the mornings, but it was too early for that shit. People couldn’t stop yawning, and as soon as they took their seat, many closed their eyes and dozed off. Cecilia and I took a seat across from Margaret at the back of the bus.
Gullane was about an hour and a half from where we were staying. It was still dark outside, and after we left, the bus driver turned the lights off.
Cecilia was asleep in no time, resting her head on my shoulder. I leaned my head on top of hers and tried to get some sleep, too.
I napped for a while, but then Margaret’s voice startled me.
No, I realized it wasn’t her voice that woke me up, it was her breathing. It was harsh, labored. Her eyes were closed, and her brows were furrowed. A few seconds later, she started complaining in her sleep. Her voice was barely audible, but she looked distraught, and she clutched her belly.
“Margaret,” I said softly, stretching my arm to reach one of her hands. Cecilia’s head fell off my shoulder, and she grouchily leaned against the window, never opening her eyes. “Mags,” I said again as I placed my hand on hers.
She opened her eyes, and her frown deepened. She took a deep breath.
“Are you okay? You were talking in your sleep.”
“Y-yes…I’m okay, I think. Just tired. A bit of cramping,” she said, massaging her belly.
“Is that normal?” I asked.
“Yes…I think. The doctors said they’re called Braxton Hicks. I’ve had them before. It felt just like this. It’s nothing…I just need to drink more water. Yell at me if I don’t, okay?” she said as she kept massaging her belly. She gave me a small smile and then added, “I’m going to try to sleep some more.”
I fell asleep again and only woke up when the bus started moving back and forth to park on what looked like a dirt road.
The location scouts had rented an old, empty farm-style house so we could put all our equipment inside and get set up for wardrobe and makeup.
I grabbed a couple cases of our things, and Cecilia grabbed the rest, then we both followed Margaret inside the house.
It was cold as hell, and I shivered inside my jacket.
It didn’t even look like the place had electricity, but as Cecilia turned the switch on, I wa
s pleasantly surprised to discover that it did. I stopped a production assistant and asked them for a space heater or something to make the place more comfortable. I was freezing, but I was honestly more worried about Margaret. I knew she had just reached the thirty-two-week mark, as she’d told me herself a couple days prior, so she still had eight more weeks to go. She had been trying to do less and just supervise our work, but the long schedule was hard on most of us, and I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for her—we weren’t the ones growing a human inside our belly. I was honestly worried that our long hours would eventually affect her pregnancy.
Margaret sat down and started organizing all our tools. We set up different stations so we could start calling in the actors who were going to be shooting that day.
We only had about a dozen between cast and extras, and the most tiring part would probably be staying out for touch-ups. I went into another room of the farmhouse and noticed that the catering people were setting up for food and drinks. We were going to need coffee and herbal tea for Margaret; it was going to be cold on the beach. I made a mental note to volunteer to go out so Margaret could stay inside.
I spotted Hugh on the way back to the makeup room. He was rehearsing his lines and staring out a window. He looked so serious, so different. I smiled, pressing my lips together. He looked regal and beautiful in his costume, his kilt wrapped around his shoulder, making him look even taller. I didn’t want to interrupt him, so I looked away and went back to my team.
We had to wait for the extras to come out of wardrobe and hair first, and once we were done with them, we had the main cast come in. There were no prosthetics to apply to any of the actors, so it was just simple makeup. We weren’t shooting a fight scene, so we didn’t even need to work all day with synthetic blood.
It was going to be a long day, but an easy one overall.
Or at least it was supposed to be.
Margaret had managed to do most of her work sitting on a stool. It didn’t look comfortable at all, especially with her growing belly, but she kept saying she felt fine. Every once in a while, she would grab her bottle of water and make sure to take a couple of sips.
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