“I heard he had dated another person after he was with me,” she said. “Back then, he had a little more freedom so I suppose anything is possible.” That wasn’t a compliment, but then, her entire demeanor had seemed to shift now that we were alone. Her smile had an edge. Her voice was curter. This f

Back in my room, I immediately set Julian to work on his assigned task: teaching Elva more magic tricks. This time he had a pack of playing cards and started to show Elva how to shuffle them. Elva’s tiny hands could hardly wrap around the deck. When she tried to shuffle like he showed her, it made a

After we each reviewed our individual scripts for a few minutes, we began to have our first rehearsal. We didn’t have a stage yet. The actors in the scene just stood in the center of the ballroom with everyone else gathered around in front. We did a dry run through the entire play with Nathan doin

She was probably used to rubbing elbows with celebrities. But polite manners were polite manners. I was suddenly very annoyed on Julian’s behalf. Maybe it was time I really lean into this and give this fake relationship my all. I leaned forward again. “Bridget?” Bridget stopped talking to Ol

Veronica was still quiet. I wished I could give her a hug, but I didn’t want to disturb her train of thought. She had personally asked me to come with her. “I don’t need you to do anything,” she had said then. Her eyes had been downcast, like she was embarrassed to be asking for help. “But I wou