I know this should be the moment I pack it all in and head back to my childhood bedroom, go lie down and pretend that everything is normal. But instead, looking at Nate, I remember all those times I confided in him sitting beneath the willow tree in my backyard, and the way, as he’d listen so intently, no problem felt too big. With him by my side, nothing was insurmountable.
“You really don’t know why I came back home?” I know he has this entire act of being above social media and everything that the rest of society seems to enjoy, but I’m having a hard time believing that of the millions of people who watched my downfall, he wasn’t first in line for the show.
“Hand to god.” He lets go of my hand, holding it over his heart and raising the other in the air. “I have no idea.”
I’m still not sure this is a good idea, but I also don’t care anymore.
What can I say? Self-preservation has never been my thing.
“I didn’t want to leave LA,” I tell him. “I had to leave.”
Nate’s eyes snap to mine and his mouth opens and closes before he decides against saying anything at all. He did this when we were kids, always allowing me to vent and rant without interruption.
“I doubt you know much about my time in LA, but I met my ex-boyfriend, Peter, when I was in school.” I start at the beginning of my story. If I’m going to tell it, I’m going to tell it all. “He was the teaching assistant in my writing class. He was older, smarter, and so freaking handsome. Everyone had a crush on him in that class. He, she, them, didn’t matter. He was just so damn charismatic that everybody was drawn to him. When he started directing his attention to me, it was like the sun was shining all its light on me.”
All my friends had been so jealous. Not only did he think I was an exceptional writer, but he also made it more than a little obvious that he liked me for more than that. It sounds desperate and stupid, but I wasn’t used to this attention. Almost all of my friends modeled for extra money and two of them ended up dropping out of school because they became so successful at it. It’s not that I don’t think I’m pretty—I very much like myself—but when I was with them, people weren’t tripping over themselves to ask me out.
“He gave me special attention. Giving me extra feedback on my scripts. He was always willing to meet me before class if I had questions, which was a key part in my getting an A in that class. And the second he was no longer my teacher, he asked me out.”
He took me to Back to the Future in concert at the Hollywood Bowl. It was the nicest date I’d ever been on. Looking back, I think he had me ensnared in his trap the moment we sat in our seats and the opening chords played from the stage. He made me feel special . . . worthy.
“He got staffed in writers’ rooms for some of my favorite shows and was always working on the next best movie script. I was graduating and trying to break into the industry he seemed to be conquering. When he passed along a few of my samples and helped me land my agent, a part of me started to doubt that I’d be able to do anything without him. Like all the success I managed to gain was directly tied to him.”
Nate, who has been silent so far, speaks up. “I don’t know much—well, anything about that industry, but I have to assume that even if he showed your scripts, you’d have to have talent to get an agent. It couldn’t just be because of him.” He looks away from me, biting down on his lip, and I wonder if I even want to know what he’s thinking. “And you know, I’ve given you a hard time, but you’ve always been really talented. I still remember the stories you used to write when we were younger.”
“Thank you.” It feels as if gravity dissipates and I’m floating on air. My skin tingles under his heartfelt compliment. It’s one thing when my parents tell me I’m talented, but it’s something else completely when a person who struggles to say anything nice about me does it. “That actually means a lot.”
“It should.” He smirks, and lines I’m not convinced came from smiling deepen beside his eyes. “You know I don’t give out compliments often.”
“How could I ever forget?” I gave him a ceramic mug I made in pottery class my freshman year. He was so free with his thoughts that I almost took it back. I think the only thing he liked was the color palette.
Jerk.
“Okay.” He leans against the wall and I feel like those hazel eyes of his are trying to look straight into my soul. “What happened after he started systematically breaking you down until you were insecure and dependent on him? I’m guessing you moved in and he doubled down. Maybe tried to link your careers even deeper? As a favor, of course.”
My jaw falls open because that’s exactly what happened next.
“I moved into his one-bedroom apartment and he offered to put his name on the script I’d been working on.” I start to feel queasy as I recount all the mistakes I made . . . how I did this to myself. “I tried to sell a few scripts on my own, but there was one I’d been working on since college. It was the project I knew had the most potential. It was fresh and fun but still had a lot of heart and a smidge of darkness. I’d been polishing it for years, holding off on it until I knew it was as perfect as it could be.”
If you look around, a lot of white men in the industry will tell you they’re struggling to find work because studios are only wanting diversity. However, if you only look a layer deeper, you’ll realize that’s not true at all. Sure, it may be easier for me to get a meeting, but a meeting isn’t the same thing as a green light and funding.
Inevitably, someone would tell me that they couldn’t relate to my messy biracial heroine. It was like she could either be funny and white or troubled and Black. I could never wrap my head around that, why characters of color couldn’t have a full existence and problems that weren’t always about their race. Like, how are they spending millions of dollars on dragon stories rife with assault, but the successful Black woman leaning into her ho phase is too risky?
“After a few of my scripts fell to the wayside because they weren’t relatable enough, Peter thought to add his name to the script. At the time, it felt like a great idea. Having him take a few meetings and showing that it was already white-man approved would help skip over a few obstacles. But adding his name to this script was all he did. The concept, the characters, the dialogue, that was all me.”
“Oh fuck.” Nate grimaces. “I think I see where this is going and it’s not good.”
“Bet you ten dollars it’s worse than you’re thinking.” I offer my hand.
Nate shakes it with wide eyes and his brows nearly touching his hairline. “That bad?”
“Oh yeah.” It was an actual nightmare. I still wake up in a cold sweat some nights. “So as I’m sure you can see very clearly, when Peter took the show out and pitched it, he didn’t only add his name; he erased mine. Something he didn’t tell me until I was driving home from work and started getting text messages from writers who knew the title of the show, asking if the good news was true.”