Page 128 of Love Overboard
I raked my hands through my hair, face-planting into my pillow and screaming into it.
This cannot be happening.
But it was.
And there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
Another knock. Another producer. “We’re rolling, Ember. Just one minute. That’s all we need. We have your mic here, if you don’t mind putting this back on for us.”
I curled tighter, shaking my head like I could will it all away. My skin was on fire. My mind was running so fast I couldn’t hold onto a single thought. There was a commotion of noise and voices outside my door, and then another knock, this one louder.
“Em, it’s me.”
Finn.
My pulse answered his like it always had.
I wanted to run to him and fling myself into his arms as much as I wanted to throw him overboard. My skin was still warm from his, my soul still bound to him.
“Let me in, Firefly.”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. I couldn’t let him in — not right now, not when I only had minutes to get myself together enough to face our captain with him.
Captain Gary.
My heart flipped, bile rising in my throat as I imagined what he’d say. What he’d do. Would he fire me? Strip me of the role I’d worked years to earn? Blacklist me in the industry?
Would he even have to?
Once people saw the show, they’d be able to make up their own mind. No glowing letter of recommendation could overshadow what I’d just let the whole world bear witness to.
And then the worst thought of all slammed into me like an anvil falling from a skyscraper.
My father.
He was going to see this.
He was going to see all of it.
Every shameful second. The crew piling into the cabin. Me in bed with a man everyone thinks is still dating my roommate. Me choosing a thoughtless act of desire with Finn over everything I’d built. The fallout. The chaos. The scandal.
He wouldn’t need to say a single word for me to know how he felt.
I could already hear his voice in my head.
I had one shot to prove to him that what I did mattered, that my career was valuable, thatIwas worth something.
Instead, I’d only proved to be the disappointment he’d bet on.
Tears burst from me like a dam breaking. I sobbed into my pillow, choking on the weight of it all — the failure, thehumiliation, the sheer horror of being exposed in front of the entire world.
I’d once believed surviving the storm of my breakup with Finn would be the toughest thing I’d ever face, that if I could survive that, I could survive anything.
But there was no surviving this.
POST-PRODUCTION CONFESSIONAL
CLOSE QUARTERS
