I'd Give Almost Anything for Her

I love Ella. I don't think I understood how much until now, until there was something real on the line, and I can feel it stretching between us like it might snap if I pull too hard. She's been there for every iteration of me that I didn't know what to do with—the awkward one, the too-loud one, the one who couldn't get through performing without freezing and wanting to disappear. She witnessed all of that and never made me feel like I had to apologize.

We constructed all of it together, slowly, over the years. Our living rooms became stages, our lamps holding up our makeshift curtains, our parents applauding as if we were Broadway stars, even when we forgot half of our lines. It was bad, we were bad, but it was like we were doing something real, like we were building towards something without even knowing what that something was yet. And now we're here, and it's real, and it means something.

And then suddenly my phone lights up.

It's my mom, of course. “This is your moment. Don't hold back.”

And immediately, right after that, “People would kill for this opportunity.”

I just lock my phone and place it face down. Something about that message made it seem like what we’re doing isn’t something we’re doing together anymore; it’s like this thing I’m being measured against.

At the hotel, we fall into our usual rhythm without discussion. Scripts out, sitting close on the bed, reading the same scene over and over. I’m having trouble getting through the same line for the umpteenth time, and I can feel it beginning to irritate me in a way that’s not normal.

I almost ask for help.

But I don’t.

It’s a small thing, the decision not to, but it sits wrong with me.

Finally, she asks: “Do you want me to run it with you?”

I shake my head quickly. “No. I’ve got it.”

She doesn’t push the issue, which somehow makes things worse.

We try the scene, and I can feel myself forcing through it instead of being in it. I can feel myself trying to show emotion rather than feeling it. She doesn’t seem to have this trouble. She never has.

And then, out of the blue, she stops. Something’s caught up for her.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she says. In a way I’ve never heard from her before.

It throws me completely. “What?”

“This whole thing,” she says, waving a hand vaguely around the space, as if she can’t even think to name it. “I feel like everyone expects me to be good at this. My mom, the people who know me, everyone. And I don’t even know if I actually am, or if I’ve just been around it long enough to fake it.”

I look at her.

Because this is the first time that she’s sounded unsure. Ever.

And for a moment, I feel a sense of relief so strong it almost makes me lightheaded. Almost makes me think we’re still on the same level. But right underneath it, another thought slips through my brain.

If she’s unsure… could I actually have a chance?

The thought occurs to me, and I can’t fight it away.

The next morning, the callback room seems smaller than it should be, not physically but in the way it seems to close in once people start getting cut, like every time the door opens and someone’s name is called, the air seems to shift a little and no one says anything about it, but everyone feels it. It’s almost, at first, kind of exciting. A strange kind of exciting, like my body doesn’t realize the difference between fear and adrenaline and just treats them both the same—my hands moving too much, my heart beating too fast. Every time they don’t call my name, I feel a little jolt of relief, but then feel guilty right away, like I’ve already begun to think of it as me against everyone else instead of all of us going through something together.

Ella makes eye contact with me for the first time, gives me this small, incredulous smile as if to say, "Wow, is this really happening?" I return her smile knowing I am more than certain that it is, but somehow it doesn’t feel like I thought it would when I pictured it all these years.

And then it just keeps going.

More names. Fewer people. The room gets quieter. And somehow, after more and more people left, it becomes apparent that it’s all down to us.

Just us.

I don’t fully understand the situation until just the two of us are standing there, waiting for the next instruction, and I realize there is no one else to look at, no one else to compare myself to except for her, which is somehow worse than comparing myself to a room full of strangers. The casting team doesn’t even try to hide things anymore, or maybe they never did and I’m just paying more attention now that I actually feel like I have a chance. They’re leaning towards each other, talking in hushed tones, but not so hushed that I can’t hear them, flipping through their papers as if trying to figure something out.

“She has a really strong instinct,” one of them says, and I just know, I just know that they’re talking about me because of the way they’re looking at me, as if they’re just waiting for me to prove it again.

“And she’s very intentional,” another one says, looking at Ella, “you can tell she knows the piece very well.”

I have no idea why this is bothering me so much because it’s not even a bad thing; it’s just something that I don’t have. Like we’re already divided into two versions of something, and I have no idea which one is better.

They ask me to go first, and I step forward, trying to focus on the character and not on the way my body feels, trying to stay within the scene and not observe it from the outside, overanalyzing every moment of it. And for a moment, it works. Not well, not as naturally as it seemed to work before, but well enough that I feel it, well enough that I stop analyzing and simply exist within it.

I can feel them watching me, really watching me, one of them leaning forward a little, one of them writing something down, and it affects me, affects me in a way that feels addicting, a way that feels like it makes me want to hold onto this feeling, to make sure it doesn't go away.

And then they stop me, ask me a question about a choice I've made, and I answer it, trying to sound as if I’m not still figuring it out as I’m doing it, trying to sound as if it was a choice and not an instinctive guess.

They nod, and it’s a nod that I’m not sure they believe.

And then they turn to her. She answers right away. It’s obvious that she has given this lots of thought, because of the knowledge she has that has never been as accessible to me.

And I’m stuck on the thoughts she said to me last night, about whether she’s really good at this, or if she’s just been given the opportunity to be better than everybody else. The thought hangs there for a second. I could let it hang there longer. I should let it hang there, but something in me wants to clarify it, maybe even justify something.

So I say, “She’s kinda grown up around it.”

I feel as if it’s not even significant, really, not even particularly meaningful, really, it just sort of falls out in the space where everybody’s waiting, as if I’m adding to the explanation, as if I’m helping.

But everybody looks at me.

“What do you mean?” one of them asks, and now it’s not nothing. Now it’s something, something that needs to be answered. I can feel it, that split second in which I can go back, make a joke out of it, tell them it never really meant anything.

I don't.

“Her mom was a part of the original production,” I tell them, and realize as I’m telling them how that sounds, how that places her, whether I mean it or not.

“She’s been around this show for a long time.”

It’s true, and that’s the worst part because there’s nothing for me to point to and say, “I lied.”

I know exactly what I’m doing, or at least, I know enough.

I can see a difference in the way they look at her, as though they are making some kind of adjustment in their minds, as though they are trying to distinguish between natural ability and acquired skill.

Ella looks at me, for a second.

She doesn’t look shocked or angry, merely... aware.

Perhaps I’ve done something that cannot be undone, and the guilt hits me instantly, and my stomach drops low. They have us run it again.

It’s my turn again, and everything is rushed, as if I’m too aware of everything that happened, too aware of myself, of them, of her behind me, waiting. I try to get back to that place I was at before, that emotion, that honesty, but it’s harder now, as if I’m unable to fully forget what I’ve just done.

But I still manage to land most of it.

Not perfectly, but well enough.

Well enough for them to be watching.

Then she goes.

And this time, there’s something different.

It’s subtle, almost imperceptible, almost as if she was simply hesitating, as if she was thinking about how to act rather than simply being, but I see it, and I know exactly where it comes from.

From me.

I feel as if I should feel worse about this than I do. I do feel bad, I do, I’ve always been the empathetic type, but there comes a point where I have to empathize with myself first.

All I feel is relief, I feel good, I don’t know why, and I hate that that’s the one thing that’s sticking with me. And when we’re done, the room is silent in a way that means they’ve decided something even if they haven’t said so out loud. They look between us, and then at their papers, and then between us again, as if trying to look at something one more time before letting it go.

“We’ll be in touch,” one of them finally says.

And that’s it.

We walk out together, close enough so that I can feel her beside me but not so close as to touch, not so close as to speak, just walking in the same direction as we’ve always done. Side by side but, somehow, I feel a million worlds apart.

I’m waiting for her to say something, to ask me why I said what I said, to challenge me as she’s always done.

But she doesn’t.

And somehow this makes it worse, because now there’s no argument to be had, no explanation to offer, just the fact of it between us.

I still love her. I think I do.

In the elevator, it’s just the two of us and the mirror, and I can’t help but stare at the reflection because we look exactly the same as we’ve always looked.

Same height, same posture, standing too close without touching.

Nothing about it looks different.

And I think, with this sudden, terrible clarity, that if someone were to look at us in this moment, they wouldn’t see anything different.

They wouldn’t see what I’ve done.

They wouldn’t see the moment that I stopped meaning it when I said I’d give anything for her.