The Decoy Girlfriend(44)
He’s still wrapping his mind around reading your own words that many times. “Does that happen to you a lot?”
She hesitates, seeming to weigh something. “I haven’t been able to write my second book. I’ve tried, like, so many times. Changed my habits up. I went to a different New York coffee shop every day. I changed my manuscript font from Times New Roman to Comic Sans—which was horrific, by the way. I seem to always hit this threshold beyond which I lose all motivation to continue, and I start over. Delete everything. I stopped counting my drafts a long time ago. Pretty sure I give my agent nervous shits, although of course Alma’s way too nice to say so, and— Wait, why are you looking at me like that?”
The question falls from his lips before he can stop himself. “How are you so okay letting things go?”
She snorts. “Once biggies like your career circle the drain, it’s easy.”
He doesn’t want an easy answer, he wants a how-to manual. Her offhand attitude runs contrary to absolutely everything Taft believes. He slowly blinks. “Doesn’t it hurt? Those words were part of you. Something you created.”
Freya nibbles her lower lip like she’s giving it serious thought. “I mean, yeah, of course. It’s supposed to hurt. If it didn’t, it would be meaningless, and isn’t that worse? Think about it like this: Yes, I worked hard on those words, but if they weren’t working for the story, they’re keeping me stuck someplace where I can’t grow. I’m always going to be rooted exactly where I am, trying to work around what’s already there instead of finding a new way forward that’s the right fit for me.”
He sits with that for a second. He has to revise his earlier assumption: she’s not cavalier; she’s pragmatic. He could admire it more if he didn’t find her just a little bit terrifying.
What must it be like to be that all or nothing? Freeing, he supposes, but he can’t imagine that mindset for himself. Compromise is how he got where he is now.
Freya pushes her empty plate away. “Um, I guess that counts as one of my ten things?”
Her expectant face tells him it’s his turn.
Taft strives to think of something personal that isn’t too heavy. “I love when dogs have people names.”
Her eyes light up. “Me too! It’s adorable. My turn again?” Her nose scrunches in thought. “Why is it so hard to come up with something that I want to share that isn’t, like, too revealing? We do have to live with each other after this, so you can’t know all the juicy things about me, like that I think Funfetti is basically the best cake ever and I eat it with no frosting like a heathen.”
“I’ll count it,” he says with a grin. “But Funfetti? Really? I need to refine that palate.”
“Shut up, it’s the cake of my childhood,” Freya grumbles good-naturedly. “My family isn’t big into baking. My mom was an amazing cook, but the gene didn’t exactly—” She stops. “Your turn.”
“Uh, okay. I haven’t told anyone this before . . .”
“Are you sure you want to tell me?”
He keeps his tone as light as hers. “Do I need to swear you to secrecy?”
“My lips are sealed,” she quips, flashing a smile.
“So, filming Banshee, both the movie and the show, it was such a massive production, you know? Which was great, and really humbling, to be part of something that had that kind of scale. When I was working, the energy was great, but it was also a lot of waiting around for them to need me. The hours were . . . frustrating. And since I always had to be on set and we were on location in Dartmoor, there were opportunities I couldn’t pursue here at home.”
Freya hums in acknowledgment, so Taft continues. “I’d love to get into indie films, find a script I really believe in. Get back to my craft. Do something with less CGI. But that’s basically all I get to audition for lately. I just want to change people’s perceptions of what I can do as an actor. I want to be more than the ‘hot teenage boyfriend’—I have range, but I’m never going to be able to prove it unless I do something different. At least on Banshee I’m more or less playing my age.”
“No more supernatural stuff,” she says succinctly. “You want to redefine your career?”
“I mean, I’m twenty-seven. It’s already a stretch playing a teenager, and I’m only getting older.”
“When has that ever stopped a show?” she jokes. “But, seriously, good for you. Life’s too short not to do the things that move you.”
“Like you and writing. We wouldn’t do these jobs if we didn’t love it, even when it’s the worst.”
“I do love it,” Freya says with a smile that Taft can only interpret as bittersweet. “Sometimes I feel like even though I have the only job in the world I’d ever want, I haven’t earned it. Like a better writer who’d earned their stripes more than I had wouldn’t feel so stuck all the time. I got my first book deal young—really young. And everything was different then. Now that it’s just me on my own, I feel like . . . like I’m rowing out to sea in a shabby rowboat that’s leaking water, and all I have to paddle with is a broken oar, and I’m desperately trying not to go under before reaching land.”
Taft turns her phrase over in his mind. She has a way with words that he envies, but he gets the feeling that if he tells her that, she’ll assume he’s just saying it to cheer her up. “You’re not alone in feeling that way. Your friends . . . do they understand? Do you have other writers you can talk to?”