Page 197 of Dream On

Black static warps my equilibrium. I wobble and sway as her panicked green eyes and open-mouthed agony skew in and out of focus.

I feel my legs buckling. Eyes rolling up. Knees crashing to pavement.

She screams, her fingers gripping the front of my shirt, trying to hold me up. “No! No, please. Stay with me. Stay with me!”

My head meets the sidewalk when she lowers me onto my back. I stare up at the sky as the sun disappears behind a wall of clouds and gray. It’s going to rain soon. We didn’t bring an umbrella.

Little droplets splash across my face.

Not rain.

Tears.

I want to tell her how much I love her, spill my heart out before it takes its final beat. There is so much to say. So much left to do. Blood crawls up my throat, gargling the words. I cough. Choke. Warm liquid seeps out from the corner of my mouth as I try to find her eyes. She hovers over me, her beautiful, broken face replacing my view of the charcoal sky.

Her lips are moving, but I can’t hear her. There’s a metallic ringing in my ears.

I’m far away. Fading out.

Sweat slicks my skin. My body shivers, everything ice cold.

No, no, no.

I’m not ready. Not like this. Our story is just beginning.

But finality doesn’t care who’s ready. It just is. I always said I’d rather die for something than live for nothing…

I just never thought it would be the other way around.

Silence washes over us.

And then—

“Cut!”

The sound of the director’s voice shakes me back to reality, an uproar of cheering drowning out the echo of Willa’s wails.

I blink the fog from my eyes as my vision readjusts to the television screen. Apparently, I zoned out viewing the raw footage I’d saved from that last day of filmingCome What May.

I watch the TV as the camera pulls away from my face and I lift up on my elbows. My tongue pokes out, and I still recall the taste of the edible fake blood dribbling from the corner of my mouth. Corn syrup. Sweet and sticky. It took a few moments for my mind to clear, for the method actor in me to take a back seat to the real Lex.

Willa extends a hand on the screen, helping me to my feet. “Holy shit, Lex. Holy shit.” She jumps at me, tackling me in a tight hug, nearly sending me back to the concrete. “We did it! That was it. I feel it. That was the one.”

Willa’s voice floods the living room of my condo.

Stevie and I are two nights into our temporary pit stop in Los Angeles while I finalize commitments and pack up my things.

I guess I was feeling nostalgic.

The television flickers brightly in the dark room, a slideshow of ancient memories. Everyone claps, hugs, pumps their fists in the air.

My director races toward me as the camera continues to record, yanking me into another hug and slapping a hand against my back. “That was money, baby! Real fucking money.”

Fellow actors and production crew filter through, the woman who playedmy attacker shaking my hand, her pride shimmering back at me through a watery smile. Everyone was so happy that day. Fulfilled.

We had done it.

We’d wrapped up one of our final days of filmingCome What May.