He's dressed but ...

I frown at him. "They buy the clothes used?" He's wearing a grungy white sleeveless undershirt that, while tight and lovely on him, looks like someone stomped it into the dirt for a few hours first.

"Yeah, or they distress them." Chase shrugs into a dark blue hoodie, reaching back to pull the hood out. "Rub them with sandpaper or whatever else they've got to do the job."

"The sleeves are disgusting." One arm of the hoodie is marred with what looks like dried blood and white trails of snot. The other is covered in bleach spots and clumps of mud, and the cuff is torn and flapping loose.

"We're filming out of order," he says with a grin.

I know that happens, of course. I just never thought about the practicalities of it. The clothes would have to be dirty before the mess that dirties them. There has to be a massive spreadsheet somewhere for keeping track of all of this.

Liza would probably want to take it home for the evening and stroke it.

With a strange pang, I realize that's the second or third time I've thought of my sisters in the last ten minutes.

When I was "gone," I couldn't let myself miss them. Not and stay sane. But once I was back, it was even harder to appreciate having them again. My condition, for lack of a better term, dictated everything. Jamming us together, pushing us into each other's paths, and I became the stumbling block for everyone, tripping them up, dragging them down.

As Chase shoves his feet into battered construction boots, his face a mask of distant concentration, like he's preparing for the day ahead, I think about pulling my phone from my pocket and sending a text to Mia or Liza.

But doing that now will only generate a series of angry and concerned texts-or God forbid, calls-asking if I'm all right or if I've learned my lesson and am ready to come home now.

Uh, no.

Besides which, so far today, my phone has been suspiciously quiet. That makes me think my family is up to something. Better not to trigger that, whatever it is.

A sudden banging on the trailer door behind me makes me jump and spin to face it, my hand clapped against my chest.

"Come in," Chase shouts, unfazed.

The door swings open, and Emily's head appears, then her upper body as she steps up and in. "I'm so sorry," she says breathlessly. "The schedule ... something happened. They need you in Hair and Makeup right away." She bites her lip hard, as if she's delivering news of an unmitigated disaster and expects to get slapped down for it.

"It's okay," Chase says soothingly, and her shoulders relax. "I'm ready."

He reaches down and scoops up his clothes from the floor, making it blindingly obvious that he changed right there, with the door open.

My face goes hot.

For the first time, Emily's gaze flicks over me with true, albeit hostile, interest. I watch her catch on to the fact that I'm wearing a man's shirt. Chase's shirt, likely, given the situation.

A tiny crease appears between her eyebrows. Ooh, she's not happy.

"Is your friend staying here?" Emily asks in a cheery tone that still somehow manages to convey her idea of the "right" answer.

Chase glances at me in question as he drops his clothes over the back of a chair.

I don't love the idea of being out in the open and surrounded by strangers staring at me all day. But when compared to the possibility of being alone in this dim, musty-smelling space for hours ...

"I'd rather tag along," I say. "If I can."

"Well..." Emily says slowly at the same time Chase says, "Sure."

That settles that. A tiny evil part of me feels a little triumphant at Emily's crestfallen expression.

Once Chase has his phone and key card back in his pockets and his pages in hand, a sulking Emily leads us out of his trailer, across the crumbling street, and to the former warehouse parking lot. She stops at a trailer much closer to the lights and the action.

HAIR/MAKEUP is labeled on the outside with tape, just like Chase's trailer, but the exterior looks newer.

"I'll be back to pick you up," Emily says with a sniff.

"Thanks, Emily," Chase says as he steps up and pops open the door, but even the mention of her name isn't enough to warm her up this time.

She spins on her heel and stalks off.

"Sorry," I murmur. "I think that's on me."

He shakes his head as he climbs into the trailer. "No. She just-"

Chase stops dead, his gaze fixed on someone or something I can't see.

"What's the..." I begin.

But instead of answering, he turns with the bleakest look I've ever seen. Then he says quietly, "I am so sorry, Amanda."

12.

Chase "Hey, Karen," I say, my voice cracking in a way it hasn't since I was fucking thirteen. I stuff my hands in my pockets because I don't know what else to do with them. "I didn't see your name on the crew list."

Karen looks up from her kit, brushes in hand, distaste written plainly across her face. I haven't seen her in a couple of years, but she looks the same. She's a few years older than me, short, wire-thin, every movement full of purpose and energy. Her black hair is divided into pigtails that should make her look like a little kid but somehow reinforce the idea that she's badass, doesn't care what you think, and is not someone you want to be on the wrong side of.

Too late for me on that, I'm guessing.

"Max asked me to fill in for Keelie, so I'm pulling double duty, hair and makeup," Karen says after a moment, as if she contemplated ignoring me and only reluctantly decided against it.

Behind me, I hear Amanda coming up the stairs, and a cowardly part of me wants to send her back to my trailer before it's too late. Amanda likes me, I think. And I like that she likes me. Not many people do these days, and quite selfishly, I want to hang on to her regard. I don't want to see the disappointment and disgust slowly filling her expression as Karen details my every fuck-up and failure, as Karen will definitely feel compelled to do. She's not one for holding back.

But hiding the truth-or avoiding it-is how I got into this mess so deeply in the first place. I can't go back to that. So I keep my mouth shut.

"Her kid has the measles, if you can believe that." Karen's bright tattoos look like watercolors across her chest and down her arms, bared by her tank top. They move and shift with her muscles as she sets up her station with her tools and supplies. She's a walking work of art. Something and someone my mom would have appreciated.

I told Karen something like that once, blurted it out one extremely late night early in the first season. We were both new then, nervous novices on a set of experienced professionals. She laughed at me. Told me her family didn't think so. We were friends pretty much from then on. Until I messed it up.

The trailer door slams shut after Amanda, and she edges carefully around the side of me. There's not much room to maneuver in here. "Hi," she says to Karen.

Karen's eyes move from me to Amanda, and confusion dominates her expression. She's trying to place Amanda.

This has potential for complete disaster.

I clear my throat. "Amanda, this is Karen Vega. She was one of the makeup artists on Starlight. She's the one who did the tattoo, actually."

Amanda smiles at her. "You did a great job," she says with a self-deprecating laugh. "I thought it was real."

Karen gives a quick bob of her head in acknowledgment of the compliment. "Thanks."

"Karen, this is Amanda Grace. She's here visiting for a few days." I hear the distant, professional tone in my voice, as if that will cover and contain the situation, like one of those boxes the bomb squad uses when detonating strange packages at LAX.

It doesn't help, though.

Karen jolts, her eyes widening as she stares at Amanda, clearly comparing her against whatever image she has from the media.

Then she looks at me and gives a tiny shake of her head in disgust. She may not know what I'm up to, but she suspects something.

I stiffen, waiting for the tirade.

But she ignores me, looking away from me as if I don't exist. In a way that's worse than her yelling.

"Come on in, hon," she says to Amanda. "You can sit over there if you want." She points to an open swivel chair at the next station over.

There are only two stations in the trailer and not much space between. It's smaller than what I'm used to from my Starlight days. But so is everything on Coal City Nights, and I don't care. I'm just grateful to be here.

Hair and Makeup is your first stop on a working day, so the people there generally see you as you are. In my case, that was: frequently hungover, tired, and a little late. During the second season, at least. Toward the end of the third season, it was more like: still drunk, belligerent, and really late.

Being late to a set is a huge deal. It's disrespectful, a slap in the face to everyone else, not to mention pricey. Time is literally money because the equipment is rented, the clock is running, and everyone is being paid whether you're there or not.

But no one's going to take a chunk out of the star for being late, not at first anyway, so instead the crew catches shit for it. They're the ones pushed to move faster, to make up the difference and still produce quality.

I knew that, but I didn't care. Not then.

Yeah. I was a massive dick. There's no arguing or excusing it. Nothing to do but take responsibility. Which I'm ready to do, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy.

It's always harder with someone who knew you before everything went to shit. They have, or had, expectations that you've managed to disappoint in every way possible.

Karen's mouth tightens as she looks me over from head to toe, taking me in with a professional eye and also a jaded personal one.

"You're on time. Early, even. That's a first," she says. "Are you actually sober or just doing a good imitation of it?"

I flinch, though she's dead right to be asking.

"I'm sober," I say to Karen, standing my ground. It's the only thing I can do. Besides apologize, which is also on my list. Making amends.

"Everyone else is already on set," Karen adds, and it sounds like an accusation, even though I've done nothing wrong. This time.

Amanda gives me a guarded look but says nothing as she sits in the designated chair. She knows something's wrong.

Karen lifts her hand in an impatient, what-are-you-waiting-for gesture at me.

I shrug out of Smitty's carefully and precisely dirtied hoodie, hanging it on a hook behind me, and sit in the chair at her station.

She wraps a cape around my neck before handing me the tube of industrial-strength moisturizer to apply myself. It's almost like sliding backward in time to the first days on Starlight.

"You don't look quite as much like a rough patch of road," Karen says, eyeing me critically, as she works a glob of product into my hair.

"I'm trying," I say, then wince. Because I know I've said that to her before. So many times over the years.

She grunts in response, which is more than enough to convey her skepticism. Her touch is cool, brisk, professional.

I swallow hard. "Listen, Karen," I say quietly. "I need to apologize-"

"So what are you doing mixed up with this circus?" she asks, raising her voice to direct the question to Amanda. She's obviously not interested in my apologies-something she's said to me more than once as well.

"Amanda's here to-"

Karen glares at me in the mirror, hard.

I shut my mouth.

Amanda, watching the interplay from three feet away, frowns.

"I'm a Starlight fan," she says simply, after a pause.

Her gaze catches mine in the mirror in a small private moment, and a tiny smile plays at the corners of her mouth.

I want to laugh. Yeah, such a fan.

"You're a fan. Of his?" Karen asks. "Really." Her tone conveys both skepticism and severe disapproval at once.

"Yes," Amanda says, tipping her chin up in defiance. I know her well enough now to hear the pique in her voice. She doesn't like to be questioned. Too many people try to question her, to make her into their own vision of her.

"No accounting for taste, I suppose," Karen mutters.

"Hey," I say in warning. It's fine for her to take a chunk out of me; I deserve it. Amanda doesn't, even if her fandom is fake.

Karen lifts her shoulder in a half-shrug and redirects. "How long have you been visiting?"

"Just since yesterday," Amanda answers warily.

"What did you do last night?" Karen asks.

She's digging, trying to work out what's going on, what I'm up to. Fuck. Elise's scheme, and my going along with it, will only confirm that Karen's right to think the worst of me.

I'm feeling queasier than ever about what I've done.

But Amanda has it well in hand. "Ate dinner," she says with an economy of words, a challenge to Karen's nosiness. "Went to bed."