Moth to a Flame

by Cambria Hebert

  But I didn’t move.

  Despite needing to get away, despite the clawing desperation climbing up my throat and scratching at every nerve ending in my body, I couldn’t run.

  Instead, I cowered in the chair, shrinking, wishing that if I became smaller, the panic and anxiety tearing me up inside might become smaller too.

  Shaking so much my teeth began to clatter, I forced my jaw still, but it hurt too much to hold and I wound up chattering again.

  Goose bumps rose along my arms and legs. I could feel the way they prickled the surface of my skin. My mind was everywhere, yet it was scarily blank. There was just too much to process to even form a sensible thought. Instead, I slumped there beneath the blanket, my body overrun by the panic my mind refused to acknowledge.

  This wasn’t my first panic attack. It wouldn’t be my last.

  But every single one felt like the first time.

  It didn’t matter if I tried to reassure myself that this too would pass, if I whispered promises that I was safe and fine. It didn’t matter. The adrenaline was already shooting through my body. My system was already in shock and fighting against all the threats it perceived.

  I was so tense my body ached. My fingers stung cold, and the wet ends of my hair dripped down my back.

  I just wanted this to stop.

  The flashbacks. The memories. The reminders. I didn’t want to be drained by panic attacks and embarrassment at my lack of self-control.

  I felt like a robot, like someone who didn’t even have control of her own body, when I stiffly pushed up in the chair. Clutching the blanket while my teeth still chattered, I glanced around at my bag hanging over by my station. I needed the meds inside. I hated those pills, but they would bring this down. I would be left feeling like a wrung-out dishrag, but at least I would be able to think. Be able to function.

  The towels Nick had placed in my lap fell onto the floor as I scooted forward. The blanket tangled around my legs, and my foot got caught in the bar at the bottom of the chair. I fell forward, unable to catch myself on my hands because they were tucked inside the fabric. My cheek smacked on the concrete floor, but it didn’t hurt.

  I couldn’t feel anything just then but panic and nausea. Instead of scrambling up, I pressed my face against the floor. The cold temperature felt good against my feverish skin, and my eyes slid closed.

  Commotion outside the trailer reminded me of the situation. Shoving up, I stumbled to my bag, ripping it off the hook and delving my hand inside, searching desperately for the small bottle I always carried.

  The second my hand closed around it, I dropped everything else. It hit my foot, but I didn’t feel it because there was no feeling there. My foot was not real.

  The cap on the bottle made loud clicking sounds as I turned it around and around.

  A sob ripped from between my lips when despair washed over me. “Open, dammit!” I wailed, squeezing the bottle in my fist.

  With a shuddering breath, I calmed myself and tried once more. The lid unscrewed, and with it came relief. My palm trembled while I shook out what I needed into my hand, the pills in the bottle rattling around from my unsteady grasp.

  The door shoved open, and the bottle went flying. Shrieking, I dropped to the floor, huddling beneath the blanket as if it had some kind of invisibility magic.

  “It’s me, Zoey. Nick.” His voice broke into my dull thoughts.

  He cursed. The sound of his footsteps coming closer seemed like loud gunshots in a quiet night.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said softly, feeling him kneel close to me. “I didn’t knock because I didn’t want to dally around in front of the door. There’s, ah, quite a crowd out there.”

  I didn’t say anything. He cleared his throat.

  “The paramedics are there. Should I let them in?”

  I shook my head but had no idea if he would know I did.

  “I got your shoe. It was, ah, still in the tank.”

  My teeth started chattering again. My body ached, and I was so cold I wasn’t sure how much longer I could endure.

  “You were getting some pills?” he asked, his voice very calm and almost conversational. I envied that amount of control, that amount of serenity. “Do you still need to take some?”

  I nodded.

  I felt him get up and move away. Disappointment made me tense more. A second later, he was back, lifting a corner of the blanket and setting an uncapped water bottle on the floor. “How many do you need?”

  “T-two.”

  His hand slipped beneath the blanket and, with it, a sliver of light from the room. Two white pills lay in the center of his very large palm. Again, I was moved by the steadiness in his hand, by the calmness in his presence.

  My fingers brushed against him when I picked up the medication. He didn’t wince or seem surprised by the icy feel of my skin. I swallowed down the pills gratefully, and when he nudged the water closer, I lifted it and took a drink.

  I heard him picking up the scattered pills, dropping them back into the bottle one by one. The familiar sound of the lid clicking into place registered and so did his colorful curse. “It’d be easier to see the devil’s tits than it is closing this fucking bottle.”

  A giggle bubbled out of me.

  Wet sneakers stepped close. So close the drenched toes nudged beneath the blanket. Squatting in front of me, Nick expelled a breath.

  He was just as wet as I was. I wondered why he hadn’t changed clothes yet.

  “My mom takes those. They work pretty fast. You’ll be okay in just a few more minutes.”

  His mom took the same kind of pills I did?

  “She’s been on them for years. I took one once because I’m a nosy bastard and wondered what it would feel like.”

  The sound of his voice was comforting. Before, all I could think about was being alone, but now all I wanted was for him to keep talking.

  “I was pretty disappointed. They didn’t do anything for me. I felt the same as I always do... didn’t even get a little bit of a high.”

  I made a sound.

  “They must do something, though, huh? Otherwise, y’all wouldn’t take them.”

  “They don’t make you high,” I heard myself saying. “They calm you down.”

  “Maybe that’s why my parents have been married for so long,” he mused.

  I don’t know how, but I laughed. It bubbled right up past all the angst inside me, filling up the space beneath the blanket.

  The sound was shocking. How could I laugh at a time like this? My whole life could be over. Everything could be ruined.

  “Cold, huh?” Nick observed. Clearly, the sound of my chattering teeth was audible.

  “I grabbed some extra sweats out of my trailer. They’re dry and warm. I’ll leave them here so you can change.” His throat cleared. “Take your time, all right? I’ll occupy the press, keep them away.”

  The toes of his sneakers disappeared from beneath the blanket.

  Panic clawed at me anew.

  “Wait,” I said, my voice tainted with desperation.

  Silence filled the room, and neither of us moved. In the span of several heartbeats and the painful drag of a few ragged breaths, his shoes appeared again.

  The brush of his fingers over my back made me stiffen. He froze. I froze. His hand stayed where it was.

  My lower lip wobbled.

  His hand curled a little farther around me.

  I sniffled.

  He duckwalked closer, and then I was in his arms, both of them wrapped around me while I curled into his chest. Despite his drenched state, he was warm. I was cold. He was solid. I was evaporating.

  A sob built up in my throat, straining to get out, burning because I held it in. His hand lifted, then fell back against me. Again and again, the motion repeated. He was patting my back, gently loosening the sob trapped inside.

  “It’s okay.” He promised, the whisper almost like a gentle breeze.

  It dislodged.

 
; All the pain I’d been holding in. All the fear and trauma. The panic attack I’d been stuffing down rushed to the surface and broke free.

  I started to cry.

  He didn’t move. Like a tree with ancient, unfailing roots, he stayed in place, holding me calmly, warming me selflessly while a storm that would never fully pass raged inside me.

  He saw my face. He saw my scars.

  He wasn’t asking about them or running away. He just held me while I cried.

  I ignored the constant ringing of my cell phone. My number was supposed to be private, but let’s be real here. Privacy in Hollywood, in life, would be harder to obtain than milking a buffalo.

  The little mishap on set today? You’d think a small country had been bombed for all the media coverage it was getting.

  It was a load of horse shit. But it was good for business.

  It cost the studio quite a bit of change because afterward, production shut down for the rest of the day. But no one was mad. The money lost on production would be gained in media coverage and publicity.

  Example headlines:

  “Action hero, Nick Preston, Saves Damsel in Distress!”

  “Hero on screen... and off!”

  So far, social media was flooded with photos of me diving into the water after Zoey. There was also one of the blast of water slamming into her just before she fell backward.

  The water hid her face, something I knew she was probably worried about.

  Plucking the still-ringing phone out of my pants, I started to call her. I didn’t have her number. I didn’t know anything about her except her name.

  And what she looked like underneath her makeup.

  Fuck, I’d been a dick. Calling her an L.A. girl, making assumptions that she was just like every other Hollywood dweller I knew. It annoyed me how drawn to her I was when I’d made up my mind a long time ago. I wanted something, someone, different than the norm in my private life.

  The expression in her eyes when she commanded me to look at her in the pool haunted me. The sound of her crying echoed in my ears. I couldn’t untie the knot she tangled in me when her hands clutched my shirt like I was the only thing keeping her from spinning away.

  “Callie,” I called roughly. My assistant jerked around, splashing water on the front of her blouse.

  “Yes?”

  “I need Zoey’s phone number.”

  Her eyes went round as though she didn’t understand at first.

  Holding on to what very little patience I had left, I sighed. “Find it. Please.”

  “Right away!” she chirped, jumping into action.

  My phone rang again. It was another reporter. I powered off the device and tucked it back in my pocket.

  I wondered if she was still wearing the sweats I’d given her or if she’d changed out of them the second she arrived home. I’d distracted the press while she snuck away with the oversized hood pulled over her head and a pair of large black sunglasses covering her face.

  Carson escorted her off the lot, and by escort, I mean she allowed him to trail behind her to “cover” her retreat.

  I didn’t bother to point out she was taller than Carson, so he wouldn’t be able to block her from sight. Plus, dude really liked hot pink. Not exactly a blending in kind of color. She seemed more comfortable with him than anyone else, though, and that seemed more important at the time.

  Thinking of the makeup artist, I spun around, looking for him. He would know how to contact Zoey.

  I spotted him going into the trailer and jogged across the lot. The staff that had yet to leave for the day were all gathered around a small flat-screen propped on a portable table against the wall.

  Laura waved me over the second she saw me. “Hollywood Access is going live. You’re the headlining story!”

  I’d rather pluck my eyeballs out with plyers found in a bucket of piss before watching that pile of crap, but today was going to have to be an exception.

  Zoey was worried about this broadcast. About all the media coverage.

  Please. Please, help me get back to the trailer without everyone seeing.

  I shielded her as best I could, but I didn’t know how good of a job I’d done. I knew better than most that the prying eyes of a camera and journalist wanting a scoop were a formidable opponent.

  The crew made some space when I came forward, just as Candace’s face filled the screen.

  “We’re starting off tonight’s broadcast with some exclusive footage and eyewitness accounts of the shocking on-set accident of this summer’s most anticipated movie. I was behind the scenes of Triple Impact earlier today, having been granted special backstage access...”

  She wouldn’t be Candace if she didn’t let everyone know she was invited to do things the other kids weren’t.

  Classy.

  “Nick Preston, along with the hardworking crew, was shooting an incredible action scene, and I was interviewing the heroine—and rumored girlfriend of Nick himself—when tragedy struck!”

  I just gagged in the back of my throat.

  Maybe she should be an actress, because this one was full of drama.

  “As you can see from the clip, Nick was up on a platform while one of the makeup artists was preparing him for shooting.”

  I was no stranger to seeing myself on screen, but this was somehow different. Personal. The stunt assistant was standing over us while Zoey and I were on the floor. Lifting my face, I said something to him, and he went off. The camera zoomed in the second I was alone up there with her, and a noticeable current went through me as I watched us interacting.

  We did nothing out of the ordinary, but there was something. Something in the way we sat so close. The way she tucked my arm in her lap. Then I saw it.

  I saw it and knew instantly how this entire story was going to play out.

  Fuuuck.

  The video clip paused and, by the magic of TV, zoomed in on the captured image. Schooling my reaction, I did nothing but stare dryly at the screen.

  I felt several sets of eyes glance my way, and I suppressed the sigh building in my lungs.

  “As I mentioned before, Nick’s costar, Jessica Blaine, is this sexiest man alive’s rumored lady. But we couldn’t help but notice that look. The smolder Nick is so famous for on screen. They aren’t filming right now, though, and the recipient of those eyes is not Jessica. It’s an industry makeup artist we were able to confirm is Zoey Halston. You know here at Hollywood Access, we’re suckers for details, so of course we noticed the way he looks at her. But we might not have mentioned it if not for what happens next.”

  Ah, the smolder. I’ve won awards for it. Been cast in roles solely because of it. Lots of women (and men) have been the recipient. I always controlled it.

  Until today.

  In that moment up there on the platform with Zoey, it controlled me.

  When she hit the water, it felt like I had too. My torso stung with the impact, and adrenaline coursed through me in warp speed. I didn’t think about it. All I did was feel. The safety harness was still attached, but even if it hadn’t been, I would have done the same.

  Beneath the surface of the churning water (due to yet another malfunction), I saw her struggle. Zoey clearly wasn’t a strong swimmer, and seeing her vulnerable but still fighting affected me in ways I didn’t really realize until thinking back.

  “Without hesitation, Nick dove into the water, pulling the woman to safety, even going as far as supporting her weight in the water as well as his. Quick to come to their aide, the crew started to pull them up. But Nick stopped them. You can see the pair exchange a moment, one that clearly belongs on the big screen.

  “When the star and crew were finally pulled to safety, the woman hid under a blanket and was shielded by our heroic leading man. Was she embarrassed? Or was there something more to the accident?

  “Several eyewitnesses came to me after to report catching brief glimpses of the makeup artist as they were being hauled from the water. You know Hollywood Access
doesn’t report rumors—”

  I laughed, making everyone snicker.

  “But I admit we are intrigued. People who work regularly with this woman were shocked to see a completely different face than they usually saw. What’s more is this woman lost her shoe in the fray, which prompted my crew to notice something else about her.”

  I muttered darkly, practically growling at the TV. She wouldn’t dare.

  “A prosthetic. It appears that Nick’s current makeup artist has a prosthetic leg.”

  Laura gasped. Her ponytail whipped around when she turned toward Carson. “Did you know that?”

  “Why you looking at me?” He tsked and averted his gaze. I could tell by his reaction that he hadn’t known, and being in the dark hurt his feelings.

  “Let’s check in with some of our viewers who are already weighing in on this breaking story.”

  “As you can see, people are already wondering what the relationship is between Nick and this makeup artist. You can be sure that Hollywood Access will stay on top of this possibly developing—”

  “Turn that trash off!” I snapped, spinning away from the TV.

  I swear, did that show have no kind of conscience at all? Why would they broadcast those so-called “fan comments?” What if Zoey saw this?

  #Damagedgoods

  I should sue.

  “Callie!”

  My assistant came rushing in, tripping over her untied shoelace. I caught her before she faceplanted.

  “Did you get the number?” I asked, righting her.

  “The crew manager went home—”

  “Carson.” I interrupted, turning around.

  “At your service.” He flourished, bowing.

  “Do you have Zoey’s number?”

  Straightening, he pressed his lips together. “She’s my bestie.”

  Gesturing with my chin, I said, “Call her.”

  “What? Now?”

  I nodded, considering his reaction. “Best friend code, right? No giving out her number to strange men.”

  “You’re hardly strange.”

  “So don’t give it to me. Just dial the number and hand me your phone.”

  His mouth formed a little O. “You want to use my phone?”