The van heater wheezes lukewarm air at my shins, carrying the faint smell of stale coffee and road salt.
I tuck my hands under my thighs anyway, fingers curling into the denim, and watch my hometown unspool through tinted glass. The buildings look smaller than I remember, pressed under a low, dirty sky. LA has height and glare; here the clouds slump over everything, a damp ceiling no one bothered to repaint.
“That corner’s great,” the location manager says from the passenger seat, twisting to point his phone toward a row of brick townhouses. “We could push in on the SUV, then cut to the mill exterior.”
“We’re not shooting me here,” I say. “We’re just getting plates.”
He flashes me a quick smile.
“For now,” he says. “You know how it goes. If the showrunner sees something she loves—”
“She’ll build a scene around it,” I finish.
I try to sound amused. My voice comes out tight.
We idle at a light near the high school. The sign out front still announces FOOTBALL BOOSTERS PANCAKE BREAKFAST in crooked plastic letters. Someone has jammed an O upside down. My reflection floats over the glass as the van creeps forward, a faint Hollywood ghost sliding over the sagging brick.
“You grew up around here, right?” the DP asks, lifting the camera bag off his knees. “Any place we should check out besides the mill? Bridges, alleys, iconic small-town Americana?”
I swallow the reflexive no.
“There’s a diner on Riverside,” I say. “Kids used to cut first period and camp in the back booth. I don’t know if it’s still open.”
“Diners never die,” the sound guy says from the rear bench. “They just get stickier.”
Laughter ripples through the van. I smile on cue and look out again.
We roll past the laundromat where my mother took our sheets on Sunday nights when the washer broke, its neon sign humming in the dim morning. Next door, the pawn shop window holds the same dusty guitars and secondhand TV sets. A teenager in a patched jacket crosses the street, hood up, earbuds in. They glance up, track the van, tilt their head like they’re trying to place me.
I lift a hand without thinking. The kid’s eyes widen; they elbow their friend, pointing. By the time the light turns, two phones are out, screens lifted.
“Free promo,” the location manager says lightly. “God bless social.”
My tongue tastes metallic. I press it to the roof of my mouth, grounding myself in the minor pain.
We turn onto Riverside. The road dips toward the water, and the air through the barely sealed window grows colder, carrying the muddy, mineral smell of the river. My left shoulder throbs under my coat, the bruise from the sandbag complaining about the change in pressure like an old injury. It hasn’t even fully yellowed yet.
“There it is,” the DP murmurs.
I follow his gaze. On the far side of the river, half shrouded by mist, the mill rises out of the mudflat. Red brick gone dark, windows punched out in jagged rows, rusted stair rails like exposed ribs. A billboard for a regional insurance company squats in front of it, one corner drooping. The contrast hits my chest like a shove: sanitized promises in bold font, rotting reality behind.
The van rolls past the best vantage point before anyone says pull over. I release a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
“We’ll swing back after we eat,” the location manager says. “Golden hour will be good on that façade.”
Golden hour. The last time I shot there, the light came from rental work lamps humming under the rafters, fluorescent and unforgiving.
“Food first,” the sound guy agrees. “My blood sugar is in the underworld.”
We pull into the diner lot. The sign still reads RIVERVIEW FAMILY RESTAURANT in faded teal, though the only view is of the parking lot and a sliver of gray water through the trees. The big front windows are fogged from steam and breath, circles wiped clear by bored hands.
Inside, the heat wallops me with a wave of grease and coffee, dense and familiar. The floor tiles stick slightly under my boots, making a soft peeling sound with each step. A TV over the counter murmurs a cable news loop with the volume low, anchors’ faces flickering on the glass coffee pots below.
“Anywhere you like, hon,” the hostess says, then looks up properly. Her eyes widen, then narrow.
“Hi,” I say. My voice lands too bright in the cramped space. “We’re with Silverline. Just here for breakfast.”
A murmur moves through the room. Forks pause over plates, mugs hover midway to mouths. I feel the weight of every gaze, heavy and assessing. It’s a different heat from the LA sun, more like standing too close to an oven door.
“Sure,” the hostess says. She is older than me by ten, maybe fifteen years, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, a pen tucked behind her ear. “Booth in the back?”
“Perfect,” the location manager says. “Thank you.”
We slide into the cracked vinyl booth. I take the seat facing the wall; he takes the one facing the room, oblivious. My back exhales against the cushion, the springs digging in particular places I recognize from a hundred teenage afternoons.
The laminated menu sticks to my fingertips. The choices are the same: pancakes, omelets, grilled cheese, bottomless coffee in thick white mugs. LA brunch places plate their food on ceramics you’re supposed to photograph; here the plates have knife scars and gray chips.
“Coffee?” the hostess—no, waitress now—asks.
“Please,” I say. “Black.”
Her gaze flicks to my face for a second, then to the bruise peeking out where my coat gapes at my collarbone. Her jaw tightens.
“You want a straw for that?” she asks. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
I blink.
“I’m okay,” I say.
She snorts softly and pours coffee, the smell rich and bitter, cutting through the fry oil. When she moves to the next mug, I hear one of the trucker caps three tables over whisper, not quiet enough, “Told you it was her.”
“No way she’d actually come back here,” another voice replies. “Thought she paid to forget we exist.”
The silverware in my hand suddenly feels heavier.
“She’s here with a crew,” a third voice says. “Probably making a movie about how hard her life was before she escaped.”
The location manager glances at me, half apologetic, half intrigued.
“You want to eat in the van?” he asks under his breath.
“No,” I say. “We’re fine.”
I lift the mug. The coffee burns my tongue in a good way, a pain with a beginning and end, nothing implied.
At the counter, two old men in Carhartt jackets argue in low voices.
“I told you,” one says, not even trying to hide that he’s staring. “My granddaughter showed me on that streaming thing. She plays the mom now. The one with the pills.”
“I remember when she was just the angry kid next door,” the other says. “Working nights at the Stop & Save. Before the show. Before the mess at the mill.”
The word mess lands like a dropped fork.
One of them notices my gaze and looks away, cheeks flushing ruddy under stubble. The other holds my eyes for a second, something cold and sharp there.
“She did what she had to,” he mutters to his friend, but the sentence tilts. “Or she did what they told her to.”
I cut into the pancake that arrived without me ordering it. The syrup is generic and overly sweet, pooling in the uneven surface. I chew without tasting, jaw working on autopilot.
Near the bathrooms, two women in Walmart polos lean together, their voices a low hiss.
“I heard she tried to help that girl,” the blond one says. “My cousin’s husband worked security back then. He said she screamed for an ambulance.”
“My aunt says she pushed her,” the other replies. “Right there on the stairs. Jealous of the part.”
“People fall,” the blond one says. “That place was a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
“Then why’d the lawyers make everyone sign those papers?” the other counters. “You don’t gag folks over nothing.”
I press my napkin into my palm until the paper disintegrates, crumbs clinging to my skin.
“You okay?” the sound guy asks, nudging my foot under the table.
I force my shoulders to drop.
“Just jet lag,” I say. “Red-eye caught up with me.”
My eyes dart to the TV. The news feed plays B-roll of LA hills and studio lots, drones swooping over glass-walled homes not unlike mine. A chyron about some other show’s labor dispute crawls beneath. Safety reforms, union talks, carefully worded apologies. Every city on the screen looks far away and shiny. This diner has no filters.
The waitress returns with the bill on a tiny black tray.
“It’s on us,” she says. “On the house. For the hometown girl.”
The word twists.
“I’ll pay,” I say quickly, reaching for my wallet. “Really, it’s—”
“We’re comping it,” she cuts in. “Lord knows you’ve already paid for enough around here.”
Our eyes meet. For a second, I’m sixteen at this same booth, a paper script open in front of me, the ink bleeding where my wet hair dripped. Lila at the opposite side, laughing with a fry in her hand, ketchup on her thumb. The waitress is younger in that memory, but the shape of her mouth is the same.
“Thank you,” I say finally.
She nods once, sharp, and turns away.
At the door, a teenage girl hovers with her phone, cheeks blotchy, ponytail frayed.
“Um, Ms. Hayes?” she says, shifting weight between her sneakers. “Can I—could you sign this?”
She holds out a receipt and a pen. Her hand trembles.
I take them. The paper is thin and slightly damp. Behind her, an older woman—her mother, I assume—watches with an expression that sits somewhere between pride and warning.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Tori,” she says. “I loved you in River’s Edge. My mom says I’m not allowed to watch the later seasons yet, but I listen to the podcast that talks about it, and—”
“Tori,” the mother warns.
The girl bites her lip, words cut off. I write her name, then mine, looping the H in Hayes larger than necessary. The habit of signing over small truths.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Stay away from abandoned factories,” I say before I can catch it.
Her eyes widen; her mom stiffens. The sound guy chuckles behind me, trying to pass it off as a joke, and the moment slips away, filed under “quirky actress says dark things.”
We step back into the cold. My breath clouds the air for a second, then dissolves. The van door slides open with a metallic groan.
“Mill next?” the DP asks, already hoisting his gear.
“We’re not going on the property,” I say quickly. “You know that, right? It’s condemned.”
“We just need exterior,” the location manager says. “We’ll stay on the public overlook. Zero liability. Scout’s honor.”
The phrase scrape against my nerves. I climb in anyway.
We drive along the river until the road widens into a gravel turnoff. A rusted guardrail curves along the edge, paint peeling, graffiti layered thick. CIGARETTES, hearts, initials, a crude drawing of the mill with cartoon eyes. This was the make-out spot when I was a teenager, the place where kids parked and watched the water slip by dark and slow.
The van shudders to a stop. The crew spills out, breath puffing, boots crunching on gravel. I follow more slowly. The cold goes straight through my coat, sliding under the fabric to settle in my bones.
Across the water, the mill hunches on its bank. Up close, the scale registers: four stories of brick and broken glass, the metal staircase zigzagging up the exterior like a scar. The top landing juts out over the river, railing bent where years of rust and weather have pulled it down.
“Holy production value,” the DP breathes. “We’d never build that kind of texture from scratch.”
He lifts the camera. The click of the shutter is small but distinct, slicing the air into frames.
The smell reaches me a second later: damp brick, river silt, a ghost of burned oil soaked into old machinery. It crawls into my nose and unspools something in my chest. The roar in my ears swells, drowning out the distant highway.
My palm tingles.
I look down; my hand has closed around the guardrail so hard my knuckles blanch. The metal is freezing, rough with rust. Under that sensation, memory surfaces: another rail, slick with condensation on a humid night, my grip slippery with something thicker.
The river blurs, replaced by concrete steps under my shoes, the hum of portable generators, a cone of harsh fluorescent light cutting through dust. Lila in front of me on the staircase, her ponytail swinging, sweatshirt too thin for the autumn chill. Her hand on the rail, fingers drumming.
“You’re not listening,” she says. Her voice echoes in the well of the stairwell. “This place is not safe. They cut corners. Someone’s going to get—”
A shout from below interrupts us. The AD calling for first positions, walkie crackling. The metallic thud of a C-stand being dragged across the floor. The air carries the tang of fake smoke and the sweeter, cloying smell of the donuts crafty brought, mixing into something nauseating.
“We don’t get to complain,” I snap. My younger self’s voice has an edge that makes my present stomach clench. “We do the scene, we hit our marks, we don’t screw this up.”
Lila turns on the landing, one foot on the next step, one heel hanging over empty space. The fluorescent bulbs overhead buzz, flickering. The railing behind her shoulder gleams wet where someone wiped it down, the metal cold and clean in the light.
In the flash of memory, I see the exact moment her weight shifts. Her eyes widen, not with surprise but with recognition, like she’s realizing which story we’re in. My hand shoots out—not toward her, but toward the rail, fingers wrapping the metal so hard my joints protest.
Then there’s blood. Not a movie spill, not the too-bright syrup from set. Dark, thick, catching the light along the edge of the step where her head hit. It glistens under the fluorescents in a way my brain still refuses to fully register as human. The silence after the impact is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard.
“Nora?”
My name snaps me back. The river rushes into focus again, green-brown and indifferent. The mill stands unmoved, windows hollow, watching.
The location manager stands a few feet away, concern buried under professional briskness.
“You good?” he asks. “We can head back to the hotel if you’re wiped. You don’t have to babysit B-roll.”
My hand loosens on the rail. Rust dusts my palm, reddish-brown and dry, nothing like the memory.
“I’m fine,” I say.
I hear the lie in my own voice, brittle and practiced.
Across the river, the staircase clings to the mill wall, each landing a missing frame in a reel. I can see where we shot, where she fell, where the clean-up crew hosed down the concrete before the sun came up and the town woke to rumors.
I step closer to the edge, gravel shifting under my boots, and stare at the rusted skeleton that started all of this. The wind picks up, carrying a faint echo of past shout and siren that may just be in my head.
I know I just remembered more than I’ve let myself remember in years.
I also know I still can’t say, out loud, whether I reached for her or gripped the railing and held on to myself instead.