We kill the overhead lights and my living room turns into a tiny theater.
The only glow comes from the wall-mounted TV and the city beyond the glass, a smear of twinkling LA hills under a dark velvet sky. The AC thrums in the ceiling, pushing cool air over the warm crush of bodies on my couches. Popcorn butter, truffle fries, and the citrus bite of chilled white wine knot into a single dense smell.
“Five,” Jazz counts down from the corner, already filming on her phone. “Four, three, two—”
“Don’t you dare post that before it even starts,” I warn, but I’m smiling.
“Relax, national treasure,” she says. “It’s for the archive.”
Marcus leans on the back of the couch behind me, wrist draped over my shoulder, champagne flute in hand. “Any last words before we change the course of prestige TV?” he murmurs near my ear.
“Please shut up,” I whisper back. “And please be right.”
The Silverline logo blooms across the screen, cold and clean, then dissolves into the opening shot of Second Chances. Someone whistles. Someone else says, “Holy production value.” I tuck my bare feet under me, toes digging into the soft rug, and force myself to look straight at the thing I helped build.
There I am.
Not the red carpet version, not the talk show giggle. The first close-up is my character on a staircase, eyes swollen, mascara streaked in messy rivulets. The key light catches every pore the makeup artist pretended to erase. I watch my own chest rise and fall in tiny shuddering breaths.
The room goes quiet in that particular way that means they’re actually watching, not just waiting to clap for my name.
On-screen, I grip the railing and deliver the monologue that had the crew sniffling during rehearsal. “I don’t get to rewind,” I say, voice ragged through the speakers. “I just get to carry it forward and pretend that’s healing.”
In the living room, someone mutters, “Jesus.” A hand lands on my knee—one of my castmates, Tessa, fingers gentle, nails cool against my skin. I exhale through my nose, slow, pretending I’m just steadying my breath for the character.
My throat tightens anyway.
Marcus bends down. “That,” he whispers, “is the Emmy clip.”
I dig my nails into my own palm where no one can see. Watching myself cry in high definition while people cheer feels like pressing on a bruise and being applauded for the color.
The episode rolls on. Dialogue I know by heart still hits me in the gut when I hear it over the sound mix. I notice choices I made on set that I barely remember making: the way my shoulder hunches when another character raises his voice, the frantic licking of my lips before I lie. Each one lands differently now that the mill is back in my head like a song I can’t get rid of.
In one transition, they cut to B-roll of a river town that might as well be home: fog lying low over a steel bridge, a factory skeleton in the distance. Jazz sucks in a breath. “Is that—”
“Different mill,” Marcus says quickly. “Shot in Canada. Legally distinct rust.”
Laughter ripples across the room. I stare at the frame anyway, tasting cold metal on the back of my tongue, the ghost of those wet stair rails.
My phone, face-down on the coffee table, starts to buzz.
Once, twice, a third time. A little frantic insect under my peripheral vision. Group chat, probably. My sisters, or the PR thread Marcus insists I stay in.
“Do not look at your phone,” Marcus says without looking away from the TV. “The numbers will be there in an hour.”
I nod, lashes lowered. The cup of ginger beer in my hand sweats condensation, droplets slipping down my fingers, making my skin slick.
On-screen, the credits roll over a track I pretended not to cry to in the mixing bay. In my living room, Jazz throws both arms up.
“We ate,” she announces. “We feasted. You all right?” She swings the camera toward me.
“Do not film me watching myself cry,” I say, grabbing a throw pillow and hugging it to my chest like armor. “You’re sick.”
Tessa clinks her glass against mine. “Seriously, Nora. You were so—” She gropes for a word. “Open.”
“Raw,” Marcus supplies, already in pull-quote mode.
“Yeah.” Tessa nods. “Raw. People are going to feel so seen.”
I smile because that is the correct response. I touch my thumb to the edge of my phone because my body wants something else: data, reactions, proof that strangers are letting me back into their living rooms.
“Fine,” Marcus relents, catching the movement. “You get one check-in. Ten minutes. Then we talk about anything except the internet. Deal?”
“Five minutes,” I say. “I’m not a monster.”
I flip the phone over.
The lock screen explodes with notifications: texts stacked over group chats stacked over push alerts. #SecondChances trending. “Nora Hayes breaks your heart in new Silverline drama.” “Remember when she did rom-coms?”
Under those, another banner I don’t expect:
Second Take released a new episode: THE MISSING GIRL, PART ONE.
My thumb freezes.
The cover art fills the small rectangle: a dark silhouette of a girl on a metal staircase, backlit by an overexposed window. Industrial railings crisscross behind her. At the bottom, in a grainy overlay, the words: The Girl Who Vanished from River’s Edge High.
My vision tightens around that staircase like a tunnel.
“What?” Jazz leans in. “Good numbers?”
I hit the side button and lock the screen before she catches the image. “Yeah,” I lie. My voice comes out higher than I want. “It’s… great. We’re trending.”
Marcus grins down at me. “Of course we are. You just redefined prestige streaming.”
The guests laugh. Someone pops another champagne cork. It ricochets off the ceiling and lands in the guacamole. Everyone groans and then eats around it.
My phone vibrates again against my knee. Then again. A rhythm that feels less like celebration and more like incoming fire.
I stand, pillow still clutched to my stomach. “Bathroom,” I say. “Don’t watch my scenes without me.”
“You were in every scene,” Tessa calls after me. “We physically cannot comply.”
The hallway to my bedroom is dimmer, cooler, the AC louder without conversation to cover it. My bare feet squeak against polished concrete. I pass the gallery of framed magazine covers: America’s Sweetheart Grows Up. Nora Hayes, Unfiltered. So much glossy glass between me and who I used to be.
In my bedroom, I shut the door and lean against it for a second. City light spills through the giant window, painting soft rectangles on the floor. I smell my own perfume from earlier, a faint floral cloud over laundry detergent and whatever eucalyptus stuff my housekeeper uses.
I sit on the edge of the bed and open the podcast app.
Second Take sits at the top of the charts tile, a small crown icon next to it. I swallow. I remember when Quinn Hart’s show was a niche rewatch I did once, a cute favor for a smart fan with good politics and a modest Patreon.
Now the thumbnail for The Missing Girl, Part One wears a little red “NEW” badge. Underneath: 1 of 4 in a special investigative series.
“Of course,” I whisper. “A series.”
I tap it. Quinn’s intro music bubbles up: a warm synth riff under a low drum, familiar and comforting until her voice cuts in.
“You’re listening to Second Take,” she says. “I’m Quinn Hart, and tonight, while the world watches Nora Hayes’s big prestige comeback on Second Chances, we’re going back to the beginning. To a different show. A missing girl. And a factory stairwell in a foggy river town that doesn’t show up in the credits.”
My lungs forget their job for a beat.
I mash pause, then scrub back five seconds and play it again, needing to be sure I heard the words right. She pairs my name with “big prestige comeback” and “missing girl” in the first line. Efficient. Elegant. Brutal.
A text bubbles over the top of the screen from Marcus.
Marcus: Off the internet, please. Enjoy this. You earned it.
Another follows before I can reply.
Marcus: Also PR says podcast dropped a “thing” tonight. We’ll handle. Do NOT listen right now.
Too late.
Quinn’s episode art glows at me, staircase and silhouette burned into my screen. The shape of the girl’s shoulders looks wrong for Lila—too narrow, too sloped—but my body doesn’t care. My pulse jumps anyway.
I hit play again, volume low.
“We’ve talked a lot on this show about second chances,” Quinn says. “Who gets them. Who doesn’t. Tonight we’re asking a different question: what happens to the girl whose story gets edited out so someone else’s comeback can play better?”
The mattress dips under my hands. I don’t remember deciding to sit down fully, but I’m on the bed now, knees apart, robe bunched around my thighs.
Quinn’s voice goes on, soft but steady, laying out the bones of the case: the missing episodes, the convention photo labeled “Lila Park,” the fan forum thread about an on-set injury at an abandoned mill. She doesn’t say my name again in the first few minutes, which feels like a kindness and a threat.
“We’re not naming the other actor involved yet,” she says. “Not because we’re afraid, but because we’re still gathering facts. For now, we’re focusing on the girl the show forgot.”
My stomach flips.
A different text pops up, from my younger sister: YOU LOOK INSANE GOOD – all caps, eleven exclamation marks, three crying emojis and one fire. I stare at that combination and feel something inside me tilt. Fire again.
In the living room, laughter swells, muffled through the door. Someone must have hit a lighter scene. My own on-screen voice floats faintly under it, echoing down the hallway.
Healing requires privacy, my therapist likes to say. Justice likes crowds.
Right now the crowds have excellent Wi-Fi.
I stop the episode at the point where Quinn says she tracked down an anonymous voicemail from a former production assistant. My thumb hovers over the play button, itching to hear what that voice says about the night the mill turned red. Instead, I exit out and open my socials like an addict switching drugs.
Twitter is a wall of my face.
Clips from the crying staircase monologue. Screenshots of my character staring down a hallway. Fan edits already pairing me with my co-star over soft indie tracks. Nora Hayes is acting for her life, someone posts, racking up thousands of likes. Give this woman all the awards, another says.
I scroll down. Below the praise, the tone shifts.
Anyone else listening to @SecondTake right now and getting weird vibes about that old mill shoot?
Love Nora but if there’s a missing girl involved we deserve answers. Fame ≠ immunity.
Quinn, this timing is gross. Let her have one night.
Counterpoint: victims don’t get to schedule their pain around premieres.
Who is Lila Park and why can’t I find her credits anywhere????
The hashtag #TheMissingGirl nips at the heels of #SecondChances. Both rise together in the trending column like two sides of the same coin spinning through the air.
My mouth dries out. I grab the water glass on my nightstand and swallow. The water tastes faintly metallic, probably from the pipes, but my brain supplies river instead, that same rusty tang that used to live in the mill stair rails.
I flip to Instagram. My DM requests are a war zone.
You saved my life tonight, I swear. I saw myself in you.
Queen of surviving.
Ignore the haters, they’re jealous.
Hey, I was a PA on River’s Edge. I think I know the girl they’re talking about.
Is it true someone got hurt because of you? Please tell me it’s not true.
I back out. On the explore page, a fan edit already stitches together my new crying scene with the grainy still from the old show, the one with Lila half visible on the staircase.
The caption: Two girls. One story we never heard.
The audio under it is Quinn’s voice from the episode intro: “What happens to the girl whose story gets edited out…?” I hit mute so hard my finger aches.
“Nora?” Marcus’s voice calls from the hallway. “You hiding?”
I take a breath that shakes on the way in. “Be right there.”
I tuck my phone under my thigh and walk back to the living room, shoulders rolled down, face smoothed into something camera-ready. The crowd erupts into cheers when they see me, raising glasses. Someone hands me a slice of vegan cheesecake that tastes like coconut and chalk.
“To Nora,” Jazz declares, standing on my coffee table like a tiny chaos god. “To second chances that are better than the first ones.”
“To third chances, just in case,” Tessa adds, and everyone laughs.
My glass clinks against theirs. “To all of you letting my weird face into your homes,” I say, because it’s the line I practiced in my head earlier. “Thank you for coming. I’m really glad you’re here.”
The words sound true and not. Both can live in my mouth at once.
Marcus catches my eye over the rim of his drink, a question there. I give him the micro-shake that means later. He nods once. He knows me well enough to realize I’ve already broken the ten-minute rule.
The party blurs in the edges after that. I laugh in the right places, pose for photos against the glass wall with the city behind me, answer questions about process and character like I’m still in a press junket chair. The AC keeps humming. Candle wax puddles on the coffee table, thick and vanilla-scented.
When the last guest leaves and the dishwasher starts its low mechanical grumble, the house finally goes quiet. The city keeps glittering like nothing has changed.
I sink onto the couch alone, the imprint of bodies still warm in the cushions. My phone waits on the table, black screen reflecting my face in miniature. I pick it up and open Quinn’s episode again.
The play button hovers under my thumb.
On one side of my notifications, I have critics calling my performance brave and transformative. On the other, I have strangers asking what happened to a girl whose name I spent a decade training myself not to say.
I tap into the reviews for The Missing Girl, Part One. Five-star ratings pour in: Finally talking about what Hollywood buries. One-star reviews sit beside them: Let Nora live. The numbers climb in real time.
Two stories are growing in the same soil tonight. My performance. Her disappearance.
I stare at the screen until my eyes sting, then hit play, knowing that every second I listen pulls me further from the version of myself my show is trying to sell—and closer to the girl at the railing who never got a premiere at all.