The mill is dark except for the work lights.
Stage Fourteen always feels colder after wrap, the air conditioning humming louder without dialogue to cover it. The fake fog machines sit silent along the wall, their chemical tang lingering in the air. Somewhere outside the fire doors, somebody laughs near the craft truck, the sound thin through the metal.
Lila waits at the bottom of the staircase that ruined both our spines.
The rusted rails gleam under the safety bulbs, wet-painted to look slick with river damp. A plastic folding table squats in the middle of the concrete like an afterthought from a safety meeting, its metal legs splayed, surface scarred with tape residue and Sharpie notes. A paper coffee cup sits on one corner, lipstick-smudged, next to a neat stack of pages clipped at the top.
“This feels theatrical,” I say, stepping off the fake riverbed and onto the platform.
“You live in a soundstage,” she answers. “I’m just speaking your language.”
Her voice is flat, not unkind. She pulls out a folding chair for me with a screech that cuts through the hum of the AC.
I take it, lowering myself opposite her. The plastic gives under my weight with a faint pop. I tell myself this is good, that a table means negotiation, structure, adult conversation. Not threats in a garage or bodies on concrete.
“I thought we could talk through options,” I say. “Find something that doesn’t—”
“This is the option,” she says.
She picks up the stack of pages and slides it across the table. The paper rasp leaves a trail of tiny shivers up my arms.
“What is it?” I ask, though the answer sits right in front of me in twelve-point font.
“The terms of your confession,” she says. “You told me you don’t know where to start. So I organized it.”
A laugh climbs into my throat and dies there. The clip at the top digs into my palm when I pull the pages closer.
The first sheet is a cover page: STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTABILITY AND REMEDIAL PLAN – NORA ELISE HAYES. The words look wrong paired with my name, like someone Photoshopped them together in a fan edit.
“You wrote this?” I ask.
“With help,” she says. “I have a lawyer now who doesn’t work for your studio.”
The mention of lawyers throws a sour taste into my mouth, old coffee and fear. I flip the page.
The first section is labeled I. DIRECT HARM.
My eyes skim and catch.
I, Nora Elise Hayes, acknowledge that at age sixteen I shoved my co-worker Lila Park on a staircase at the Riverside Textile Mill set, contributing directly to her fall and injuries.
The word shoved hits harder than my own hand ever did. I read it twice, the letters blurring before snapping back into focus.
“You want me to say this on camera?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says.
My fingers leave faint sweat dots on the margin. The paper smells like toner and someone else’s perfume. I force myself to keep reading.
I acknowledge that this act constituted assault, regardless of my age, intention in the moment, or subsequent career.
My hand jerks. “Assault,” I repeat. “That word carries—”
“The weight it should have carried the first time,” she says quietly.
The hum of the air system presses into my ears. My pulse taps against my tongue.
“Can’t we phrase it as a fight?” I ask. “A mutual—”
“Did I shove you?” she asks.
I stare at the printed letters. A drop of something from the ceiling lands on the table with a tiny dark starburst. Fake damp, real leak.
“No,” I say.
“Then it wasn’t mutual,” she says.
I flip the page with more force than necessary. The clip bites my thumb. The next section is headed II. SYSTEMIC COVER-UP.
Underneath, bullet points march down the page. My name appears in every one, paired with others: the showrunner, the line producer, the fixer I still only remember as a pricey watch and a soft leather folder. A studio executive I’ve hugged in charity photos. Marcus.
I acknowledge that I was instructed not to contact Lila Park or her family.
I acknowledge that I accepted and repeated a false public narrative describing her exit as “creative differences”.
I acknowledge that I knowingly benefited from a coordinated effort to seal records, suppress on-set reports, and discredit complaints about safety at the mill.
My lips move around the words without sound. Each line is a match held to the version of myself I spent a decade promoting.
“This is… expansive,” I say.
“What happened to me didn’t happen in a vacuum,” she says. “Neither did what happened to Rhea, or that extra under the sandbag, or the people Quinn dug up from other sets. You confessing without context turns it into a true crime podcast instead of a pattern.”
“You want names,” I say.
“I want the infrastructure that protected you on record,” she says. “You are not the only one who needs to answer for this.”
My stomach clenches. “They will sue me,” I say. “The studio, the execs—Marcus—there will be defamation claims, breach of contract, every moral clause they can dig up. They’ll say I’m making it up to get attention. They’ll drag out every messy thing I’ve done and paint me unstable.”
“They already pay people to do that to women who make less money than you,” she says. “You doing this might make it harder next time.”
Harder next time. The phrase tastes like metal rail and winter air from my hometown, rumor swirling in a diner with bottomless coffee while someone laughs at the girl who “made trouble.”
I turn another page.
III. PUBLIC STATEMENT DELIVERY
The primary statement will be delivered on camera, in Nora Hayes’s own words, during a live or minimally edited setting. Pre-approved questions and PR-crafted interviews do not qualify.
“On camera when?” I ask. “Where?”
She nods toward the staircase towering over us. “Here,” she says. “During the finale shoot.”
“They’re already planning a behind-the-scenes special,” I say slowly. “Live tie-in, fan questions, on-set segment. You knew that.”
“I asked around,” she says. “The network wants to stream part of the finale day. Good ratings opportunity. Also a convenient stage.”
My palms go slick. I wipe them on my jeans and my fingers catch on dried fake blood from a previous scene.
“You want me to hijack my own special to confess to a felony?” I ask.
“I want you to use the microphone you were given,” she says. “You can read. You’re an actress. You’ll manage.”
My laugh comes out sharp enough to hurt my throat. “You couldn’t resist that, could you.”
Her mouth twitches. “You keep pretending this is about humiliating you,” she says. “It isn’t. Keep going. Get to the part where I ask you for money.”
I flip forward, pages whispering like a deck of cards.
IV. REMEDIAL ACTIONS
A. Financial Reparations:
Establishment of a fund, jointly overseen by stunt and background unions, to provide medical, legal, and mental health support for injured crew and performers. Initial contribution: a minimum of 60% of Nora Hayes’s current liquid assets, plus 50% of net proceeds from “Second Chances” and related endorsements.
The numbers turn into a blur of zeros. My throat tightens.
“Sixty percent,” I say.
“You’ll still have more than my family ever saw,” she says.
“That would wipe out my savings,” I say. “The house, the retirement accounts, the college funds I set up for my sister’s kids—”
“The college funds built on hush money and branding opportunities,” she says.
Heat rises under my skin, prickling my scalp. “Not everything in my life is blood money,” I snap.
“You’re right,” she says. “Some of it is just interest.”
We sit there breathing for a few beats. The silence wraps around the table, tight and heavy. Somewhere in the rafters, a light fixture pops, dust drifting down in a faint shower.
“There are lower percentages,” I say. “We could—forty? Thirty? I can do a foundation, a gala, get other actors involved, make it an industry-wide initiative.”
“You want to brand it,” she says.
“I want it to survive more than one news cycle,” I shoot back. “People listen to me. I can leverage that.”
Her eyes narrow, not in anger, more in calculation.
“You can still do that,” she says. “After you give up the part that hurts.”
I flip again, to distract myself from the way my pulse hammers.
B. Cooperation with Investigations:
Commitment to cooperate fully and truthfully with any legal or regulatory inquiries into the mill incident, the cover-up, and Rhea’s death.
C. Industry Accountability:
On-record testimony before relevant union safety committees and, if convened, legislative hearings on set safety and child performer protections.
“You’re writing hearings into my schedule now?” I ask.
“I am assuming that if you actually tell the truth, people will notice,” she says. “Better to be prepared.”
My vision tightens around the black ink. Every line ties my name to words I’ve spent years dodging: assault, cover-up, negligence. I try to picture the reaction online; the inevitable “too little, too late,” the fan edits of me crying on a livestream, the op-eds dissecting whether my tears are real.
A small, ugly part of me thinks that at least that narrative would center me again.
I press my nails into my thigh under the table until the thought retreats.
“What about you?” I ask. “I say all this, blow up my life, and you do what? Walk away? Testify and disappear? Cash a check?”
Her expression shifts, something wounded and dry passing under the surface.
“I don’t get rich off this,” she says. “My medical bills are mostly paid, thanks to a decade of grinding behind the camera. The fund is not my piggy bank. It’s overseen by people who actually know what they’re doing.”
“You could have asked for personal damages,” I say.
“I did,” she says. “At the time. They offered a number with a gag attached and my father begged me to take it. I didn’t. We paid for that. This is not about getting my retroactive payday.”
The fake mill around us suddenly feels too detailed, every rust patch and graffiti tag mocking the real one that kept leaking on my town long after the show packed up.
“This is… a lot,” I say finally. “I thought maybe you’d want—an apology, a donation, me stepping away from this show. Not a scorched-earth operation on the entire industry’s legal department.”
“Your apology means nothing without consequences,” she says. “You stepping away while keeping the lie in place just makes room for the next you. I’m not handing the system another blank NDA.”
My hand trembles on the pages. The text shivers with it.
“I can’t name them,” I whisper. “The execs, the fixer, Marcus—if I drag them in, they will burn me down. They will say I’m lying to reduce my culpability. They will sue until I live in a rental in Reseda and do cameo videos to pay my legal bills.”
“You’d still wake up with a clearer spine than the one they welded together for me,” she says.
I wince. She notices; her mouth softens.
“Nora,” she says, and my name in her voice cuts deeper than all the clauses combined. “You keep trying to bargain your way into a version of the truth that doesn’t cost you what it cost me. That doesn’t exist.”
I stare at my reflection in the glossy clip—eyes rimmed red from bad sleep, makeup smudged from the day’s scenes. The glassy surface warps my features, stretching my mouth wide.
“Maybe there’s a middle,” I say. “I admit to the shove. I talk about unsafe conditions, and how I let others handle the fallout. I make the fund, I cooperate, I do the hearings. But I don’t name names on camera. I use phrases like ‘certain executives’ and ‘legal advisors,’ and the people who know will know. The rest will focus on me. I can take that hit.”
“You still want to stand in front of the bullet for them,” she says, almost gently.
“They have kids,” I say. “Mortgages. Crews whose paychecks depend on their shows. It isn’t just monsters behind those contracts.”
“Neither is it just you,” she says. “But right now, your entire plan protects everyone except the people with the least power.”
My throat burns. “I’m not built to martyr myself,” I say.
“Nobody is born for it,” she says. “We get built into other things.”
She reaches across the table and taps the top page once, her nail clicking on the word assault.
“You don’t have to decide tonight,” she says. “I’m not Marcus. I’m not going to shove a pen into your hand in a hospital waiting room.”
Relief floods me so fast my head spins. “Thank you,” I breathe.
“You have until the finale shoot,” she adds.
My relief evaporates. “That’s two weeks,” I say.
“Two weeks is more time than anyone gave my family,” she says. “You want longer, you can talk to the lawyers after you’ve already blown the story up and the studio’s PR machine is whirring. Before that, I need a yes.”
“What happens if I say no?” I ask, even though she already told me in the garage.
“You already know that answer,” she says. “The accidents don’t stop. The stories keep getting told by people who were never in the mill. You keep reacting instead of choosing. And somewhere down the line, somebody else’s spine pays the price.”
She pushes her chair back. The legs scrape loudly. She stands, rolling her shoulders like she’s shaking off a weight.
“I’ll send a digital copy,” she says. “Highlight whatever you need to run past your therapist or your accountant. Just remember, every person you consult has different skin in this game.”
“You’re asking me to trust you over everyone who’s protected me for twenty years,” I say.
“I’m asking you to trust that protecting you is what got us here,” she replies.
She pauses, glancing up toward the half-built catwalk where a stunt coordinator once called “clear” before Rhea stepped off into nothing.
“Finale day,” she repeats. “You stand up there with a mic and speak the version we agreed on, with names, or I speak with the evidence I have. Either way, by wrap, the mill will no longer be folklore.”
My heart stutters around the word evidence. “What evidence?” I ask.
“We can talk about that later,” she says. “Consider this the script. Props come next.”
She picks up her coffee cup, drains the dregs, tosses it neatly into a trash can by the fog machine. Then she starts toward the stage door, footsteps soft on the fake damp floor.
“Lila,” I call.
She stops but doesn’t turn.
“If I do this,” I say, “if I say all of it, on camera, with names—do you stop? No more accidents, no more…nudges?”
She stands there for a long moment, shoulders rising and falling with one measured breath.
“If you do this fully,” she says, “I stop needing to.”
Then she pushes the crash bar. Cold night air rushes in, carrying the sugary smell of leftover donuts from the craft truck and the distant glitter of LA hills.
The door swings shut behind her, leaving me alone at the table with the humming AC, the chemical tang of fake river fog, and a stack of pages that weigh more than any award I’ve ever held.
I run my thumb over my printed name until the ink shines, imagining cutting whole sections, blacking out other people’s names, finding a way to tell a truth that ruins only one life.
Two weeks.
Finale day.
Somewhere between my hand and my mouth, I have to decide which parts of this story get to survive.