Chapter 4Gradually drifting away
About 2,122 characters (~407 words) — this is Chapter 4, the last of the 4 free chapters on EditWrx Reads.
The way Ethan and I met feels like a scene from a movie. Back then, I was just another struggling actress in L.A., working as an extra. He was the heir to a hotel empire, defying his family to chase his own Hollywood dream. His parents, determined to teach him a lesson, had cut him off completely and were actively sabotaging his career.
I saw him for the first time on a street corner at 2 a.m. I had just wrapped a night shoot and was eating a hot dog from a street cart. I felt a pair of eyes on me, and when I turned, I saw a pair of hungry, glowing green eyes staring back from a dark alley.
I bought him a hot dog. We squatted there on the curb together, and he told me he was just another transplant trying to make it in the business. We talked all night, feeling that instant, electric connection of two souls who understood each other.
After that, we met at that same spot every night, sharing stories from our miserable days on set. Inevitably, we fell for each other. We moved into a tiny, cramped studio in the Valley. In that room that always smelled like stale takeout and mildew, on that rickety metal bed frame, we loved each other with the desperate intensity of two people with nothing else to hold onto.
For three years, we were a team. We had each other's backs, pulling each other up as we clawed our way through the industry.
The night he won his first major award, everything changed. He finally got his parents' approval, and he finally told me who he really was. I was devastated by the lie. I locked him out of our apartment. To win me back, he stood outside in a torrential downpour all night until he collapsed from a fever and was rushed to the hospital. The first thing he did when he woke up was try to rip out his IV to come find me.
My heart melted. He gave me a fairy-tale wedding and went public with our relationship at the peak of his career, giving me everything I could have ever wanted.
Everyone called it a Cinderella story. After a while, I think even Ethan started to believe it. He slowly began to forget those three years of struggle, poverty, and pain in that tiny, moldy apartment.