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Chapter One – Adolescent Summers
Series 10
Day 1
There was something familiar about this set. The lights, the furniture, the smell of hairspray. Sometimes coming back to this set felt more like coming home than going home.
It was like that song from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. The one about the old timely movie star.
Sunset Boulevard.
She sang that line, those in particular lines.
I know my way around here.
The cardboard trees, the painted scenes, the sound here.
It didn’t matter how much I’d changed; thisplace never did. It was a comfort. Or was it? Maybe it was actually terrifying how frozen in history this set was.
My deadname being blacked out with a sharpie on my script proved that maybethis was a recurring nightmare rather than a fond memory.
I gave it to Brooklyn the moment he was within armlength of me. I looked towards him as he huffed a swear word, the script hanging at his side as he searched the props table.
He soon found a sharpie and wrote OZ in hugeletters across the front page. I exhaled, thumping my chest three times, he winked back at me.
Before the Sunset Boulevard lady sang those lines, she sings.
I don’t know why I’m frightened.
Andokay, I don’t know the actual story of Sunset Boulevard, wehadn’t been to see it so I didn’t know if she should be frightened, I justdidn’t know but I knew that there was every reason for me to be.
It had been eighteen months since we closed production on this set. The end of series nine, when my character finally got to kiss Brooklyn’s. A fandom dream come true; things looked like they were finallysettling into place for all our characters. We all knew we were going into the last series; we were only contracted for ten. None of us were renewing our contract, we were in the end game now.
Aweek after production closed, so did the world.
We were supposed to be back on set a month later, four weeks off then back for series ten.
Now, we were stood with masks on, after sticking a swab down our throats and were being told not to go near each other. Eventhough Brooklyn and I had been sleeping in the same bed for two years and Quincy lived with us.
I jumped when arms wrapped around me andthen I relaxed back into them, sighing and leaning my head back to look up.
“Current mood?” Brooklyn asked the top of my head.
“You know that emoji, with the wiggly mouth and one eye bigger than the other.”
He hummed acknowledging me. “The one no-one really knows what it means.”
“That one,” I agreed headbutting his chest. “Yours?”
“Scared,” he whispered.
“Hey.” I turn to him.
“It’s stupid. Just haven’t been around here for a long time, and I’ll flip shit if anyone does wrong by you.”
“I love you,” I told him, “but let me put you on standby. We’re not going straight in for attack remember.”
“I didn’t agree to that,” Quincy sang as they passed.
I turned to look at them. “You can do whatever you wish. I do not own you.”
Quincy rose two fingers at us.
“Script reading,” they told us. I nodded as Brooklyn sighed.
“Let’s do this.” I tapped Brooklyn’s chest, he leant towards me, kissing me even though we were both still wearing our masks. I laughed, shaking my head as I removed my mask from one ear. He was practically beaming when he did the same.
“I got you.”
“I believe you.”
He kissed me.
I gasped before he’d fully moved away.
“What?” he widened his eyes at me, I smirked.
“Social distancing.” I stated. He rolled his eyes, pushing me away butnot committing fully as he pulled me back by the arm.
Adolescent Summers – Cameron James
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