Without Scars Read Online Free PDF Page B

views as of last month, the most of any episode, more than all the others combined.”
    “Oh, I’m so in. I’m totally subscribing. And watching all of them.”
    “Well, the first three aren’t great. Sound’s off. Lighting’s wrong. I’m blatantly staring at the camera in some scenes. Shoddy camera work. Dialogue felt forced and contrived in some places. The writing is kind of shaky on my part. I wasn’t good at putting a story together back then, maybe not great now, either. A little too much angst. We emoted a lot. So, maybe skip those?”
    She frowned. “Geez, you’re pretty self-critical. I thought I had that market cornered. Couldn’t have been that bad if that company liked it, right? And all the people who watch? You have thousands of subscribers. They obviously saw something they liked. Tell me what’s amazing about it.”
    “Well…I get to work with my best friend, and do what we both love. She really fought for the show. It’s because of her that Hillington bought it and licensed season one to show on their website. They want to sign us for at least three more series and for us to give them the right of first refusal option on any other scripts, too,” I explained. “We’ll probably take care of some of that tomorrow morning. We have a video conference with Hillington after our cast meeting and table read.”
    From the corner of my eye, I saw a stunned expression on her face, like I’d spoken gibberish. “How are you so subdued right now? I would be freaking out. When I got into So Cal Ballet…it felt like a dream nearly every day I was there. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”
    I nodded. “Yeah but, truthfully, I was just bullshitting on the Internet like everyone else when it happened.” I’d wanted to be a writer since the first time I watched the first episode of The Sopranos with my dad—against my mother’s wishes—when I was a kid . But my own writing never went anywhere in the past, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t get an agent and my work got rejected faster than I could send more out. How to Fuck up a Friendship sprung from wallowing deep in fuck this shit city. I hadn’t expected it to succeed, because after so much failure I had no endgame, no expectations. So, it wasn’t that I was subdued; I didn’t know how to feel about the way things had changed. Years of crushing feelings of inadequacy didn’t just go away because someone finally patted me on the back.
    “I just want season two to be better. Needs to be,” I continued. Tomorrow, we were presenting the entire new season as Samira and I saw the story progressing. Then media suits were going to be critiquing and judging the details. Preparing my writing had been an exercise in insanity the past several months, and why I had barely slept on a regular schedule the past few weeks. Why I was probably Fallon’s best customer. Final touches had turned into final-final touches and then one more final-final-final. Okay, there were two more after that. It never actually felt finished.
    Because it never felt right.
    To save myself from slipping into mindless obsession right there in the car, I changed the subject. “So, So Cal Ballet? That sounds serious. Is this like one of those dance movies where the frustrated ballerina, tired of her traditional moves, picks up some edgier ones, and finally gives some life-altering, standing ovation-worthy performance later?”
    “I wish my life were like those Step Up movies but, no, the company didn’t renew my contract a couple years ago. Dance has become a bit of a pipe dream since then. That audition was actually my complete fall from grace. Or rather an ass shaking while grinding on a bunch of other girls in pseudo girl-on-girl, guy fantasy crash-landing,” she said flatly. “And then in the ironies of all ironies, I was terrible at the thing I’m turning my nose up at. Complete and utter failure today.” A gray replica medieval castle with pink flags waving