The head of wardrobe scurried over and draped robes around Caitlin and Gemma before they stepped outside the studio into the blinding sun.
“Would you want to eat together?” Caitlin asked as they reached her boxy white trailer.
“Sure,” Gemma replied softly.
Surprised, Caitlin snatched up the prepared lunch waiting for her and slipped into Gemma’s trailer before Gemma could change her mind.
After a few tense minutes, Caitlin broke the silence that had settled over them. “Are we going to talk about it?”
“Do I have a choice?” Gemma spat.
No. No, Gemma did not have a choice this time.
“That kiss the other day—” Caitlin started, but Gemma cut her off, “Was acting.”
Caitlin forced her face to remain neutral, swallowing the urge to argue. That kiss had been real, and she knew it.
“We have to figure out this scene, Gemma. The movie doesn’t exist without it.”
“You don’t think I know that?” The anger on Gemma’s face was unmistakable.
“So… what do you suggest?” Caitlin cautiously continued.
“You could be honest with me for once.” Bitterness had crept into Gemma’s tone.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gemma rolled her eyes and ignored Caitlin’s question, her face masked with fury.
Caitlin took a slow breath. Someone needed to stay level-headed, or else the conversation would spiral the way it always had so far. But the restraint didn’t last. She swallowed once and then spoke before she could stop herself.
“Fine. You want the truth?” Caitlin braced herself, knowing the words would taste bad even as they came out of her mouth. “I’m one of the biggest movie stars of our generation, and I don’t regret a single choice I made to get here.”
Caitlin watched her vicious words hit Gemma. Her anger drained away at the impact, leaving behind a hollow pain. Caitlin felt sick to her stomach as she waited for an equally scathing retort, but instead there was only silence. Somehow, the quiet was even worse.
“Ah. Well, at least you finally admitted it,” Gemma said, voice tight. “I always wondered, but now I know for sure—you never cared about me. It was always about you. Your image, your career. Being rich and famous would always come first,and I was just too young and in love to see it.”
Caitlin felt as if she’d been slapped. What had she been thinking? The words weren’t true, she hadn’t even meant them, but she couldn’t take them back now. Worse, Gemma seemed to honestly believe that she had never mattered to Caitlin.
“Yup, that’s me—the cold, selfish star who never cared. But you know what I do care about?” The words kept tumbling out of her mouth, even as her mind screamed at her to stop. “This movie. So get your shit together so we can film this scene. The sooner we get through this, the sooner we can go back to our own separate lives.” Caitlin was officially her own worst enemy.
Gemma lurched to her feet and rushed toward the back of the trailer, slamming the door so hard behind her that the trailer shuddered.
Caitlin felt like the worst person alive as she listened to Gemma’s sobs from the other room. How could Gemma think so little of her? There hadn’t been a single day that Caitlin hadn’t carried Gemma with her—not during the empty summer at sixteen, not during the ten years that had stretched between them—and the idea that Gemma was able to believe otherwise shredded something inside of her.
Caitlin needed to fix this, and fast. She did not want to keep hurting Gemma.
She knocked on the door that Gemma was hiding behind. “Gemma, can I please come in?”
“Fuck you, Caitlin.”
Okay, she totally deserved that. Caitlin wouldn’t give up that easily, though. She tried the handle, which had been left unlocked, and gently pushed the door open.
Gemma sat on the bed, knees pulled to her chest and head buried in her arms. She looked so small, so defenseless. For a moment, Caitlin stood frozen in the doorway, watching the woman she loved shrink under the weight of her own words.
Moving slowly, as if approaching a caged animal, Caitlin sat down next to Gemma, keeping a safe distance between them. “I really didn’t mean any of that. I was just mad.”
“So you did it on purpose, then? Just to hurt me? Haven’t you hurt me enough for one lifetime?” Gemma’s voiced quivered.
