Hate You More

28

"Hunny, I'm home!" Hannah opened your door with a basket in her arms.

You lifted your head off the couch where you had been the whole night. After getting home from the airport, you dropped all your items by the front door. You sauntered to your couch and plopped down. No movement had been made since.

Hannah put out her arms to hand you a goodie basket she had made you. It had all your favorite sweets along with a pair of fuzzy socks, a face mask, and a bottle of wine.

You grabbed the bottle of wine to see what kind it was. "Hannah, this wine is crazy expensive. Why did you get this?"

"It was a hostess gift from the party yesterday. Thought we could share it today. Seemed like a good time for it."

"Who in the world gives bottle of wine as a thank you gift for attending their party?"

"The rich people who love throwing money away because they have nothing else to do with it." Hannah grabbed two wine glasses and a corkscrew before sitting on the couch beside you. "Should we talk or drink first?"

"Drink." You unscrewed the cork and poured the drink into both of the glasses.

Hannah took a sip eyeing you the whole time. "Okay I have to know. What's going on? You fight with your mother on a regular basis. Either it was another level of awfulness that hasn't been experienced yet, or something happened with Tom. You wouldn't have left London early if it wasn't one of those two. If it was something else, I'm pretty sure you would've told me instead of lying about being homesick."

You laid your head back. "I messed up."

Hannah stayed quiet as she repositioned herself to face you. She had one leg bent on the couch, and the other was on the floor.

"Tom and I got into an argument. He stood up to my mom."

Hannah furrowed her eyebrows. "Okay ... what's the problem with that?"

"I don't need someone defending me. I can handle things on my own."

"(Y/n/n), you are a very stubborn person. Sometimes having help is a good thing. You don't have to do everything on your own. But if you knew you messed up, why did you leave?"

You looked ashamed as you twirled your glass to make the drink spin. "I didn't want to face him after going off on him."

"Oh, babe. You never apologized or explained?" You shook your head no. Hannah sighed knowing this complicated the situation even more. "Have you at least tried to call him ever since you got home?"

"No. I've been here the whole time."

"I think you should call him."

"But what if he won't forgive me?"

Hannah shrugged her shoulders. "It's better to apologize than do nothing at all. If you really want to fix the mistake then you have to do something about it. If not, then there might not be anything to fix."

"Can I wait a few more hours?"

"I wouldn't."

You pulled out your phone and turned it on to call Tom. As you scrolled through your contacts, your phone started ringing. It was your manager, Sophie, calling.

"Hello?"

"(Y/n)! I've been trying to call you, but you haven't been picking up." She spoke urgently.

"Oh I'm sorry, I just got home from being out of town. I had my phone off as I flew home. What's going on?"

"Your next project, Don't Scream, has moved its schedule around. They contacted me a few days ago. They want you to start filming next week. I told them that it would be fine since you have a clear schedule right now. The table read is tomorrow morning. You better start reading over that script they sent you while you were in London."

You walked outside towards your mailbox while you put your phone between your head and shoulder. There was nothing in there though. "Are you sure they sent me the script?"

"Positive."

"I don't have it." You bent down to look again even though you knew it was still empty.

"What?" Sophie sounded worried.

"It's not here. Actually, nothing is here."

"How do you not have any mail if you've been gone for a few days?"

Sophie had a point. You walked back inside and put your hand over the speaker. "Hey, do you know where all my mail went since I've been gone?"

Hannah put a finger in the air. "Yeah. I put it all in your room as you were gone. I didn't want anyone taking anything. You got a package as well. I didn't open it."

You went to your room where a brown package sat on your dresser. You opened it to see a lengthy booklet that was your new script. "Okay I have it. Why are they moving production up early?"

"Some conflict with your costar. He already made an agreement to film something else, and they don't want to lose him. They decided to move it up so he could do both."

"Oh. Do you know who it is?"

"I have no clue, but I will send you everything you need for tomorrow. Just tonight though I advise you to do nothing but study, which I know you'll do. No distractions. Of course you don't need to know every word in that thing since it's probably going to change here and there as they go through it tomorrow, but just be prepared. I know you'll do fantastic. You're too brilliant to not do anything less than amazing."

"Okay. Thanks Sophie. Will I see you tomorrow?"

"Sorry I won't be able to make it in the morning. I have a meeting with some people about All Things Are Black and White."

"What about it?"

"The subject on the email said press tour so I'm guessing you'll have to be doing that very soon. Don't worry about that right now, let me handle it. It's my job to figure it out. You just worry about the table read. Text me how it goes."

"I will. Thank you again."

Sophie hung up the phone and you walked back out to Hannah. She looked at you, reading your calculating face. You stood there holding the script thinking everything over.

"I have a table read in the morning and I haven't even looked at the script."

"That's okay. You don't have to look at it. I bet some of the people who show up tomorrow will just be touching the paper for the first time since receiving it." Hannah knew how important it was for you to be very well prepared for things like this, but she was trying to help you to not freak out.

"I have less than twenty-four hours. Not considering the time I need for sleep and the drive to get there tomorrow."

"It's all going to be okay. You don't need to know it all."

"But what if there are words I can't pronounce and then I can't say them in front of everyone? What if I get asked questions about it before the read and I won't know a thing about the movie? The only thing I know is that it's in the thriller genre."

"Then let's start reading it right now."

"It's going to take hours."

"Well, I already promised to be here for the whole day anyway."

"What about Tom. I still haven't called him."

"You can try to call him right now or call him after we've read through it at least once."

"I'll call him after."

"Okay, good. If he doesn't pick up then you can do it tomorrow. You'll do the read in the morning and then you'll call Tom. You'll have the whole night to talk until it gets too late for him over there."

"Okay. Okay. Yeah. No problem."

You sat on the couch and opened the first page of the script. Even though Hannah probably shouldn't be looking at it, you knew she wouldn't blab her mouth to anyone. She read the opposite characters lines to give you someone to act off of. You notated every page that had your character in them.

It took hours going through the whole thing. You both took a break to eat some food in between it before going back at it. Sophie texted you telling you everything you needed to know for tomorrow like she said she would. You got nerves thinking about meeting everyone tomorrow. You had zero clue who would be in this cast with you.