Just Like the Movies

Chapter One

"You'll be graduating high school soon. You need to stop wasting your time writing. Get studying."

"Are you even focusing on your future, Maisie? Do you know how many writers actually make it? I don't mean to be harsh, but it won't be you. Let's be realistic."

"What if one day you find out you're not actually good at writing, and you've wasted all your life on it? Then what? What will you do, Maisie? You need to make money."

"Look at your siblings— they all have stable jobs and a good income. You should want to be like them. Are you going to live off us forever?"

It was the age-old tale— money or happiness. I'd chosen happiness with the hope money would follow suit. My parents wanted me to choose money with the chance of happiness to come. But it was my life, and I wanted to make my own decisions and choose my own path. Even if I had to lie in the process.

Even if no one believed in me along the way.

"Stop wasting your time, Maisie."

Somewhere above me, a crow called out sharply, pulling me from my reverie, and I took a deep breath, trying to force those thoughts away. That was all in the past. I didn't need to be bogged down by it.

"And it's not a waste of time now, is it?" I mumbled to myself, staring up at the sleek, modern building in front of me. Infinite Studios— the studio producing the movie based on my book. Here, my dreams would become reality. All my hard work would pay off.

I'd been to the studio before, but I felt especially anxious today. It was the first day of filming. I'd be seeing my book being turned into a movie in real-time. My stomach flip-flopped from a mix of nerves and excitement. I still couldn't believe it was happening, even though it'd been in motion for over a year now.

It was such a struggle to not share any news with my readers, but whenever a writer is told to keep a secret, there are certain people they tell, anyway. For me, that was Levi. I told him all my secrets that I couldn't keep to myself, and he'd never told another soul.

I immediately texted him a picture of the studio's main building.

Maisie: Today is the first day of filming. I just got here. I'm so nervous.

He answered almost immediately.

Levi: Wow! That's so amazing! I'm so proud of you, Maisie. Don't be nervous. All your hard work is paying off.

Levi: Remember to be confident today. You were specifically asked to oversee the film, so don't hide in some corner! I know you. Try to make some friends, okay?

I smiled down at the text message. Although I had never met Levi in person, he was still my best friend. We'd known each other for almost a decade now, and not one day had passed where we hadn't talked to each other in some form of way. Between texting, sending each other funny videos on social media, and playing video games together over discord with some of our other gamer friends, Levi was a constant in my life. Constant friendship and constant support.

Sometimes I felt sad that he was more supportive than my own family, but I didn't dwell longer than a few seconds on it. Someday my family would be more supportive of me. I knew they would.

And for now, I had Levi. And I was grateful for it.

But as for the making friends bit of his text... that was another story. I didn't have many friends in real life. Online? Sure. Between my readers and my online writer friends, I could say I had a lot of friends. But for real life, in real life friends? Well, I could count on half of one hand how many I had of those. And even with those friends, any time I spoke of my writing, their eyes would glaze over, and they would lose interest, just muttering oh and yeah, cool. So, Levi became the only person I talked about my writing with, and even more so when I decided I needed to keep furthering my writing career a secret.