One day

Chapter 17 ~with an enthusiastic smile and thumbs up~

“Layli, Kat!” They yell excitedly. My heart flutters as I kneel down and embrace the two of them. I never realised how much I’ve missed their little voices. As I breathe in their familiar scents I get the biggest shock of my life when Kat hesitantly gives them both hugs. I think the twins are a bit shocked too but they quickly work out what’s happening and hug her tightly in greeting. After they’ve said hello I begin to take my stuff upstairs with them in suit talking over each other telling me about all the things they did in Malibu and I smile at their stories as I begin to unpack. By the time I reach the bottom of my suitcase I am kind of sick of their voices. As cute as they are there’s only so much I can take. I know it’s mean but it’s true. I take a big armful of dirty clothes to my bathroom to throw in my dirty laundry basket and when I come back I find the twins still arguing.

“Hey girls why don’t you go tell Kat about Malibu?” I say sweetly to them. As well as I’ve gotten on with Kat these past days I doubt that it’ll last, so they can go annoy her for a while. Once they hurriedly leave my room I flop face down on my bed and sigh. I close my eyes under the blow of the air-conditioning and take in the peace and quiet. I hear a knock on my door and take my face off my bed groaning.

“What?” I turn to see John standing at my door.

“Hello to you too.” He smirks and with that one motion I can see why half the world loves him.

“Hey, how was it?”

“It was good, tiring but it’ll pay off when it hits the cinemas.” I nod in agreement and sit up waiting for him to spit out what he came here to say.

“So I’m guessing you’ve noticed the security we’ve placed around the house.” At this I perk up.

“Yea, what are they here for?” I ask curiously. He bites his lip and looks out my window before he replies.

“Well since your ‘incident’ we just want to be precautious.” He says slowly. “Especially since you went to the police about it. We just want to be on alert if anyone catches wind of this and tries anything similar.” There it is again. What is it with them and not wanting me to tell the police? Like I get that they don’t want people to find out about where we live and stuff but isn’t my safety more important? I raise an eyebrow at him when I see he hasn’t left and he snaps his gaze away from the window to meet mine.

“Right well this is your script. Try and learn it off by heart as much as possible and I’ll be downstairs if you need any help.” He smiles before throwing me a clear folder and walking out of my bedroom. I open the folder and pull out a booklet of A4 pages which reads my name on the front. I open the first page and see it has everyone else's lines who will be in the scene and mine in bold. Flipping through the booklet I gasp when I realise I have to play a character that was sexually harassed by one of the main boss men from another company and my mum and the others who she is working with are using me to take down his company. I can’t play this. I’ve just experienced a very tame version of what this man supposedly did to me. Plus I’ve never done this before. I thought John said I’d barley be saying anything, this part has to be done by someone who can actually act very well to pull off such a role. Jumping off my bed I march downstairs to find my mum and John talking in the kitchen.

“Why would you choose me to play something like this?” I say loudly. “It’s disgusting.”

“Layli honey I’m sorry I honestly didn’t know that’s the role they intended for you.” My mum says softly.

“Well they do and have you forgotten what happened to me yesterday?” I say raising my eyebrows.

“All the more reason for you to play it.” John says leaning on the bench.