Choosing acting as a career was something Jensen did because falling in love with Miles meant she would have a public image, no matter what she did. Teaching wasn't going to work when students only wanted questions answered about Hollywood and who was dating who. Acting was something Jensen loved, but she only pursued it wholeheartedly when she knew that she and Miles were going to spend the rest of their forever together.
Six years of consistently attending auditions had not made them any less nerve-wracking for Jensen. Even after upping her Lexapro dose to be a full time actor, studio buildings made her heart pound. Driving to the buildings made her palms sweat. Jensen hated going to Walker Studios' Vancouver branch terrified her and she was technically the next person in line to receive it if something bad happened to Miles.
Jensen found it worse that Diana Thomas was her final destination. The only director who had intimidated her more was Keira. Jensen understood the irony of Keira recommending her to Diana and being nervous about both of them.
Studio E was a familiar anvil on Jensen's chest. Panic frequented every limb on her body each step she took through the studio. It made her feel heavy and weighed down. Her heart drummed in her ears. It was harder to breathe each step she took.
Jensen walked up to a desk, taking a quick look at the clipboard on the table and the side. It wasn't for what Jensen was looking for.
"Can I help you?" the receptionist asked.
"I—um." Jensen felt like her throat was closing. "Jensen Rhodes. Here for Diana Thomas."
The receptionist nodded to a chair. "Take a seat."
Jensen nodded and walked over. Crossed her ankles. Uncrossed them. Pulled at her hair. After half an hour of messing with her hair and makeup that morning, Miles had come in and winged eyeliner for her and done simple eye makeup. For her hair, Jensen had tied her curls up, but left a couple out on each side to frame her face. Tugging at her curls was about all she could do to not focus on her panic.
"Do you know when Diana will be here?"
"When she's here."
"I—" A sharp breath hitched in her throat. "I'm—I have to go to the washroom. Could you please let Diana know I'm here if she comes out?"
"Make it quick and you shouldn't have to worry."
Jensen scrambled to her feet and sped to where she knew the bathroom was. Her chest grew hot while she walked. Fingernails clawed at her chest. She fanned her free hand at her chest in a weak attempt to cool herself down. When she got to the bathroom, she missed the tap the first time she reached for it. Finally getting the water to run she stuck her hands under the tap; shaking with nerves. Focused on the cold. Tried to breathe properly when her lungs felt filled with the water that ran from the tap.
Jensen met her eyes in the mirror. "Pull your-fucking-self together."
She watched her eyebrows knit together. Eyes soften. Was that really how she spoke aloud to herself?
"Please."
Jensen always told Rocky to use her manners. Apparently she'd found the one instance they didn't work. She was far from pulling herself together. Jensen couldn't breathe. Every attempted inhale was short and choppy. In movies, she could've taken a paper bag and breathed twice before feeling better.
Despite being panicked about potentially being in a movie, Jensen wished she were in a movie. She wanted to take two proper breaths into a paper bag and feel better. Not the hot chest, quick breath panic she felt at that moment. Jensen had had plenty of panic attacks during her time on the earth. Panic and anxiety were built into her. A lot of the time, she knew how to fight it. In fact, she'd say she was pretty good at calming herself down. Grounding herself.
But not when the panic took over. Which it had.
Jensen could barely feel the water on her shaking hands. Heat enveloped her to the point of sweat spotting on her forehead. Clawing through the curls loose around her face, Jensen tried to talk herself out of it. Tried. Each time she opened her mouth, the words caught in her throat.
How long had Jensen been in the bathroom? She didn't wear a watch to the audition. Her phone had been left in her car. Naturally. She hadn't wanted it on her body causing her any panic. Jensen never thought she'd need the timer.
Palms pressed into edge of the sink counter, Jensen attempted deep breaths. They came out shaking, but slowly she got them steady. Longer. The heat hadn't left her chest but at least she managed to breathe.
Jensen looked at herself in the mirror. Locked eyes. "Whenever you're ready."
A couple more deep breaths. Jensen tried to find any of the lines she'd spent the last couple weeks remembering. They had to be there. Where were they? Behind the panic attack fog, surely. Jensen tried to navigate her own mind.
Jensen shook her head. Pressed her trembling lips together. Raised her shaking hand to the side of her face. She hardly recognized herself. What was she doing?
Turning on her heel, Jensen walked out of the bathroom. If there was one thing she could forgive herself for, it was that she hadn't brought anything into the waiting room with her. While she took a walk of shame back to her car she thanked herself for not having to go back and face the receptionist again.
Never in her life had Jensen skipped out on an audition before. She had always told herself that if this was what she wanted, she was going to have to get over the anxiety of going through the process.
Not that day.
Jensen got in her car, took side streets all the way home, and cried while she did so. Because she couldn't breathe and her chest was hot and her hands were shaking and she felt lucky that she made it through their gates in one piece. Jensen haphazardly tossed her keys into the bowl near their doorway. Trekked down the hallway, a hand on the wall to keep her from collapsing against it. Tried not to knock off any of the art that hung from the walls. Through the living room and up the stairs. Into her bedroom too fast and out of her clothes as quick as she could take them off.
Hands continuing to shake, Jensen grabbed a hoodie from Miles' closet and a pair of his sweatpants and put them on. She took a deep breath in. Miles' cologne and bergamot shampoo filled her nostrils. It took everything Jensen had to not sit in their closet and bury herself in every hoodie he owned. She tugged a pair of polka dot patterned socks on and forced herself to go to their master bathroom to scrub off the streaked makeup from her cheeks and around her eyes. She kept wiping until her cheeks felt raw. Practically losing the first layer of skin. No part of her face had seen the studio, that was for certain.
Tying her hair up, she pulled the hood over her head. If she could focus on something—if she could focus on anything—she might've been able to calm down. She needed to find a way to get out of her own head.
Jensen shuffled to Beckett's room, took a teddy bear off the shelf—it might've been from Dayna, or Liberty, maybe Maddox—and hugged it to her stomach. Before she left the room, she grabbed the blanket draped over the rocking chair. Wrapped herself in it and made her way to the kitchen. Walked into the pantry and grabbed the biggest bag of premade popcorn they had. (Miles liked popping seeds in their popper, Jensen liked premade.) (Miles liked the movie theatre, Jensen liked staying home—it made sense.) Teddy bear in one arm, popcorn in the other, Jensen propped herself against the counter. And then hoisted herself onto the counter and crossed her legs.
She ate straight from the bag. Mouth full of popcorn, Jensen threw a hand in the air. "I want to live," she said. "See the world." Jensen shook her head. "There's your line. Christ."
Jensen nearly fell off the counter when she heard singing from down the hall. Shit. She should've known Maddox was home.
"Hello?" Jensen leaned across the counter, craning her neck trying to see.
"Hello!" Maddox came around the corner, a headphone in his hand. "I didn't realize you were—" Maddox took one look at what Jensen was wearing. "You've been home for a while, haven't you?"
Jensen shoved another handful of popcorn in her mouth and shrugged.
"How did it go—"
"Let's not."
"Oh-kay."
Jensen tilted the bag of popcorn toward Maddox. "Want some?"
"I gotta head to set," Maddox said, twirling his keys around his fingers. "Rain check?"
"I'll be here when you get back."
Maddox caught the keys in his palm. "Do you... anything you want to talk about?"
"Nope." Popping the end of that word was probably not the best idea if she wanted Maddox to believe her.
"Okay."
Jensen looked up. "Do you have something to eat on set?"
"I—there's catering."
Jensen's eye dropped to the popcorn bag. "Right. Of course."
"Which—" Maddox cleared his throat. "You know... not a big fan of that. Do you have a minute to make a... sandwich?"
Jensen looked up and nodded vigorously. "Yeah, I do."
"Then I'll hold this." Maddox took the popcorn and placed it on the counter.
Maddox offered his free hand to her to help her down. Jensen took his hand and hopped off the counter. Quickly washed her hands. She grabbed the bag of gluten-free bread off the counter and tucked the bag under her arm while she unfolded beeswax wrap on the counter.
As she took two slices of bread out of the bag, Jensen looked at Maddox, who had leaned on the counter. "What do you want on it?"
Maddox waved his hand. "Surprise me."
Jensen nodded and went to work. Cold cuts, mayonnaise, cucumber, spinach. Peppers, cheddar cheese, red onion, tomatoes. Mustard. Salt and pepper. She stacked that sandwich as high as she could. Cut it into halves. Wrapped it up tightly. Handed it to Maddox, hand still shaking slightly.
Maddox took it from her and pushed himself off the counter. "Thanks, Jens."
"No problem."
"Should I go now?"
"Wait." Jensen grabbed a zip-up silicone bag from a drawer in the island and went to the pantry, unclipped a bag of chips, and placed some in the bag. She walked out of the pantry and held the bag out. "Snack. For, um, later. If you have a break."
Maddox took it from her with a small smile. "Thank you."
Jensen nodded.
"I'm going to go," Maddox said, "but if you need me—"
Jensen hugged Maddox. Tightly. She felt arms around her and his chin leaned on her shoulder. Hearing him put the food in one hand, his other one rubbed her shoulder blade.
Jensen pulled away. "Have fun. At work. On set. Have fun there. Where you're going."
Maddox nodded. "Thank you for the food."
"Um. Act well."
"Will do," Maddox said. "Have a good night."
"You too."
"If for some reason, you know," Maddox started, "you need to talk to someone. My phone'll be on."
"You're filming."
Maddox nodded. "Yeah, but it'll be on. All night. In case."
"Thank you."
"See you later."
As Maddox walked out of Jensen's line of sight and out of the house, she climbed back onto the counter. Popcorn bag in hand. Handfuls into her mouth once more. Legs crossed underneath her. She breathed in the smell of Miles' hoodie and continued to eat popcorn. Stared blankly at the fridge. Littered with drawings Rocky had done that Jensen couldn't bring herself to smile at.
She didn't know how much time had passed when she heard keys in the door. At some point she'd ran out of popcorn. The light in the house had darkened, so clearly it was later. Did it matter? No. Jensen continued to sit on the counter and not acknowledge the world around her. Keys hit the bowl near their front door. Toddler footsteps ran into the room and Rocky's shouting went in one ear and out the other.
"Mama?" That got her attention.
Jensen looked down. "Yeah, little queen?"
"Why—"
"Why are we on the counter, Missus Rhodes?" Miles had this bad habit of walking quietly and making Jensen nearly leap out of her skin.
Jensen shoved the hood off her head and turned to Miles.
"Sorry." Miles shifted how he held Beckett. "Maybe we should get off the counter where Rocky isn't allowed to sit?"
Jensen turned to the side and got off the counter, crouching down and taking Rocky in her arms and hugging her tightly. She kissed Rocky's cheek. "Sorry mama was being bad."
Rocky kissed Jensen's chin. "It's okay, mama."
"Rock, can you take this up to your room, please?" Miles asked as he held out Rocky's unicorn in his free hand.
Jensen let go of Rocky, who grabbed the unicorn from Miles' hand. She ran out of the room. Both Jensen and Miles waited until she got to the top of the stairs without falling before they met each other's eyes.
"Everything all right?" Miles asked.
"Yes."
"Because Maddox texted that you were acting weird."
"I'm not."
"Sitting on the counter eating popcorn—" Miles took a step forward and looked into the bag. "—Eating an entire bag of popcorn—"
"Don't shame me for eating."
"You can eat whatever you want," Miles said. He stared at her for a moment. Eyes darting across her features. Trying to read the book of Jensen even though she'd shut the cover the moment she'd left the audition. "This isn't you acting weird?"
"Miles, I'm fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," Jensen said. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"
"You haven't been yourself in a couple months, Jensen."
Jensen's eyes widened. "Are you mad at me?"
"Rhodes." Miles adjusted Beckett, his elbow cradling his head. "I—no. I'm not mad."
Jensen swallowed hard. "I'm fine."
"I'm just making—"
"Can you leave me alone?"
"I—" Miles voice faltered. "Okay. I'm going to go put him down. Um. Call me if you need anything."
*
Jensen had been bouncing Beckett for two hours. She'd fed, burped, and changed him. Tried singing to him. Read to him. Done everything in every book she'd read about taking care of a baby and methodizing how to get them to sleep. Nothing worked. Beckett was fussing and crying and calming him down seemed like a Herculean task the longer Jensen tried to do it. She could've cried with him.
"Come on, baby boy," Jensen said softly. "You'll feel so much better if you sleep."
Rocking him in her arms, Jensen paced around the room. If Rocky couldn't sleep, she always asked for Jensen to sing "the song with the numbers." And Jensen would sing Seasons of Love until she fell asleep. For the couple months he'd been in the world, it hadn't worked for Beckett.
"Um." Jensen wracked her brain for any lyrics that could potentially calm Beckett down. Ones she knew by heart. Choruses that could lull him to sleep. "Even when the dark comes crashing through, when you need a friend to carry you..."
Jensen looked at Beckett, who hadn't stopped crying but had gotten considerably quieter in a few moments. Either he'd tired himself out or Dear Evan Hansen was the musical for him. Jensen would've taken either.
"And when you're broken on the ground," Jensen sang softly, continuing to pace. "You will be found..."
Jensen sang the song, over and over until she felt hoarse. By the end of however many renditions of it she had sung, Jensen was the one crying, not Beckett. Beckett's breathing was soft, if Jensen hadn't been the unfortunate witness to it for the last couple hours of her life, she would never have thought that he'd been crying. Gently taking him off her shoulder Jensen leaned over his crib to lay him down, sniffling back more tears. Eyes shut in the best way possible. Soft breathing. If Jensen had known that all Beckett needed was to be told he wasn't alone, she would've tried it hours before.
Now she needed to figure out how to get herself to stop crying. Jensen had the sinking feeling that Dear Evan Hansen wasn't the reason she was crying. (She might've forgiven herself if it was.) (She had cried when her and Miles saw it at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, after all.) Slowly retreating from Beckett's room, a baby monitor in hand, Jensen walked down the stairs as quietly as she could. And there it was.
The hot chest. The shaking hands. The short breaths.
Had Jensen taken her Lexapro that night?
Had Jensen taken her Lexapro that week?
Jensen barely felt tears streaking her cheeks as she went to the downstairs bathroom, nausea taking over her. A hand on her chest trying to rip her pounding heart out of her chest. She couldn't stop crying. Scratch that. Jensen was fighting sobs. Hard enough ones that a dry heave took over her. Knees hit the cold porcelain as an actual heave came and Jensen started throwing up what they'd had for dinner. She hadn't eaten much, but she apparently had eaten enough.
Jensen gasped out a couple sobs in between heaves. Trying to hold herself steady and hold her hair back was a task she wasn't sure she was up to. Until hands wrapped around her hair and took that load off of her. Jensen continued vomiting until she didn't have the energy to do so. Hot tears streaked her cheeks as she slumped into a sitting position from her knees, leaning against their wall.
"Mil—" Jensen caught herself when she registered who sat beside her. "Maddox?"
"Rough night?" Maddox asked.
Jensen leaned her head against the bathroom wall and let out a small sob. "The worst."
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"I—" Jensen lulled her head to look at him. "Did you just get here?"
"I was raiding your pantry," Maddox said, "but yeah. Pretty much."
"God, you must be exhausted. Get some sleep."
"I'm not the one who looks like they need sleep."
Jensen sniffled. "Wouldn't that be nice?"
"Can I ask what's going on or do you want to skip to the making you feel better with a hug part?" Maddox asked.
"I don't understand," Jensen started, "my own head."
"Do any of us?"
Jensen let out a weak laugh. "People seem to care that I haven't lost weight. Or that I look tired all the time. They care about what I look like and never why I might look like that." Jensen wiped her cheek roughly with her fist. "What was the point of saying I had post—" Jensen closed her eyes and took a deep breath in before reopening them. "Have post-partum... if there's no basic decency shown after I say it in the public?"
"Because there's going to be someone with a uterus who hears that and knows they're not alone," Maddox said. "That worth anything?"
"It'll be worth something when I don't wake up feeling like the worst person on earth."
"Jensen—"
"You don't have to listen to my depressing complaints."
"Sure I do," Maddox said. "What else am I supposed to do at three in the morning?"
"God, it's that late?"
"Sorry to bear bad news."
"I feel like I'll never be normal again," Jensen said. "Not... not in the depressed way. Well... kind of in a depressed way. I mean, like, more than that though. I hate that people care what I'm doing. And I hate feeling the way that I do. All the time."
"You know," Maddox said, "when I first started transitioning, whenever people wrote about me, they put my deadname in brackets. To make sure people knew who they were reading about, because I'd been known by that name for so long. It was always Maddox Tacoma and brackets. Never Maddox Tacoma, human being.
"And I accepted that for a while." Maddox wrinkled his nose. "I took it. Pretended it didn't bother me. Then the years started passing. I started passing. The bracketed deadnaming never went away." Maddox ran a hand through his hair. Thick curls fell around his face as he looked at Jensen. "There were a lot of bad days. Sometimes it felt like there were only bad days and that there wasn't an escape from them.
"The worst day I had was the day Real Hollywood released a series of photos documenting my transition." Maddox's jaw tightened as he paused. "Starting in my childhood. Dead name and all. The last picture was me doing my T-shot in the communal bathroom at NYU. When no one else was supposed to be in there."
"Oh, God." Jensen wished she had more to say. She felt like she should have.
"They're never going to stop picking apart every aspect of you, as you are, at any given moment," Maddox said, "at some point you have to tune their shit out because they think it doesn't stink."
"I know I should."
"Six steps ahead," Maddox said, "I get it. But you know you have to live your life in spite of whatever gets printed about you, right? You're not who they say you are."
"Yeah," Jensen said. Staring at the floor blankly. She was hearing Maddox's words but registering them was another battle. Admitting to herself that he was right and she wasn't what the press—or her own brain—made her out to be wasn't easy.
Maddox nudged Jensen's shin with his foot; which was enough to get her to look up at him again. He smiled sadly. "Want to know who made me feel better when I thought every day after that photo leak was going to be bad?"
Jensen stared at her hands for a moment before looking back up at Maddox. "Obvious answer, I'm guessing?"
"Kid's a good listener," Maddox said. "He's even better when he cares about you."
Jensen looked back to her hands. Earned herself another nudge to the shin to make her look up. Her bottom lip trembled, more tears threatening to spill. More panic threatening to set in.
"Take a wild guess who the person is that he cares about the most in this fucked up world." Maddox smiled softly.
Jensen picked at a loose thread on her stretched out yoga pants. "Not the way I've been treating him." She looked up at Maddox. "And I can't seem to stop."
"He's pretty patient," Maddox said, "if you haven't noticed. And he kind of loves you."
"Kind of."
"Maybe you should tell him how you're feeling."
"I... do."
Maddox side glanced at the toilet. "This is what a night of not bottling things up looks like to you?"
Jensen gave a weak laugh. What else was she to do? "Clearly I wanted to spend my night vomiting."
"And crying."
"Feeling inadequate."
"Is there anything I can do?" Maddox asked.
"Did you say there was potential for a hug?"
Maddox opened his arms and Jensen crawled across the floor, hugging him tightly. He wrapped his arms around her.
"You don't have to talk to him now," Maddox said, "but don't doubt that Miles wants to make sure you're okay."
"I know."
"And that the press cannot have this much of an impact on you."
"You're right."
Maddox hugged her tighter. "And that you are a damn good mom."
"Thank you."
"People care about you," Maddox said. "Don't shut us out."
"I'll do my best." Jensen wasn't sure she could stop shutting people out. But she could try. Damn, she was trying. "Do you want to talk about what the press did to you?"
"That was ages ago."
"Doesn't mean you can't be upset about it."
Jensen could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke again. "I think I'm going to write a book about it."