Chapter 7

Like a background extra in some angsty teen drama, I stayed by Leo’s side through his toughest times.

I watched the Evans family rise again, and I watched Leo transform from a positive, sunny optimist into someone cold, like a different person entirely.

During the long summer after Leo graduated and went traveling abroad, I refused to go with him.

I joined a gym to lose weight, practiced my posture, got cosmetic treatments for my acne and to brighten my skin, and took off my braces and thick-rimmed glasses.

I enrolled in a film directing program, but then a renowned director picked me to star in a movie.

My serious, self-conscious face was suddenly ‘brooding’ and ‘full of character.’ My awkwardness in conversation was transformed into a talent for delivering every line with precision. My ‘boring’ soul effortlessly embraced the passionate lives of the characters I played.

And my naturally fierce-looking face and slow, sometimes dazed expressions inexplicably landed me on a trending topic for my unexpected charm.

For the first time, I realized that from a different perspective, flaws could become strengths.

Leo and I always stayed in touch.

I thought we’d be just friends forever.

Until I played a quirky, confident, and outspoken high school queen bee. He was the composer for the film’s theme song and followed the production for two months.

On the night the film wrapped, he suddenly confessed.

“Harper, I like you. Can I have a chance to pursue you?”

He called me by my character’s name, ‘Harper,’ which everyone on set had been using to help me stay in character.

But my excited heart suddenly sank.

Yet, he looked so sincere, so eager, and I could feel the fear hidden in his eyes.

He was afraid I’d reject him, afraid I, his ridiculous backup, would also abandon him.

“Okay.”

I smiled, fully aware that this was a wrong, even stupid, decision.

But childhood dreams, they often resurface in the dead of night, compelling you to bet all your chips on a game.

What if I won?