WEEKS PASSED AS I buried myself in work. Jessica returned, apologizing for the misunderstanding. I took her back immediately, making her my partner on the project. There was plenty of work to go around, and it was good to feel like I wasn’t alone anymore.
We made amazing progress together. The film pieced itself together just as I had imagined, and it looked like we would make the deadline set by our new producer. Until it came time for the ending.
“Let’s see that part again, but with his voice isolated.”
I leaned over Jessica’s shoulder, staring at the screen as the picture wound in reverse. Jasper’s thin lips unsaid his slick, penetrating words. I could almost hear them in my head, each syllable like a tug on the puppet strings.
“Have we gotten the score samples Evan said he’d send over?” I asked.
Still working the dials on the editing table, Jessica shook her head.
“I saw the storyboard for your ending,” she mentioned. “The stuff at the beach with you and … him.”
“I gave it to you,” I said, sounding defensive.
“Uh, I don’t have any of those shots,” she said.
“I know. I have them. They’re on my phone.”
“I’m not trying to give you a hard time,” she said. “I just … I know we’re on deadline now. I … it would help.”
“I’ve done this before.”
I knew I sounded petulant. I was also well aware that my slacking caused her trouble. For some reason, though, I’d been unable to put together the footage from that night. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I—”
A loud knock sounded against my apartment door. I jumped. Sudden noises had done that to me since that night.
“Theo!” a voice boomed from outside.
“That’s Kent,” I said.
“Oh, shit,” Jessica whispered.
“No, it’s cool. He doesn’t really work for his dad.”
When the dust had settled on the bidding war for my film, Kent’s father had come out the winner. He was our executive producer. The one waiting to see the first cut. Unlike Jessica, though, I had no worries about Kent. He flew with the breeze. If anyone understood delays, it would be him. In fact, I’d known he was coming. We were going out for lunch.
I opened the door, and he stormed into my newly furnished apartment. As he took in the leather couch and the new editing table, he whistled.
“My dad’s paying you well, I see,” he said.
“Insurance,” I lied for some reason.
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Guess where we’re going.”
“Nobu,” I answered.
“How’d you—”
“You’ve always liked symmetry,” I said.
He squinted, looking like he might scratch his head. Then the smile returned.
“You know, I really do. I just never thought of that before. Let’s go.”
As I moved through the restaurant, every eye seemed to follow me. That day, Kent got us a table in the middle of the dining room. Within minutes of sitting down, four people visited us—a literary agent, two producers, and an extremely rich Upper West Side gentleman who threw star-studded parties frequented by Kent. After that guy left us, my friend smiled across the table at me.
“Different, huh?” Kent asked.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Someone’s been watching you since we walked in,” he said.
“Who?”
Kent used his eyes to point out the direction, then whispered, “Subtle.”
Pretending to stretch my legs, I looked over my left shoulder. I saw her in the corner. When our eyes met, she smiled. I smiled back, but I could barely breathe. When I turned back to Kent, he laughed at how red my cheeks had turned.
“Is that really her?” I asked.
“Yup, she has a concert at the Garden tonight. An intimate little gathering. You should go say hello.”
“No fucking way,” I said.
My hands were shaking. Kent could not stop laughing.
“Get used to it,” he said. “Just wait until the film finally comes out.”
When I got back to my apartment, Jessica was gone. Locking up behind me, I sat down, hard, on the couch. The soft leather felt cool against the back of my neck. Slipping out my phone, I checked my social media. The iconic pop star from Nobu had slipped into my DMs. I stared at the notification, unable to open the message.
“What the hell?” I said softly.
My voice echoed off the wall, giving me a chill, reminding me of when my apartment had been utterly empty. The hand holding my phone slowly lowered. I leaned back, letting myself sink deeper into the seat, like I might slip through it, through the very floor, and never stop.
My thoughts spun in a dangerous direction. I asked myself, shouldn’t the DM represent the apex? The top of the mountain? I pictured myself as a boy of twelve or thirteen. Dreaming of the perfect life while staring up at some poster on my bedroom wall. I could not have even imagined that the woman on that poster would reach out to me. Would chase me!
I’d made it. Closing my eyes, I pictured everyone in Nobu that day, all of them watching me. Visiting our table. Shaking my hand. I thought about my schedule, filled with prestigious events. The entire city had seemed to suddenly notice me.
“Who cares?” I whispered.
Because, for some reason, I didn’t. In fact, I felt a strange sadness. Like a hole had opened inside me. Not a new one; more like one I’d thought I’d filled. I’d shoveled and shoveled, dedicating every ounce of myself to what I’d thought I needed. Success, money, fame—I’d stopped at nothing to reach it. To grab all I could. But the more I pulled it in, the more I dumped it into that empty space inside me, the wider it grew.
I lay back, thinking of that pop star. She had everything I thought I wanted. I wondered if her note to me was just part of the same vicious circle. The same endless dance. A call for help. Because once we possessed everything, all of our dreams, maybe we realized we had been looking for our salvation in all the wrong places.
I stared up at the ceiling. My mouth opened and closed like a hungry fish. Then the words slipped out, shining a light on this new truth.
“Why do I feel so empty?”
I had it all. And, for some reason, I felt nothing. I felt no different. I was still Theo Snyder. Nothing more. Maybe, since killing a man, I was actually something less.