I arrive on set haggard and exhausted. Everyone swarms around me to find out what’s going on with Chloe. I explain as best as I can and as quickly as I can. I don’t want to eat into too much of my time away from the hospital on this. I’m here to finish a job. I read over the script and refresh the lines in my mind. Memorizing lines is a skill, and it usually doesn’t take me longer than a few read-throughs to get them down. But today, my mind is all mush. I can’t focus. I drink another cup of coffee, but it doesn’t really help.

“Finn, you ready?” Martha knocks on my door. Not really, I say to myself and take my script with me. The scene is between me and my father. I’m extremely angry at him for abandoning our family when I was younger and moving in with his girlfriend. When I was in college, he and my mother reconnected, got married again and even had another child, but I always felt like he messed up my childhood.

At the beginning of the scene, I have a long monologue in which I express how I feel about him. I keep forgetting my lines and stumbling over words. After three or four tries, Martha asks us to take a break.

“Are you okay, Finn?” she asks.

“No, not really. My mind is elsewhere. I thought I could do this, but I’m not sure that I can.”

“Finn, you have to focus,” she says. Yes, that didn’t occur to me before.

“I’m trying.”

“You want to run the lines again?”

I nod. Reluctantly, agree. I’m not sure I have much of a choice. Every minute that this set continues to stay up is costing the production money that they can’t afford, and the last thing I want to do is come back here again tomorrow or the day after. She’s right. I need to focus. I read the lines again. Say them out loud. I put the script away, and put all of my thoughts into how much I hate my father for what he has done.

Then…the words come out like clockwork. After I get through the monologue, we have a heated exchange in which I put my dad in his place.

“Do you know how this feels, Dad?” I yell at the top of my lungs. “No, you don’t. You don’t know anything about me. You never even cared to find out. You know what? I don’t care if you and mom are back together and in love. I don’t care. You weren’t there for me when I needed you most. And it’s not just because of the divorce. It’s more than that. You left, Dad. You just left, and that’s it. I never heard from you for three years, and you lived forty-five minutes away!”

There are a lot of theories on acting out there, but the one I tend to rely on and use in my daily life is the one that encourages you to use what you know to bring out certain feelings in your character. As I drive back to the hospital, I realize that today I didn’t have to dig deep to reach the anger that I was able to express. I am angry. Very angry over what had happened to Chloe. I’m angry at the drunk driver. I’m angry at the whole situation. I’m angry at myself. I’m angry that I was such an idiot about how I handled our situation. That I chose to lie instead of telling the truth. And what I’m angriest at is that I lied about something so stupid. So inconsequential.

I see Lila in front of the vending machine, getting a bag of potato chips.

“Lila, hey. I stopped by Whole Foods,” I say, lifting up the heavy bag of groceries. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a little bit of everything. A few salads, sandwiches and a bunch of healthy snacks. So we’re not just eating sugar and crap all day.”

“Oh my God, you’re a life saver,” she says. Lila gives me a warm hug.

“So, how is she?”

“Um…the same really. Still in a coma.”

She rummages through the bag and takes out a lentil and beetroot salad with blue cheese. She doesn’t say anything for a few moments.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

Lila refuses to meet my eyes.

“Lila, please. The suspense is killing me.” Poor choice of words, of course. I regret it immediately.

“I talked to my insurance people today, and they’re not going to cover it. I don’t know why I thought they would. And she doesn’t have any. She was going to sign up, but for some reason she never did. She’s usually so reliable. So, I don’t really know how the hell we’re going to pay for all of this. A friend of mine texted me and said that her father stayed at Cedar Sinai overnight once, and it cost $70,000 just for the night. This is going to be her second night here. Plus the surgery.”

“Lila, please, don’t worry about it.”

“How can I not worry about it?”

“I’m going to pay for it. All of it.”

“What?” she looks up at me.

“Money doesn’t matter, Lila. I want her to have the best treatment. Whatever they need to do to her to make her better, that’s what we’ll do.”

“No, I can’t accept your money,” she shakes her head.

“Well, you’re not the one accepting it. It will be Chloe. And frankly I don’t really care if she accepts it. She’s in no position to say no. I’ll pay her bill, regardless.”

Lila starts to cry. She throws her arms around my neck, sobbing.

* * *

A week passes. I come home occasionally to change and shower. I sleep in my own bed twice and only for a few hours. Otherwise, I spend all of my time at the hospital. Waiting. I sit next to Chloe, look at her bandaged face and her puffy eyes and lips, and I wait. Sometimes, I put my hand on hers and feel her pulse. Just to make sure that she’s still there. I know that she would hate the ugly fluorescent lights in the room. I open the curtains as far as they will go and open the windows. Fresh air and sunshine – these are the things that make life living. I bring her bouquets of flowers and tell her which ones are in each bouquet. Almost everyone from the cast and crew comes for a visit and sends a bouquet of flowers or a fruit basket. By the end of the week, there’s hardly any counter space left, but flowers and fruit baskets keep coming.

Then one afternoon, she opens her eyes. The sun is shining brightly into the room, filling the space with hope and love. It’s almost 2 p.m., and I’ve just gotten back from lunch. I find my usual seat, facing her and the window. When I get out my phone to check my email, I see her. At first, I don’t believe what I’m seeing. Her eyelids flutter a bit, just like they had all these times before. It’s a function of the brain working somewhere in the background, the doctors have explained, and it gives people the sense that the person is just about to wake up, but that’s not necessarily true. I’ve been tricked by this eye movement before. Especially during the first couple of days. But something is different about today. I keep looking at her. Then, slowly but surely, one of her eyelids opens. And, soon after, another.

“Chloe? Chloe?” I grab her hand.

She nods her head slightly, then presses her index finger into my hand.

“Oh my God, Chloe!” I take her hand to my lips. I kiss her over and over, and big, round tears start to roll down my face.

“You’re awake,” I whisper.