Chapter 17

Riley

I wasn't sure how I felt about my lessons with Clayton a few days before. There was a part of me that wanted to be ashamed that I'd kissed him, but it was training ground, and it hadn't been him. It had been Ethan. I could pass any improv given to me if it was about love or lust or wanting. All I had to do was think about him.

Walking to the parking lot from my last class for the day, I realized something. Jace and I would never be anything but really good friends. He needed to know that. As much as I hated to let him go for fear that things wouldn't work out in my own life and I'd really be left alone for the first time ever, I had to do the right thing.

He deserved to be set free.

"Oh my God! It's Riley Phillips. Riley! Riley!" A group of people jogged toward me, all of their eyes wide and the smiles on their faces too big to be fake.

"Hi." I turned to fully face them and stood in awe as they shoved various pieces of paper toward me.

"Can you autograph my notebook? Just put to Jill McVey. You can put anything else you want of course, but just make sure you put your name and my name." She squealed as I took the books and wrote her a quick note. I turned in a circle, taking all of their notebooks one at a time and signing them.

"What's it like to be around Ethan Lewis? Is he a total ass? I swear you read all sorts of crazy stuff about him. So... what's he really like?" A cute cheerleader type bounced on her feet in front of me.

"He's a great guy. He's genuine, talented and smart." I smiled at her.

"What about all the drama we see about him on the news or on the Internet? Is that stuff really true?" someone else asked in the back of the group.

"It's some spin on things for sure, but people don't understand what it feels like not to get to really live your life without everyone watching you through a microscopic lens. It's hard." I signed the last one and thanked them before walking slowly to my car.

My own words danced around me. Ethan's life was hard. I'd tried to explain to Deza at the diner the weekend before, and where I figured she got it, she still couldn't help but play the overprotective sister role that she played with him. He meant the world to her, and I didn't think it had nearly as much to do with him being her meal ticket as people might think. Something special existed between them. Is that the relationship I needed to have with him too? Maybe.

I stopped by my beat-up, piece of shit car and stood there for a few seconds, thinking through how much my life had changed, and yet not much had changed at all. Where I should have rushed out and bought a new car, mine was still running. There was no need to throw money at things just because. As quickly as I'd discovered some small semblance of wealth, it could be gone too. Nothing was permanent.

I drove toward the studio with jazz music playing on my radio and the wind blowing my short hair all over the place. Visions of foreign countries with beautiful landscapes played through my mind. Each one I found myself soaking in the sun or memorizing the beauty just before a new scene in a film started.

Would I really get to visit a bunch of places like the ones on TV? Would I have Ethan beside me? I sure as hell wanted to.

By the time I got to the studio, my heart was racing, my mind spinning at the possibilities of what life could offer if I continued to follow the path I was on. Something nagged at me that I'd rather have ignored but couldn't.

All of those events seemed surreal, but lacked emotion when I thought about experiencing them alone. Nothing was fun without someone to share it with, right? Was friendship enough?

I walked numbly through the studio toward the conference rooms, ignoring the scene that was being played out to my left. I was lost in my own head, filtering bits and pieces of sound and smell as I pushed the door open.

Clayton glanced up, his shirt and slacks black, making him look like a villain of sorts. "Hi there."

"Hi." I put my stuff on the table beside him and let out a soft sigh. "I'm not sure I'll be much fun today. I can't stop thinking about the most ridiculous things. Big things. Like life and death. Love and hate. Black and white."

I closed my eyes as he moved up behind me. "That's what life is all about, Riley. That you're willing and wanting to experience such simple and yet deep things at your age is brilliant. You're going to enjoy the riches that living a life like ours can provide, but for now... tuck it away."

His mouth was just beside my ear, his breath warm and words demanding, but soft.

I nodded. "I will."

"I know you will." He moved around me and ran his hands down my arms. "We're going to move into working on various scenes from the movie you're actually working on next week, but for now, let's work on raw emotion."

The idea of being emotional scared me, and yet I knew from my studies and acting each chance that I got that emotions were the colors by which we painted a picture on the big screen.

"Everything from our tone to our expression to the positioning of our bodies. All of it portrays something. The point is to ensure that it works together to tell the exact story we want it to. There are times that you will have something going on in your personal life that leaves you feeling far too broken to be used on stage, but it's those times that we fuel our resolve with our pain or our ecstasy. Do you understand?"

I glanced up into his warm gaze and nodded. He was like a big brother, a father or maybe even a lover that I'd had in a past life. It was odd how comfortable I felt in front of him. Maybe that was his gift, or perhaps he was acting the whole time we were together. Either way, I liked it.

"Yes. My mother died in an accident last week. The sorrow of having to bury her next to my brother is too much to think about. I have no one left in the world but my best friends, Charlotte and Jace. And it's funny, but having friends doesn't seem to be enough." I blinked back tears as Clayton's brow drew in tightly.

"Are you speaking truth, or working yourself into a darkness for the purposes of our afternoon together?"

"Truth." I let my eyes move across his face as my heart quivered in my chest. "I don't know how to use that pain to fuel me. I've trapped it somewhere to keep myself safe. Safe from breaking down. Safe from promising myself to a man that couldn't ever be what I want him to be. Safe from begging for the touch of another man who could have all of me if he even tried a little."

His eyes filled with tears as well. "How beautiful you are. You have no clue of your power, little dove."

I took a deep breath. "Let me unlock it, and then you tell me where we're going."

"Good." He touched my fingers with his fingers, drawing me into his power. Lust and love didn't exist in the moment, but a warmth that left my blood boiling played with my emotions. All of them. "Dive in deep, Riley. Stand at the front of the casket and place your hands on the edge of it. Feel every horrid emotion that comes with losing someone you love. That loves you. That wants to protect you forever, but they can't anymore."

A sob left me as I closed my eyes and let myself dive into the sorrow of what it felt like to crumble in the lobby of the funeral home. Gone. She was gone and so was Darek. Everyone. Gone.

"Breathe it in deeply. Let it saturate every part of you." His fingers moved down my neck as his thumb ran across the front of my throat, forcing me to look up, to stretch myself out for him. "Now gather the darkness to you, pull it in and form it into a ball in your hands."

"I don't know how." I let out another sob as tears ran down the sides of my face.

He moved closer, his nose brushed by my ear as he pressed himself to the front of me. It took all I had inside of me not to reach out and grab him. I didn't want to lose him too.

"Yes you do. We need that energy to bring you to the best, the fullest, the most incredible version of you we can find. Harness it. Do it. Now." His commanding voice drove desire through me, but not for him. For the power to rid myself of the sadness that seemed to sit at the edge of everything right now.

I forced myself to consider what it would look like to force my sadness, my despair, my loneliness into a tight ball. How it would feel to pull it out of me, away from the air around me and control it.

He released me and I reached out, weaving the tale in my mind as I forced it into my hands and compacted it into a tight ball.

"All right, beautiful," he whispered and moved behind me, not touching me. "Force it to turn gold."

"How?" I whispered, but kept my eyes closed.

"You're the creator, not me. Do whatever you must. Force it to turn gold, Riley." He brushed his hands down my arms as he pressed his back to my chest, supporting me, holding me, and yet not.

I forced the color to shift and laughed as the black ropes faded to gold. It was nothing more than a vision in my mind, a silly trick of my will to create healing, but it felt good. So good.

"Good. Now... show me delight. Turn and face me. Open your eyes and show me pure delight. Make me believe you with everything inside of me."

I nodded and turned slowly, letting delight fill every cell of my body. My hands descended to my sides as I opened my eyes and let delight bleed from every part of me.

"Beautiful. Now fear. Show me true fear."

He went through a myriad of emotions, lust being the hardest to release. I almost felt like I was changing clothes in front of him, opening myself up for him to truly see me. It was horrifying and yet electrifying. My only regret was that Ethan wasn't there to see it.

When the lesson was over, Clayton looked as worn out as I felt.

I laughed and patted his arm. "That was... incredible. Just incredible."

"Agreed." He stood up fully and rolled his shoulders. "You're the best student I've had. Well, almost. Second best."

I grabbed my stuff and walked to the door. "And who was the best?"

He glanced over his shoulder and winked. "Why Ethan Lewis. Of course."

"Of course." I smiled and walked out of the studio, lost to how it would feel to watch Ethan pour through his emotions and use his pain or his delight as fuel for becoming the best. I stopped beside the door as the sound of his voice sent tendrils of lust dancing through my center.

"And she shall have every last part of me." His voice boomed through the room behind me.

I turned and wrapped my arms around myself as my co-star moved through a scene with an older man, the object of his attention sneaking peeks of him from behind a curtain off to the side. My lips lifted in a tight smile as I watched the drama unfold.

Ethan knew how to harness his emotion to be the best. I knew it was true because there was no one better than him. I could only hope that I would one day be as good as he was.

Or maybe it was just to have him think I was.