Georgie folds her hands on top of each other on her desk. “Obviously both you and Oliver are more than capable of the tasks required in this internship. You have both done exemplary jobs, and demonstrate a crucial understanding of the industry and a drive to learn more.”
Ordinarily I thrive on praise like a plant converting sunlight into energy. But this praise is so unexpected and resolutely stated that it feels more like someone just accidentally hit me with something.
Georgie pauses. I can tell she doesn’t want me to say thank you, so I don’t. This earns me a faint smirk.
“By virtue of that, the purpose of these one-on-one meetings is less about what you can do for me and more what this internship can do for you. What are your plans?”
I’m ready for this the same way I’m ready for any kind of audition. Every conversation with someone who has more power than you is an audition if you squint.
“Like, the next year, five years, or my whole life?”
The smirk deepens. “Let’s start with the next year.”
“Well, hopefully—” I cut myself off. Georgie does not need to know the exhaustive details of the back-and-forth with my dad. “I got into Madison Precollege for musical theater, so the immediate plan is to start there in the fall.”
I’m expecting this to at least warrant a bemused look, if not an impressed one. Instead Georgie scowls. “Madison?”
“Yes,” I say firmly.
Georgie’s scowl stays locked in place. I feel the air in the room start to shift, the crackle of energy just before a storm, and sit up a little straighter in my chair.
“You’re not going to Madison,” says Georgie, shaking her head so definitively that she might have just willed it like it was a decree.
I choke out a laugh. Georgie doesn’t budge.
“You don’t think I could get in?” I press.
Georgie seems insulted that I’d ask. “Of course you got in. I saw that video Oliver sent to show you’d made it to the tech rehearsal. You’re phenomenal.” This would mean more to me if Georgie weren’t saying it through clenched teeth, or if she didn’t immediately follow it up with, “And it’s not what I think. It’s what I know. And what I know is that Madison Precollege pushes its students way beyond reasonable training and will set you further behind in your career than you can imagine.”
For so long Madison has been the kind of dream that only lives in snow globes, some other world I could touch but never reach. In one fell swoop Georgie just smashed it.
“Madison had produced some of the biggest names on Broadway,” I persist, leaning forward, my scowl every bit as unyielding as hers.
“And has one of the highest dropout rates.”
“All musical theater schools have issues with retention,” I argue. “If it were easy, everyone would do it.”
“There’s a difference between challenging your students and ignoring their needs. And trust me, that place has no regard for its students’ mental or physical well-being. They only want results.”
I scoff. “Isn’t Baron one of their alums?”
“And did you see Baron booking any roles worth having in his early career?” Georgie fires back. “He hated the whole industry by graduation. He left the city for years. Thankfully he had the raw talent to recover when he decided to come back, but it took years to retrain and undo the all-or-nothing mindset he got at that institution—”
“Or maybe you’re just a shit talent manager.”
Georgie abruptly takes her hands from the desk, pushing her chair back and narrowing her eyes at me. “I think we’re done here, Millie.”
I grab my bag from the floor, too angry to see straight. The words poured out of me like lava, but I can tell that they’re just the beginning. That if I don’t get out of here and fast, the words that come after them are going to be my own personal Pompeii.
It doesn’t even register that I’ve left her office until I’m passing Oliver and Steph in the waiting room. I duck my head and don’t meet their eyes, but it doesn’t matter. I feel them trailing after me, so wide with shock that I can practically feel them chasing me out to the main hall, where I slam the down button. The elevator is mercifully still there, and I practically throw myself into it, waiting for the doors to close so I can shove my face into my bag and scream.
But just as they’re about to shut, Oliver jams his arm in between them and lets himself inside.
I don’t say a word. Just stare straight ahead like he isn’t there. I can’t talk to him right now—I’m so worked up that my tongue is practically licking a flame, waiting to spit something awful back out.
“What just happened?”
I focus on our blurry reflections in the elevator doors. “Nothing,” I say stubbornly.
“Millie—”
“I screwed up, okay?” I snap. “You should be happy.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not.”
Oliver’s blurry reflection moves closer to mine. I suck in a breath because I catch the smell of his shampoo and for one sweet and horrible moment, I’m reliving last night—the pressure of his hands on my waist, the warmth of his body pressed against mine. The moment when for the first time, I could feel myself giving in to a feeling that was more quiet than loud.
“Millie, whatever happened—just go back in there and apologize.”
I crush my eyes shut. He needs to stop. Every single word that comes out of his mouth is a reminder that I haven’t just messed up, but messed up in the kind of colossal, irreversible way that is going to follow me forever. “But I’m not sorry.”
“Don’t you want the internship, though?”
Yes. But there’s too much want in me now, and I’m exhausted by it. I don’t know where the want ends and I begin. I want to go to Madison. I want to keep my friends. I want to go back to two weeks ago before I bulldozed every important relationship in my life, but I also want those two weeks to at least mean something, and now they don’t. It’s worse than square one. It’s square zero. I found Steph, and now she probably thinks I’m a monster. Which all tracks, I guess, because I’m pretty sure my dad and my aunt think I am, too.
In fact, the only person I haven’t seemed to shake off yet is standing next to me in this elevator, which is why the loudest want of all is for him to get the hell away from me before I ruin this, too.
“Don’t you?” I burst, finally turning to look at him.
His eyes are so unexpectedly earnest that it splinters the last part of me that was holding itself together. “Yeah, but hear me out. I’ve been thinking—”
“Stop trying to help, Oliver,” I finally explode. “I didn’t even want this stupid internship, I just took it to make enough money for precollege and get back at my dad.”
Usually after I lash out like this, there are at least five seconds of relief before the regret hits. A few beats where I’ve gotten the poison of my frustration out of my system and it’s not a part of me anymore, but a part of someone else. But somewhere along the way hurting Oliver and hurting myself became the same thing.
He goes very still. “What?”
It’s only a tiny truth living in the shadow of the much bigger one. But what could I say to him? That I took this internship to meet my mom? That I’m not only the world’s worst friend, but the world’s worst daughter, too?