Elaine hadn't seen another human being in twelve hours, and she was starting to think her brain was melting into her coffee.
Her apartment was too bright… Or too dim… Or maybe her eyeballs were simply refusing to function.
For the past three days, she and her crew had been working on the music video for Control Freak, running on very little sleep and way too much caffeine. Three days of nonstop camera setups, location disasters, and the existential breakdown from Simone when none of his grand visions worked out. His auditorium idea failed. Samantha's industrial warehouse idea failed. Julian's rooftop stage lasted all of four seconds before the wind knocked a prop off the building.
Miraculously, they'd found a location. None of them had any idea how Simone secured it, considering he refused to tell them anything aside from, "Don't worry about it! We got a location, so let's focus on that."
Now that the filming was over. Elaine was standing, dazed, in her apartment, staring at her laptop on the dining table. The screen was paused on the timeline of Control Freak's rough cut that Julian had put together. Each time she blinked, she swore one of the frames moved on its own.
She squinted at it. "Don't you dare move," she murmured, "I'm too tired to fight you."
She hesitated, only to nearly jump out of her skin when her phone buzzed across the counter like a tiny, angry bug. Oh, it's my phone. She groaned, "Right… Humans communicate."
She shuffled over to retrieve it and look at the message from the Backstage group chat.
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{Simone} (Text)
Remind me never to film in heels again, my ankles are suing me.
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{Isabel} (Text)
That's what happens when you say, "It'll look hot." 🙄
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{Simone} (Text)
It DID look hot!
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{Eleanore Davies} (Text)
leonard stole my shoes again…
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{Samantha} (Text)
Who's Leonard?
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{Elaine} (Text)
Maya's brother…?
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{Eleanore} (Text)
no… no. leonards a ghost 👻
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{Samantha} (Text)
I'm not even gonna ask 💀
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Elaine blinked at her phone, looking at the wall, then the screen, rubbing her eyes. "...Maybe I am hallucinating… Or maybe they are."
She set her phone down as she slumped into a chair at the table. Her gaze drifted to her coffee cup that was sitting several feet away. She squinted at it for a moment, laying her head down on the cold table. "Don't look at me like that, you're part of the problem."
After a few moments, she forced herself upright. Samantha's neat stack of production notes sat next to her laptop; her organization skills were enough to make any professor weep with joy. Isabel, however, was the opposite. Her sticky notes layered the pages, scattered about with no organization whatsoever.
Elaine smiled, despite the exhaustion weighing her down. Her friends were loud, messy, caffeine-addicted, and sleep-deprived, but they knew how to get things done.
Filming Control Freak with them had been a blur of glitter explosions, too many retakes, someone misplacing the video script concept for two hours, and the fog machine randomly activating like it was possessed.
At one point, Simone nearly swan-dived off a ladder because he wanted flair, knocking all the curtains down across the studio space.
Now, though, the apartment was quiet. Too quiet. Eleanore had gone to Maya's, leaving Elaine home alone to watch the progress Julian and Samantha made on the video.
She opened the fridge. Half blinding herself in the process. While there was some food, there wasn't anything quick. Honestly, between school and filming, she'd forgotten to go grocery shopping. She slowly closed the fridge, staring at it as she patted it. "You're no help either."
She stood in the silence for a long moment, looking around the empty room. She was starting to realize that she was no longer used to the quiet. One chance encounter with Premise of Design had ended her usual silence, and she had gotten used to it.
A week ago, she was wrapped in their chaos until the end of the night. By the end, Casen had been trying to dump an entire bag of popcorn into Rylan's hood while Enzo and Luca chased Lucian around the backyard with Reginald. Luca eventually returned, sweating and grinning, to walk her to her car.
Lucian had bolted past them, trying to outrun Enzo, only to be tackled into the fountain as she was driving out. They were wild, carefree, and good people. Elaine hadn't realized how much she missed their energy until now.
She rubbed her eyes, trying to shake off her exhaustion. Her phone chimed before she could even process any form of coherent thoughts.
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{Eleanore Davies} (Text)
hes back. Leonard says hi 👋
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Elaine laughed softly, running a hand through her hair. "I miss being the sane one," she murmured, blinking when the room spun when she moved to fast.
"Nope. Time for work." She flopped down, pressing play on the rough cut.
Her voice filled the room, and for a moment, she didn't feel tired. For a moment, she felt like the version of herself that she kept chasing. The one who wasn't uncertain, exhausted, or overwhelmed.
As the video faded to the end, she leaned back, letting the glow of the screen wash over her. "Getting ther," she murmured. "Almost…"
The city noise bled into the silence as her eyelids started to drop. "No." She jolted, slamming her palms down on the table. "We're not doing this… One more hour."
She reached for her coffee mug only to find it was empty. She stared into it, exhaling through her nose. "You've betrayed me again."
The mug, naturally, did not apologize.