Back when we were still changing for the better

Wanting was enough

For me, it was enough

To live for the hope of it all

~ Taylor Swift, august

BPOV - AGE 16

"It's my first day on set," I said to myself. To Kate who had her phone pointed in my direction because she said it was a day to remember. "My first day on any set. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing."

I fumbled with my phone, tossing it on the counter in front of me and pulling the well-loved script into my lap. It was covered in highlights and notes and tabs because I was terrified of forgetting a line, of making a fool of myself in front of a crew of two hundred people.

Three months ago I was in biology class at Forks High. Now I was on the set of a multi-million-dollar production of one of the most highly anticipated book-to-movie adaptations in years.

I truly didn't have any idea what I was doing here. Nathan Lawrence saw me in a parking lot while we were in Los Angeles for a family vacation. He handed me a business card and told me I looked the part for a movie he was directing.

It seemed like a joke. I told my parents thinking they would laugh. My mother called him an hour later, and the next day I was in front of a team of directors and talent agents and a dozen other people who stared at me with the most critical eyes I had ever seen.

Somehow, it worked out. Somehow, I ended up moving to Georgia for the next five months while we filmed the movie. It was a miracle I hadn't exploded from the sudden, constant anxiety that flooded my veins. I probably would have if I hadn't hired the barista who calmed me down twenty minutes before the audition.

I had never been good at making friends, but Kate was easy to talk to. Maybe my nerves before the audition just burned away any lingering social awkwardness I had and that was how we ended up so close. Whatever the reason was, I was eternally grateful for her. Even after only knowing her a couple months.

Neither of us had any clue what was going on half the time, she was just as new at the job as me, but it was nice not to be alone.

I became an emancipated minor two weeks ago. My parents couldn't exactly afford to drop everything and move to Georgia. They didn't want to abandon Jane in Washington as she went into her senior year of college at Wash U. Charlie didn't want to leave his station and Renee wasn't selfless to pick up her life to take care of me.

Neither seemed all that sad to sign the papers. It was something I might have been upset about, had I not immediately been thrown onto a movie set.

"You fell asleep on the plane and were reciting your lines. Perfectly, I might add. You'll be amazing."

I chewed on my bottom lip, quickly putting a smile on my face as various hair and makeup artists walked in.

Four weeks into the shoot, I still had no idea what I was doing. The one thing I had realized was that I was excellent at faking it. Excellent at pushing down every part of myself that wasn't the character I had learned inside and out in my meticulous preparations.

I wasn't just good at it, I enjoyed it. Letting go of myself and my insecurities and my seemingly insignificant problems as I became someone else entirely. Someone who, on the screen, was fearless and powerful and eventually got a happy ending. It was a feeling of freedom that I could quickly get addicted to, as easily as I had gotten addicted to being told how good I was.

Their surprise was obvious the first few days. They were quick to give me tentative eyes and assume the new girl would hold them up. It made me want to prove them wrong that much more.

So I ate up every compliment. I pushed myself harder every take to get their praise because I couldn't quite remember the last time anyone had offered me any. My parents never congratulated me on my grades, not that they were anything special. I wasn't flunking anything, but I didn't do much outside of school so I supposed I had never done anything to warrant many compliments from them.

"You remember your path, Bella?" Lawrence asked, walking over from where he had been talking with the stunt coordinator.

I nodded, bouncing back and forth on the balls of my feet. "Yeah."

"Everyone needs to back up another ten feet," the stunt coordinator shouted, pushing back the small crowd in the middle of the forest.

I went to take a couple steps back, but Lawrence grabbed my arm with a tentative smile. "Not you."

Right. Not me. Because I got to run through the burning forest, while everyone else kept a safe distance from the flames. Most of the fire would be put in later, but there were still going to be plenty of real flames, real opportunities to burn some skin.

A kernel of fear settled in my chest as a makeup artist approached and started selectively placing sweat marks down my face. I didn't have time to let it manifest into more than an ounce of terror before Lawrence and the makeup artist disappeared, a safe distance away, and I was sprinting through a forest in flames.