Turn 4 of 11

Tell Theo that Sasha got scouted and hired onto the same firm as well, and invite Sasha into your room

The words come out before you've decided to say them — faster than thought, faster than caution, pulled out of you by the same gravity that has been rearranging your furniture all night.

"Actually, it's kind of wild — my roommate Sasha got scouted too. Same casting director, same week. She's signing with Vellour as well. We're going to be a package deal." You laugh, and the laugh sounds like a laugh that belongs to someone who has a publicist. You can feel the facts assembling behind your eyes, slotting into place like furniture in a room that's being redecorated around you. Sasha Bright, signed to Vellour Model Management. Scouted at the same coffee shop. You can feel the paperwork filing itself somewhere in the ether — a contract, a headshot session, a fitting that hasn't happened yet but now has always been about to.

"Hold on," you say, bright and casual, and you turn toward the kitchen door. "Sash! Come here a sec — Theo says hi!"

You hear her phone hit the counter. Then silence. Then footsteps — not the casual padding of your roommate who has been texting you increasingly unhinged warnings for the last fifteen minutes, but something slower, more deliberate, like a person approaching a car wreck. The kitchen doorway darkens and Sasha Bright is standing there, and the look on her face is the look of someone watching a magic trick that isn't tricks at all.

She's different too. Not dramatically — not yet — but her posture has shifted, her shoulders pulled back, her chin lifted. Her hair is shinier than it was ten minutes ago. She's wearing a top you don't recognize, something sharp and minimal that looks like it came from a wardrobe rack rather than a thrift store. She looks, for a flickering instant, like the kind of girl who would get scouted.

"Sasha, say hi to Theo," you say, and your voice is warm and easy and absolutely the voice of a person who is not currently holding her best friend hostage inside a lie that is rewriting them both.

Sasha looks at you. Then at the screen. Then at the comp card on the desk — the one with your face, the new face, the face that didn't exist an hour ago. Her mouth opens and closes. On the other end of the call, Theo waves, friendly and unhurried.

"Hey, Sasha! Priya tells me you just signed with Vellour too — that's amazing! How are you liking it so far?"