Zeph
My life is a performance. A two-act play I've been starring in for over a decade.
Act One is the one you see. It's the dazzling, million-watt smile I practice in the mirror. It's the charming, easy-going laugh that makes journalists feel like they're my best friend. It's the confident stride through boardrooms and the effortless charisma that could sell a terrible action movie to the entire planet. Act One is Zephyr Croft, the A-list actor, the CEO of Apex Pictures, the man who has it all. It's a great act. It's won me awards, money, and a revolving door of women who think my smile is real.
Act Two is the static.
It's a low-level hum, a faulty generator in the back of my skull that's been buzzing since I was seventeen. It's a constant, companionable anxiety, a background radiation of unease that I've learned to live with like a chronic back pain. My doctors call it an anxiety disorder. My sister, Cressida, calls it a weakness I need to conquer if I want to take over the family empire. I call it the price of admission to a life that looks too good to be true.
Tonight, the static was a full-blown rock concert. I was in a club that sounded like a human blender, the air thick with the smell of spilled drinks, desperation, and a cloyingly sweet perfume that was giving me a phantom headache. I was sunk into a velvet couch in the VIP section, and the woman next to me—a stunning model whose name I thought might be Tiffany or Brittany or something equally sparkly—was laughing at a joke I hadn't made.
"…and so I said to him, literally, I said, 'You can't just park the Lamborghini there!'" she shrieked, her laugh like a high-pitched ringtone designed to make dogs vomit.
I nodded, giving her my best Act One smile. "Hilarious," I lied, my mind a million miles away, trying to remember the name of the merger I was supposed to be approving tomorrow. Anything to drown out the noise. The club's thumping bass, the woman's shrill giggle, and, loudest of all, the relentless static in my own head.
I've learned coping mechanisms over the years. Work was one. The intense focus required to run a multi-billion dollar company could sometimes override the buzz. Extreme sports were another. The pure, physical terror of free-falling from a plane was a great way to reset the system. And then there were women. Not relationships, god no. Relationships were messy and complicated and required a level of emotional honesty I simply didn't have the bandwidth for. But flings… flings were a temporary fix. A strong, external emotion—lust, excitement, the thrill of the chase—could sometimes, for a few short hours, muffle the static.
That's why I was here with Sparkly Brittany. I was hoping her company would be a loud enough distraction. It wasn't working. The static in my head was winning, and this was starting to feel like a defeat.
I took a sip of her drink by mistake—a cloying, sugary lychee martini that tasted like regret—and almost gagged. I needed to get out of here. My eyes scanned the room, looking for an escape route, a fire alarm, anything. They passed over the usual crowd of celebrities, wannabes, and hangers-on. And then, they stopped.
She was standing at the edge of the VIP area, half-hidden by a potted palm tree that had seen better days. She wasn't trying to be seen. In fact, she seemed to be doing the opposite, radiating a quiet energy that made the rest of the room's noise fade away. She was wearing a simple, emerald green dress that was elegant but not flashy. Her hair was down, and she wasn't wearing a pound of makeup like everyone else. She looked… calm. Like a secret garden in the middle of a highway.
I didn't know who she was, but I felt a pull, a flicker of something that wasn't the static. It was curiosity. A genuine, unforced interest. It was so rare it almost startled me.
Sparkly Brittany was saying something about her agent, but I wasn't listening anymore. I was watching the woman in green. She looked uncomfortable, like she'd rather be anywhere else. She took a small sip of her water, her eyes scanning the crowd with a polite, detached expression. I recognized her then. Penelope Jones. My new co-star. The media darling they called "Poppy." The sweet, girl-next-door type who was supposed to be my love interest in my next blockbuster, *Cosmic Hearts*.
I'd been dreading working with her. I'd assumed she'd be just like the others—another performer, another part of the machine. But looking at her now, I wasn't so sure. She seemed… real.
Then, she did something strange. She excused herself from the group she was with, slipping away with a quiet murmur. She didn't head for the bar or the restroom. She headed for the back exit, the one that led to the grimy alley behind the club. A cool draft followed her, and I felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature.
Against my better judgment, I found myself standing up. "I'll be right back," I said to Sparkly Brittany, who barely registered my departure, already deep in a conversation with another man about the relative merits of different types of purses.
I followed her, keeping a discreet distance. I told myself I was just curious. I told myself I was making sure she was okay. But the truth was, my feet were moving on their own, pulled by a force I didn't understand.
I watched from the shadows of the doorway as she stepped out into the cool night air. She didn't pull out a phone to call a friend or a cab. She walked over to the large, greasy dumpster and peered behind it. My brow furrowed. What was she doing?
And then I saw it. It wasn't a kitten. It was something small and white, half-hidden by a discarded pizza box. She knelt down, her expensive green dress pooling on the grimy pavement, not seeming to care at all. She carefully picked it up. It was a photograph. An old, worn-out photograph, the edges yellowed and soft from being handled a thousand times.
She didn't just glance at it. She studied it, her head tilted. I couldn't see the picture from this angle, but I could see the look on her face. It was a look of deep, profound empathy. She gently blew on it, clearing away a speck of dirt. Then she pulled a small, lint-free cloth from her tiny clutch—who carries a lint-free cloth to a club?—and meticulously wiped the photo clean.
It was a quiet, small, and utterly strange act. No one was watching. No cameras were flashing. She did it simply because she felt it was important.
As I stood there, hidden in the shadows, something miraculous happened.
The static in my head stopped.
It didn't just fade into the background. It vanished. Completely. For the first time in over a decade, there was a profound, breathtaking silence in my mind. It was so unexpected, so total, that it almost made me dizzy. The constant, low-level hum of anxiety that had been my companion for so long was just… gone.
In its place was a feeling. A deep, overwhelming sense of peace. It was like stepping out of a noisy factory into a silent, sun-drenched meadow. It was the most beautiful, intoxicating feeling I had ever experienced.
I watched as Poppy stood up, cradling the photograph like it was a baby bird. She looked at it one last time, a small, sad smile on her face, before carefully tucking it into a safe pocket inside her clutch. She wasn't going to post it on social media. She wasn't going to show it off. She was going to protect it.
I was mesmerized. I, a man who commanded rooms and navigated complex contracts worth millions, was utterly captivated by a woman and an old photograph in a dirty alley.
I knew, with a certainty that defied all logic and reason, that this feeling was connected to her. She was the silence. She was the peace. I didn't understand it. It was impossible. It was unscientific. It was magic.
And I wanted more.
I watched as a cab pulled up and she got in, giving the driver the address of her hotel. As the cab pulled away, I stepped out of the shadows, a slow smile spreading across my face. It wasn't my Act One smile. It was something new. Something real.
I pulled out my own phone, my fingers moving with a newfound purpose. I ignored the twelve missed calls from my sister and the three texts from Sparkly Brittany. I opened my contacts and found the name of my producer.
"Change of plans," I said when the call connected. "I need you to set up a meeting. First thing in the morning. With Poppy Jones. I need to… discuss our characters."
I hung up the phone, the silence in my head still ringing. I didn't know what was happening to me. I didn't know why this quiet, kind woman had the power to silence the ghosts in my body.
All I knew was that for the first time in a very long time, Zephyr Croft wasn't performing.
And I had no intention of ever going back to the way things were.