I wander to one side of the stage and drop a hand on my hip. “I don’t know how much you know about vampires. We’re just people like you who’ve had a little nip and tuck done to prevent us from aging and allow us to live as youths forever until the end of time.

“It’s really not a big deal, it’s kind of like Botox, but with much less upkeep. You only have to go once.”

Some people chuckle, some shift uncomfortably.

“I’m kidding, you guys. I’m not a vampire. I’m just a gal from LA who smeared her lipstick. You’re only allowed in there if you can play a teenager on a CW show … I’ll have to go vampire eventually. But I’m only twenty, I can hold off, like, ten more years.”

I start talking about the quirks of living in LA. About my father and my quest for his attention. People are laughing. I bring it back to Botox. I start my Twitter bit. I’m probably six minutes in when I glance at Zarar again, and there in the aisle seat of the front row I see him mouthing the words along with me. My brain fumbles to a full stop on the word millennial.

How many spec scripts of Dawn’s have I read and given feedback on?

At least six.

She values my opinion and I have never shown her how much I value hers.

I’m a terrible friend. And here I am without her, proving that again. I’ve chosen bros before hoes. I’m human scum. I’m … not talking.

I gaze out at the audience. The light. The silence.

The pounding of my heart is all I can hear. It’s all I can feel. Count. Think.

I stride off the stage.

Zarar walks me back to the train station. It’s freezing and he’s offered his leather jacket, but that’s my least favorite trope and there’s zero chance that I’m going to participate. Zarar isn’t going to be cold because I didn’t plan my outfit accordingly.

He’s been telling me how great I was and highlighting the bits that hit the hardest with the audience, and it would all be fabulous and dandy if it were actually true. But I didn’t finish the set. I froze and my brain completely blipped.

I was a joke. And not the good kind. Maybe that’s what I am in the broader sense.

A professional can handle their shit. Put their personal life aside for their performance. They make their emotions work for them, not the other way around.

Zarar was there to see me flop.

“You didn’t flop,” he says suddenly. As if he’d read my mind.

“Excuse me?”