My hands were shaking and his voice was stern. He was calling my name and I wasn’t responding. Dan shook me and I looked into his eyes hiding my face. The tears flowing down my face were from shock. We never fought and we didn’t even really know each other, but he was yelling and it frightened me. That vein popping in his forehead. I knew when I saw that he wasn’t playing around anymore. I had no idea what I had done to make him feel hatred toward me. So I stood silent and blinked away tears silently.

Calmly he held me at arms length and as I listened his voice became calm. “I’m not mad at you, okay, darling.”

I cowered down on my knees and looked up at him. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just that you told me to be myself and I was. I’m not an actor like you. I don’t know how to act. Who wrote this script anyways?”

Dan shrugged not knowing who wrote it. “No clue. Okay.”

My throat was parched and it wasn’t the first time. We ran lines together. Usually he had his girlfriend. But I wasn’t anyone particularly special. I didn’t know the process and I was learning as we went.

My name is Marcie and I am just an ordinary fan. Dan trusted me and he had called me to write his book because I wasn’t some nasty journalist. Someone who would write lies about him. I was just a person without a life and he knew I was truthful. Least I tried to be.

He took his diet coke and took a drink looking at me. Dan took things seriously and I was here to be someone he could use for whatever he needed me for. I got up smiled and walked forward. “We could start over. I promise to be better Dan.”

Dan came back to where he stood before in his living room and slapped me. I held my face in shock that he had actually done that. “You laugh again. It will be twice as hard.”

My knees were trembling. Dan was never this mean. Something had him ticked off. He was usually nicer than this. “Do you miss her? Is it because of me?”

He looked at me and I didn’t know that he was hurting. I saw him cry and I held him. “Don’t cry.”

Dan quickly wiped his eyes and pulled away.. “It's not you. It's me.”

“When I offered you this book deal I knew what I was getting into. You’ve written everything with your heart. It's what I wanted as a biography. But when we are apart like now. It's not fun. You know during the pandemic I wondered if we would ever be together then we were and I felt happy.” Dan took a seat and I sat with him.

I took his hand. “You’ll be happy again and she will be back, Dan.”

Dan smiled and nodded. “Yeah I know.”

I liked the nice Dan. He was happy and so relaxed. It made me happy when he was. For some reason we had some kind of weird relationship. So you want to know how this all started. I’ll tell you my story.