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The sun hit the glass wall hard enough to make her squint, the whole basin dropping a white glare she used to chase for stills and now only wanted to shut out. Delaney pressed her bare heels into the cream sectional and pulled her knees up against her chest. The cushion had a permanent dent where she’d been sitting for weeks. She could feel the shape of it now, her own small hollow worn into the fabric.

She hadn’t flipped her phone over since noon. It lay face-down on the marble island ten feet away, the dark screen collecting a thin film of dust she could see from here when the light caught it sideways. Agents. Publicists. Hal’s office, probably, calling for the third time this week. The quiet in the house used to spook her. Now it was the only part of her life nobody else had a claim on.

The house was all glass and pale oak, a decorator’s version of calm that had cost more than her mother’s house in Sacramento. Windows from floor to ceiling on the canyon side, white walls that threw the light back at her from every angle. The only personal thing in the whole room was the gold statue on the high shelf of the built-ins. Her Golden Globe. Best Actress, Motion Picture Drama. The sun caught the gold plating now and threw a hard little star straight into her eyes. She turned her head.

She’d been twenty-four when she’d won it. Back then, she’d still been able to hit her marks and cry on cue and survive fourteen-hour days. It was so hard to believe that was two years ago. It felt like a different person had won that award.

Now she was twenty-six. Lounging around in sweatpants and a tank top she’d slept in, her hair in a messy bun. She hadn’t worn makeup since Sunday. The freckles across her nose were out in full force, the small scar above her left eyebrow tight the way it got when she was running on fumes.

She’d been running on fumes since June.

The scripts downstairs were jobs. Call sheets and early flights and six months of pretending she still wanted to be in front of a camera. Her agent kept sending them. White stacks on her office desk that she hadn’t touched. Two years ago she would have read every one. Now she couldn’t remember the last time a script had made her feel anything. Not dread. Not hope. Nothing. That was worse.

The one thing downstairs that still felt like hers was the draft she’d finished herself. A sapphic love story nobody had asked for, handwritten in spiral notebooks, typed up in the small hours when she couldn’t sleep. June Calloway and Emma Moore. A ranch in Montana. That was the kind of project she wanted to be working on.

The smart lock beeped.

Delaney didn’t move. Heels clicked across the threshold. Rebecca Sloane let herself in without knocking. She managed Delaney’s career, had for five years, and treated the house like a satellite office she partly owned. Rebecca had the gate code, the key, the alarm.

“Don’t get up,” Rebecca said.

“I wasn’t going to.”

Rebecca crossed the living area in a structured navy blazer. Two to-go cups in her hands. She set one on the coffee table in front of Delaney.

Delaney’s hand went to her own hair before she caught it. Stopped. Put her hand back down on the cushion. Rebecca always looked like she’d stepped out of a photograph. Chin-length auburn bob, sleek and perfectly styled. Brown eyes that missed nothing. The red lipstick she reapplied in every reflection she passed.

“Oat milk, extra shot,” Rebecca said. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

“You do everything for me. That’s the problem.”

It came out flatter than Delaney meant. Rebecca’s lips curved, just barely, but her eyes stayed sharp. She was doing the math. She’d been doing it for weeks.

“You look like hell,” Rebecca said.

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a joke. When did you last eat something that wasn’t dropped off by a delivery driver?”

Delaney glanced at the sink. The container nearest the edge of the cluster had started to curl at the corners. She couldn’t remember what was in it. Thai, maybe.

“Define delivered,” she said.

Rebecca’s mouth did something that wasn’t quite a smile. She set her leather tote on the island and pulled out a printed script. The pages were thick, the cover sheet crisp and white. Delaney knew what it was before Rebecca crossed the room and dropped it onto her knees.

“Hal’s office called again,” Rebecca said. “Twice this week. He wants an answer.”

“Give him one.”

“The one he wants.”

Delaney stared down at the title page. The Last Good Year. Hal Draper had swept the Oscars two years running. The script was a studio lock. Big budget, prestige cast, the kind of role that would put her on every magazine cover from here to February. The kind of part other actresses her age would bleed for.

“I can’t.”

Rebecca walked back to the island and perched on the edge of a barstool. She crossed one slim ankle over the other.