Chapter 145

[Searching for the One|August 17-2016|Act 9|Scene 4|Take 1]

“Have you never felt all that with any other girl?”

When Alan asked that to Frank, memories resurfaced in the latter’s mind as he became unable to answer the question straightaway.

He hesitated to answer, not because he didn’t have a reply but because it was an answer that he was running away from. However, it was true that other girls had made him feel like this before.

But the feeling was the most impactful with Hazel.

Somewhere in his mind, he knew that Hazel wasn’t for him, but he had never acknowledged it. More like, he was scared of accepting this fact because he was tired of being alone.

“Why are you silent? Answer me.” Alan insisted. “Have you ever felt all that with some other girl?”

“Yes… yes, I have.”

This time, Frank replied, staring at Alan.

“Then, my friend, I don’t think the girl you broke up with is the one you are looking for.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. Okay, sit down. Let’s have a talk.”

Alan said before literally pushing Frank down by his shoulder. The latter protested a bit before eventually sitting down on the stairs of the bar.

People were still coming and going out of the bar, but both of them just looked at the sky, which was covered with clouds, before looking at each other.

“You know, I was once like you.” Frank raised an eyebrow when Alan said that. “A foolish romantic like you, trying to get a perfect girl for myself who might make me feel complete.”

As he said this, the tone of the scene completely changed to one of a deep, sombre one.

“What happened after that?” Frank asked.

“Well, it didn’t work out, obviously. I lost my chance. That’s why I decided to stop looking for a girl and be awesome instead.”

At the sudden narcissism at the end of the sentence, Frank chuckled.

“No, really, what were you saying earlier? Why isn’t she the girl I’m looking for?”

“Oh,” Alan realised that he had gotten out of the topic for a bit and quickly said, “Just because she gives you the same feeling that other girls in the past have. Now, you might say this is the feeling that the right person would give you, but there are not so many right persons. There’s only one. And she’s not that.

“If she was, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me.”

Alan shrugged like it was obvious. Frank thought about his words for a second and asked.

“Don’t you think she would become the right person with enough time? Maybe she’s not the one right now, but you won’t know in the future.”

“That’s a compromise.” Alan straightly said. “Your girlfriend won’t become the right person with time if she’s not the one to begin with. It happens instantly like you see it, and you know it. You get that special feeling which is the most distinct one in the whole world.”

“What are the chances that I might actually get this person? Maybe I will never meet her.”

“No, you will. Everyone does. Maybe in passing, but they do. It’s on you if you recognise that this is the person and then you put effort to stay by her. Every relationship, every single one, needs a lot of effort, but in the end, it’s worth it if you are happy. Think about it yourself. Are you actually happy with your current girlfriend?”

As Alan said that, the camera panned for taking a long shot of both of them. And another one took a close-up shot of both Frank and Alan’s faces.

It was then that Amelia’s voice sounded out.

“Cut!”

***

As the shooting of [Searching for the One] was going on, Leo was busy rechecking everything from editing to the colour pallet of [30 days of Happiness].

Next month, the Toronto film festival was going to start, and he wasn’t exactly calm about it. In fact, he was so nervous that he watched the movie every day, trying to see if there were any big mistakes.

His nervousness was mostly because of the fact that it was his first movie, and he didn’t want it to fail.

Leo was continuously dreaming of a scenario where his movie would get bashed by reporters as they call him the worst director to appear in the last decade. At the same time, Rodrigo and Harold would be laughing at him.

No matter what, Leo wanted to avoid a scenario like this.

Because of this, Leo had become paranoid, and he was even wondering if his movie was even good enough for a release. Maybe, it was better just not to release it.

All these thoughts were resurfacing in his head as he kept doubting himself.

[Do… do… do… do… do…do…]

Suddenly, his phone rang as Leo was going through the beginning of the movie for the umpteenth time on his laptop.

Pausing the movie on his laptop, he picked it up and saw that it was Omar.

“Hello, what happened, Omar? Anything important?”

“Nothing much. I have prepared your visa for the Toronto film festival. Check everything and make sure everything is perfect. It’s going to be a big moment for us next month.”

Omar’s cheerful voice came out from the other side of the phone, and Leo just gave a nod.

They were going to leave for Toronto, Canada, next week. Omar wanted to leave early as it was the first time he was financing a whole movie alone.

As for Aiden, he was going to come to the festival a bit later after finishing up on his current shooting.

“Okay, don’t worry, I will be careful of all that.”

It was then that Omar noticed some oddity in Leo’s voice.

“Are you okay? You sound depressed.” He asked, and Leo shook his head.

“Yeah, I’m. Just worried about how the movie would perform at the festival. Whether we would get a good distributor and the response from the critics and reporters there, I am very worried that the movie won’t impress them. Moreover, if it really fails to impress people, Aiden’s efforts will all be for nought.”

There was a sigh at the end of Leo’s sentence.

Thanks to ‘Lost in the Sky’ becoming so popular, a lot of attention had also been diverted towards the movie, and a lot of people were now anticipating the movie’s release.

Even a lot of reporters and critics were supposed to be at the premiere of the movie.

“You are still worrying about it?” Omar’s frowned on the other side of the phone. “Look Leo, the movie is good. I watched it myself. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“That’s different, Omar. Critics and reporters would judge it as harshly as possible, especially if they don’t like the movie. If the initial reviews are not good, we might have major problems getting a distributor. Even if we got one, the audience might not turn up. There’s so much worry in my mind.”

Omar didn’t say anything for a while. It was pretty common for directors and actors to worry about the reception their project would receive, especially with a newbie director like Leo.

He could easily tell that Leo was going crazy with self-doubts.

“Leo, you made a good movie. Your job was that, and it ended there. As for the results, we can only wait and watch.”

“What if they are not good?”

At that question, Omar casually replied.

“It would be good no matter what.”

***

[You have improved your comic timing.]

[You have gotten a lot of experience.]

[Your understanding of the character has increased. Your affinity with the character has increased.]

Aiden smiled, seeing the system prompts in front of him. He had returned to his apartment two hours ago after the shooting had ended.

Wade had quickly left after dropping him off.

As it was already late, Aiden hadn’t bothered making dinner and had just ordered takeout from a nearby restaurant.

On usual days, Aiden would have slept directly or read the script again in an effort to increase his affinity with the character he’s currently portraying.

But today, he was just sitting in front of his laptop with a blank document opened.

For the past few days, Aiden had been thinking about the writing skill that he had received from his system. When he got the skill, Aiden realised that his system contained things other than acting and singing.

In a way, it had shocked him.

Unlike acting and singing, where he kept getting involved with one project after another, writing was something that was a completely different field, and he had never even tried writing a novel or a script before.

Though, he did want to try it.

Aiden very well knew how miraculous his system was and how it could help him become a good author in no time. But first, he needed to grind levels on it.

That’s why, currently, Aiden was trying to think of a novel idea to write. He had indeed thought about a few topics he could write about.

But when he had actually started to write, his mind would go blank, and even if he wrote a few pages, he deleted it afterwards, thinking that it wasn’t good enough.

As he was unable to think of a theme to write about, Aiden started going through his system prompts.

‘I really need to decide on a topic. Maybe a romance book? Or an action spy series? It’s better to start off with a short novel as I’m new to this rather than a full-fledged feature novel of hundreds of pages.’

Aiden thought in his mind as he kept staring at the blank document.

It seemed that writing a novel was not going to be easy for him.

…

//DreamNote//

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