Young Adulting - Christina Benjamin Page 0,1

your acceptance, right?” Fallon asked, a note of fear seeping into her voice. “You’ll join us in the spring and you’ll still have your scholarship and—”

“Yes, exactly,” I said. And it was my money that I’d saved up from part-time jobs and babysitting that had paid for the airfare and that would be set aside for rent where I’d be staying, but still... “Try explaining that to my parents.”

She sniffed. Her lips turning down in a frown of disapproval over my parents’ reaction. Which was kind of funny, actually, since she hadn’t exactly been leaping for joy since I’d told her I was putting off college to take an unpaid internship on the other side of the country.

“Screw it,” she said. “They’ll come around when you’re rich and famous.”

I met her gaze over the pile of clothes and caught her little smile.

I grinned, dropping the old, faded swimsuit I’d been holding so I could crawl over the bed and attack my bestie with a bear hug. “Thanks,” I whispered.

She laughed as she patted my back. “I might hate the fact that you’re leaving me to face the freshman fifteen on my own, but...Izzy…” She leaned back to look at me. “You know I’m proud of you, right? We all are.”

I couldn’t answer even if I’d wanted to because my throat was too choked with emotion. These past two weeks had been tough. I knew my parents were proud of me but they were terrified of me living on my own in a big city.

Fallon was just terrified, period.

And me?

Yeah, I was totally terrified, too. But not at the thought of living in LA, or even of missing out on my first semester of college with my BFF. No, my biggest fear was that I would get the opportunity of a lifetime...and blow it.

This was my one chance. The fact that I’d been picked for this internship out of the thousands of applicants...well, that was more than luck.

It was a miracle.

And who knew if I’d ever get another? Only an idiot would hold out hope for two miracles in a lifetime so I had to make sure that this one was it—the opportunity that would propel me to the career of my dreams. The life I’d always envisioned. The world that had always seemed like fantasy. The future that—

“Whoa, hottie alert!” Fallon dropped her arms from around me and was moving me out of her line of sight with a shove.

I turned to face the TV and rolled my eyes. “I can’t believe you actually watch this garbage.”

Fallon curled up on the edge of my bed. Apparently all thoughts of helping me pack were forgotten along with the emotional goodbye that was looming at the end of the night. “It’s not garbage,” she protested, but her gaze never left the screen. She pointed to an admittedly handsome dark-haired actor who brooded into the camera. “Seriously, Izzy, how could you call Henry Landon garbage?” She whipped her head around to give me a glare through slitted eyes. “How could you talk that way about the father of my babies?”

I bent over with laughter as she turned back to the screen with a grin.

“What was I thinking calling you melodramatic?” I teased.

“I know, right?” she said, only half paying attention to me now that her gaze was once more focused on Henry Landon and the teen drama he starred in.

“Ooh, maybe you’ll get to visit the set of Hermosa Beach,” she said, shifting on the bed to face me. “Maybe you’ll get to meet Henry!”

I shook my head with a laugh, turning away from the ridiculous angsting that was happening onscreen. “I hate to burst your bubble, Fallon, but there’s no way I’ll be meeting celebrities. This internship isn’t that glamorous.”

“You never know,” Fallon said with a sigh, already turning back to drool over the bright blue eyes and chiseled jaw that would have made the leading actor a star in their own right.

The fact that he was basically Hollywood royalty, to boot? That was just overkill.

“He’s so hot, it’s not even fair to the other actors,” Fallon said.

I glanced over at the screen, cringing as the hottie delivered a line that made my ears bleed. The fact that this show was popular and that cheesy actor graced the cover of every magazine was just another reminder of how hard I’d have to work to make it in Hollywood. I didn’t have connections and my style of writing was better suited for low-budget