Sterling Shell
657 Words
Vivian's POV
The call comes two days later. I know from the first three words of Marcus's voice that something is wrong.
"They went another direction." He chooses each word carefully, the way you'd handle something fragile, something that might shatter if he wasn't gentle enough. "It's not about your talent, Vivian. The read was perfect. Everyone in that room agreed on that."
"Then what happened?" I press the phone harder against my ear, like proximity might change the answer.
There's a pause long enough that I already know the truth is going to hurt before he says it. I grip the counter with my free hand, bracing myself as if I need something solid beneath my palm to survive whatever comes next.
"The studio got acquired last month." Marcus exhales, and I can picture him rubbing the bridge of his nose the way he does when he's delivering news he wishes he didn't have to deliver. "New ownership, new priorities, new list of names they're not willing to attach the project to. Optics, they said."
"Optics." I repeat the word like it's a foreign language. "What does that even mean, Marcus?"
"It means someone above the line drew a red circle around your name and nobody's telling me why." A pause, papers shuffling on his end. "The parent company is a holding group called Meridian Capital Partners. I did some digging this morning. It traces back to a Sterling Industries shell entity."
The words land somewhere behind my sternum, cold and sharp, spreading through my chest like ice water dropped straight into my veins.
"Chase owns the studio." My voice comes out flatter than I intend, stripped of everything except the fact itself.
"Chase owns the holding company that owns the studio. Technically. Through about four layers of corporate structure that took my lawyer an hour to trace on a whiteboard." Marcus's voice stays level, professional, but there's an edge underneath it now, something that almost sounds like grim satisfaction, like he's been waiting for me to see what he's seen for months. I don't have the bandwidth to examine that right now. "I don't think this was personal, if that helps. I think it's just what happens when someone with that much money starts buying up half the industry you're trying to break into."
"It doesn't help." I close my eyes. "It doesn't help at all, Marcus."
"I know." A beat. "You want me to keep pushing? There are other rooms."
"Not today." I hang up before he can argue, before the careful, managed sympathy in his voice can c***k whatever thin composure I have left.
I sit on the floor of my apartment, boxes still not fully unpacked four months later, surrounded by the half-finished evidence of a life I keep meaning to assemble. I think about how impossibly small this city has become, how every door I try to walk through apparently has his name stenciled somewhere on the other side, whether he put it there on purpose or not. I think about the years I spent building a career brick by brick, only to discover the ground beneath it was never fully mine to build on. Something bitter rises in my throat, equal parts grief and fury, and I don't know which one deserves to win.
I don't cry immediately. The tears wait, patient and cruel, until I'm alone in my car twenty minutes later, driving to a meeting I don't even remember agreeing to attend. Mascara runs down my cheeks in dark, uneven tracks I don't notice until a red light forces me to stop, forces me to look up, forces me to catch my own reflection in the rearview mirror. I barely recognize the girl staring back at me, hollow-eyed and unraveling at every seam I worked so hard to stitch invisible.
I don't see the photographer parked across the street from the studio lot until it's already too late.
- Writer
