"Cut!" The director shouted and I rolled my eyes. This was the tenth time we'd reshot this scene today. I pushed out of my chair and strolled to the craft services table where Gary was shoving yet another donut into his mouth.

"I've said it before but I'm going to say it again in the hopes that, this time, you'll hear it," I started. "Why did we hire this new director again?"

"Because the old one quit," Gary answered through a mouthful of bread.

"But this guy in particular," I said. "Gary, he's terrible. It's like he thinks he's directing the next Titanic but this is a low brow sitcom on network television."

"What's your point, Clark?" He snapped, turning to me with a handful of donuts, annoyed.

"My point is that he isn't right for Basketcase. He isn't a comedy director. He doesn't have a clue what our fans want and our audience is going to be confused."

"Yeah? Did you learn that in all your directing classes? Listen, when you go to the Academy and become a credentialed director, you can come to me with your on set critique. Until then, shut your mouth and keep your pen to paper. Got it?"

"Yeah," I replied, frustrated. "Got it."

Then he turned away from me and stormed away back toward his office. I rolled my eyes and turned back to set, arms crossed while I watched the director instructing an actor on how to deliver a childish dick joke more dramatically. With a groan, I turned away and headed for my own office. I couldn't watch this today.

It had been a week since I'd left California and Lucas. He had tried to call me once the day after I'd left but I hadn't had the courage to answer and he hadn't tried again since. My mother had. She wanted to scold me, try to "talk some sense into me" but I just told her that I needed some space, some time to think,and hung up.

I'd thrown myself into work and found myself only depressed with the results. There was only so much effort one could put into mediocre comedy before one started to doubt everything one was doing with one's life. Though, I guess I wasn't just starting to have my doubts. In truth, I'd been doubting myself for a long time. NBC was the dream. Writing sketches for Saturday Night Live or hit comedies. I could grow there, meet important people, maybe even try out a drama or two, see if it was for me. Instead of stagnating on a low level network, stuck on the same series with ratings just above average enough to keep us running. It wasn't the dream. It wasn't even in the same category as the dream.

Not that I even knew what the dream was anymore.

It wasn't NBC. It wasn't Basketcase. Comedy in general had begun to lose its appeal. I wanted something real, I wanted something meaningful, something with substance, an actual storyline. But they weren't working on anything like that here and I didn't even know where to find it.

Hulu was hiring a writing staff for a new epic sci-fi series. That would have been cool. Crafting new worlds, creating something. But they would take one look at my resume and laugh. No one wants to hire a writer who doesn't know her genre. And besides, Hulu was headquartered in California and that felt like making a decision that I wasn't prepared to make yet.

I made it through the rest of the day staying away from set and then headed for the subway on my way back to my apartment. I scrolled through the roommate group text that had been buzzing, and I had been ignoring, all day long. It was Leah and Connor arguing about what to do for dinner. They'd settled on ordering out. Thai food. Apparently nobody felt like cooking.

I listened to music on the train ride home and then entered the apartment with my headphones still firmly in place. Leah and Connor left me alone as I passed where they sat in the living room to go to my room. I wasn't surprised. Before, they would have jumped me at the door, talking a mile a minute about the latest gossip they'd heard or the plans they'd made for the night. But, since I'd returned, we'd stayed in every night, eating take out while they watched me carefully when they thought I wasn't looking and tiptoed around any mention of the prior week of my life.

I hated the pity but it was better than actually talking about it. So I let them pity me. After all, I had truly become someone to pity.

I changed into a pair of sweats and strode back out to the living room, collapsing on the couch between them with a groan.

"Gary sucks," I said and they exchanged a glance before looking at me.

"What did he do this time, babes?" Leah asked, propping herself up on the couch and turning to face me.

"It's this new director he hired. He's terrible. And I tried to warn him about him but he won't listen to a word I say. He's just so condescending and terrible. I have given four years of my life to this shitty sitcom and the only thing he says to me is 'shut up and put your pen to paper'."

Connor's jaw dropped.

"He did not say that to you," he gasped. I pursed my lips and nodded to verify the authenticity of the repeated words.

"Piper," Leah started, carefully, "have you thought about quitting?"

"Only every day," I confessed.

"What about that job you were telling me about yesterday? The one for Hulu?"

"I don't have the portfolio they're looking for. And besides, it's in California."

She and Connor locked gazes and I sighed loudly.

"Okay, let's do this," I told them, standing up and facing them, hands on my hips, prepared for battle. "Say what you have to say."

"We're just... isn't that sort of... perfect?" Connor asked. I narrowed my gaze at him.

"How so?" I snapped.

"Well, Lucas is in California."

"My life does not revolve around Lucas."

"Clearly," Leah muttered and my glare snapped to her.

"Excuse me?" I spat.

"Piper, babes, we don't want to argue with you," she said, gently. Sitting up and leaning forward to meet my gaze. "But we hate seeing you miserable."

"I'm not miserable," I argued.

"You've been wearing sweatpants for a week," Connor pointed out.

"You never want to go out anymore," Leah added. "You just sit on this couch, watching old Nick at night reruns and eating various take out foods."

"That's breakup behavior," Connor told me.

"But you guys didn't break up..." Leah countered. "Did you?"

I sighed.

"I don't know," I answered, honestly. "I don't know that things are ever really over between Lucas and I. I mean, we're literally still married so... I'm not sure where that leaves things."

"Why are you running from him?" Leah asked, getting straight to the point. We locked eyes and I felt tears forming in mine.

"I was angry with him," I told her. "Really, really angry with him. He broke my trust, Leah. And he was the only person in my life that I thought I could always trust."

"Ouch," Connor said and I gave him a sad smile.

"You know I trust you guys too but it's different with him. He's been through it all with me. Ten years, I've known this guy. So, when he broke my trust, it hurt. A lot. And I did what I always did when I get hurt. I ran from the pain. And now, I'm just... I don't know how to stop running."

"Can I be honest with you, Piper?" Leah asked and I nodded, tears already starting to fall down my face. "I've watched you over the past week, and I watched you for six years before that. You're miserable now but you weren't exactly happy then. When we came to see you in California, you were the happiest I'd ever seen. Connor said so too. It was like you were... glowing. It was like you were—"

"In love," Connor finished for her and Leah nodded in agreement.

"What did I tell you when you called me on his boat, Piper?"

"If there's anything deserving of taking a risk, isn't it this thing with Lucas?" I repeated her words verbatim.

"Wise words," Connor said, nodded approvingly.

"So take a risk. For the first time in your life, take several. Apply to this Hulu job even if you don't fit the criteria exactly. Move to California and give this thing with your husband a real shot."

I thought about it for a moment. Leah could be very convincing when she wanted to. But my fear was too great, my instinct for running away too strong. I shook my head, backing away from them.

"No," I said. "I can't."

Just then, there was a knock on the door. We all exchanged glances but I was the one who went to answer it, wiping the tears from my cheeks along the way. When I opened the door, my heart stopped. It was my mother, holding a rolling suitcase in one hand and her enormous handbag in the other.

"Mom?" I gasped, just staring at her in the doorway. She had never come to visit me before. Not once in six years. I could hardly believe she was standing here now.

"Are you going to invite me in?" She asked. "I'm an old woman who just flew across the country. I'd like to find some form of comfort before I start in on you for leaving your husband."

"The Calvary has arrived," Connor mused, watching my mother with a grin as she entered the apartment.

"I didn't leave my husband, mom. You don't understand—" I started.

"You're here and he's there. A week ago, you were both there. Then you left. That's leaving your husband, sweetie. Now, where's the kitchen?"

Connor and Leah chuckled as I pointed her in the direction of the kitchen.

"Who wants cookies?" My mother asked as she rolled her suitcase away and moved to preheat the oven. "I bake when I'm stressed and my daughter has just about killed me."

"I'll have some cookies," Connor said with a shrug but Leah slapped his shoulder.

"Actually, we have somewhere to be," she lied, giving me a look that said you two need to talk, alone. Then she pulled Connor out of the apartment.

"Now, what don't I understand?" My mother asked, turning to the cabinets and starting to pull out ingredients as if she hardly noticed my friends had left. "Because I've been on Lucas' side of things myself so I think I understand what it is when one spouse leaves another."

"Mom, our marriage isn't like yours. It's—"

"Complicated," she finished for me with a wave of her hand. "Yes, I know. You've told me. You both have. But you'd do well to stop responding to me with platitudes and listen to what I have to say. I've been on this earth for over fifty years now and I've learned a thing or two in that time, if you'll listen."

I shut my mouth and sat at the island, waiting for her to continue.

"There are two types of men in this world, sweetheart. Those who put everything on the line for you and those who don't. Your father, God love him, loved me dearly. For twenty five years, he loved me. But he wasn't the sort to stick around when things got hard. Straying to that woman wasn't the first time he ran away from a problem and, I'm afraid, you seem to have gotten a bit of that in yourself," she told me. I looked down, ashamed. "But Lucas doesn't."

I looked back up to see her waving a wooden spoon in my direction, gaze meeting mine.

"That boy has stuck with you through thick and thin for the last ten years. When things got hard, and they have been hard, he was always there for you. Can you deny that?" She asked and I blinked at her. "A marriage isn't easy, sweetie. No matter what it is that you seem to think I don't understand about yours. They're all different but they are all the same in this: they all take work. And you can't run from them."

I hesitated, letting her words wash over me, and then I sighed, deflating. I closed my eyes.

"Mom, there's something I have to tell you," I said. She had turned back around to continue her baking but my voice brought her attention back to me. "It's important, mom. Can you put down the spoon for a minute?"

She did, wiping her hands off as she turned around to face me.

"When Lucas and I got married after graduation, it was because he was being deported," I finally confessed. Six years of keeping that secret and I simply couldn't do it anymore. I spoke the words aloud and felt the weight as it lifted off of my shoulders. My mother stared at me as if she didn't understand. But there was more that I had to tell her. "They were going to send him back to Argentina so I agreed to marry him so he could stay. We signed the papers. It was a marriage in name only, legally only. We weren't in love. I mean, I cared for him but it wasn't exactly your standard engagement. Then, two weeks ago, I got a call from an ICE agent saying they were looking into our marriage. If they could prove that it wasn't legitimate, that we didn't actually love each other, then they could still deport him. So I flew to California to meet with the agent and devise a new plan with Lucas. But he confessed to me that he had feelings for me, that he was attracted to me, and that he always had been."

I was blushing. This wasn't something that I ever thought I would be confessing to my mother but I found that I needed her advice more than I cared to admit. Because she was right. If there was anyone in my life who understood a broken marriage and what it took to fix it or let it go, it was her.

"He was different. He was more... confident, more sure of himself. But he was still Lucas. I forgot how much I missed him, how much I loved talking to him and being around him and then... other feelings started to develop as well and we decided to give our marriage a real shot, to see if there was something real between us."

"So what happened?" She asked, leaning over the counter now, listening to me.

"He told me about Lola," I said. "About how he's been helping her pay dad's medical bills all this time."

My mother blinked at me as if waiting for more. When none came, she pushed away from the counter and looked me over.

"That's it?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"Sweetheart, please tell me you didn't leave your husband because he was kind enough to provide for your family."

"He didn't tell me! He knows I haven't spoken to dad or Lola and—"

"Ah, that's a whole other problem I want to discuss with you. Sweetheart, you've been so angry for so long. You've let your anger consume you. You've turned it into hate for the people who love you the most. Piper, I don't hate your father. I don't even hate that woman he's married to now. And I certainly don't hate your sister. You are the only one holding onto this hatred and it is eating away at you. And now you're misdirecting it towards your husband."

I frowned. Was that what I was doing?

"Don't live like this, baby girl," my mother said, gently, reaching across the counter to cup my cheek in her palm. "Don't let your hatred overshadow your love."

I didn't respond. I couldn't. I just sat there, thinking about her words.

"Now," she spoke suddenly, turning back to the oven. "Cookies?"