My fellow romantics,

I thought today was a good day for a long script excerpt 🙂 Early listening of the full audio episode should be available Monday morning (European time) at the latest.

Hope you enjoy this excerpt in the meantime!

Sigrid

Hannah locked the door of the bathroom stall behind her. She looked around the small space. It was surprisingly clean and cosy.

The toilet lid was down. She shrugged and took a seat, chin resting in her hands, elbows on her knees. Her ears were ringing from the loud chatter at the reception.

The cast was still backstage. Hannah had walked around by herself for the last half hour or so. She was already fed up.

If it wasn’t for Milly, she would go back to her hotel room right now. But she really couldn’t. Leaving before she had talked to Milly would be rude.

And…there was the small detail of her desperately wanting to see Milly. Hannah had spent the last 48 hours itching to talk to Milly again.

She had managed to leave Milly alone, though. Hannah had wanted Milly to focus on her work. “I’m not going to be the person who can’t keep her distance,” she had thought.

But God, it had been difficult. She had almost sent Milly a text at least ten times. She had come up with dozens of different reasons to contact Milly despite her earlier decision to leave her alone.

In the end, to give herself something to look forward to, Hannah had decided she would text Milly an hour before the premiere.

A simple ‘good luck tonight’ message would be considered OK in all circumstances, right? Proper even.

Hannah sighed. She didn’t know what to make of the circumstances she was in. Wednesday morning, when she had been holding Milly in her arms, she had felt like she had found home.

Now, just 2 days later, she felt more lost than ever. She was acting like a lovesick teenager and hated herself for it ever since Milly had left.

This too had been one of the reasons for Hannah not to text or call Milly. “Suck it up,” she had told herself. “You’ll see her Friday evening. Surely, you can wait that long.”

Hannah ran her hands through her hair. She looked around the stall again. Things weren’t going all that well, were they?

“Look at you,” she told herself. “Look at yourself hiding in a bathroom stall.” This simply wouldn’t do. She could do better than this. Hannah got up.

She held her breath and listened. If there was anyone else here, she would wait for them to leave. She wanted to be alone for a bit longer.

All was quiet. Hannah unlocked the door and slowly walked out of the stall. She waved her hand under the tap. The cool water felt great.

Hannah looked at herself in the mirror. She looked better than she felt, to be honest. Her hair was on its best behaviour and her blue eyes stood out because of the makeup she had put on.

Hannah grabbed a paper towel to dry her hands. Then, she found her phone in the inner pocket of her suit jacket. She glanced down at the screen.

No new messages had arrived. That meant Milly hadn’t checked her phone after the show. Or that she hadn’t replied to Hannah’s message.

Hannah reread what she had sent Milly. There was no error notification under the message. Milly really should have gotten it.

“Why is she ignoring me?” Hannah thought. Her chest felt tight. She put her phone away and stared into the mirror.

“You kind of ignored her too,” flashed through her mind. She frowned and tilted her head. That’s not what she had done. Right?

Surely, that’s not what Milly thought, Hannah hoped. She had never looked at it from Milly’s point of view. Crap.

Hannah pulled another paper towel out of the dispenser. Her hands felt a bit clammy. She crumpled up the paper nervously.

“Shit,” she said out loud and threw the little ball into the trashcan. Maybe that’s why Milly hadn’t replied. Maybe Milly thought she was one of those people who slept with you and then forgot about you.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. Hannah swallowed. What was the truth anyway? She placed both of her hands on the sink and studied herself.

She opened her mouth. She needed to say this out loud. “You are totally…”

The sudden loud whoosh of a door opening made Hannah jump back. She looked up, startled, at the older lady who had just walked in.

The woman’s blonde hair was pulled back with a velvet headband. Her watery, grey eyes focused on Hannah under thin, arched eyebrows.

Hannah smiled apologetically. “Sorry,” she mumbled and stepped past the woman to exit the bathroom. She quickly walked into the hallway.

Hannah sighed a couple of times as she made her way back into the crowd. There had to be at least 150 people at the reception, which was a lot more than she had expected.

All around her, men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns chattered excitedly. Hannah was sure she would be getting a headache soon.

She spotted an empty table in the back. Hannah apologised and squeezed her way through the crowd, trying to get to it as fast as she could.

“It was truly fantastic,” a man on her right said. “Yes, Miss Breckner was phenomenal,” another person replied. Hannah snorted and startled several people around her.

She quickly apologised once more and continued on her way. It was true, though. Suzanne’s performance had been even more impressive than during the dress rehearsal.

But so had Milly’s. Hannah had spent 2 hours on the edge of her seat, taking in the impressive sight and sound that was Milly on stage in a tan suit.

Hannah couldn’t help but overhear another conversation. “The new one, who sang Cherubino, was sublime. What’s her name?” a woman asked her friends.

“Mildred North,” Hannah thought while she pushed past the group. She looked up and stopped dead in her tracks.

About 10 feet away, a pair of brown eyes had found hers. Hannah smiled even before her mind had consciously identified the breathtaking woman in a blue, sexy gown as Milly.

“Mildred North,” she thought again.