NOVEMBER 2021 — NEW YORK

Theadora doesn't remember falling asleep. one minute she's curled into taylor's side on the velvet couch, breath shuddering, ribs hollowed out like a broken hull, and the next she's waking to soft morning light bleeding across the guest room ceiling in pale gold stripes. the air smells like linen and peppermint and feels too still, too intentional. benjis no longer at the foot of the bed, taylor's gone too.

for a few seconds, maybe thirty, she forgets. her body remembers before her mind does. she sits up slowly, comforter slipping from her shoulders, skin cool where it falls away. there's an almost-normal quiet in the apartment, the kind that would've once meant safety, but now just twists her stomach from the inside out.

then it hits her fast and ugly — anne is dead. she'd overdosed, alone, in a motel bathroom.

thea doesn't move, just sits there with her knees drawn up and hands limp in her lap. there's no gasp, no sob, just ringing in her ears and a hollow feeling in her chest that she knows might never go away. her mouth is dry and her body feels foreign, like it belongs to someone else. when she finally swings her legs off the bed, her feet meet the wood floor with a soft thud that sounds too loud in the silence.

she catches herself in the mirror on the far wall. hair tangled, eyes puffy and red, glitter still smudged along her collarbone from the night before. the yellowjackets premiere dress had been a hit, apparently. she looked radiant in the photos, had smiled for cameras while her mother's body cooled alone in a place thea had long stopped calling home.

but she hadn't just lost anne — she'd lost the part of herself that still, even after everything, even after all the fights and screaming matches and bruises and all those men that looked at her too long, still hoped her mother might get better. that she'd call one day and say something close to sorry, that she'd come to one of thea's premieres not just for money or press or to brag at a bar, but because she was proud. that girl — the one who had only ever wanted a real mother — died too.

down the hall theadora hears the familiar whistle of the kettle and clink of mugs. the sounds are gentle, domestic, but thea doesn't want anything. not tea, not comfort, not even answers. but she pulls on an oversized hoodie (definitely taylor's), pushes the door open, and pads barefoot into the kitchen despite her heaviness.

taylor's at the counter, stirring honey into two chipped mugs like it's any other morning. her sleeves are pushed up, and there's a deep line between her brows. she turns the second she hears these teens footsteps. "hey," she says it quietly, like thea is a wild animal she doesn't want to startle.

theadora doesn't answer, just sinks into the stool, arms wrapped around herself like scaffolding. her throat aches with held-in words and her whole body feels clenched. taylor slides one mug in front of her. peppermint, just how thea likes it — milk and sugar, not too hot. the familiarity burns more than it soothes.

"i called production," taylor says after a minute. "told them you need time; they're gonna cover for you with yellowjackets press. you don't have to do anything right now."

theadoras voice is barely a whisper. "i don't know what i want."

"that's okay," taylor says. "you don't have to." the tea sits untouched between them. outside, the sun's just beginning to hit the tops of buildings. a dog barks down on the street. the world, impossibly, goes on.

"i keep waiting for the breakdown," theadora says suddenly. "like i should be screaming or curled on the floor or something. but instead i just feel...empty."

taylor nods like she's heard this before. "that's still grief."

theadoras eyes stay fixed on the mug. "she was awful. you know that. she hit me, sometimes. and worse. once she told me she wished i was never born, said i ruined her life. but i still...she was my mom."

taylor's hand finds hers, warm and steady. "i know." another stretch of silence passes, but this one doesn't feel quite as sharp.

"i don't want a funeral," thea says. "i don't wanna go back to tennessee, i don't wanna stand up there and lie about who she was just 'cause she's dead."

"you don't have to pretend anything," taylor tells her. "not for them, not for me. not even for her."

theadora finally looks up. her eyes are red but dry and voice cracks. "i'm so tired."

"i know, baby." taylor reaches for her, pulls her in, and thea lets it happen without sob, just folds herself into taylor's arms; shoulders shaking, breath catching, tears soaking into the collar of that soft hoodie. they stay like that a long time.

theadora doesn't go home, instead stays at taylor's for four days. the singer clears her schedule without blinking, cancels meetings and press and rehearsals. she makes theadora grilled cheese and peppermint tea, lets her sleep until noon if she needs to, curls up with her on the couch and puts on old movies.

on the third night, gracie sneaks in the back door with a bag of candy and a beat-up notebook full of lyrics. she doesn't say, "i'm sorry," just crawls into bed next to thea, flips open the notebook, and starts reading her lyrics aloud in a whisper. not performative, just soft. theadoras head drifts to her shoulder somewhere around page three.

no one says her mother's name, but that's what makes it bearable.

⸻

DECEMBER 2021 — LOS ANGELES

Theadora doesn't fly home for christmas.

she tells people it's because of covid, or that she's too busy, or because she needs rest. all of these are true, but none are the reason.

the truth: there is no home to go back to. tennessee is just a place now — a collection of streets she hasn't walked in years, a shuttered one-bedroom house that still reeks of spilled liquor and cheap aftershave. her mother's things are still there, probably in boxes, or plastic bags, or the back of some county evidence room. theadora didn't ask what happened to them; she didn't want to know.

the apartment in L.A. is cold when she gets back from new york; she'd forgotten that she'd left the windows cracked. the space is too neat, too quiet. she doesn't unpack for three days, just lives out of her weekender bag, drinks tea she doesn't finish, stands in the doorway of her bedroom for long minutes without stepping inside.

the glitter from the yellowjackets premiere is still in the lining of her coat; she finds it when she sits on the floor of her closet one night and feels something gritty along her collar. it catches in the light when she moves, shiny and beautiful and stubborn, much like theadora herself.

she doesn't cry much, just enough to feel it burn behind her eyes, enough to keep her chest from cracking open. there's a silence that comes after grief, but it doesn't feel like peace. it feels like a dare, like the world is waiting to see who she'll be without anne, without the fight to survive her.

and the thing is, thea doesn't know. for so long, her mother had been the storm she learned to navigate by. the background noise, the danger in the next room, the reason she never fully relaxed. anne was the monster and the map, and now she's gone. and some days that feels like freedom, but others it feels like drowning.

thea sleeps late, but never well. she's wakes up tangled in blankets, drenched in sweat, heart pounding from dreams of motel rooms and bathrooms she doesn't remember. once, she dreams she's six, stuck in the backseat of anne's car while her mother screams at someone on the phone. the windows fog over and she can't open the door.

she doesn't tell anyone. not taylor, not gracie. madelyn or madison or the boys, who text every few days with hearts and check-ins and selfies from wherever they are scattered about in the country. she keeps her responses short, says "i'm fine" a lot but really means "don't ask."

her kitchen light flickers every time she turns it on but she doesn't call the landlord. she likes the brokenness of it, the honesty.

the mail piles up. her sag screener dvds sit unopened on the counter and her yellowjackets billboard is up on sunset. she avoids that whole stretch of road. gabriella walker might be fearless, but theadora james hasn't left the apartment in five days.

on christmas eve, she bakes. not for fun, just to do something. anne used to buy pillsbury snowman cookies and forget about them until january, when thea would find them crusted in the back of the fridge. this year, she makes sugar cookies from scratch and burns them but doesn't try again. she eats one and throws the rest away.

thea doesn't post anything on social media that week. no selfies, no filtered light, no carefully curated captions about being grateful. she watches everyone else's highlight reels and feels as though she's moving through molasses; even the people she loves feel far away and just out of reach. she isn't jealous, just removed. like someone pressed mute on the part of her that used to know how to reach out.

on christmas morning she wakes up alone like every other day. and also like every other day, she makes coffee and sits by the window to watch the city move without her.

anne james is still gone and there's still no funeral, no final words, no closure. but even without any of that theadora, for the first time in her life, isn't bracing for the next disaster. shes just here, sitting in quiet and listening to it echo back.

⸻

JANUARY 10, 2022 — NEW YORK CITY

It's snowing in L.A. when taylor calls. not literally, but close enough.

theadora hadn't left her apartment in three days. she'd gone full ghost: hoodie up, phone on silent, cereal for dinner if she even remembered to eat at all. the kind of state where everything buzzed like a bad dream and nothing felt real.

taylor's name flashes across the screen and thea doesn't answer the first time. or the second. but on the third ring, she picks up. taylor's voice comes through like a flashlight beam. "hi, honey." theadora doesn't say anything, just stares at herself in the little square on the corner of the screen. taylor waits a second before filling the silence. "i wanted to ask you something." thea doesn't move.
"it's a music video," she went on. "me and ed's. you remember doing the everything has changed video, right? we're doing a follow-up for ed's song. it's the same storyline, still you and josh...i want you to play me again, only older."

this gets her attention, even if her voice still doesn't work right. "me?"

"of course," taylor says softly. "you and that boy from the first video. you don't have to say a word the whole video, just feel things, say it all with your eyes."

theadora stares at the cracks in her ceiling. her hand trembles where it rests on her chest but she hadn't cried since november when taylor told her about the overdose, kneeling beside her in her guest bed of that apartment in the upper east-side while the premiere buzzed outside like nothing had happened. anne james was dead, but the world didn't look any different.

"okay," thea whispers after a beat. "i'll do it."

⸻

JANUARY 15, 2022 — BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

The set is dressed like a memory — gold tinsel curtains, flickering candlelight, slow camera movements like a dream you half remember. thea stands in front of the mirror in a pale yellow dress and doesn't recognize her reflection. the last time she'd worn something like this, she was ten. her mother had curled her hair and told her to stop slouching. "you want them to love you, don't you?" anne had said, voice tight with irritation. "stand up straight. smile with your teeth. suck in."

theadora was sixteen now, and no one told her to smile anymore. she told herself.

her co-star, josh, is kind but nervous. she doesn't remember much from the original music video shoot, but she remembers that he'd reminded her of a golden retriever with better hair and still thinks this ten years later. he doesn't push when she doesn't talk much between takes, just follows her lead, moves when she moves, stays when she stays.

the first setup has the teens dancing slowly in the middle of a fake ballroom. there's no music, just eye contact and whatever grief thea can bring to the surface.

it doesn't take much. she just thinks of her mothers bathroom, about how the light had looked through the shower curtain that day. how taylor had said the words relapse and fentanyl like she'd been holding them in her mouth for hours. how no part of theadora had been even remotely surprised.

there had been a time — before the pills, before the vodka bottles hidden behind cereal boxes —when anne james was just cold. sharp, impatient, tired of being a single mom in tennessee with no one to text back. but she wasn't awful then, just distant and detached. her love had always felt conditional, even when theadora was little. but after she turned nine everything changed, almost as though a switch had been flipped.

the screaming, the shaky hands and front door slamming at two on the morning in a school night. the men who came and went like they were on some sort of rotation, their names thea never bothered to learn. one grabbed her wrist too hard, another tried to tuck her hair behind her ear like it was normal. either anne never saw, or she simply just chose not to.

so no — the grief wasn't simple. it didn't make sense in any clean, movie-scene way. it wasn't, i miss you, mom. it was, you ruined so many things and now i'll never get to ask why.

taylor finds her after the final take and touches thea's back. "that was beautiful," she says, touch so gentle and unfamiliar theadora could've cried. but then a crew member calls her back to set and she inhale so sharply she nearly punctures a lung. no time for tears — show time.

⸻

JANUARY 16, 2022 — CENTRAL PARK, DAWN

Filming begins early on the second day, the kind of bitter cold morning where your breath looks like smoke. theadora wears a long coat between takes but the yellow dress underneath makes her shiver. they shoot her walking through central park alone, trailing her fingers along a stone railing, waiting for someone who isn't coming. it wasn't very hard to get into character.

josh is watching her from just off-camera; in the story, they were once everything to each other. now, just fragments.

theadora thinks of the audition rooms anne used to drag her into, how she'd hissed instructions through grit teeth — stand still, stop fidgeting, think about something sad. how she taught herself how to cry on cue just to make the tension stop.

now, tears come when they feel like it, no matter how quiet or inconvenient. today they come halfway through the take. her face never breaks, but the camera catches it: the shift in her eyes, the way her mouth trembles for a split second. this is the take taylor uses.

⸻

JANUARY 18, 2022 — MANHATTAN, NY

The final scene is filmed back on the soundstage. one last glance between them — thea and josh, standing across from each other in matching gold and navy, the moment before they walked away.

she doesn't smile; taylor doesn't ask her to, and after she calls cut, the crew stays quiet. everyone seems to understand something unspoken had passed through the room.

back in the her room, theadora sits in front of the mirror, makeup still smudged beneath her eyes. she looks tired and far older than sixteen. she still hadn't cried for her mother, at least not in the way people expected. but something had cracked open since returning to new york, to the game. it wasn't mourning or forgiveness, just something close to release. but it was just enough.

⸻

FEBRUARY 2022 — CHARLESTON, SC

Theadora arrives in south carolina two days before the official cast call.

production always brings her in early — press photos, wardrobe checks, a quick meeting with jonas to go over max's arc this season. she doesn't mind the early start, likes being useful, being in motion. it's only when she's still that it hurts.

charleston is exactly how she remembers it: mild winter air that smells like salt and moss, bikes against old brick walls, cafes where the cast used to pile into booths post-shoot, sweaty and sunburnt and laughing. the familiarity hits her like a sudden gust, warm and disorienting.

she drops her bag in the same rented bungalow from last year; it's barely unpacked when her phone lights up.

Maddie Cline: you here yet??? i brought snacks and an inappropriate amount of face masks.
Maddie Cline: if you ghost me like last year i'm kicking your trailer door in btw xoxo
JD: Did you see the script? Max's got LINES this year. Can't wait to see you kid.
Bailey: text me when you're here i'm coming over i miss you

theadora smiles without meaning to, something she hasn't done in a while; body's still tired, still wired wrong from weeks of not sleeping right, but it's easier to move here, easier to pretend to be fine when there's a camera on her and a scene to get through.

the day before the first table read, she takes a long walk alone down to the marina. she passes the dock where she and rudy once sat for two hours in total silence, too exhausted to talk after a night shoot; she passes the bench where she cried in full wardrobe her first week on set, boots still wet from a storm scene and no idea why the world felt so heavy.

this is her third season on outer banks; third year as max pierce, the stubborn, sharp-eyed youngest pogue. maxine is loud when she wants to be and unflinching when it matters, makes trouble, asks questions, doesn't apologize. theadora loves her. sometimes she wishes she could borrow that kind of nerve offscreen.

when filming officially begins three days later, everything moves fast: hair and makeup at five, first shot at six thirty no matter how bleary eyed everyone still is. they're picking up in media res—last season's cliffhanger bleeding right into a car chase max isn't even in, but thea comes to set anyway just to sit by the monitors, legs tucked under her, hoodie pulled up. her presence feels like part of the rhythm now, an ever-present tagalong no one questions or frowns upon and by day three, it's like they never left.

she and madelyn fall back into step immediately. they rehearse scenes in the hallway between setups, steal bites of each other's protein bars, send each other videos of jd singing in his trailer. madison is the first to pull her aside quietly; she wraps her in a hug that smells like rosewater and sea-salt and whispers, "you don't have to say anything. just know i'm glad you're here." theadora doesn't say anything, just squeezes back.

chase brings her coffee on day five. he remembers her order from a year ago, no big deal, and she nearly cries over it in her trailer.

she facetimes taylor only once that week but vows to call at least every friday. this first call is quick, easy. taylor just grins through the screen and says, "i saw the dailies. you're killing it, baby." that's all thea needs to raise her chin and straighten her shoulders.

when it's time to shoot maxine's first scene of the season — arguing with jj in the kitchen, tension high and voices higher — theadora slides into it without much effort. she knows exactly how rue holds her anger, where she hides the grief simmering beneath it.

the scene wraps and thea stays standing a moment longer than necessary, still breathing hard. her hand trembles, but just subtle enough that no one notices.

thea doesn't talk much about anne. not with the cast, not with anyone. but they know—or maybe they don't, exactly. maybe they just understand in the way people do when they've seen you on your worst days and still invite you to dinner.

only in scenes does she let it out. thea slips max on like armor and lets her speak the anger she doesn't have the words for yet.

there's a scene toward the end of that first week with just her and jd, sitting on the porch steps of their characters' house. max is quiet for once, not cutting anyone down. just holding a crinkled plastic water bottle and trying to keep it together. no one tells her to cry, but she does. a single tear leaks out right on cue, streaking slowly down her cheek before she can stop it. jd doesn't say a word, just nudges her shoulder gently and looks off into the distance, like he's giving her space even in the scene. jonas calls cut and everyone exhales but theadora doesn't move right away. she just sits there, blinking up at the porch light, and lets the silence settle in her bones like something that finally, finally doesn't hurt.

maybe the grief won't go away. maybe it'll live in her ribs forever, quiet and sharp. but theadora can handle a little sharpness, can be even sharper herself.