4. Miles

4

MILES

"It's been my honor to be here tonight to join with you all in celebrating this year's winners and nominees! It was an evening of appreciation and recognition for all of your outstanding work and achievements! Thank you to all of our attendees and thank you to everyone watching at home! You all are the reason we do what we do! Have a beautiful night!"

Music swelled as the orchestra played the show out and the audience applauded. I stood on my mark, looking down the barrel of the camera, until I got the all-clear signal. Then I left stage right and felt…nothing.

I used to get a rush of adrenaline or feel relieved after finishing jobs like this. Now, I felt numb. Just like I had before the show. I didn't get nervous anymore. I hadn't for years. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time I felt nervous. Or scared. Or happy, for that matter. I just worked.

My life was a series of going where I was supposed to go, when I was supposed to go there, standing where I was supposed to stand, and saying what I was supposed to say. It didn't leave a lot of room for anything else, which was my own fault. I knew that. I was twenty-six years old. There was no one to blame for that but me.

I didn't feel sorry for myself. It was the opposite. I was disgusted with myself. I had the world at my disposal, and I wasn't happy. There was something seriously wrong with that.

"Great job!" Caroline, the producer of the ceremony, clapped as I walked past her.

"Thank you." I smiled.

"Amazing!" one of the PAs patted my arm.

"Thanks." I smiled.

"You were incredible!"

"Brilliant!"

"That was the best show ever!"

"That was sensational!"

The entire walk back to my trailer was lined with people blowing smoke up my ass and cheering for me as if I'd just saved a baby from a burning building. As much as I appreciated their support and enthusiasm, after more than two decades of being surrounded by people who praised me for being other people, I was left feeling hollow and unfulfilled.

There had to be more to life. I did my best to give back. A good percentage of my income went to charities. Any days off I had were spent volunteering. But that didn't feel like enough anymore.

I wanted more in life. I wanted a real connection. Every person I met saw me as Miles Ford. I couldn't escape it. I couldn't escape me. Again, that was not the worst problem to have, but it was lonely. I was lonely.

"You were great!" Braxton greeted me as she held the door open to my trailer and handed me a smartwater.

"Thanks." I took the bottle and opened it.

"I'm going to check on the car."

After award shows, there were after-parties that attendees and presenters were expected to be seen at. As the host, I fell into that category. But like interviews, red carpets, and award shows, I hated after parties. Truth be told, I hated any parties of the entertainment variety. They were filled with people either trying to pitch you their ideas, steal you from your representation, sleep with you, or they were looking over your shoulder to see who they could be talking to who could help them up the next rung in the ladder of their career.

Thankfully, since my call time had been moved up to 4 a.m. I was going to skip all the after parties and go straight home to bed. I knew Tyler, my agent, was going to give me shit, but at the end of the day, he only made money when I did. And I was working tomorrow.

I sank onto the couch in my trailer, and my phone vibrated. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw a text from Braxton.

Braxton: Car is twenty minutes out.

While I waited, my mind drifted back to the movie that felt like it was just out of my reach. Fallen Hero. I typed in Austin James in the search bar, which I'd done several times before. The first five results were links to newspaper articles after his death, and the next few links were stories about the movie and the op-ed piece. The only photos of him were in his uniform. There were mentions of Zoe, AJ, and Walter, but no photos of them.

I googled Zoe James, but the results were too broad, so I typed Zoe James Firefly Island. That came back with an Instagram page. I clicked on it, but the page was set to private. The profile picture was of a tan dog with soulful brown eyes and a stripe of white on the nose. Since neither of those results were fruitful, I googled Firefly Island, and the first few results were a documentary called What is Love?

I clicked on the link. The doc opened with an aerial shot of the island. It was absolutely breathtaking. Next, there was a close-up of the host, whom I recognized because I'd met her several times over the years. Josie Clarke was a television host and the granddaughter of Josephine Grace Clarke, who was Hollywood royalty. Josephine Grace Clarke was an actress in the golden age of Hollywood; her contemporaries were Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren.

"What is love? I'm Josie Clarke, and I'm going to be making my way across the nation on a quest to find the elusive answer to that question. Is love a curse? Our first stop is a charming community in Georgia. Firefly Island is a popular tourist destination, complete with a breathtaking coastline, a delightful trolley system that serves as island transportation, and a web of picturesque canals and bike paths woven throughout the town. But is there a dark side to this idyllic community?

"I'm standing in front of the famed Abernathy Manor, which has been featured on several paranormal television shows, including Ghost Hunters and Haunted Hollows .

"A young woman named Lucille Abernathy lived in this estate. Lucille met and fell in love with a man who was beneath her station, a longshoreman named Bruce Comfort. The two had a torrid affair that ended in a secret engagement. When her family discovered that Lucille planned to marry, she was forced to choose between love or her family, wealth, and inheritance. She chose love and was disowned.

"But that was just the beginning of Lucille's heartaches. After she was shunned, Lucille's beloved called off their union and married a maid who worked for the Abernathy family. Heartbroken and in despair, Lucille tried to return to her family home but was turned away.

"The next day, the family woke to discover a window broken in the parlor. A search of the premises ended in a gruesome discovery. Lucille Abernathy was found deceased in her childhood bed. A note on her nightstand explained that she'd poisoned herself, but not before putting a curse on her betrothed and all of his male heirs. It doomed them to a lifetime of the same heartache that she had experienced. We'll not only speak to locals on the island to see if they believe in the Comfort Curse, but we're also going to meet the great-grandsons of that longshoreman and find out what they think of the curse that has haunted them for generations. Join us on this journey as we continue to ask the question, what is love?"

The doc continued, and Josie interviewed the Comfort brothers, Hank, Billy, and Jimmy, about the curse. They were all in happy relationships and believed that it had been broken. Austin was between the ages of Billy and Jimmy, and I wondered if they'd known him since Firefly was a small island community.

Or if any of the Comfort brothers knew Zoe James. The town was a mystery to me, and not only because of the haunting of Abernathy Manor. If I was going to tell Austin's story the way I felt it needed to be told, then there was only one way to do that.

The door to the trailer opened, and Braxton stuck her head inside. "Car's here."

"What do I have after wrap tomorrow?"

"Meetings, podcasts, and two talk shows."

"Cancel the rest of my week and get me on a flight to Georgia."

She stared at me with a blank expression, then blinked twice. "A flight to Georgia?"

I nodded. "I'm going to Firefly Island."