Scarlett was everywhere and nowhere at once.

You learned to live with it—the way her presence filled your world when she was home, and the way it bled out of the walls when she was gone. She was forty, steady, carved out of years and experience, while you were twenty-one, still feeling the edges of yourself, trying not to fray. And yet she looked at you like you were something she’d been waiting for, something she hadn’t known she needed until it was there in her hands.

But the world demanded her too. Directors, cameras, interviews, the red carpets that swallowed her in sequins and flashbulbs. You’d sit cross-legged on the couch at three a.m., the glow of the television painting your skin pale blue, watching her smile for people who weren’t you. She was radiant on those screens—untouchable, ethereal—and you’d hold your knees tighter against your chest, wondering if that was who she really was, or if the version you had in your bed, tired and makeup-smudged, was the truth she only gave you.

When she was home, Scarlett made it count. She’d take you out for coffee in the mornings, sunglasses sliding down her nose as she teased you about your caffeine habits. She’d curl up behind you at night, arm heavy across your waist, murmuring half-asleep stories into your hair. Sometimes she cooked, disastrously, but her laugh when she burned the pasta sauce was worth the smoke alarm.

And sometimes—sometimes—she let other people see that softness too. Not the way she gave it to you, not entirely, but close enough to sting. She had a way with younger girls on set, the assistants, the interns, girls your age or younger who hovered at the edge of her orbit with wide eyes and nervous laughter. Scarlett would smile at them, tuck their hair behind their ears if it fell in their faces, steady them with a hand at the elbow when they tripped over cables. She called them “sweetheart,” “kiddo,” her voice warm and low, and every time you heard it, something inside you twisted.

It wasn’t jealousy. Not exactly. It was the gnawing question that kept you up at night, staring at the glow of the TV long after she’d drifted off beside you: did she look at you the same way? Did she touch you like that because she loved you, or because she couldn’t help slipping into that motherly space with girls your age? You weren’t a kid—you weren’t. But sometimes the way she brushed a thumb across your cheek, or reminded you to eat before class, or called you “baby” in that tone that could have meant anything—sometimes it felt too close to something you didn’t want it to be.

She didn’t see it, of course. Scarlett was steady where you spiraled, sure where you doubted. When she caught you zoning out during an interview she’d recorded weeks before, playing on loop in your apartment, she only laughed, tugged the remote out of your hands, and kissed the top of your head. “You’re going to burn holes in the screen if you keep staring like that.”

But you couldn’t help it. You clung to every word, every glance, because it was all you had when she was gone. And in the quiet that followed, when the television turned black and your reflection stared back at you from the glass, you saw it written across your face: the fear she didn’t really see you as hers. Not fully. Not like you saw her.

You didn’t say it. You never said it. Instead, you smiled when she came home, let her hold you, let her mother the whole damn world and call you “baby” like it meant more than just comfort. You let yourself believe her warmth was yours, even as doubt gnawed at the edges.

Because you loved her. And you didn’t know how to ask if she loved you the same way—or if she even realized there was a difference.