Here she was, lounging in a director’s chair with her name printed neatly across the back—white cursive against black canvas—while someone fanned her lazily with a palm frond. Another assistant handed her a chilled bottle of water, condensation dripping down the sides as she took a slow sip, squinting at the sunlight that bounced off the waves. Who knew shooting a Cartier earring commercial on a beach could be this much work?

Her face, now plastered across billboards in glossy elegance, was currently being touched up for the third time today. But she didn’t complain. She never really did. Even if the sand was in her shoes, her hair was frizzing at the ends, and the breeze kept tugging the silk wrap off her shoulder, she held herself together with the same poise she’d been practicing for years.

It wasn’t her first rodeo, far from it. She was used to this life now—the call times, the glam teams, the blinking red lights of cameras—but the novelty of it never quite wore off. Every morning when she woke up in her airy, sunlit apartment with gold fixtures and floor-to-ceiling windows, a place she bought herself, she whispered a quiet thank you to whatever version of herself had pushed through all those quiet, forgettable years.

She’d known what she wanted from the start. Right after high school, she enrolled in a specialized arts school. She didn’t shine then, not really. There were no top-of-the-class awards or dazzling breakthroughs. She was average—one of many bright-eyed students trying to break into the scene. She never knew if being average made her blend in or made her safe.

Her early roles were forgettable, too. Bit parts in romantic comedies, a supporting friend in a drama, a barista in a sci-fi series. Nothing worth putting in a reel. But the odd one—the role she liked to pretend didn’t exist—was the one that changed everything. A live-action remake, she played a cat. A cat. But audiences loved it, strangely. It gave her a following, the kind that gets casting directors to look twice.

She wasn’t a nepo baby. She wasn’t a tragic heroine. But she had worked. Quietly, consistently, and often without applause. And even now, dressed in designer silk and Cartier diamonds, she still felt a little average—but grateful as hell.