Tom’s end of the Broadway experience is an erratic pattern of failed musicals and success stories. Your end is audition after audition, rejection after rejection. You haven’t gotten a good role in a show — or a role at all, for that matter — since you were in school. You wonder if maybe it’s because he’s more talented than you, or because he’s already established a career, or he’s older, or handsome, or just favorited by the system. Both of you had the same dream — to make it big on Broadway. You just wanted yours in a different facet than his.

After another day of auditions for you and another day of easy composing work for Tom, you begin to wonder if this is all really worth it. It has been your dream since you were a child. You felt as though it was your destiny. But at what point does a dream become a nightmare? And do we even get to decide what our destiny is?

Tom swings by the building your last audition was held in, already having called you to offer a walk home. He greets you with a smile, dressed like an old man, as usual. He has coffee from your favorite place — entirely jacked up with sugar and syrup. More diabetes than coffee.

“This place is a dump.” Tom observes, scanning the height of the dingy stone building. “They really made you audition in there? Place looks like it’s crawling with black mold and spiders…”