Look at Me

I should’ve worn something else.

Throughout my entire life, I’ve been looked at. As a child, my mom auditioned me for commercials, dressed me up in frills and lace and paraded me in front of agents and casting directors in order to supplement her cigarettes-and-shoes habit. When I got older, I played kidnapped daughters on “Criminal Minds” and daughters of senators on “The West Wing.” Then Wombat found me.

The day we signed the contracts for “Minna and the…” my mother bought herself a pair of Louboutins at the Bloomingdale’s in Hollywood and then took me out to dinner, where she didn’t object when I ordered an ice cream sundae instead of an entree.

“You’ve earned it,” she told me, smiling at me like she was proud of me.

I knew the truth, though. My mom wasn’t proud of anyone besides herself. She took credit for my success, and continued to do so long after it was over. When I decided to quit acting to go to college, she told everyone I was “just taking a break.”

“You know Minna,” she’d tell people—her friends, her friends’ friends, people in the checkout line at the supermarket—“she always wants to set a good example for her fans.”

That wasn’t untrue—I understood from a young age what it meant to always have eyes on you. I’ve always understood what it means to be watched. When I was 17, though, all I wanted was for that to stop. I didn’t want to set a good example for my fans. I didn’t want to have fans. I just wanted to be normal.

I wanted to wear sweatpants to class and not worry about being thought a slob. I wanted to stay out late drinking without the risk of someone trying to profit off of a compromising picture of me. I wanted to kiss a boy and not fear that he only wanted some version of me that he’d seen on tv.

I wanted to turn back time.

But I couldn’t. I had to adjust. I had to accept that I’d never be just Minna Locke. There would always be something in the way.

I’ve never been more worried about how someone is going to see me than I am now. When Niall looks at me, will he see Minna Locke, teen queen? Will he remember my tragic prom night splashed across the cover of US Weekly? Will he recall paparazzi photos of me rushing to class with my shirt on backwards?

Will he know that when I look at him, all I see is his heart?

I’ll see so much more than the boyband underdog. More than the sweet one or the goofy one. More than the cute blonde with the nice smile. I’ll see his mum, the most important person in his life, and his nephew, and all the dreams he has for his future: a Grammy and a family and a house back home in Ireland. I’ll see it all because I read it in his journal, on the pages where he poured out his heart.

I’ll see all of that, and I’ll have to pretend that I don’t, because when he looks at me, all he’ll see is Minna Locke—or some version of me based on what he’s seen on gossip rags or on the Wombat channel. He won’t see who I really am.

I twist my fingers through the lanyard that hangs from my neck and turn the final corner towards the studio where I know Niall’s working today. It’s bad form to interrupt an artist when they’re working, but this can’t wait any longer.

Maybe just another minute, though. I come to a stop outside the door and shift back and forth on my feet. I should’ve worn something else. These jeans may be my lucky pair, but they make me look kind of schlubby, and this t-shirt, a free one I got at college orientation, does not speak volumes of my songwriting abilities. I thought it silly to change my clothes just to come here this afternoon, but now I’m regretting that. I know about ethos, how somebody commands the space around them in a way that makes you want to trust them, befriend them, follow them. I’ve got no ethos in this outfit.

But it’s too late now to fix it. Which means how this conversation is going to go depends completely on what I say, and how well Niall hears me.

And, dear God, I need him to hear me.

I take a deep breath and knock on the door. Just when I’m considering knocking again—was I too quiet the first time?—the door opens. Immediately, I take a step backward into the hallway, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

A guy with dark hair and a tattoo of a swan on his neck stands in the doorway. There are headphones over his ears, and he pulls them down and raises his eyebrow at me. “You need something?”

“I—” Unable to say anything, I reach into my bag and hold Niall’s journal under my arm, tucked against my chest.

The guy opens the door wider, allowing me to see inside the room. While Candice and I haven’t ventured into the recording booth yet, instead keeping to the table and couch outside of it, I can see Niall through the glass, headphones on as he leans toward the microphone.

There’s another guy manning the controls at the recording booth. Distracted by the open door, he swivels on his stool and looks at me. I feel it, the way he looks at me, his eyes traveling down my torso and legs and then back up, barely focusing on my face before his eyes catch on what I’m holding.

“Oh my God, is that—” He turns to the dash and hits a couple of buttons. “Niall, this girl’s found your book.”

I watch through the glass as Niall turns to face us. His eyes meet mine, a glimpse of recognition passing over them, and then he slips his headphones off his ears and crosses the few feet to the door. He steps out of the recording booth and then continues toward me.

“Hey,” he says, smiling at me. “Minna, right? I heard you were recording here.”

I nod dumbly as he holds out his hand. I’m not sure if he wants a handshake or if he’s expecting me to hand over his journal, but since the book is in my right hand, I hold it out.

“Thank God you found it,” he says, ruffling the pages and then sticking the whole thing in his back pocket. “Who knows what could’ve happened if it’d fallen into the wrong hands, ya know?” He laughs, looking not at all bothered by the possibilities.

Meanwhile, I haven’t said a word. The guy with the neck tattoo is still staring at me, either because he thinks I’m crazy or because he can’t figure out where he recognizes me from. That happens a lot these days; it’s all part of life as a has-been television star. And acting crazy: that’s something I’ve mastered all on my own.

“You didn’t read it, did ya?” Niall jokes, running a hand through his hair. I know he’s kidding, but my blood freezes in my veins anyway. I must look like I’m about to pass out, because suddenly Niall has his hand on my shoulder. “You alright? Come on, sit down.”

He ushers me through the doorway and pushes me into a seat at the table. “Let’s take a break, guys,” he says, gesturing to the other guys until they file out of the room. Suddenly, we’re alone, me and Niall Horan, and I’m trying not to hyperventilate.

“Lemme get you some water,” Niall says, and before I can move, there’s a bottle of Arrowhead in front of me. I twist off the cap and take a sip.

The cold water has me straightening in my chair. I need to shape up and remember why I came here. I was never this nervous as a kid, not at my first audition or my first live taping or my first red carpet. Maybe it’s because I knew that all of those times, it was never really me they were looking at. It was Minna Locke, Wombat star. Now I’m just Minna.

“I did read it,” I say, reaching into my bag for the second journal so that I don’t have to see Niall’s reaction. “I had to bring it back in person so I could tell you—”

“You read it?” Niall repeats. I raise my eyes to meet his and see—is that amusement? I expected horror, fear, anger, but not this. Not humor. “Find anything good in there? I’m not very scandalous, as I’m sure you noticed. Nothing tabloid-worthy.”

I shake my head. “That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to apologize because I finished some of your lyrics for you.” I put my journal, a purple Moleskine, not as worn or well-traveled as Niall’s, onto the table. I bought it when I first got to Los Angeles, thinking that a new journal would help me get a fresh start in the industry. All it did was remind me how uninspiring a blank page is.

Niall looks down at my journal, confused. “I don’t understand,” he says.

My next words come out rushed, jumbled together. “I know I shouldn’t have even looked inside, so sorry for that, but they’re amazing. You’re amazing.”

He looks at my journal and then at me, then at my journal again. “You did what?”

“I found it in the couch here yesterday.” I know I’m not doing a very good job at explaining, but I have to get the words out. “I use the studio in the mornings. I know I just should’ve sent it back without looking in it, but I couldn’t help myself.”

Niall continues to stare at me, his head cocked like I’m a math problem he’s working through, so I continue to speak. “I know it was wrong. But I really think that we’d work well together, if you’d give us a chance. I really feel connected to your songs, the ones in your journal, and I think that—”

“Show me.”

I blink. “What?”

“You said you finished some of my songs. Show me.”

He has to be kidding. “Are you serious?”

He nods, then gestures into the recording booth, where his guitar sits on a stand next to a wooden stool. “After you. You play guitar, right?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Then go ahead.” He stands up and flips a switch, illuminating the recording booth. “I want to hear what you did.”

My gut reaction is to say no and get out of here as fast as I can, run from the studio and never look back. Screw my album, my future as a recording artist. None of that will be worth how afraid I am right now.

But then I remind myself that that’s just the fear talking. If I can’t do this, I can’t do anything. I might as well pack it up and find a job that doesn’t require me to reveal myself.

I take another swig of water and stand from the chair. “Okay,” I say, picking up my journal. “Let’s go.”

In the recording booth, I put my journal on the stool and pick up Niall’s guitar. It’s slightly bigger than mine, definitely more expensive and better made. It’s the kind of guitar I might like to buy with my first check.

“Who taught you to play guitar?” Niall asks me, staring at my hands. “You hold it weird.”

He’s not the first one to tell me that. The producers at Wombat thought it was endearing; it was one of the things that won me the part. Niall’s clearly not familiar with that, though. “I taught myself.”

He doesn’t say anything, but I read judgment in the slant of his mouth. In his eyes, nothing about me is good enough: not the way I hold my guitar or the notebook I write my lyrics in or the boulders I had to scale just to be here today.

I force my face to mirror his, and I look at him exactly the same way he’s looking at me. I dare him to challenge me. To question my lyrics or my voice or the way I wear my hair—it wouldn’t be the first time a stranger has criticized me. But instead he just stares.

I break first: his eyes are too intense, too blue to be real. I cover up my weakness by strumming a few chords on the guitar. I open to the page in my journal where I played off of Niall’s broken coffee mug metaphor. I can hear the melody in my head, but I haven’t played it aloud before. I don’t know if it will transfer. Plus, I can feel Niall’s eyes on me, sizing me up, waiting.

Just before the silence gets awkward, I begin to play. It’s strange at first, listening to my fingers stumble over the strings and my voice trip over the words in an otherwise silent room. After the first verse, though, it begins to feel natural, the way that playing always does. It begins to feel less like I’m performing and more like I’m just being.

When Niall joins in, reading the words over my shoulder and harmonizing with me, I feel the earth shift under my feet. Playing music has never felt like this before. Like I’m exposing a part of myself, and somebody else is giving a part of themselves back to me.

This is what it’s supposed to feel like.