The laptop screen's pale glow cast harsh shadows across Vincent Carter's face as he stared at the email for the forty-seventh time.
Thank you for your interest in the role, but we've decided to go in a different direction.
Generic. Impersonal. Exactly like the other 846 rejection emails before it.
Vince closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the familiar pressure building behind his eyelids.
Not that he was counting. Except he absolutely was counting.
The clock on his laptop read 11:47 PM. Another day wasted chasing dreams that kept slipping through his fingers like sand.
His 400-square-foot studio apartment felt especially suffocating tonight. The walls seemed to inch closer with each rejection.
The peeling paint on the far wall had gotten worse since last week—now it curled away from the drywall like it, too, was trying to escape this place.
The mini-fridge in the corner hummed with the consistency of a drunk trying to remember the lyrics to a forgotten song—loud, then quiet, then loud again.
Takeout containers from the past three days formed a small city of grease-stained cardboard on the coffee table. Chinese from Monday, pizza from Tuesday, and something that might have once been Thai from this afternoon.
Next to the garbage metropolis sat exactly $247.83 in cash—his remaining worldly wealth after rent, utilities, and the bus ticket.
The bus ticket.
He picked it up from where it sat on the coffee table, studying it like it might contain hidden answers.
Los Angeles to Columbus, Ohio - Departure: 6:30 AM Tomorrow.
One-way. $127.
It represented something he never thought he'd need—his exit strategy, his white flag, his surrender.
The lock on the front door clicked, followed by the familiar squeak of hinges that needed WD-40 about three months ago.
Marcus Rodriguez shuffled in, his guitar case bumping against the doorframe as he maneuvered through the narrow entrance.
His "Mortality Cab" t-shirt had seen better days, much like Vince's dreams of stardom.
Marcus froze mid-step when he spotted Vince on the couch.
"Dude," he said, setting his guitar down carefully. "You've got that look again."
Vince didn't respond, just shifted his eyes back to the laptop.
"That 'someone just ran over my dog while I was watching' face," Marcus continued, approaching like Vince was a wounded animal. "What happened?"
Vince remained silent, staring straight ahead.
Marcus was going to figure it out soon enough.
His roommate of eight months didn't miss much—it was one of the reasons they'd gotten along from day one.
Marcus's eyes darted from the laptop to the bus ticket in Vince's hand, and his expression shifted from concern to something sharper.
"What the hell is that?" he asked, though they both knew he could read just fine.
Vince finally spoke, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears. "It's a bus ticket."
"I can see it's a bus ticket, genius. Why do you have a bus ticket to Ohio?"
Vince didn't answer immediately, which was all the confirmation Marcus needed.
"Oh hell no," Marcus said, dropping his backpack and snatching the ticket from Vince's hand. "You're not actually giving up now."
Vince made a half-hearted grab for the ticket. "Give it back, Marcus."
"Ohio? Seriously? What's in Ohio except corn and disappointment?"
"My mom. My old room. A job that doesn't involve me waiting tables while being ignored by casting directors."
Marcus paced the small space in front of the couch. "You can't leave LA. You're an actor."
"No, I'm a waiter who occasionally pretends to be an actor," Vince corrected, the bitterness in his voice surprising even himself.
He stood up abruptly, needing to move, to do something with the restless energy building inside him.
His bed—really just a mattress on a boxspring in the corner—was neatly made, unlike the chaos of the rest of the apartment.
Vince knelt beside it and reached underneath, pulling out a manila envelope that had seen better days.
The corner was bent, and coffee stains decorated the front—battle scars from two years of auditions and disappointments.
Inside were forty-seven headshots, all black and white, all professional.
Vince in various poses: smiling, serious, thoughtful, surprised.
Vince as he could be, not as he was.
He flipped through them one by one, memories flooding back with each glossy image.
The day he'd spent $300 he didn't have on these photos.
The countless auditions where they'd been handed over with hope, only to end up in some casting director's trash can.
His mind wandered back to Columbus, to being sixteen and watching "The Chase for Joy" with his mom on their old couch.
Jackson Williams' portrayal had hit him like lightning—the struggle, the drive, the eventual triumph.
"I'm going to be an actor," he'd told his mother as the credits rolled. "Not might be. Will be."
She'd looked at him with those eyes—the ones that wanted to believe but couldn't quite manage it.
"That's a tough road, honey," she'd said, her voice gentle but realistic. "Maybe look at community college first?"
But he hadn't listened.
Two years of saving every penny from his grocery store job, graduating high school with decent but not spectacular grades, and then—LA.
The city of dreams and dreamers and dream-crushers.
Marcus sat down beside him on the floor, watching silently as Vince stared at his younger, more hopeful face in the headshots.
"I've watched you practice that monologue from 'Smart Will Hunting' like seventy times," Marcus finally said. "You nail it every time. Maybe tomorrow's audition—"
"There is no tomorrow audition, Marcus," Vince interrupted, shoving the headshots back into the envelope. "I'm done."
He tossed the envelope onto the bed and moved to his dresser—a garage sale find with two broken handles and a drawer that always stuck.
Methodically, he began pulling out clothes, folding each item with precision he normally reserved for audition preparations.
Twelve shirts, including his lucky blue button-down that hadn't proven lucky even once.
Four pairs of jeans, worn at the knees but still presentable.
One suit, slightly too big and fraying at the cuffs, bought secondhand for "professional auditions" that never materialized.
His father's watch—the only thing he had left of a man who'd walked out when Vince was seven.
Each item went into the red duffel bag that had brought him to LA two years ago.
It seemed smaller now, like it couldn't possibly contain all the failures he was packing along with his clothes.
Marcus watched the ritual without speaking, his usual stream of jokes and observations notably absent.
When Vince zipped the bag closed with finality, Marcus finally broke the silence.
"Your mom's going to say 'I told you so,' you know."
Vince set the duffel by the door and turned to his friend with the ghost of a smile. "My mom's going to say 'Welcome home, honey.' And then 'I told you so,' but only after she's fed me."
Marcus laughed, but it sounded hollow.
"One more audition," he pleaded. "Just one. I'll go with you."
Vince shook his head. "I can't do it anymore, man. I can't walk into another room and watch them decide I'm not worth their time before I even open my mouth."
"That's just how it works. You know that. It's a numbers game."
"Well, my numbers ran out." Vince gestured around the apartment. "Along with my money and my self-respect."
He set his phone alarm for 5:00 AM—early enough to catch the bus, late enough to get a few hours of sleep.
After brushing his teeth and changing into the t-shirt and boxers he slept in, Vince lay on his bed staring at the ceiling.
The water stain above him had grown since last month, now forming a shape that looked uncannily like a question mark.
How fitting.
From across the room, Marcus's soft snoring had already begun—his roommate could fall asleep in seconds, a talent Vince had always envied.
Traffic on Sunset Boulevard provided a distant soundtrack to the night, car horns and occasional shouts mixing with the ever-present hum of the city that never quite sleeps.
Vince knew he should close his eyes, try to get some rest before the long bus ride tomorrow.
Instead, he found himself doing something he hadn't done since he was a child.
"I don't believe in wishes," he whispered to the empty air above him. "Or luck, or fate, or any of that stuff."
He felt ridiculous even as the words left his mouth.
"But if there's anyone listening up there... just give me one more chance. One real chance to prove I belong here."
The ceiling offered no response, the water stain question mark seemingly mocking his request.
Vince closed his eyes, feeling the weight of exhaustion finally overcoming his racing thoughts.
Tomorrow, he'd be headed back to Ohio, back to reality, back to a life without auditions or rejections or dreams too big for their container.
The last thing he remembered before sleep claimed him was the strange sensation of something shifting—like the air in the room had somehow changed its composition.
Probably just the ancient air conditioning unit finally giving up the ghost.
Or maybe the universe, for once, was listening.