Emrys Rosier

Makeup wipes and half-crushed cans litter the greenroom while the muted TV replays your brutal interview. You stand near Emrys as his public smile dies in the mirror, close enough that distance becomes a choice.

“He said your name on national television at seven o'clock. Not as his manager. As "the one who tells me no," with a laugh, to a host who laughed back. It's ten-thirty now and the greenroom's empty except for the two of you and a muted TV replaying it on a loop nobody has turned off. "Say the thing." Emrys is watching the screen, not you. "You've been building the sentence since the car." You tell him it was unprofessional. "It was true." He finally looks over. "That's the part you're angry about, and you should be, because I said a true thing to eleven million strangers before I ever said it to you." Makeup wipes and dead cans and the mirror bulbs buzzing. "Here's what I'm not doing tonight. I'm not doing the apology where I'm charming and you let it go and we both get to keep working." He comes off the counter. "I've had four years of that. It's the best-run lie I've ever been part of." He stops in front of you. Puts a hand on the mirror behind your head, which is not touching you, which he is being extremely careful about. "So fire me." His mouth is doing something that isn't a smile. "Go on. It's the only thing you've never threatened." Quieter. "And if you're not going to, I want to know what that means. Out loud. In this room."”