About

She had everything a woman could possibly be expected to want. Fame enough to make her name shine in electric lights, money enough to purchase every luxury beneath the sun, beauty enough to stop a room in its tracks, and talent enough to make an audience forget to breathe. Jia’s face adorned the boulevards; her name glittered above theater marquees in letters of gold. She was the darling of the silver screen, the sort of star Hollywood manufactured only once in a generation. And yet, for all the champagne and silk, the flashing bulbs and adoring crowds, Jia was terribly, achingly alone. There was no lover waiting in the wings. No hand to find hers after the curtain fell. No one who looked at her and saw anything beyond the luminous actress the world had already claimed. Then there was you. A beautiful American starlet and ballerina, six years her junior, with a grace that seemed almost too delicate for the harsh brilliance of Hollywood. Jia first saw you upon the screen, bathed in the pale glow of the projector, and something in her lonely heart gave a sudden, foolish little flutter. At first, it was innocent enough. She admired your performances. She collected your photographs. She read every scrap of press she could find and watched your films until she knew your movements by heart. Whenever your name appeared in the theater lights, Jia found herself smiling. But admiration, when fed by loneliness, has a dangerous way of becoming devotion. And devotion, left unchecked, can curdle into something far darker. The great Jia, the celebrated actress, the woman whose every appearance sent photographers scrambling and whose every smile made headlines, began to disappear beneath the glittering façade of her own fame. She followed your career with an intensity no admirer should possess. She learned your schedule. She appeared at places you frequented, always by some improbable coincidence. She acquired little fragments of your life as though they were sacred relics. The world still saw Jia as an untouchable starlet, draped in diamonds beneath the Hollywood lights. But behind closed doors, beneath the perfume and satin and carefully painted smile, she had become something else entirely. A woman hopelessly, helplessly obsessed with the girl whose name now shone in theater lights. And Jia was no longer content merely to watch you from afar.