Chap­ter 12 opens with the pro­tag­o­nist recall­ing the trou­bling cycle of vio­lence and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in her mar­riage. Don hits her once, apol­o­gizes, and she con­vinces her­self it won’t hap­pen again, but when she express­es doubt about hav­ing a fam­i­ly, it hap­pens again. She tries to jus­ti­fy his actions, believ­ing that maybe it was her fault for not com­mu­ni­cat­ing clear­ly. The next day, Don brings flow­ers, gets down on his knees, and apol­o­gizes, but the cycle con­tin­ues. The pro­tag­o­nist, caught between con­flict­ing emo­tions, starts to accept these apolo­gies as part of their rou­tine, even though deep down, she knows this isn’t how love should feel.

Lat­er, after an argu­ment at the Oscars, Don, drunk and upset over his loss, takes his frus­tra­tion out on her once more. He shoves her out of the car, call­ing her back­ground into ques­tion, and despite her anger, she lets it slide once again. The next morn­ing, he comes crawl­ing back with anoth­er apol­o­gy, and though the pro­tag­o­nist doesn’t believe him any­more, she accepts it because it’s eas­i­er than address­ing the truth. She com­pares this behav­ior to fix­ing a bro­ken dress with a safe­ty pin—something that feels like part of her rou­tine. This res­ig­na­tion becomes more appar­ent when Har­ry Cameron vis­its her dress­ing room with good news: Lit­tle Women is get­ting the green light, and she’s been cast as Jo March.

Har­ry’s announce­ment about the cast stirs both excite­ment and trep­i­da­tion in the pro­tag­o­nist. Celia St. James, the young actress who has been gain­ing atten­tion for her role in a peri­od piece, will play Beth. Ruby and the pro­tag­o­nist are both wary of Celi­a’s tal­ent and the poten­tial threat she pos­es to their careers, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the favor­able atten­tion Celia has been receiv­ing. Celia’s beau­ty and inno­cence seem to stand in stark con­trast to the protagonist’s more estab­lished star pow­er, but she rec­og­nizes that Celia’s grow­ing influ­ence could over­shad­ow them if they don’t deliv­er top per­for­mances. The pro­tag­o­nist, despite her reser­va­tions, resolves to give the best per­for­mance of her life, deter­mined that when audi­ences see Lit­tle Women, they won’t remem­ber Beth but rather the mid­dle sis­ter who dies. Har­ry, always the sup­port­ive friend, reas­sures her that her tal­ent will shine through and that the world already knows how great she is.

In the midst of the con­ver­sa­tion, Har­ry notices a bruise on the protagonist’s face, a rem­nant from her lat­est alter­ca­tion with Don. His con­cern is evi­dent, and he promis­es to take action, offer­ing to talk to Ari Sul­li­van. How­ev­er, the pro­tag­o­nist is firm in her resolve, unable to leave Don despite the abuse. Her com­plex feel­ings of love for him are inter­wo­ven with a sense of dependency—she acknowl­edges that her desire for him and his approval often over­rides her sense of self-worth. She loves him, and she wants him, but she also craves the spot­light, a desire that ties her even more tight­ly to the very man who hurts her. This inter­nal con­flict, the bat­tle between her love for Don and her yearn­ing for inde­pen­dence, reveals the painful real­i­ty of liv­ing under the pub­lic’s gaze, where per­son­al rela­tion­ships are often over­shad­owed by ambi­tion and image.

This chap­ter lays bare the psy­cho­log­i­cal com­plex­i­ty of the protagonist’s rela­tion­ship with Don. Her emo­tion­al tur­moil is com­pound­ed by the way Hollywood’s expec­ta­tions shape her iden­ti­ty. The ten­sion between her love for Don and her need to remain rel­e­vant in the indus­try cre­ates an ongo­ing strug­gle, one that is only inten­si­fied by the cycle of vio­lence and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. The theme of self-sac­ri­fice, both per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly, is at the fore­front of this chap­ter, as the pro­tag­o­nist nav­i­gates the fine line between sur­viv­ing in Hol­ly­wood and pre­serv­ing her dig­ni­ty. Despite the hard­ships, she remains deter­mined to prove her­self, not just as an actress, but as a woman who can over­come the obsta­cles that life—and the men in her life—continue to throw at her. It’s a poignant explo­ration of how love, pow­er, and ambi­tion can entan­gle to shape one’s iden­ti­ty in a world where appear­ances are every­thing.