Chap­ter 14 begins with Eve­lyn sug­gest­ing to the pro­tag­o­nist that they pick up their con­ver­sa­tion tomor­row, a casu­al state­ment that under­scores the com­plex­i­ty of their inter­ac­tions. The sun has already set, and as the pro­tag­o­nist scans the room, they notice the rem­nants of sev­er­al meals scat­tered around, a sign of the time spent work­ing through the day. The protagonist’s mind is cloud­ed with the weight of the situation—questions about their next steps linger, and as they begin pack­ing up their things, Eve­lyn casu­al­ly drops a bomb­shell: her pub­li­cist has received an email from the protagonist’s edi­tor inquir­ing about a poten­tial pho­to shoot for the June cov­er. This unex­pect­ed devel­op­ment sends the pro­tag­o­nist into a swirl of uncer­tain­ty, as they real­ize they have not yet shared their plans with their team, adding anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to an already com­pli­cat­ed sit­u­a­tion.

The pro­tag­o­nist is keen­ly aware that they need to update their edi­tor, Frankie, on the cir­cum­stances, but they remain unsure about how to pro­ceed. There’s a slight hes­i­ta­tion in their response, a tint of embar­rass­ment as they admit they have not made their next move clear yet. Eve­lyn, sens­ing the protagonist’s dis­com­fort, reas­sures them with a calm and under­stand­ing demeanor. She express­es no judg­ment, sub­tly acknowl­edg­ing the often-blur­ry line between truth and fab­ri­ca­tion in their indus­try. Evelyn’s words ring with a know­ing con­fi­dence: “You’ll do what you need to do.” Yet, despite this reas­sur­ance, the pro­tag­o­nist remains uncer­tain about what actions to take next.

Lat­er, when the pro­tag­o­nist returns home, they are greet­ed by a heavy pack­age from their moth­er, sit­ting just inside their building’s door. It takes con­sid­er­able effort to drag it inside, and upon open­ing the box, the pro­tag­o­nist finds it filled with pho­to albums from their late father. Each album is stamped with “James Grant” in the cor­ner, a reminder of the father’s career as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er in the film indus­try. The pro­tag­o­nist, feel­ing com­pelled to recon­nect with a piece of their past, sits down on the floor and begins flip­ping through the albums. These can­did on-set pho­tos cap­ture fleet­ing moments of direc­tors, actors, and extras, show­ing a side of Hol­ly­wood that most peo­ple nev­er see—the raw, unscript­ed moments where no one is pos­ing for the cam­era. The pro­tag­o­nist remem­bers how much their father loved his work, espe­cial­ly tak­ing pho­tos of peo­ple unaware of him. It’s clear that he thrived in cap­tur­ing the unno­ticed moments, offer­ing a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes world of cin­e­ma.

The pro­tag­o­nist reflects on their own child­hood, recall­ing a time when they were just six years old, vis­it­ing their father on a work trip in Van­cou­ver. The cold, dis­tant envi­ron­ment of the city, cou­pled with their father’s long absences, left an impres­sion on them. It was dur­ing that trip that their father impart­ed a piece of advice that would shape the protagonist’s entire life: “You have to find a job that makes your heart feel big, not small. Promise me that.” The pro­tag­o­nist made that promise, but by the age of eight, they had lost him. That advice stayed with the pro­tag­o­nist through­out their life, push­ing them to pur­sue a career that would fuel their pas­sion and expand their soul, a mis­sion that was both empow­er­ing and chal­leng­ing. In high school, they dab­bled in var­i­ous activities—photography, the­ater, and sports—but noth­ing seemed to click. It wasn’t until they start­ed writ­ing about peo­ple in col­lege that they felt a deep con­nec­tion to some­thing. Writ­ing, they real­ized, was the job that would make their heart feel big.

The protagonist’s jour­ney led them from com­po­si­tion class­es at USC to jour­nal­ism school at NYU, and from there to a career that fluc­tu­at­ed between free­lance work for obscure blogs and even­tu­al­ly find­ing a sta­ble posi­tion at Vivant. Along the way, they met David, worked with var­i­ous pub­li­ca­tions, and even­tu­al­ly land­ed the sto­ry of a life­time with Eve­lyn. Reflect­ing on their father’s words, the pro­tag­o­nist real­izes that their entire career trajectory—one defined by pas­sion for sto­ry­telling and connection—has been root­ed in that promise. They won­der briefly if they would have pur­sued this path with such deter­mi­na­tion if their father had still been alive to guide them. Would his untime­ly death have made his advice feel more pre­cious, or would they have tak­en it for grant­ed if it had been avail­able indef­i­nite­ly?

As the pro­tag­o­nist reach­es the end of the last pho­to album, they come across images that are far more per­son­al. The pho­tos, tak­en at a fam­i­ly bar­be­cue, show a side of their par­ents’ lives that had noth­ing to do with Hol­ly­wood. The protagonist’s moth­er, who appears in the back­ground of many of the images, was a con­stant pres­ence, yet there’s some­thing about see­ing these can­did moments that high­lights how much their father loved cap­tur­ing the essence of ordi­nary life. One pho­to stands out: a shot of the pro­tag­o­nist as a young child, eat­ing cake with their hands, look­ing direct­ly into the cam­era with their father’s arm around them and their moth­er hold­ing them. The image cap­tures a fleet­ing moment of famil­ial love, untouched by the industry’s demands. The pro­tag­o­nist reflects on their name—Elizabeth Monique Grant—and how it changed after their father’s death. Ini­tial­ly called Eliz­a­beth, they became Monique to hon­or their father’s love for the name, a trib­ute to a part of him that would nev­er leave them.

This reflec­tion brings the pro­tag­o­nist to a deep­er under­stand­ing of their iden­ti­ty and the sac­ri­fices made by both their par­ents. Their moth­er, a white woman, and their father, a Black man, had faced immense chal­lenges rais­ing a child in a racial­ly divid­ed soci­ety. The family’s strug­gles to find a place where they felt accept­ed, mov­ing from Bald­win Hills to Brent­wood, are a tes­ta­ment to the dif­fi­cul­ties of liv­ing in a world that wasn’t ready for their love. It wasn’t until much lat­er that the pro­tag­o­nist met some­one, Yael, who shared a sim­i­lar background—a bira­cial per­son with a Domini­can father and Israeli moth­er. Yael’s sense of self, ground­ed in her unique iden­ti­ty, made the pro­tag­o­nist feel less iso­lat­ed, as they, too, nav­i­gat­ed the com­plex­i­ty of being “half some­thing.” Grow­ing up feel­ing like two halves—one piece of each parent—was a chal­lenge, but it also shaped who the pro­tag­o­nist became. This com­plex iden­ti­ty is some­thing the pro­tag­o­nist con­tin­ues to grap­ple with, even as they carve out a place for them­selves in Hol­ly­wood.