Pulling himself together, he finishes the shower, and wraps a towel around his waist. The final piece of the scene is Alex making himself some food in his kitchen before he gets a phone call from his undercover contact telling him it’s time to go in.
He starts to make an omelet, and then the cellphone on the table rings. Peter stares at the phone, like he’s horrified by it. His entire body is tense as he picks up the phone. “Hello?”
The sound of his voice is shocking, piercing the intense silence of his scene. He conveyed so much in that scene without saying a single word. I wait a couple of beats before I call ‘Cut!”
The whole room breathes again. The wardrobe girl hands Peter a robe and I wave him over. “That was really good,” I tell him. “Stunning."
For once, he’s lacking his usual smile and charm. That wasn’t an easy scene, and there’s still something in his eyes that’s there. “Thank you.”
“I want to get one more just in case, but I don’t think we’ll need to do more than that.”
He nods. “Okay. I appreciate that.”
“Can I ask you something?” I look at him noticing how exhausted he seems after that.
“Sure.”
“What was it? If you don’t mind, and it won’t hurt you capturing it again, what were you using to summon that panic?”
Peter looks at me and the full weight of his brown eyes feels like it might crush me. “You.”
The floor is falling from under me. “Me?”
“That day,” he says, “when you fainted in the prop room. To this day, I’ve never been so terrified. I had no idea if you were okay or if I had done something to hurt you. And the nurse kicked me out of the room and it was even worse because I couldn’t even see if you were still breathing.”
His voice is raw, and he’s not looking at me. For the first time, I think I finally understand why he did it. I’d always thought that it was arrogance—that he thought he knew better than me, and that’s why he decided to destroy my life.
If it was a boy terrified of losing his girlfriend, if he thought I might die or disappear, that’s…terrifying, and I can’t pretend that I wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He nods again, seemingly unable to speak.
“How much time do you need?”
“None. Let’s do it.”
I swallow. “Reset, please!”
In a matter of minutes, we’re back to one, and I’m watching it all over again, but this time I can’t keep tears from sliding down my face, because I’m not watching Alex this time. I’m watching Peter. I’m watching him relive thinking that I’m going to die, and how the idea rips him apart. The second take is impossibly better than the first, and when I call cut, I look around. There are tears glistening in the eyes of some of the crew, and I know that somehow, through the pain, we made magic here today.
14
Peter
12th Grade
The door opens and the nurse comes out. “You can see her, she’s awake, but she needs to rest.”
I’m off the floor and through the office door before she finishes the sentence. My heart is still pounding, and I feel like there’s a vice around my chest. She said she’s okay, but it’s not until I see Amber’s eyes open that I actually sigh in relief.
My mind was spinning out of control, imagining the worst. Imagining what life without Amber would be like, what I would do if she disappeared just like that, like my mother did. I wouldn’t survive it.
“Hey,” she says, with a crooked smile.
I want to touch her—want to make sure that she’s all right, but I don’t want to make it worse. Amber has always seemed to fill the room with her light and personality and wit, and lying on the cot she looks so small and delicate. There’s a lump in my throat that I have to swallow. “Are you okay?”
She waves a hand weakly. “I’m fine. This is nothing.”
I sit on the edge of the cot and take her hand in mine. “You fainted. I kissed you and you just collapsed. That’s not fine. That’s nowhere near fine.”
“I’m fine, Peter. I’m just tired, I’ve been really stressed about the whole senior project thing, staying up late trying to get all the work done and learning my lines and stuff.”
That doesn’t sound right, but I let a smile come to my face. I don’t want to let her know how scared I was. If she’s stressed out, I don’t want to add to it with my own. “Or, you know, talking to me.”
She blushes. “That too.”
There was a moment last year when I told her that I was falling in love with her, and she said she was too. But ever since then we’ve danced around it. I have no doubts about the way Amber feels about me, and she knows how I feel, but we’ve never said it. For me, saying it felt scary, like we were taking a big leap. But after feeling what I just felt, being that terrified, it feels like absolutely nothing.
“I love you, you know.”
Amber’s eyes go wide, and I see her swallow. “I love you, too.”
I lean down and press my forehead to hers. “I’m sorry that I took so long to say it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispers, “because you still said it.”
Her skin is warm under mine. Too warm. “Do you have a fever?” I ask.
She laughs loudly and it fills the room. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear after you tell me that you love me for the first time.” She collapses into giggles.
I grin. “You’re hot. And I don’t just mean hot. You’re warm, so I assume that if you don’t have a fever that that heat is just left over from me making you feel hot.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she smirks.
“I certainly will flatter myself,” I say. “Or was it somebody else that had four orgasms less than an hour ago?” I whisper it in her ear because I’m not sure if the nurse is listening or not and now that Amber is okay, I’d rather not get busted for having sex on school grounds. I mean, there are worse things we could be doing. We could have a secret meth lab down there. But I have a feeling that there would be some kind of detention for both of us, and I’m not about to get Amber’s perfect record smudged.
Even if it was her idea.
“Maybe it was all those orgasms making me feel faint,” she says, batting her eyes at me.
“I hope not.” I’m serious. “I would never want that to happen.”
She reaches out and grabs my arm. “Peter, I’m kidding. This had nothing to do with you. I just need to get a little more sleep.”
“If you’re sure,” I say.
“I’m very sure.”
There are footsteps behind me. “I said to let her rest,” the nurse says, sounding annoyed. “That means not crowding her, and not pushing her to do things she’s not ready for.”
What? I give Amber a look, and she gives me one back. I sit up and move further away from her because I’m not about to piss off the nurse.