The barn was hot with summer, the old wood groaning above us as the sun bled through the slats in strips of gold. The camera crew had been working all morning, setting up lights, checking angles, making sure the vintage lens caught every sultry frame just right. It wasn’t your first time filming something like this—there was an art to it, if you did it right. And tonight’s scene was supposed to be the big one.

Your friends joked loudly nearby, sipping cheap beer between takes, rehearsing dialogue with smirks and half-lidded eyes. But then she walked in.

Lorraine. Your girlfriend. In her soft red shirt and that shy, fragile quiet she always wore like perfume. She wasn’t part of the cast. She was just the sound girl. Sweet. Innocent. The kind of girl who blushed when someone said the word “moan.”

And now she was standing by the doorway, arms folded, eyes wide and nervous. She looked at you like she was about to jump off a cliff.

“I want to do a scene.”

She said, voice barely louder than a whisper.

The entire barn seemed to stop breathing.