The wind picked up, carrying flurries of dust across the hilltop. You pulled off your worn jacket, the one the costume department insisted looked “lived in, road-beaten.” It smelled faintly of earth and metal, like it had been under the sun too long.

Timothée was sitting beside you, plucking idly at dead grass. his curls messy from the breeze and a faint flush on his cheekbones from the late afternoon sun.

“They’re getting the cameras reset,” he said. There was a tightness in it you recognized. The same kind of tension you felt curling inside your own chest.

This scene mattered—not because it was big or emotional, but because it was small, quiet, devastating in its simplicity. The cameras were rolling, but the world felt still, like you could hear the grass breathing.

Before you could come up with something smart to say, Luca called out, “Picture’s up! Last looks!”

Crew members adjusted stray hairs, brushed dust from your skirt, checked the mic taped under his collar. But through it all, but you and Timothée were suspended in your own pocket of time.

Timothée was Lee now, completely. His jaw tightened as he pressed his fingers to his eyes, fighting to keep from splintering apart.

You instinctively reached out, your hand finding his leg, grounding him—or maybe grounding yourself.

He began speaking about the barn, his father, His voice goes ragged around the edges, breaking in places the microphone probably won’t even catch. Even though you knew it was a scene, your throat tightened, chest aching. Because he wasn’t acting. Not really.

When he gets to the part about eating his father’s feet, his voice drops to almost nothing. He’s so inside it that you forget the boom mic, the crew, the director hunched over the monitor a few yards away.

It’s just you and him and this shared, awful tenderness.

You placed your hand on his leg like the stage directions said, but it wasn’t mechanical. It was instinct.

Tears burned at the edges of your vision, but you stayed with him. Because Maren would. And because you would.

When he stumbled over the words about Kayla, about wanting to kill himself, you saw something crack wide open in his face—something raw and ugly and beautiful.

He didn’t look at you. He couldn’t. His body shook under your hands.

“Lee—” you said, voice thick. “I would have done the same thing.”

It came out softer than you meant, but it was the truth. Maren’s. Yours.

He shook his head. The words caught in his throat: “You don’t mean that—”

“You protected the people you love,” you told him quietly, firmly, trying to push through the haze of guilt surrounding him. “Hold my hands and look at me.”

He hesitated. His whole body resisted. But he listened.

When his eyes finally lifted to yours, they were bloodshot, shining with unshed tears.

You didn’t have to act the smile. You just gave it to him—small and sure, everything in you willing him to believe it.

“You don’t think I’m a bad person?” he asked, voice wrecked.

You shook your head, answering simply with all the weight you could muster:

“All I think is that I love you.”

The words sit there between you, raw and trembling.

The second the words leave your mouth, you feel it. The shift. Like a dam breaking inside him.

Timothée collapsed into you, sobbing so violently it startled you, even though you’d known it was coming.

Tears spilled down his cheeks in huge, silent streaks, faster than he could wipe away. He was sobbing the way Lee sobs when he finally lets himself believe he’s loved, even after everything.

You held him like the scene demanded, but it wasn’t just acting anymore. It was instinct, survival.

You pulled him against your chest, your hand in his hair, his fists bunching into your top like if he let go, you’d vanish.

The director didn’t call cut. The crew didn’t move. The whole world held its breath.

When the scene finally bled itself dry, when Timothée lifted his head, his cheeks flushed and wet, he gave a breathless laugh, wiping his face with the sleeve of Lee’s old, pink button-up.