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Getting this close took as long as it does to wade into the ocean when it’s cold. Pulling away is like being launched out of a cannon. Valeria and I roll over onto our knees, those few inches magnifying to feet. We look toward the source of the voice, pushing pebbles off our legs and arms and out of our hair.

It’s just a young couple, all jean shorts and T-shirts, one holding a spray can.

“Do you two have any more spray paint?” the boy asks. “We’re out!”

I look around our rock space, as if I forgot I brought spray paint. “I, uh, we don’t!”

“Okay, thanks! Sorry!”

They walk over to another part of Sunken City, but they remain in view. Valeria looks at me. There’s a little bit of red staining her cheeks. “Do you want to take any more photos?”

“I have a couple ideas for after sunset.”

The sky’s bleeding into an orange-and-pink watercolor painting. Valeria runs a hand through her hair. “Can we look around until then?” She smiles. “Maybe I can even take pictures of you.”

As we climb off the rock, I still can’t decide if anything was going to happen.

chapter fifteen

At the shoot on Monday, Valeria’s acting as if the entire weekend didn’t mean anything. Which, okay, might be dramatic, but I can’t believe she goes around set actually doing her directing/acting job, and she acknowledges me only at previously established appropriate moments, like requesting nearby props or asking my opinion when she and Brendan can’t fully commit to a minute detail in a shot. There’s absolutely no attempt by either of us to dissect what the fresh hell happened the day before.

Maybe nothing did happen. Maybe the only things that really happened were that she tagged me on Instagram, I have footage of her to edit, and she forced us to take a picture together at Sunken City. (Forced in this sentence means I acted camera shy but was internally screaming and the photo is now my lock screen.) But as I hand Brendan a wide lens on our last day on location at the house in Studio City, I can’t help but wonder if there’s something else that should be happening.

We almost kissed. I’ve had very few situations where I was almost kissed, but that has to be what happened. We were inches from each other and she looked at my lips. I don’t know what else that could mean.

Brendan starts talking to me. “Hey, so I saw your test footage.”

My heart all but stops. “You did?”

He crosses his arms.

Smiles.

“I did. I love the concept. And we’d credit you in the film. Not as D.P., but I can for sure put your name first under the camera assistants. You did technically do some shots…”

He still doesn’t trust me with the camera. No one would hire me as D.P. with just this scene under my belt, but I have his attention again. “I fucked up before,” I say. “But I promise I’m a great focus puller. Give me one more chance?”

Brendan takes the longest pause of my life, long enough for my lungs to seemingly collapse as I hold my breath.

Then he says, “Sure.”

The assistant who’d replaced me the other day gets unceremoniously sent off for coffee. A P.A. holds the slate. And Brendan steps aside for me to stick the lens I envisioned into the camera. Lets me adjust.

Valeria gets into her position at the bottom of the stairs, crumpled, with makeup-painted bruises on her body. She sells exhausted and battered better than I could’ve imagined. And I get right down there with her, adjusting the camera to a low-angle P.O.V. shot.

“This is really cool,” she whispers to me.

Her voice, speaking to me with the casualness of our time on the cliffs, sounds unfamiliar. Unfamiliar, at least, in this setting. It’s like I’ve lost the ability to process us having a one-on-one conversation when other people we know are around.

But still, I know kind words when I hear them.

Yes, with this image, my image, I know exactly how to focus it. It’s unconventional, and it might turn out terrible in post, but Brendan’s trusting me.

Brendan takes over my spot.

Gives me a thumbs-up.

And we do a couple of takes.