Page 40 of Romance Is Dead

Lungs burning, I burst out the back door of the house.

Teddy was two steps behind me, our feet clattering down the porch steps and onto the grassy yard.

The night sky was bright, the full moon and a smattering of stars illuminating our way as we tore down the lawn.

Dew was already forming on the grass, but thankfully our feet didn’t slip as we sprinted toward the tree towering in the distance, mist swirling at its base.

“Cut!”

Thank God. I ground to a halt, bending over to grip my knees and catch my breath.

We’d finally reached the point in the script where Teddy’s character is killed off by the witch, and we’d been working on the scene since the sun went down a few hours ago.

It was a key scene, but did it have to involve so much running?

Teddy stopped next to me, annoyingly not as out of breath as I was. “Damn, Jigsaw, you were booking it.” He ran a hand through his hair, sweat gathering on his forehead. “It’s like you’re excited about my death or something.”

“Of course not.” I clasped a hand to my chest, as though mortally offended. “What on earth would make you think that?”

“Hmm, I can’t imagine.” He fisted his hand under his chin. “You were so kind to me on my first day. So welcoming. So forgiving.”

“Listen, buddy, I take destruction of private property very seriously.”

“Unless it’s a wig you don’t mind almost losing.”

“Shh!” I hurried to cover his mouth with my hand. Laughing beneath my palm, Teddy wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close, making me giggle, too.

I knew we looked cozy, but I couldn’t bring myself to push him away.

Knowing it was our last day on set together, my heart had been doing something funny all day — a weird ache punctuated by moments of intense pride.

It was hard to believe Teddy was the same actor who had flubbed his lines and sent a lamp careening onto the floor that first day.

Now, he was so confident, so self-assured.

And he was good. It was a shame that he was going to waste his talent on another reality show when I knew he could do something so much more.

I tried not to think about how much I would miss him.

“You two.”

A sharp voice pierced my train of thought. I pulled away from Teddy, guilty, like we’d been doing something much more illicit than sharing a hug. It was Natasha, staring at us with one eyebrow raised.

“Yes?” I asked, inching away from Teddy.

“Everyone’s moved over there.” She gestured further down the backyard, where crew members were setting up the cameras and lighting near the giant, gnarled tree that stood in the middle of the long, sloping lawn.

“We were just talking,” Teddy explained.

“Talk down there.” Natasha rifled through her clipboard. “Once everything’s set up, we need to run through blocking one more time and start filming as soon as possible if we’re fitting in this shot tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” we both murmured.

“Don’t call me ma’am.” Without another glance, she hurried off to talk to a boom operator who was looking lost.

Feeling bad about stressing Natasha out more than she already was, I tugged on the arm of Teddy’s shirt and we made our way to where everyone else was prepping for the next scene. Spotting me, Mara came over to freshen up my makeup as Teddy peeled off to get a hair touch up.

Avoiding eye contact, Mara said nothing as she took some concealer out of her fanny pack and started dotting my face with the cream.

“I’m really sorry,” I whispered. “I know I’ve been screwing up lately, but — ”

“I don’t want to hear it again, honestly.” She capped the concealer and grabbed some powder. “Let’s just not talk, ok?”

My heart sank. Mara had never been this angry with me before. And I deserved it.

After learning the truth about the gossip account Trevor had been running on TikTok, I’d completely forgotten to respond to the text from Mara about Austin’s Instagram post. I hadn’t remembered until I showed up to hair and makeup earlier that morning to find Mara giving me the silent treatment.

She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, but it wasn’t hard to figure out: she’d found out that Austin was dating someone new, thanks to his post, and I hadn’t been there for her when she needed me.

Worse, I’d actively ignored her.

“I’ll make it up to you,” I tried. “Once the movie wraps and things go back to normal, I promise.”

“You know. . .” Mara met my eyes for the first time all day. “When I told you to explore things with Teddy, I didn’t realize you would end up ditching me for your fuck buddy.”

I gaped at her. “That is definitely not what — ”

“Then what is it?”

“I. . . It’s been. . .” I fumbled for an excuse, but without telling her the truth about what had been going on — hunting down a killer was depleting my energy and giving me brain fog — I came up short.

“Really, Quinn?” Mara’s face was disappointed, but not surprised. “Then I have nothing to say to you.” With a final spritz of setting spray, she left. Left standing alone and dejected, I stared up at the tree that would be the centerpiece of the next scene.

It was a mammoth thing, its trunk several feet thick with gargantuan branches reaching up and into the sky.

It was the centerpiece of the next shot, which was a dramatic one: Teddy and I would try various methods to destroy the tree, which we’d learned was the source of the witch’s powers.

I’d end up falling when the branches cracked, but Teddy would make it to the top — where the witch would use her magic to secure a vine around his neck before pushing him off and hanging him.

RIP Teddy’s character.

The camera crew would shoot a variety of shots to get the effect of me falling and edit them together. I’d be wearing a harness, of course, which could be edited out in post-production.

“. . . shots of Quinn standing on the branch as it breaks first,” Natasha was explaining as we caught up with the group. “The harness will drop her just a few feet.”

Ah, the harness. I’d worn one on the set of a different film and was not eager to relive the experience. I looked sympathetically at Teddy, who surely had it worse than me in that department. He only grimaced in response.

“Are you sure those branches are secure?” I stared up into the tangled limbs of the tree. Most of them looked thick and sturdy, but what if I stepped on the wrong spot?

“Of course.” Natasha reached for one of the ropes attached to the thick branch I’d be climbing. “Look.”

She gave it a hard tug. I expected the rope to catch sharply, for there to be no give as she yanked on the branch.

What I was not expecting was an ear-shattering crack, followed by screams and people diving out of the way.

Confused about what was happening, I tilted my head up.

The gigantic limb wasn’t just bending, it was in total free fall.

At least a foot thick and probably ten feet long, it was hurtling toward the ground at a rapid speed.

It felt like an eternity, but it was likely just a millisecond before someone grabbed me and yanked me out of the way, just in time to miss it crashing to the ground.

Teddy, of course.

He pulled me to his chest as we both toppled onto the ground.

I was so busy staring at the massive branch that had narrowly missed smashing me into bits that it took me a few seconds to understand he was saying “Are you ok?” over and over again as he ran his hands over my head and down my back, apparently looking for some hidden critical injury.

“I’m ok,” I said, my voice shaky.

Audrey, however, did not appear to be.

While she had also avoided the bulk of the giant limb, one of its smaller offshoots had struck her ankle as she dove out of the way.

She clutched it, howling in pain as everyone else stared in shock.

Finally, it was Mara who leapt into action, calling an ambulance before kneeling down to examine the injured joint.

Natasha stood at the base of the tree, closing her eyes like she could rewind time if she concentrated hard enough.

“Hey, look at me,” Teddy said, shaking my shoulder. “Look at me. Are you sure you’re ok?” He looked frantic, like he couldn’t believe that I’d survived the ordeal unscathed.

“Yes,” I assured him. “I’m ok.”

He nodded, pulling me to his chest and refusing to let me go.

It took the paramedics forever to show up.

Audrey wouldn’t stop whimpering, Natasha was panicking — pacing up and down the lawn, loudly wondering what was taking them so long — and Mara kept asking everyone if she could get them anything, as though she was a hostess at the worst party in the history of parties.

Meanwhile, I spent the wait staring at the limb, lying cracked and ruined on the ground.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how on earth the set designers would be able to fix it.

Or if they’d be able to fix it. I think I fixated on these questions to avoid thinking about how close I’d come to being crushed to death.

If it weren’t for Teddy, I wouldn’t be alive.

The ambulance finally arrived, pulling onto the back lawn with its lights still flashing despite there being no vehicles within a ten-mile radius. The driver, a burly man with red hair and a graying beard, hopped out.

“We’re going to have to start giving you guys frequent flier miles.” He chuckled. “Who are we looking at? I heard we have an ankle injury.”

I glared at him. “Probably the woman over there clutching her foot and crying.”

“Copy that.” The two of them unloaded a stretcher and laid it on the ground next to Audrey before taking a look at her ankle.

“Looks like it’s broken, I’m afraid.” The medics helped Audrey onto the stretcher. “We’ll have to take her in for X-rays and fit her with a cast once the swelling goes down. She’ll be feeling good as new in no time.”

“Nothing ever takes ‘no time,’” Natasha snapped. “How long, exactly, until she’s back here filming?”