The summer after we graduated, Sean wanted me to be in his short film. A psychological thriller about a school shooter. I would play the girlfriend, the accomplice. He told me to wear a low-cut white top and a tight black skirt, but I would have to be OK with getting fake blood on it.
His friend Derek played the main role. He was also the only other person in the film. I didn’t understand how this would work. But I had trouble saying no to anything. I was eating one meal a day. My judgment was poor. My senses were heightened. My hours were open. Distraction from the gnawing hunger was always welcome.
We shot it in our high school. Sean had a thing with his former English teacher and convinced her to leave the window open. We slid in and made our way through the empty halls. Sean knocked over a desk. Derek spit on the floors. I went to my old locker and tried the combination. It didn’t open.
We set up the equipment in the cafeteria. There was a thick air of loneliness. The tables and chairs sitting with no one around them. The sunlight pouring onto the empty surfaces. Sean and Derek muttered to each other, sometimes snickering. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It occurred to me that I had no script. Sean began rolling. Derek ran his thumb along my lips. I looked at Sean but he was watching me through the camera.
I stepped away. Sean looked up and motioned for me to get back in the frame. I swayed slightly forward. Derek pulled a gun from his leather jacket. For some reason I knew it was real, even though all pistols looked like toys to me. Outside a bird flew straight into the window, a thump reverberating throughout the quiet, open room. The boys didn’t even flinch. Derek pressed the barrel of the gun to my nipple. It felt better than I wanted it to. He rubbed up and down. I ached. I felt unbearably empty, like I needed to be filled immediately or I would die. But maybe Derek would pull the trigger, fix my pain.
It was hard to know exactly why I’d agreed to this. I’d known that Sean had been kicked out of his filmmaking elective for turning in sexually explicit, degrading footage. I’d known that Derek had been suspended for a few days after sneaking into the girl’s bathroom, cornering a girl when she exited the stall.
It’s my dad’s, Derek said, holding the gun to my cheek now. I once walked in on him fucking my mom with it.
I looked back toward the windows again. The sun was hidden by a cloud. Then I saw a flicker of movement. By the doors. A janitor, watching. Our eyes locked. He backed away.
You’re supposed to be my girlfriend, you know, Derek said, that’s your role, you said you would do it.
I am doing it, I said, the gun now on my throat, brushing back and forth, first gently, then harder, like he didn’t want me to talk.
My last meal had been sixteen hours before. The wave of hunger was hitting again. Strange, how emptiness can feel so sharp, like being stabbed in the stomach. I felt on the verge of passing out. Part of me wanted to. It would’ve been good for the film. Dramatic. I wondered how the boys would react. Panicked, excited. But instead I remained conscious. My body never gave me what I wanted.
I could see the janitor watching again. He stood there in his blue uniform like a statue. Even his eyes expressed nothing. Like he was dead. The sun emerged again, draping everything in a blinding yellow. Fuck, Sean muttered, adjusting the camera, there’s a fucking glare. Fix it, Derek snarled, we’re getting to the best part. Sean didn’t seem to hear, continuing to fidget hopelessly with the lens and the buttons. All of a sudden the instrument fell from the tripod. Smashed onto the floor. Shards of glass. Sean’s curses. The janitor skidded off. Now no one was watching.
— Danielle Chelosky is the author of Female Loneliness Epidemic, among other books.