The rest of the people from the project have left, leaving Lo and me to go over the last few details. Working side by side like this is nice, brings back memories, just good memories. But I can’t get what H said out of my head—the way he looked at me, that pain. And I know that I can’t do anything with Lo because there is no way that it won’t hurt her again. That I won’t hurt her again.

So when we’re done, and we fall silent, I try to get my mind in order. My resolve is slowly slipping, my mind filling with thoughts of things I’d love to do to Lo. But we shouldn’t put ourselves in that situation. So instead I grab her jacket and her scarf, putting the jacket on a chair and holding out the scarf to her.

Lo reaches out to take the scarf, only to run her delicate fingers over my hand. “Your fingers are rough.” She takes my hand in hers, almost like a reflex. “Did you burn yourself while soldering?”

I swallow hard. Then I step in closer, trapping her between myself and the table, leaning over a little, my mouth close to her ear. “You know me.” My voice is even lower than I expected and I feel how she shivers against me, her body anticipating my voice, my touch, all the things we shouldn’t be doing.

She looks up at me, her eyes a little clouded, and she licks her lips, her gaze on mine. But as it’s happening, she swallows hard, and her beautiful azure eyes go cold like steel, a wall coming down between us. And the atmosphere is gone. “Yes. Yes, I do.” She puts her hand on my chest, pushing me away as she steps free of my trap.

I want to pull her back, feel her warm and soft body against mine again. But the way she looks, the way she protectively wraps her arms around herself, it stops me right in my tracks. Because that’s the look of someone who’s scared. And an irrational part of me wants to kill the person who made my Lola look like that. But I’m the bad guy. I’ve only got myself to blame for the way things are right now. I never imagined that I’d make someone look this scared.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, turning away.

She looks up at me again, her eyes roving over my face. “Did you say something?”

I shake my head. “No, nothing.” There is no use getting stuck in the past. We’re not B and Lo anymore, we’re adults now. “I think you need to get going.”

Something in my voice must have sounded off, because worry appears in her eyes and she checks her phone. “I can—”

I interrupt her, because I can’t let her voice what she’s about to say. “If you stay, I’m not sure I’ll be able to let you go again.”

Her eyes darken, but she nods, defeat setting in her eyes. “I’ll be going then. See you in class tomorrow.” She reaches out to me for a hug, but then pulls back and steps away. She grabs her scarf and her jacket, looking at me one last time before she averts her eyes and leaves my apartment.

I let out a deep breath. How can I just stay here? How can I finish this project when I only want to grab Lola, take her far away with me, and hide with her in a cabin in the woods, away from the rest of the world, for a month before even letting her out of my sight?

No, I wouldn’t let anyone see her again. Not ever. She’s mine.

She was mine. And it’s my own fault. I left, but that’s just the start of a list of bad decisions I made in the hours and days after I left her in that hospital room.

The list starts with drinking away all the money that we saved up to pay for our wedding. We saved for it for years so that we could pay for our own wedding and wouldn’t have to depend on anyone else, that’s how serious we were about our future. The money wasn’t even that much, but we worked hard for it. And I drained all that money on some booze.

Even if she forgives me for leaving, I don’t think she’d ever be able to forgive me for the other things. The money, the booze, and the... I lift my arm. The darkness in my head that ended up with me having this scar for the rest of my life.

Even if she can do it, I don’t think I should ever put her in a position where she’ll have to forgive me for them.

I need to put all those things out of my head. We can’t do this anymore.

I keep telling myself that, and the next moment Lo is near, my brain goes haywire again and I do all the things I’m not supposed to be doing.

Because I’m insane, and a sucker for pain.

Nothing new there.

Tamara was able to get us a room to start building sets and stages in. It’s right next to the main classroom that we use for the project, but it’s quite a lot bigger and definitely meant for creating art, seeing as all the supplies are stocked here. We even had to clean it out a little, so many other people’s projects had been stored here and forever forgotten. It made me feel odd having to move them all out, throwing some things away.

Today, we’re putting together the base setup for the intergalactic shop. We’ve been able to get some flooring, just simple black and white tiled linoleum, and have all descended on it with paper and pens and other supplies.

Tamara, at one point, came in, but when she saw us working, she left again. Luckily, only after we’d asked her for some tape. The tape didn’t come, but I think she may have gotten distracted by other things, as she’s likely to do.

We don’t exactly know how all the scenes in the store are going to play out, we’re just working from an early draft, but we can at least start by putting together a general layout and figure out what we’re going to do for shelves and other objects in the shop.

The door opens again, and Tamara comes back in. “Hey, guys, it’s time for lunch. Are you gonna make sure you eat something? And I’ve got a couple of things for you. Courtesy of the costume group.” She drops a bag next to me. “I thought that you might want a few more things than just some tape.” She smiles.

“Thanks.” I grab the bag. Inside are some tapes, some extra measurers, markers, and other supplies. I pour it all onto the floor in the middle of the group, and people grab whatever they think they’ll need. “Right. Lunch first, and then we can start taping out outlines.” I stand up. I could use some fresh air right now. I didn’t even realize how long we’d been working.

“Hey.” Tamara comes over to me as I’m about to leave the room.

“Yeah?”

“I’m thinking of sending a couple of people to look for supplies and stuff at second-hand stores. I don’t think you’re gonna want to build everything on your own. I was thinking that you could probably spruce up some regular shop things to make it fit the theme of the movie. Does that sound like a good idea?” She looks at me and I only now realize that I’m the one who makes these kinds of decisions right now—she’s just here to guide us. “And I think that it would save a lot of time and having strong bases for your set would make moving things around and setting up a lot easier.”

“Sounds good. It would take away some pressure, and it would probably mean less welding and actual construction work. Thanks.” I nod.

“Yeah, no problem. If you need anything else, just ask.” She looks at the rest of the group and then goes over to Damon, talking about something with him.

I turn, leave the room and go outside for a moment. I really need some fresh air, some cool to clear my head. It was interesting to get everyone to work together, but it’s also exhausting when everyone yells their own ideas your way. After lunch, we’ll probably combine some of the ideas and get the floorplans worked out better.

I make my way to the cafeteria, ready to grab a sandwich and something else to eat. But on my way there, Damon catches up with me.

“Hey.” He walks next to me.

“Hi.”

“What did you think of the ideas for the shop?”

I shrug. “Sounds decent enough. I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to make it work. As long as we can easily take things apart again for filming.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.” He’s quiet for a moment. “I’m going to do a photoshoot later today. Do you want to join in?”

“Photoshoot?”

“Yeah. It’s not that impressive, but I like to take wintery pictures. I sell some stock photos and nature pics and stuff like that always sell pretty well.” He shrugs. “It’s not with hot girls or whatever, but I thought that you might like to join in. At least it would be fun to add to your collection.”

I guess there is someone here who is nice to me and turning him down would be an asshole move. “Sure. When? I’ll need to pick up my equipment.”

“We’ll need to go on time, with the sun going down so early.” He looks at his phone. “Actually... would it be a terrible idea if we leave right now?”

“Right now? We still have the setup to do.” I’m not sure if I’m ready to go against Tamara like that.

“You may not have realised, but most of the guys were actually leaving. The hours for the project officially ended right before lunch. They’re not gonna be back. And the guys who are... Well, they can either do the planning on their own, or just go home too.” Damon shrugs. “It’s not like Tamara would be too disappointed. Plus, she seemed genuinely interested in your photography. You can always get her to look away when it’s about your art.” He grins, a boyish grin that makes him look much younger than he normally looks.

My art... That gives me another idea. “Fine. Let me just grab my bag from the room. Can you drive me by my house? That way I can grab my camera and I think I may have an idea for a cool shoot.” I may not have taken too many things with me when I moved here, but I’ve got a couple of boxes with electrical supplies like lights, cables and such. Stuff to make small light installations with, though I haven’t done much with it since I got here.

“You don’t have a car?” He looks surprised.

“I’ve got a car, but I take the bus to college. It’s not even ten minutes by bus, and it stops right in front of my apartment.”

“Makes sense. Sure. We going now?” He looks at me.

“Yeah.” I turn around and we go back to the art building and the room that we just left. Damon was right—when we get in, there are just two guys left, looking at us in surprise. “We’re leaving for the day. You can stay if you want to, just make sure to lock this room when you leave.” I grab my bag. “See you all on Monday.”

“See you on Monday.” The guys look after me as I leave again.

I look into the main classroom and find Tamara with the writer group. Everyone is here, apart from Lola—this gives me an odd feeling for a moment, worry for where she is. But it’s not like I have the right to ask anything. Tamara sees me and I wave at her. “Leaving.”

“Sure.” She looks at someone behind me, and for a moment I expect it to be Lola, but it’s just Damon.

“Let’s go.” He grins. “I’m so ready to be done with this week.”

Yeah, I can’t disagree with him.

We drop by my place first, and Damon comes up with me. I grab my camera and bags and then pull two boxes from under my bed. I look inside and then shrug. Cables, lights, all sorts of little bits and pieces. This should be enough.

“Hey, you think I should bring my field stuff with me?” I look at the last box.

“Field stuff?” Damon’s voice is curious behind me.

“Yeah. Never mind. I’m taking it anyway.” The ‘field stuff’ is batteries and other tools that I can use out in the field, which is handy when you need to set things up in the middle of nowhere and don’t want to depend on a car or something for power.

“Here. Gonna need these.” I give Damon the first two boxes as I carry my camera and the final box with me.

As we leave the building, Damon grins. “So jealous. That’s a nice place to have on your own.”

“Yeah, I got lucky.” I’ve been able to get a pretty good place to live for the couple of months I’m here. It helped that I’d just finished a few gigs over the holidays that paid really well.

“Easy for taking girls home too.” He wiggles his eyebrows, but there is that contrast between his words and his actions and the way he looks at me again.

“Potentially.” That’s not something I want to talk or even think about.

“Ah, well.” He opens the back of his car and puts the boxes in it, then I put my box next to it. “Okay, now we just gotta get my stuff.”

“And lunch.” I haven’t eaten anything since this morning.

“And lunch.” Damon laughs as he gets into his car. “I’ve got the perfect place to get lunch, but that will have to wait until we’ve dropped by my place.”

I shrug. I don’t really care, just as long as it’s not in another five hours.

Damon drives to the edge of the city. The houses here are bigger and further apart. Then he stops in front of a really nice house, a two-story building with quite a big garage next to it. As soon as he gets out, a little girl appears at the window, all excited and waving at him. He waves back at her and then gets inside through a door on the side of the house, and the girl has disappeared again.

I lean back in the seat, waiting.

Damon leaves the main house again and goes into the garage next to it, where, after a couple of minutes, he comes out with his camera and other gear.

By now, the girl has appeared at the window again, waving at me and also at Damon.

I wave back at her as Damon puts his stuff in the back. “Your sister is cute.”

He smiles softly. “Yeah.”

“Is it weird, having a sibling who is so young?” I don’t have any siblings, but I never really thought about what it would be like to have a sibling who hasn’t even started primary school when you’re about to finish college.

Something passes over his face, but the next moment, he’s smiling again. “It’s not bad. She’s cute and funny.”

“But I get your comment about bringing girls over. Must be awkward when you live with your parents, especially with a little sister like that.”

“Hmm. I don’t bring them home, don’t wanna deal with parents or my sister.” He starts the car. “But yeah, a place for yourself seriously makes things easier.” We drive off, and soon he parks at some diner. “They have the best hamburgers here. We can grab some and then drive to the forest and eat there before we start the shoot.” He looks my way.

“Sounds like a plan.” I just want food and to get going.

Now that an idea has started forming in my head, I’m anxious to get started. I’m going to need a lot of setup, but if the final result is even a fraction of what I’ve got in my head, it will be awesome.

There really is a lot of truth to the saying that when you create more, your creativity will also spark in other areas.