An Object in Motion

Chapter 7: Motion

Harlow stepped into her place and Roy moved toward her, the script's words hanging between them like a challenge. In the film, John Cleary has been a looming presence in Virginia's life, someone who manipulated her when she was young and vulnerable. Now, Harlow knew the moment between them was where that control would finally break. She hoped the words would land with the weight they needed to, but everything inside her felt too close to reality.

The lights hit Harlow like a second skin, her heartbeat quickening as she locked eyes with Roy, who stood across the room, leaning casually against a desk like he owned it all. For a brief moment, Roy gave Harlow a sincere smile and only when she returned it did it shift into a smirk that John reserved for Virginia.

"Action!" Dean called out.

The shift into Virginia was seamless. Harlow felt the trembling remnants of that younger version of her character, scared, unsure, but it's buried deep now. The new Virginia was colder, more calculated. She was done being manipulated. She had nothing left to lose.

John Cleary, in Roy's hands, was a man who believed he always had the upper hand. He didn't know that Virginia has changed, that everything about her has shifted since their first entanglement years prior. He doesn't see it yet, despite the gun pointed in his face.

"You really think this is going to end differently?" Roy said, his voice low, almost patronizing. He stepped toward Harlow with the calm confidence of a man who thought he'd already won. He thought Virginia was still the scared girl who couldn't make the final step. "You've had every chance to kill me before, Virginia. Every chance. And you didn't. So what makes you think you'll do it now?"

Harlow's fingers twitched on the trigger. The same way Virginia had done when this opportunity had presented itself to her years before, when she was too scared to go through with it. John recognizes it, too. He chuckled, and it was soft and condescending; the kind of laugh that came from a man who thought he had all the answers.

"I know you, Virginia Smith. I know you because I made you who you are today." Roy didn't even look at Harlow as he spoke with a level of irritated nonchalance that made Harlow flinch. He acted as though she was too stupid to understand even the most basic of ideas and that she needed him to explain everything to her. Like she wouldn't be able to survive without him making sure she didn't forget to breathe, and what a burdensome task that was for him. When Roy looked back up to Harlow, she only saw John Cleary looking back at her.

"And who you are today," Roy leered at her, looking her up and down, "does not impress me."

Harlow clenched her teeth, and adjusted her grip on the gun. "Good."

She pulled the trigger then, the squib in Roy's shirt popping on cue. He clutched his hand to his chest, trying to keep the blood from spilling out of his body as he fell back into the chair at the desk.

"I made you. Everything you have, you owe to me. And I could take it away with a snap of my fingers if I wanted to. But I don't, because I take pride in the stars I make. But you come in here and have the nerve to tell me that you want to turn down a fifty million dollar project because the actor you'd be playing opposite of makes you 'uncomfortable?' You are no one without me. I tell you what makes you uncomfortable. You want to keep the nice little career you've built and keep your reputation clean? Then stay silent unless you're spoken to and impress me."

"Cut!" Dean's voice broke through the charged silence of the room. The quiet that followed felt almost too heavy. Harlow stood frozen for a moment, the gun still in her hand, her chest rising and falling with the adrenaline. She blinked, pulling herself out of the moment, her mind racing to reclaim the line between Harlow Dawson and Virginia Smith.

There was an unease that lingered, the room closing in around Harlow with its familiarity. They ran the scene twice more, Roy changing his shirt and squib between takes, and with each run of the new script, Harlow felt her hands shaking more and more each time she pulled the trigger. She couldn't cry, that wasn't Virginia's story, but something tight was swelling in her chest and it was suffocating.

When Roy and Harlow left the set, they left together, but not until after Amanda pulled Harlow into a tight hug, whispering a thank you. It made Harlow's skin crawl in a way she hadn't expected. She had done this because it was the right thing to do; to make the film better by playing the character to its truest potential. So why did she want to burn the tape and crawl into a hole, never to come out?

She pushed the feeling down as much as she could, though it lingered below the surface as she and Roy made their way back into the trailer. Roy must have sensed something was off as he asked the few crew in the trailer to go get themselves a drink and they'd start taking off their makeup themselves. When they were finally alone, Roy rested his hands on Harlow's shoulder and faced her.

"You okay, kiddo?" He gave her a look and Harlow felt her breath shutter. She pinched her thigh to keep herself in check and smiled tightly.

"Yeah." She agreed. "I'm glad they agreed, could you imagine if we did all that work for nothing? That would've been awful." She let out a shallow laugh and moved to the counter, using a cotton pad and some makeup remover to start removing her makeup.

"It would have." Roy said slowly, making his own way to the counter to start wiping the light layer of foundation off his skin.

"Yeah, it would've been rough, that's for sure." She continued, wiping roughly at her drawn eyebrows. "But it's good we're both good at memorizing lines, huh? Because we definitely wouldn't have been able to film everything otherwise. Oh shit." Harlow flinched as she tried to remove the makeup from her eye, only to accidentally rub her stiff, mascara-covered lashes into her eye. "Oh that's going to sting tomorrow, that's for sure." Her eye began to water and she set down the cotton pad to wipe at her eye with her hand. "You men are lucky that you get the really subtle mascara, this stuff is awful." Harlow sniffled and wiped harder, her other eye beginning to water. "Sometimes it's not worth it, you know?" Harlow rambled through her quickly forming tears. "It feels awful and you don't really know if it's worth it until it's all said and done."

"It's worth it." Roy suggested, knowing Harlow wasn't talking about mascara anymore. He picked up a clean cotton pad and soaked it in the makeup remover between them, handing it to Harlow. "Sometimes when it's the right thing to do but it doesn't feel good, it's still worth it."

Harlow felt herself pout and took the cotton pad from Roy. "Thanks." Her voice was high and squeaky and she removed her makeup through her quiet sobs, hoping Roy was right.

After the initial shock (and withdrawals) had worn off when she was seventeen, she made a deeply concerted effort to avoid feeling anything. She was an object at rest. It had been so easy when she was younger. She worked, she got high, and she worked some more. But without all of the things that had kept her mind busy for so many years, life had a way of creeping up on her and it was just easier to keep things surface level and avoid any emotion below the surface.

Until now, she supposed.

It didn't feel good, but she supposed it felt better than nothing.