Graveyard Blues [Brallon]

Irrevocable

[early chapter bc I won't update tomorrow with my zillion tests]

The set for the second half of the opening scene is a deserted road a mile or two away from a local high school. I'm not that old, but old enough to the point where I probably shouldn't be playing a high school senior, but I do anyways. The actors that are about the age of eighteen are not fit to play the part.

I spend two hours with the costume department as they try to add any final spots of blood to the front of my white tux. Dallas dies in the first scene while driving Taylor and himself to their senior prom. It's a brutal death by a hit and run, which leaves her essentially uninjured. She's in shock, and stupidly decides to drive the half-dead car to the nearest hotel down the street, convinced she can save him. Then he dies.

I still wonder how the book was a best seller. It doesn't make sense.

We already taped the part at Taylor Winchester's house where we pose for photos and have a heart-to-heart in her living room and the sappiest kiss known to man. It was done in seven takes, and we moved on. Everyone had already read the book anyways.

Brendon tries to avoid looking at the faux blood while we wait to start filming again under one of the several canopies. The car needed to be replaced with a semi-demolished version, and it was behind schedule. Taylor stands near the snack table, trying to eat as much potato salad as possible without messing her purposely smeared lipstick. There's a large cut plastered to her hairline, and large tears in her silver dress. It's formfitting and reaches her knees, but it's stained with drops of blood and torn at the low neckline. She holds her pale stilettos over her shoulder.

"Is my blood still good?" I tap Brendon's shoulder and point to my chest. I can't exactly look down, because then my hair will fall out of place and then the hair department will come back for another hour.

He glances for a half second and goes back to scrolling through social media with one hand and loosely holding my sleeve in the other. "Yeah."

He really hates it. I'd feel bad, but I don't. "You don't have to stay. There is a coffee shop a few miles away, I believe. You like coffee."

"I know and I do, but the food is good here, and it's closer. It's also free." He's eyeing the large platter of chocolate covered strawberries and the three trays of sandwiches from the local deli. He'd already eaten a few scoops of spaghetti and a mountain of macaroni salad.

I nod. I only had a handful of the supermarket brand pretzels the crew dumped in a plastic popcorn bowl, but they were the best pretzels I'd ever eaten.

The director wanders back on the set, chatting with some girl a whole head shorter than he is, and significantly younger. He doesn't give a shit about the movie. The author of the actual book is supposed to be joining us in a few days, and Brendon has expressed multiple times that he prays they'll improve the film. I don't doubt it. A chimpanzee could do better than the current director.

Then the mangled car rolls up beside the power line tower Dallas had crashed into, and the scrawny prop manager hops out with a clipboard and an extra large soda cup from the AM/PM a mile or two away. It doesn't take a stable person to recognize the fact that he is an asshole. I bet I could kill him with his straw if I tried hard enough. There wouldn't be much blood though, not as much as I want there to be.

As Taylor and I wander over to the car, the camera crew rolls back out and starts to set up the tracks for their cameras again. They look like little train rails, but smaller and stupid.

Taylor grabs my shoulder with both hands as she drops her heels to the road and tries to slip into them without needing to bend down at all. Her acrylic nails dig into my skin. "This movie is a fucking nightmare," she hisses and nods toward the director staring down the other girl with wolfish eyes, "can't wait until he gets fired and the author actually gets here. Heard they've got film experience."