Cuuuut!

The hinges creaked as I rolled the old barn door back revealing the dark musky interior. It was always amazing to me how you could feel a location's history when you walked in.

In this barn I could tell that life in here had been happy once. That at some point in life it was filled with caring animals and children’s laughter. Horses had neighed and pigs had squealed. Only now it was an abandoned piece of history that sat in the middle of an open field.

I held my lantern up higher looking around the old wood flooring that squeaked as I walked.

I looked over at Roger, smiling as he followed behind me looking around in the same amazement that I had.

We continued walking until we approached the horse stall towards the back. It had been cleaned out leaving no hay or droppings behind. In the middle of the wide stall was a small circular table with one candle in the middle and a small vase holding a yellow tulip, my favorite.

I giggled walking in. Setting the lantern next to the candle, I sat down in one of the two chairs.

My stomach had major butterflies even though we'd done this exact thing a hundred times now. The excitement never changed even in the repetition of it all.

I watched, counting like I always did. It took him 4 steps to sit down in the chair across from me. Fifteen seconds for him to reach across and place my hand in his, while whispering his I love you.

Again, my heart stuttered and stopped in my chest. My cheeks warmed and turned a bright red as I wished I could say it back as well. I never got the chance no matter how many times we relived this moment.

I took a deep breath already knowing that it would be another six minutes before his elbow would mistakenly knock the candle over allowing our romance to literally go up in flames.

I would count down and watch as it all unfolded before me. I would let him pull me up from the chair as the fire would quickly grow larger, just as they'd planned.

We'd run out of the stall, and I would count the twenty-four seconds it would take for his hand to lose contact with mine.

Like always, in my mind, the loss would feel internal. It was like everything moved in slow motion as I would watch our hands disconnect from palms to fingertips and then nothing.

There would be three more minutes of him trying to save me from the blazing inferno only to lose me in the dark smoke of the creaky barn.

Then he would run out, abandoning the person who he'd just claimed that he loved with all of his soul. The person he claimed he could never live without.

Six minutes was all I had to take in his smile, his caring eyes as they remained fixated on me, and the way his hands felt on mine; Until we were separated by the powers that be who didn’t feel we deserved a happy ending. I listened to him profess his love to me, knowing his words before he released them from his lips to embed in my heart until the end of time.

There was so much that I needed to say, so much that I wanted him to know, but I knew better. I had to allow it to play out the way it was supposed to. No adding proclamations of love or extra caresses on his smooth skin. He knew his part just as I knew mine and unlike me he would follow it perfectly.

I knew how the story ended which made it harder for me to stop replaying this very scene over and over.

Roger grieves for all of twenty days before his new friend Shelly consoles him and they start a blossoming love story that steals the hearts of people all around the world. I would watch as he looked at her the way that he had started to look at me.

I wasn’t ready to let it go. I didn’t want to move on from this space of perfection in life where he only had eyes for me. Where he looked genuinely and irrevocably in love with me.

So, as I’d done hundreds of times, I did what I knew would hit the reset button.

I knocked the lantern over igniting the fire only thirty seconds into the scene.

I knew that I was five and a half minutes too early which meant that it would throw the whole story line off.

Everything had to align perfectly in order for us to move past this part of our story but I wasn’t ready for him to move on to his next chapter yet.

“CUT!”

The barn erupted with activity as specialists and assistants ran to get the fire under control and lighting inside the barn so that they could reset the scene.

I watched as they all hurried around removing the table, candle, and flower only to replace it with all new props.

“Crystal” James, the director, called pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You know this scene; I know you do” he added standing in front of me.

He was completely wrong though. I didn’t know the scene at all. Kim, my character, did. The longer I was able to remain Kim then the more time Kyle had to remain Roger.

As Crystal and Kyle our love was now nonexistent.

He didn’t stare into my eyes and proclaim everlasting love as Kyle. I wasn’t able to feel his strong smooth hands holding mine as Crystal. Not anymore at least.

When I'd agreed to do the role Kyle and I were still happily engaged and in love. Now, seven months later and we'd gone our separate ways.

He'd made it perfectly clear over and over that we would no longer be together in that way. So, every time I had to come out of character and back into real life I felt those words like bullets all over again.

He no longer loved me.

However, as Roger and Kim, we were madly in love with each other and couldn’t stand being apart, until that barn fire.

“Did you practice the timing like I showed you?” Kyle asked before taking a swig of water.

Little did he know I’d practiced them too well.

"We won't get anywhere if you keep messin' up thirty seconds into the scene" he added.

“Okay, lets just reset” James, the director, called out.

I could see the annoyance all over him, but I knew that no matter what I did he wouldn’t replace me. I was the most wanted young actress out at the moment and his movie was expected to pull in millions just from my face alone.

So, with that knowledge, I allowed us all to reset as we walked out of the barn closing the doors back to the way they were.

Roger and I got into place, and I tried to hide my giddy smile as he placed his hand on the small of my back. The cameras began rolling once again as I reached out to open the barn doors as if it was the first time.

I knew that our characters were slow dancing in a burning room but I wanted to remain in it for as long as I possibly could. One day the scene would be over and my love for him would have to fade away as the movie ended and we went on to separate projects. However, today, today I will continue to smile and countdown until they screamed cut and we reset.