Behind The Scenes

A Film by Dale Squires

Beck stretches his arm out. His eyes fly open. "Jade? Are you..." He trails off as he glances around. She's not here. Again. He groans and rubs his eyes. He thought that this was over with, but then all week she'd just been gone. She comes back before dawn, but never leaves a note or a text. He finds himself wondering how many times he's slept through her disappearing act if she doesn't bother to leave a note.

He pulls himself from his bed, taking his comforter with him, and plops down on the couch. He turns the TV on and flicks through the channels until he finds Law and Order. He fell asleep during this episode last time so at least he'll get to find out who the killer is this time.

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The RV door creaks as Jade lets herself inside. Infomercials fill the otherwise silent room. She slips the keys onto their hook. Jade glances over to see the bed empty and guilty glances towards the couch. He must have fallen asleep waiting for her.

She walks over to the couch and takes a moment to watch him. She hates when he wakes up in the middle of the night. He's not supposed to know when she leaves. "Beck." She nudges his arm. He rolls towards the couch. "Beck," she says with her usual volume. Screw this whisper bullshit.

"I'm trying to sleep."

"Come sleep in the bed." Jade tugs on his arm.

"Jade?" Beck cracks one eye open. "God, Jade. You can't keep doing this." Beck sits up and buries his face in his hands as he tries to adjust to being awake.

"We can talk about it later, just come to bed."

Beck shakes his head. "We're going to talk about it now."

"Beck, it's 4am. We have filming tomorrow. Today. Whatever." Jade rakes her fingers through her hair. She just wants to go to bed and pretend this didn't happen.

"I can't keep waking up in the middle of the night to find my girlfriend gone." He reaches up to gently grasp her hand. "I need to talk about this. Now."

Jade rolls her eyes but sits next to him on the couch. When he doesn't say anything, she impatiently gestures for him to continue. "Talk."

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

Beck raises an eyebrow. "You're going for a walk? It's not safe-"

"I'm not stupid. I take your car."

His brow furrows. "My car? You're taking my car?" How did he not notice his keys missing? "Where?"

"I just drive."

"Are you filling up my tank too?" He definitely would have noticed if his truck was running low in the morning.

"I don't drive that far," Jade grumbles. Why can't he just let this go?

"So you are going somewhere."

"I park at this hilltop that overlooks some of the city."

Beck runs his fingers through his greasy hair. "Why? What are you doing?"

"I just sit there." Jade leans her head back and closes her eyes. "Can we go to bed now?"

"Why do you go?"

Jade sighs. "I just do." A pause. "Please, Beck. I just want to go to sleep." She's exhausted, physically and mentally and she just wants her boyfriend to stop interrogating her.

"No. I've been waiting for months to talk about this. What do you do up there? Is there another guy?"

Jade's eyes shoot open. "What? No."

"A girl?" He knows he's the only person Jade has seriously dated, but he also knows Jade could easily fall for a girl as much as a guy.

"No. Beck, there's no one else. It's just me up there."

Beck shakes his head. "Then why won't you tell me what's going on?" They've never had secrets like this between. Their relationship was based on honesty, sometimes cruel honesty, but honesty nonetheless.

"Can't you just leave it alone?" Jade roughly rakes her fingers through her hair. She can't keep doing this with him.

"No, I can't. Clearly." Beck turns his body more to face her. "Why are you suddenly keeping secrets? Do you want to break up? Because if you do, just tell me. I'm a-"

Jade interrupts, "The answer is I don't know! Okay?"

Beck's mouth hangs open. He knows he said it, but he didn't think the answer was yes. How could she want to throw away their relationship? "You want to- Are we breaking up?"

Jade glances up sharply. "What? You want to break up?" Was this finally it? He'd been putting up with her for so long. She'd never believed he would stick around forever, no matter what he claimed, but she wasn't ready for him to leave her yet. He couldn't just break up with her in the middle of the night.

Beck studies her face carefully. Why does she look panicked? She's the one breaking up with him. "You just said-"

Jade shakes her head as Beck's words come to her. She hadn't really been listening while he was rambling. "I meant that I don't know what I'm doing when I go up there."

"Oh." Beck felt the tightness in his chest release. They weren't breaking up. Everything else would work itself out as long as they weren't breaking up.

Jade takes a deep breath as she tries to work through her muddled thoughts. "I just- Sometimes I can't breathe in here."

"Panic attacks?" Beck thought that he had helped last time, so why was she hiding them from him? He wanted to be able to help her through this stuff. He couldn't fix it or erase it, but he wanted to help her through the symptoms.

Jade shrugged. "Not exactly." She leans her head back and closes her eyes as she tries to recall the feeling from just a few hours ago. "It just feels like I'm trapped or like- I don't know. I just can't stay here. So I go for a drive and I go to that hill and I look at the lights and..."

Beck waits for her to complete her thought, but when she shrugs and brings her hands up to her face, he prompts her, "And?"

"I don't know, Beck." She turns to meet his eyes. "I don't know." She doesn't know why she's doing it or if it even helps. She can't explain this to him because she can't even explain it to herself.

Beck sees the exhaustion and confusion and defeat in her eyes. "Okay." He wraps his hand gently around the back of her neck. "It's okay." He guides her closer as he leans in to drop a kiss on her head. She burrows into his side and he wraps his arm around her. There's a comfortable silence that overtakes them. Then, "Do you want to watch Law and Order with me?"

Jade fists her fingers into his t-shirt. "Yeah, okay."