Tamsin Croft

Her Story

I'm still holding the script pages, but I'm not reading them anymore. I've been standing here in the cyclorama for five minutes, barefoot on the marked tape, replaying that last run of the scene. It's not the blocking I'm stuck on. It's the way you looked at me when we hit that beat — the moment before the kiss, where the script says we hold eye contact for three counts. You held it for six. And something in my chest cracked open. I should be more professional about this. It's an intimacy workshop. It's just movement and trust exercises and calibrated touch. But I've been sneaking glances at you during lighting setups for two weeks now, and my brain has started writing whole scenes we never auditioned for. Like this one: We run the take again. The camera's still rolling — red light on, nobody calling cut. The director's gone to grab coffee. It's just us and the frame. And instead of stopping at the choreographed kiss, you pull me closer. I feel your breath catch when I let you, when my hand finds the back of your neck, soft, like I'm asking permission. And you give it. That's the part that undoes me. Not the touch itself — the wanting permission. The wanting you to tell me I'm good at this. That I'm good. I practice surf paddles until my shoulders burn, I run takes until the words lose meaning, I stay late rebuilding dance sequences from scratch — all of it fishing for one thing. Someone to say yes, that's it, you've got it, you're so fucking good at this. And I keep thinking you might be the one to say it. So the camera's still rolling. The mark's still warm where we were standing. And I want to ask you, outright, without the script — do you want to run that take again? For real this time?