Christina blinks at me, clearly taken aback by the graveness of my voice. But after a moment, she shakes her head. “Mild disapproval. He won’t stop me. But he’ll be upset with me.”

I blow out a breath, nodding. “Okay. We can deal with mild disapproval. Listen, you love film, right? That’s why you’re a part of the club?”

“Yeah,” Christina says, chewing on her bottom lip. “It’s my favorite thing in the world.”

“Mine, too,” I say, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “I think you should keep coming. Sooner or later, he’s going to understand what it means to you. That, or he’s going to keep being unhappy, but he’ll learn to live with it. I sincerely hope it’s the first, but either way, you shouldn’t give up on something that you love for someone who isn’t trying to meet you in the middle.”

Christina gives me a long, searching look. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course. Anything,” I say, and it still doesn’t feel like enough. I wish I could do more, but I can barely do enough for myself some days.

“You’ve been in film club for four years, right? Did your parents ever come to support you?”

I grimace. I know better than to lie. “Not yet.”

Her expression falls, but she nods as if she expected that. “But you still love film?”

“More than anything,” I say and force myself to swallow past the lump in my throat. “Maybe more than everything.”

“I figured,” she says before shaking her head slightly. “One last question?”

“Of course,” I say again. “Ask away.”

“Why do you love it so much?” Christina asks and then winces, like she regrets the words.

I falter, unsure how to answer. For my college applications, I went on and on about escapism and being transported to another world, but I don’t think that’s the answer Christina is looking for.

After mulling over it, I finally land on an answer that’s as close to the truth as I can manage. “I love film because it’s layered,” I say slowly. “It allows us to cover up the truth, to disguise it with lighting and angles and filters. Nothing is ever quite what it seems. There’s a hidden depth to every single shot.”

Christina blinks at me. “Wow. I’ve never thought about it like that.”

I shrug, offering her a hesitant smile. “It means something different to every single person. But that’s what it means to me. I’ve always thought the world looked better captured on film, so I could never give up on it.”

“Thank you, Mina,” Christina says, her eyes a little too bright. “I still have to think about what I’m going to do, but this conversation helped a lot.”