Packing played: Brenae shopping and eating with her weapon, sleeping with her cheek cradled against the barrel. As much as I understood about her now, she still seemed larger than life in the film—not a person, but an emblem, a figure, writ as large as any Hollywood movie character. A woman with her gun: her child and her defender and her killer in one. My eye sockets hurt from seeing her up there, so vibrant and full of life, but I didn’t cry. I was bracing myself for Lesson in Red, and I could feel the tension in the crowd shift as the white title text displayed, and the voice-over began.

He comes. He asks me. I say yes. What can I say? What will happen if I say no? Where will I go?

There was an audible gasp as the film cut to twenty-foot-high Erik, head still blurred, lying on top of Brenae, pushing into her while her face turned away. The voice-over repeated. The blanket shuddered and slipped from her breast. The scale of the video made the sequence a thousand times worse, and I turned away from the screen. That’s when I saw them in the crowd, Yegina and Hiro, staring at the video with pained eyes, and not far from them, Dee, looking queasy, and Janis, her head raised and shoulders back, as if braced for a blow. Janis had almost finished her treatment, but she’d lost weight and her frame looked thin, her complexion waxy in the flickering light. Somehow, she sensed my gaze and met it gravely.

He comes. He asks me. I say yes. What can I say? What will happen if I say no? Where will I go? The voice-over grew louder and more desperate as all of us in the crowd listened and watched and did nothing. When the screen washed red, our faces washed red, too; for a moment, each of us wore the same stained color, and then the film ended and we wore plain light again.

The silence after the video finished was long and deep. It was as if no one knew what to do with their bodies, and we just stood there, some heads bowed, some people furtively looking around, as if hoping to find a friendly face to free them from the tension. Finally, Lynne Feldman took the mic and encouraged everyone to see “all that LAAC has to offer tonight, and all the talented young artists who have brought their work to you. Let’s honor their spirit and inquiry. Let’s make them feel seen.”