PART ONE

We sit there, huddled, half-asleep.  No one knows how late it is, but we're all tired, and we're all wondering exactly why it is that we're where we are.  I know.  From the corner where I sit and hide, I can see him.  I'm safe here.  I'm just an extra on the set. To him, if he could see me, I'd just be some random girl.  He's the center of attention.  I'm the periphery.  He'll never see me here.

The girl next to me is out.  She's snoring lightly, but that reminds me that I'm awake.  I blink to prove it, and my dark eyes are hidden from the world for a moment.  I feel so much like I need to keep the rest of me hidden from him.  I pull my knees closer to my chest, folding my arms on top of my knees.  My face mostly hidden, I peer out over my arms.  I try to sit even smaller in the corner.  I try to collapse in on myself.  Can I?

As I shrink, I watch him.  He's across the room, laughing with others, the sound tinkling musically towards my small corner.  The girls around him laugh, too--superficial giggles that fall like icicles and shatter on the concrete of the cold warehouse floor.  My eyes narrow.  His remain wide and bright, a startling blue.  One of the girls looks like she wants to drown in his eyes.  I bet he would let her.  I squint even more.

The warehouse we're in is in the middle of nowhere, but he's made it somewhere.  I get the feeling that he always does that, even as I watch him with the others, the ones with the plastic smiles.  I scoot back, pressing my back further into the wall.  The girl beside me wakes up and yawns.  I close my eyes.

I can feel the space we're in, even with my eyes closed.  Shutting him out, I mentally trace my fingers over the wall behind me, all the way up to the ceiling forty feet above me.  I count the metal rafters where they suspend the roof, holding up the artificial heaven to which we all aspire.  In my mind my hands smooth over each piece of the set, the neon orange and blue, the corners, the curves, the straightaways.  I press my hands to the floor, soaking up its cool. It pushes away the heat he generates.  I fight the feeling that he owns this place, owns me.  It might be true.

Eyes still closed, in my mind I let my fingers search him now.  They trace his ears, tugging at the place where he usually wears his diamonds.  He's left them home today.  They trace his chin, his cheekbones, his smile, pausing at his pouty pink lips--lips too pretty to be his, but his all the same.  They smooth over his unruly eyebrows, counting each fine hair.  They brush along his jaw line, the lazy scruff that grows there--he's too young to have a beard.  And too pretty.  They run over his head where his golden curls once grew--now a fuzz of stubble is all that remains.

[They made me look too young, too innocent.]

That was his voice.  My eyes fly open. He's looking at me, and his eyes search mine.  And in my head, I hear him again: [You know.]

I shut my eyes tight in panic, knowing my senses have left me.

[No, you're not going crazy,] his angelic voice tells me, whisper-soft, [this is me.  And I know you can hear me because I can hear you, too.]

I realize that mentally I've left my hands on his head, and I can still feel the fuzz of his hair under my fingertips.  I pull back, cowering once more into my corner, and in that instant our nexus is snapped.  Unable to hear him any longer, I open my eyes.  He's still looking at me, but the electric intensity of our connection is gone.  His eyes tell me he felt me pull away.  Is that disappointment?  He turns away, turns back towards the girls who giggle and try to touch him, and without thinking I reach out for him again with my fingers in my mind.

I brush his elbow with my thumb and get, [You were gone.]

I'm here, I want to tell him, I'm here, but I'm afraid.  But in my fear I forget not to touch and he hears me.

[Stay.]

 ***

The shoot wraps up quietly, and I slip away.  Outside the warehouse, the night is silent.  I'm alone with my jumbled, swirling thoughts.  I sit down on the curb and hug my knees to my chest. I'm not sure if I'm trying to shrink down into the gutter or not.  I think about looking for my car and driving home, but I don't want to leave just yet.  I think about digging through my pockets in search of a cigarette, but that's too much trouble.  I don't have a lighter anyway.  Instead, I sit.  I'm not really waiting for him because all I have to do is reach out for him in my mind and he's there.  At least I think he will be.  I'm not ready to test that theory.  Here on the curb I wouldn't be able to get close to him anyway.  I don't want to.  I've seen him, I know what there is to see.  That's what I tell myself anyway.

I rest my chin on my knees and close my eyes again. I try to recapture the moment, [our] moment, but it's elusive.  I can only really remember the feeling of the fuzz of his head under my fingertips.  Forgetting -- ignoring? -- the possibilities, I reach out to brush that fuzz with my palms.

[I knew you'd ... yes.  There. I knew.]

In what he says to me there is a tangle of emotion that passes for a mix of weariness and exuberance.  I answer him equally nonsensically.  I mentally slide my fingers down his arm, locking them with his. 'May I?' I ask without words.  I can feel his smile in his fingertips, and I hear his whispered, [please do,] as clearly as if he'd been standing there next to me.  I'm just beginning to smile when I hear, softly, "Hey."  It's not in my head, but in my ears, and I look up.  He's standing there next to me.  I tear my mind away from his, and I run.

In my mind, I feel him--imagine him?--reaching out for me, but I shove him away.  I never asked for this.  I was only trying to watch him and hide at the same time.  I don't need this.  This is too much.  I run until the concrete turns to grass and my legs ache and my lungs are burning.  Then I stop.  I look around.  I'm in a small park, and, regressing into my not-so-distant childhood, I climb the nearest tree.  Its branches are silvered in the moonlight, and I fancy myself a princess in a tower.  I lock my door.

My conscience whispers, 'Why are you running?'

It's a question I don't want to answer.

I close my eyes to block out my own inquisition, but in the graying void of my memory, all I can see is him.  I know that if I reach for him, even with just a fingertip ...  There he is.  I can hear the smile in his voice, see the sparkle in his eyes in my mind.

[Am I really that bad?]

'You know the answer to that.'

[Do I know why you ran from me?  Wait, wait ... here.  Wrap your fingers in mine again.]

'Not yet.'

[But you're not really here, just a fingertip, a thumb, here on my wrist.]

'It's all I have.'

[Is that true?]

'True for now.'

He asks me things, quiet things, and I answer him quietly.  It is peaceful in the tree, with my eyes closed, with my fingers in my mind on his wrist.  He's telling me a story, something that happened to him a long time ago, and I'm listening, and I'm drawing circles on his wrist in my mind.  My fingers slid up his forearm and rub over the crease at his elbow.

[That tickles.]

'You can feel me?'

[Yes.]

Incredulous, I muse without thinking, 'How did this happen?'

[I've learned not to ask questions I don't want to learn the answers to.]

'I ... OK.'

He continues his story, and I draw more on his arm. I think about his blue blue eyes, and the girl I thought wanted to drown in those eyes.  I think I want to be that girl now.  I would even pick up a cold icicle
laugh if I...

[You would?]

'How did you ...?  I wasn't talking to you!'

[You think loudly.]

I shake my head and fight a smile.  I'm supposed to be mad.

[Why?]

'Why what?'

[Why be mad?  Can you see me, in your mind, where your fingers are on my arm?]

'Yes.'

[Can you see my eyes?]  In my mind, my eyes follow my fingers up his arm, across his shoulder, up his neck and over his cheek.  My fingers stop there, and my eyes lock with his.  It's the moment in the warehouse again.  I'm there and his eyes are blue, so very blue.  And vast.  Like the ocean.

[You can see me.  I know you're looking there, looking at me, that you see more than any of the others.  You see past cold giggles, past diamonds, past it all.]

'Yes.'

[You want to drown?]

'I'm afraid.'

[I'll drown with you.]

'You'll what?'

[With you.  This.  Us.  Give me your hand.]

I see him reach his hand, big and warm, for my small and cold one.  I swallow thickly, suddenly uncertain.

[Here ...] and I feel him reaching for me, not to pull, but to invite. Our fingertips brush and I feel him close in around me. Then, all of a sudden, he's gone.

I've let go.