The Man in the Mirror
There's a guy who once said a few wise and telling words.
I need somebody to bring me back to who I am.
You recognise that guy. Remember him. Like a faded image on an old piece of film. He was the guy that had it all, the guy you thought you wanted to be. He was the king of the world and it was glorious. He was a guy you might think would never want for anything. A guy that lost the one thing he never realised he wanted.
You never thought you'd be that guy.
What did you know back then? You were just a guy trying to make his mark, to prove that those roles already played were just a part of what you could do. That the time you played that autistic kid wasn't a fluke, that you were more than just that teenage laden movie that made your name, that you were more. Sure, maybe some thought it's just another pretty boy role, not a stretch for you, but you knew that it was bigger somehow, that you were going to make this one count. Still how could you know what would happen when you got there? That you would meet a girl who would change your life. A girl who became your best friend. How could you know that day you met, with all the months of work that lay ahead of you that now, after so much time has passed, that she would still be such an intrinsic part of your life? No, you could not know, maybe you weren't meant to. Perhaps knowing does not matter, for if there were things you would change, meeting her is not one of them.
It's not supposed to happen, this intense connection with someone just meant to be a co-star. Friendship? You could fake friendship, you're an actor, as is she. But the connection? The one that makes people; colleagues and fans alike remark upon it? It was real, because together you were real. Nights of long practice and frustrations, laughing like children, almost communicating without speaking, so close do you become. Maybe you don't care to examine it....it just is. She saw and sees you still perhaps more clearly than anyone else ever really has. Sure she sees the beauty on the outside, that pretty boy hunk status you've had to carry, that makes you so uncomfortable but more than that she sees that beauty within and when she says she's proud of you, you believe her. You believe in her, maybe more than anyone else you have ever known.
There's a kiss that has a story to tell, both the one that made it to the screen and the one that didn't. There's a memory that lingers, flickering on the edges of the screen of your mind, where it's something beautiful and tentative, as her fingers brush across your neck and a moment that passes between you and you know that you have a 'thing'. She's beautiful. Both in your memories and as the woman that you know now and yet you remember there were those who tried to pull her down. They didn't see her through your eyes. They called her overweight and unattractive. They dismissed the idea that someone like you could ever fall for someone like her. Somehow missing the point of the story you were telling. You wished they could understand quite how amazing you thought she was and how you loved that she didn't seem to care. You could try and explain how she made you laugh more than anyone else you'd ever known. You hoped they could understand what it is to have someone show the truth of themselves to you. You saw more than something..you saw everything in her. Slowly but surely the world was charmed by her as you were. You knew that her talent was exceptional, that the world would have to listen and you were right. When she was nominated and you were not, you felt nothing but pride because you knew that no one deserved it more than her.
So where did it go wrong? Maybe..maybe, you think, maybe it didn't quite go wrong so much as it never went right. Maybe you knew that you had to risk friendship to gain love. Maybe it seemed like too much to lose and yet....somehow you lost her anyway. Always forever friends and nothing more. The hope remains if the possibility does not. You had to talk of it, perhaps because everyone else did and there's never really an answer as to why you never followed through. Maybe you would laugh too much, maybe she is too much like your sister, maybe you could talk to her about anything, except how you really felt. You know that somehow you contradicted yourself. Who were you lying to? Everyone else or yourself? For all your talk of how you like to date the funny, ordinary girls, the girls with personality, the kind you could talk to all night, you somehow end up with the archetype model type. You, the guy that could get anyone, have these stereotypes fall at your feet and yet..nothing really sticks. And if you rashly proclaim once that you're not getting married to anyone for ten or twenty years maybe you hope that you won't have to look at why you can't commit..or why you don't want to. You shake off the rumours about your sexuality and you avoid talking about relationships, even avoid talking about her, perhaps afraid that one day someone will ask the question you cannot answer. That perhaps it's not that you can't commit, that it's not that you wouldn't like to talk about it if you could, that it's not just that your career is more important to you...it's that none of them are her.
When there was talk of working together again, it wasn't a decision you wanted to make. Returning to another era once more. To be so intimate again, to revisit all that you left behind. It's easy for her. She celebrates all that you are together, she always did. Knowing that her life has been the richer for having you in it. You wonder if she let you go back then, the idea of you. When you got lost in the maelstrom of fame for a little while, a place you never wanted to be. She would always have you in her life but never at the centre of it. Do you have to ask yourself when you should have known? Is it now when the new lines upon your faces are like a map of memories made in all the years between you or back then, when you were barely a boy and she a girl that shared both your fears and hopeful dreams? Perhaps you knew, when you found yourself in a room full of your peers, long after the cameras have stopped rolling and many have forgotten that you were ever friends...maybe never even realised that you really truly were. There's an award to be excepted and there in front of everyone, she tells you that she loves you. She loves you. She's always been more vocal than you about how she feels about you and for a moment, it's just you and her. Just for a moment but there's nothing you can do except smile and say thank you because now there are too many other people involved. A realisation made too late, the knowledge that you were both once sailing in the same sea, now destined to be ships that passed in the night.
It's hard to be alone.
Yes it's hard to be alone. Surrounded by so much and so many and yet somehow still untouched. Time passes and now here you are, looking into the eyes of a boy you recognise so easily, so acute is the sense of kindom it's almost like looking at your reflection. Of course, you know who he is but more than that you know who he is and where he's trying to go. You wonder what you can tell him, what you could say to make him understand that there are some things you should never let go of. You ask questions to find answers. You've heard the stories of a boy and girl who shared more than a trailer, whose tale reminds you so much of your own and you hope that he can hear what you're trying to say. The rest is just details. He listens. And you hope. You really hope that maybe watching it all unfold again somehow, with this sense of history repeating itself here is something you can change. Hope that maybe somehow that you can change this course of history because you know of the danger that lurks unseen beneath the surface. Here a chance to warn of what might come to pass if you don't listen to what your heart is trying to tell you. You want to help them steer the right course, to miss that iceberg...to be the ship that sailed. And as you walk away you offer one final piece of advice and you hope that he understands there's more than one type of poison that can find it's way into your bloodstream and that's it's up to you whether you decide you're going to take it. And you're hopeful, you really are, that he can navigate all the obstacles that lay ahead of him. Hoping that the course he steers is true and that one day he does not find himself drifting, as you do, without an anchor, you and nothing but your love lying at the bottom of an unmarked sea.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
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