My eyes look back at me from the mirror which is in the dead center of my dressing room. I haven’t noticed how red they are; I haven’t noticed the bags.

Three days of wasted photography and threats of being pulled. Three days of Mark begging me to tell him what’s wrong, so he can fix it before I’m fired.

Three days of me feeling like I’m 19 again. Because I’m avoiding her. I’m a fucking coward for doing it, but I know she’ll break me. She’ll bring me back to the exact thing I’ve been running from.

It was so easy to just live when I didn’t have a reminder of my past.

“You want to do something fun?” she asked me. She always asked me that. There was a sparkle in her eyes when she did it too. Like she knew she’d get me into trouble. I could just see her whispering it off the set. I could see her luring me back to what we used to be and how she used to look at me. That desire in her eyes was the most addicting thing I’ve ever seen, ever felt. The taste of her lips and the feel of her curves as she moaned into my mouth is something I’ll never have enough of. It’ll be that question that pushes me to take my last breath.

September 17th

“Want to do something fun?” she asks as she tucks her hair behind her ear. Her backpack shifts on her shoulder and she scoots it up as the bell rings again. The third and final bell.

Everyone’s on their way out. The hallways are crowded and occasionally someone brushes against Harlow. She sways easily, seemingly not to notice. But I notice and it pisses me off. There’s plenty of room to go around her. And I hate that they’re distracting her in the least.

“What do you think?” she asks me and my gaze is drawn back to her.

Her eyes are the lightest shade of blue I think I’ve ever seen but there’s a sparkle in them, it reflects back at me as I stare at her. I let it last too, not saying a word and just letting her flirtatious suggestion hang in the air between us. It makes the tension grow and I live for that. For weeks she’s been pushing me, asking little questions she already knows the answers to, just to say something to me.

She’s playing with fire; she already knows that. But what she doesn’t know is how damaging she’d be to me. The things I want to do to her and the depths I’d go to have her to myself. I’m no good for her, that’s nothing new. But I want to make her mine and she can’t know that; if she did she’d be happy to let us burn together.

“The bell rang,” I tell her just to say something and get my mind off her.

“I heard,” she says as I start walking to the exit. She follows me, refusing to take the hint. “So, let’s go do something.”

Everything in me is screaming at me to just tell her to go home.

“I’m just going home,” I tell her and watch as the disappointment temporarily dulls the brightness of her eyes. But she’s not the type of girl to take no for an answer.

“Are you walking?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her and shut my locker,

She’s quick to respond, “I’ll walk with you.”

With that, I spin the combination on my lock and hang my book bag over one shoulder. She looks up at me with those sweet eyes as she twists her hair around her finger like she’s won. She knew I couldn’t tell her no. She’s my weakness.

“We can do whatever you want,” she offers with a shrug that lifts her tank top up, exposing a bit of skin on her hip. She’s quick to pull it down and cover herself back up and that alone is enough to make my fingers itch to touch her there.

“I think your idea of fun and mine are different, Harlow.” She flinches at her name and I almost think I’ve fucked up somehow, but I know that’s her name. I’ve whispered it over and over alone in bed.

She wrinkles her nose, “I don’t like it when you do that.”

“Do what?” I ask her.

“When you call me Harlow.”

“It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. It just sounds weird with you saying it,” she answers me, continuing to follow me as I walk past two groups of kids that are clogging up the entrance to the school. I walk down three steps and although I felt her hold onto my backpack as I shifted through the people, I don’t feel her anymore. I almost spin around to see if she’s still with me, but the second I cave into temptation, I feel her soft hand brush against mine. It’s like a spark of heat, a stroke of warmth and recognition flowing through me. I have to grip the straps at my shoulders to keep from taking her hand in mine.

My eyes narrow as I take in her words as the crowd slowly dissipates, walking toward the school buses lined up in rows. I don’t get on mine and neither does she. She’s so different. She’s an odd girl, beautiful and naïve, but also alarmingly raw and genuine.

The sun’s hotter than I thought it’d be; I’m already sweating, so I stop on the edge of the sidewalk that lines the asphalt road to the school to take off my t-shirt and just wear the plain white undershirt. My eyes never leave her face though. I see how she looks at me and I love it.

“I saw you like playing cards,” she says and tears her eyes away. Licking her lips, she starts walking again as I pick up my book bag.

“Is that right?” I ask her. I bet she doesn’t know shit about cards. I could teach her though.

“You were playing poker in free period.” She’s not in my free period. I give her a side eye and it makes her blush. She’s caught red-handed, but that doesn’t make her miss a beat in her stride. My steps slow as we round Second Street. The turning point between my way home and hers.

“You gotta go home,” I almost say her name but I don’t. I hate how it makes her flinch, but I do love the way it feels on my tongue.

“I can go where I want to,” she bites back and looks up at me with a sharpness I didn’t see coming.

I can tell her she doesn’t belong down there, but she already knows.

I can tell her I don’t want to walk with her, but that’s a lie and I’m not sure she really gives a shit.

I can tell her I want her to come back to my room and I’ll teach her how to play. But that’s just taking advantage of the sweet little thing she is. Isn’t it?

“You just won’t quit, will you?” I ask her.

A trace of a smile plays at her lips and then she slowly shakes her head, making her backpack sway along with her dirty blonde hair. “Nope.”

My head shakes in frustration as I look back down my street. The city’s on a hill and the top of the hill, where we are now, isn’t so bad. There’s a nice park nearby and up the street are some pretty rich housing areas. But the closer you get to the bottom, to where the houses for the steel mill workers were first built, the houses aren’t the nicest, to say the least. That’s where I live. It’s littered with five and dimes and liquor stores. And nothing else but where we live.

And I don’t want her there.

The shame is something I didn’t expect.

“Ha—Hally,” I give her a nickname on the spot. “Let’s go this way,” I tell her and splay my hand on her lower back, sliding it under her book bag. At first, she looks like she’s going to protest, but she accepts it.

She likes my hand on her. She likes the nickname I gave her. She likes me.

There’s no cure for the sickness she gave me that day by letting me lead her away from where I grew up. If she’d listen to me, who knows where we’d be now. But Hally doesn’t listen and as much as she pushed me, I pushed her right back.

Knock! Knock! Knock! The obnoxious sound of repeated banging on my door pulls me back into the present.

It pisses me off more than anything else.

The door opens quickly, hurriedly, but I stay still in my seat grinding my teeth with frustration. I watch as Julie opens the door, allowing the sounds of the set to flood into the small room before closing it quickly behind her.

She doesn’t wait for me to turn around. She doesn’t wait for shit before saying, “Please tell me you aren’t doing it on purpose?” It’s not a question.

“Hello to you too,” I say as I turn in my seat to face her. I feel wound tightly, the memory begging me to come back to it.

“I’m doing my best to believe that you aren’t completely sabotaging my role, but what happened today is complete horse shit, Hart.”

A rough sigh leaves me as I run a hand through my hair and look at the mini fridge rather than at her. I already feel like shit, but the worst part is that I just can’t bring myself to care about the production. It makes me a dick, but again, I just don’t care.

“You’re going to get fired, or worse, get me fired,” she says and it irritates me. “Don’t think I don’t know that you were the first choice. Stevens has a hard on for you and I’m replaceable. I’m not naïve, Nathan, if you wanted a different costar all you had to do was say so, but now we’re in production and it’s known that I’m on this project.”

“You’re fine, Jules. No one’s firing you.” I tell her as I stand up to go to the door and let her out. I’m not interested in this shit.

“I swear to God if you fuck me, I will fuck you back ten times harder.” It’s hard to look at her with a straight face. She’s angry, rightfully so. I’m not in the game, but none of this is about her and I don’t have time for this shit.

“I have plenty of respect for you Jules and I can promise you I am not trying to… fuck you.” It’s awkward even saying that to her.

“You need to get into the role,” Jules says, her tone completely changed. “Whatever needs to happen,” she says with a lack of conviction, “Whatever, just let me know how I can help you,” she says and her eyes flicker to the floor and then back to mine.

“Nothing,” I tell her before she’s even finished speaking. “I’ll get it right; I’m just not focused.” I need to talk to Harlow. I need to settle this between us. Whatever the hell it is.

“Do you need help…” she starts in again and I’m quick to shut it down.

“No.”

“And what about that girl?”

My body tenses and I hesitate to answer, “What girl?”

Julie’s eyes roll as she puts her hands on her hips. “Don’t give me that shit.”

I let the anger simmer, not knowing what to say, but I settle on the truth. The bare truth. “Someone I used to know,” I answer her.

She opens her mouth to give me her opinion or something, I don’t know what and I don’t care to hear what she has to say. “I need to be alone right now,” I’m basically telling her to get her out.

The anger comes back in response to my cold return, “Well get it together, Hart. I don’t have time for this and I’m not going to be humiliated because you can’t play a role.”

The sound of the door slamming barely registers as I sit down on the bed and think about what I’m going to say to her.

The first question that comes to my mind is: What is there left to say?

And that answer is easy: Everything.

September 30^th

“Tell me what’s wrong?” she keeps asking me over and over like she thinks I’m hiding something. If this is what being together entails, I’m good on my own. I don’t have to tell her what a shitbag my mother’s boyfriend is or that we can’t afford rent this month because he wiped out my mom’s bank account. I don’t have to and I won’t.

“I told you,” I slam the locker door shut and then face her. The wounded look in her eyes makes the anger in me wane. My words stay in the back of my throat, suffocating me as she visibly swallows.

“I just want to know,” she tells me softly as her doe eyes glass over.

I run a hand down my face and let out a sigh as I clench my fists and lean my forearms against the cold metal of the locker. I can almost see my reflection in it. Almost, but I can’t. I can see hers though. The way she looks at me.

“Is it because I told my friends you’re my boyfriend?” she asks me and then pushes the strap to her book bag higher up on her shoulder.

If only it was that easy, the thought makes the corner of my lip twitch up into a smile as I turn back to her.

It’s stupid. Holding her hand and putting a label on us. I don’t get it. Anyone who looks at the two of us knows we’re not going to work out. So why put a title on it? Why fuss over the details of something that isn’t going to last.

“It’s not that,” I tell her simply and she looks back at me like she doesn’t believe me. I’m on the verge of telling her. Of confessing. It’d be a relief to just tell someone, but not her. I don’t want her to know.

“So, then you’re my boyfriend?” she asks me, cocking a brow.

Fucking hell. I give in. “Sure,” I tell her with a forced smile and she kicks me in the shin.

“Ow!” I mock yell at her and smile. “Yes, I’m your boyfriend,” I say jokingly.

“Thank you, Nathan,” Hally says sweetly, getting onto her tiptoes to wrap her arms around me. She does it so easily. Like she doesn’t see everyone watching. If she does, she doesn’t care. I keep my arms to her side, careful not to hug her back, but then it all changes. So suddenly I almost don’t realize what she’s done.

She plants a soft kiss on my neck. It’s wet, just a little, but it’s the sound and the way that her hair brushes against my chin that makes me wrap my arms around her waist. She does it again on my jawline. A small kiss and I find myself tilting my chin down and hoping for one on the lips, but she doesn’t give it to me.

Instead, she falls flat on her feet and then smiles as her cheeks turn bright red. Before I can even utter a word, she grabs my hand and says, “good. I can tell you need me to be your girlfriend.” With a nod, she starts walking and I follow behind her.

That’s the power she holds over me, but she wasn’t prepared for the harsh reality of what being my girlfriend meant.

Neither of us were.