Steal

She stopped just shy from me as the rest of the scene around us played out.

The other characters, including Pris and Lincoln, were playing on the beach, part of the scene including a barbecue and a few other things that I hadn’t paid attention to, partially because I didn’t really give a shit and partially because they kept re-writing things.

Angelica sat.

And hugged her knees.

I stared at her.

Like a creeper.

I had no other direction.

And then she turned her face to me and whispered. “Do you think I’m a bitch?”

I jerked my attention away from her, it was an honest reaction, one I couldn’t hide.

“Never mind.” She flashed a sad smile. “Maybe I am, maybe that’s why they hate me, no matter what I do… sometimes… I think life would have been better like a bird.” Tears filled her eyes. “Where you can fly away, escape.” Her sigh was rough, it hit me right in the middle of my chest as my heart slowed to a stop. “Escape all of this.”

It was eerily identical to a conversation we’d had before breaking up.

“Why?” I croaked. Jay could go to Hell for all I cared. “Why do you need… an escape?” I didn’t say that, because in the past, the conversation had centered around drugs, and I wasn’t sure that’s what this was about, in the movie, shit I needed to read the new changes if I was going to survive any of this.

“Because sometimes it’s better to feel nothing at all, than to feel all of it. I don’t think…” She chewed on her thumbnail then shoved her hands into the sand. “I don’t think I’m wired right.”

“Is anyone?” I joked.

Her smile was breathless. I scooted closer.

Apparently, whatever I was doing was fine since nobody had yelled cut. I wasn’t sure how many more lines she had, so I kept sitting there, sitting near her. It was nice, it was nice not being on the verge of yelling at her or taking out my anger on her.

Because I suddenly realized, maybe acting was the only way we were ever going to be able to have a civil conversation.

Damn you, Jaymeson.

“You’re normal. You don’t look at me like they do,” she finally said. “I think if everyone looked at me through your eyes — I wouldn’t need that escape. I think I would be tempted to…” She gulped. “Stay.” And then she straightened, holding her hands up to the sky as she fell onto her back and sighed. “For you I would stay.”

I leaned back next to her and reached for her hand.

She let me take it.

“For how long though…”

She was quiet.

And then her whisper carried across the wind, kissing me in the face. “Forever.”

We both turned to look at each other at the same time.

I smiled sadly. “I wish that was true.”

“I wish this was real.” She fired back tears in her eyes.

“Are you saying this is a dream now?” I knew what she meant, but I batted that logic away with desperation.

“Maybe.” Her pale lips glistened from her tongue sneaking out and touching them, and suddenly the only thing that mattered was this moment.

This completely unreal fabricated moment.

This moment in time where we didn’t matter.

Where our pasts collided with our present.

Where our present didn’t decide our future, at least not yet.

It was a moment frozen in time.

So I took it with both hands. I cupped the side of her face and brought my mouth down on hers with a soft kiss and whispered, “Sweet dreams.”

“Cut!” Jay yelled.

At some point very soon, I was going to murder him, but not now, now I was… possibly for the first time in two years content.

Until the crew moved around us and started setting up the next scene, shattering the precious moment I’d just shared — one of the few I wouldn’t be able to forget in a long time.

“Perfect!” Jay said jogging up to us, “I knew you had it in you.” He pointed to the trailer. “Ang go back to wardrobe and change.”

When she was gone, he turned back to me and had one of the smuggest grins I’d ever seen in my entire existence pasted cross his face. “So?”

“What the hell was that?” I asked in the calmest voice I could muster.

“It sounded like a conversation.”

“You can’t put that shit in the movie.”

“I can. I will. It’s going to destroy viewers when I kill her off…”

“Say what?” I roared.

“Kidding.” He held up his hands. “Plus, it’s not real right? Just a dream?” His smile disappeared. “Maybe, you should focus on the fact that the only time you can be civil to the one girl you’ve ever loved — is when I force it on you.”

“That’s bullshit.” I kicked the sand.

“Sure, yeah, whatever you say, mate.” He jogged off.

And I was left alone.

With people surrounding me.

But utterly alone.

I used to thrive off the feeling of being in front of people; now I hated it, and yet, I was doing this.

Why was I doing this?

For answers?

Because I was selfish?

I didn’t have time to think it through, because lucky me, I had another scene to do with Angelica.

I was going to die before this was over with.

“I CAN’T DO this anymore.” I hung my head and rested it in my hands. Gem grabbed some light lip-gloss and forced me to sit up so she could spread it across my lips. “It’s too hard, it feels too real.” I choked back a sob and closed my eyes while Gem finished up.

“This is based on true events, right?” Gem asked.

I opened one eye. “Yes.”

“But you never had that conversation in the last scene with Will?”

I squirmed, “We had something similar, a few years ago, back when…” I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to. “Back when things were bad.”

She nodded and dropped the gloss back onto the table then put her hands on her hips. “It feels real because it was your life, it is your life, and your past is suddenly now in your life.” She reached for my hands.

For some insane reason I let her take them. She squeezed. And tears welled behind my stupid eyes again.

“You’re reliving your past through different eyes.” She spoke slowly. “Realizing things that maybe you’ve never thought about before, and because Jay knows both of you very well my only assumption is he’s trying… to maybe help his friends.”

“We aren’t friends.” I snorted. “Trust me, Jay would rather drown me.”

“I see.” She released my hands. “So that’s why every A-lister that begged for this role was turned down? Because you aren’t… what did you call it? Friends?”

I stood. “Will called in a favor.”

“That makes two friends.” Her eyebrows arched and then she said the craziest thing. “How lucky you must be, to have two.”

And oddly enough, my first response was to say, bitch, please, I’ve got loads of friends.

But then I thought about it.

And realized.

I didn’t.

I never did.

Because Will had been my first true friend, and then my love.

And everyone else in my life had been a user. Andrew included. He used me to get back at Will. He used us against each other.

And I let him because I was lost, I was jealous, and I was an attention-seeking whore.

I was jerked away from my thoughts when the trailer door opened and Will was on the other side.

Shirtless.

“Hey, sorry they need Ang.”

Gem smiled at me. “Have fun with your friends.”

I gave her a seething yet teasing look before making my way toward Will, toward the door, toward another gut-wrenching scene that I refused to think about.

It’s not real.

It’s not real.

I had to convince myself it wasn’t real or I wouldn’t get through it, and since Jay liked keeping Will in the dark for obvious reasons that meant it was all on me.

A lot of pressure. Great.