Oh boy 20 days?! XD Well, 你 tell me if I'm making this up to 你 then *winks winks*
PS I do hope neither Hugh 或者 Lisa read this stuff, but if 你 do guys, just remember you're just, have been, will always be so amazing together that one can't help but hoping and dreaming and wishing that someday, somewhere, somehow a 爱情 like this so beautifully messy might indeed exists. It's just a dream. Forgive me for exploiting how wonderful 你 look to us.
*stops babbling*
--------------------------------------------------
Previously....like 你 need a reminder *arches brows micheviously*
There was a moment of hesitation.
Just a moment. When their lips touched and the salty, burning taste they were still soaked with blended with the flavor of something they both had never forgotten; only it didn’t taste of desperation this time, it didn’t taste of defeat 或者 bitterness 或者 any other bad feeling. For once it just tasted of something which can’t be avoided any longer.
It was just a decision that made itself….
There was a moment of hesitation then.
Until Lisa let herself becoming aware of how blood now felt like boiling under her skin and her lips set into fire, and she gave in to it, entirely, just opening her mouth against his and sliding her tongue into his mouth, inhaling his scent. And he answered her, gently at first twining his tongue with hers, caressing it until he found himself utterly and irrevocably 迷失 in that kiss, running his fingers up and down her back, slowly in the beginning, probing at her body once again, stroking the smoothly silken surface of her skin, tugging her closer a bit, just feeling that familiar shivering tingling running through his body as her fingers went to knot tightly in his hair, pulling him down closer to her, sweetly but very much urgently at the same time.
And then, all of sudden, it felt like everything had started to whirl as her arms wrapped around his neck and her lips got tucked into his mouth and his hands began to 移动 swifter and swifter round her small; and then they were sliding a little bit down, scooping her from the ground ever so slightly, lifting her into his arms, as she answered with the very same urgency, winding herself round him, feeling him as he lifted up her 衬衫 on the back, probing at her skin, as they never stopped kissing, not even for a second; and then she was desperately desiring him to tug her closer, pulling her into him some 更多 and some 更多 again, until his hands slid under her shirt, warily though, resting there, not daring to go whole hog with it; and she started to pull his own up his torso and he moved his arms up above him to let her peel it off, always 接吻 her, never wanting to come off the flavor of her lips…
Until someone knocked abruptly and loudly against the window glass right behind them causing them to startle and broke suddenly apart, panting away while staring to one another breathless…
--------------------------------------------------
Chapter 28
What’s the line standing between you
and your dreams, when they’re living them and yet
earth keeps relentlessly moving, whirlingly
and it whimsically sweeps 你 off your feet?
How do 你 know without doubts 你 can trust
your memories and rely on your senses if everything
seems to have lasted but a heartbeat?
How? How do 你 draw that line?
The little living room of the first floor setting was not very crowded that night. It was a thing for a few intimate. There were just a couple of lights guys, David the cameramen - the trustiest one – Peter, who was sitting cross-legged and patiently waiting on his chair for the shooting to start: a large cup of coffee cupped in his left hand, a swinging pencil between his lips, a rapt but still seraphic look in his eye as he kept on circling stuff, taking side-notes, chuckling to himself at whatever was popping out in his head even if that might never ever see the light of the 日 anyway. And then there was Greg who was, inexplicably, looking like he was been having the time of his life and he was simply playing God knew what kind of a silly, time-wasting pocket game using the 陀螺仪 of his i-phone….
He couldn’t understand how everybody might look so calm. And as he mulled over that, shock-headed, hollow-eyed and right over the edge as he looked, David took a turn to the left, keeping on consuming the fake parquet of the setting, as he had been restlessly doing for an 小时 already. Head-down, hands folded behind his back, ears strained and waiting, there wasn’t one single thing among the tiny ones he couldn’t help but keeping on noticing that wasn’t dangerously on his nerves, up to the point he feared sooner 或者 later he would burst and lashed out at the first unfortunate person at arm-length.
And THIS wasn’t any good.
He took a turn to the right. He had been practicing. He really had. But this taking-deep-long-loosening-deed-deep-breaths-thing wasn’t working. He didn’t used to be like this. He didn’t used to, did it? There was a time he was quite a peaceful person, self-controlled, a magician of the mass-media tightrope walking. What had happened? How could have things had slipped so much out of his hands? He turned around once again; his lips wrinkled in what might most closely resemble a snarl.
THIS wasn’t any good…
Let alone that damn vein in his forehead pulsing frenetically. His wife was right. He would end up causing himself a stroke one of his days if he didn’t take it easy.
No. She wasn’t right. She had no idea. He was SOOOO already past that phase, just outrun it SOOOO many hours 以前 he couldn’t even remember when this freaking 日 had started.
He took a turn to the left. Oh if he was past that phase…. he spinning straight down the path of ‘permanent neurological damages and complications'. Oh yes. He was sure of it. Did his symptoms listed among the ones for a post-traumatic cerebrovascular accident.
He took a turn to the right.
Let’s see. difficulty with verbal expression? Yes, he was staring to find very difficult to have any words at everything anymore. Memory deficit? Checked. He was currently groping in darkness as he tried to remember what kind of unhealthy lack of self-preservation had pushed him to 钱包 this storyline. He might have been already home, under a comfy blanket, his characters stuck in gloomy-land and everyone would be happy but the audience. Sorry for that. What else? Trouble concentrating? This was easy. Touchiness? High blood pressure? Everlasting head-ache? He might have epitomized a scholar book case. The patient of the week. Just awesome.
He went to massage his temples, energetically, two handed.
“Aaaaand back!”
Katie’s voice sound made him snapped his head up like a spring-loaded puppet.“Where the hell have 你 been?!It took 你 ages!!!” he said, snapping his hands open.
Katie smiled. It was one of her utterly, annoying peaceful beams. One of those she casted on him whenever she found herself amused.
It was happening a lot lately.
“Where do 你 think I was….” she asked him, shrugging lightly. She stopped right in front of him and stuffed her hands inside the back pocket of her pants, always smile with pressed lips now with that bright-eyed look of hers he didn’t know where she found the attitude for.
She arched her brows at him, swaying herself 前锋, 期待 a bit “You sent me there remember….” she said, fighting back a little smile.
David stared at her, inexpressive. She nodded for a while and then…turned around.
“Wait! What?” David spoke up after her.
Katie walked up to 涂层, 外套 rack. She took a crumpled cloth hankie out of her purse.
David went after her, “I sent 你 there, alright….aaaand?
She blew her nose “Am muat?!” she asked.
David remained watching her, stock-stiff. He furrowed his forehead at last “What?!?!”
She chocked a laugh inside the hankie, “I said…and what?”
David’s drowsy eyes flashed at her, “What does it mean and what? What did she tell you?” he asked, harshly raising his voice quite a bit already “Where is she? Where is he? Where are they?” he kept on staring to gesticulate “Are they 展示 up? When? What happened? Why did her phone go dead? Why is he not….?”
Katie swung her head up, glaring at him “DAVID RELAAAAAX!!!” she cried over the sound his voice.
He pursed his lips into a sulk pulling a face
She shook her head, a lopsided disapproving grimace on her lips “Why do 你 always have to force to play this part, Dave? Why?! ”
A thundering expression appeared on his face now. The scowl deepened.
Katie licked her lips, looking at him severely. Then she heaved a long sigh and turned from one side to another.
“What are 你 doing?” asked David.
She shushed him and stepped closer to take him 由 his elbow and walking him to the far end of the room, out of the setting space, towards the drinking table.
“What are 你 doing?!”
She placed him 由 her side “Alright…” she started under her breath “I’ll tell 你 what I think…but first…”
She began to pour him some water. David stared at her impenitent.
“Here” she said, handing him a glass “Have some water, gulp it down, take a long, deep breath and ZEN UP for the 爱情 of God!” she trailed off hissing.
David seized his glass blindly, open-mouthed.
Katie looked up at him with an innocent look “What?”
He narrowed his eyes at her “You serious?You really told me to zen up?! Are 你 trying to break me?!”
She turned ahead and put her hair behind her ears “Alright, I’m might be scoffing at you….” she admitted. She poured herself some Pepsi, laughing quietly.
David watched her, dead serious with the same liveliness as a pumice stone erupting from his eyes for a while. Then he swallowed some water.
“Just a little…” she added.
He guzzled the last sip, keeping it inside his mouth for a moment, his face abnormally plumped. She grimaced then as mimicking the small, insignificant amount with her fingers in a clear attempt to make him smile.
He gulped down, hitting off at her instead.
She laughed glancing up at him from over her glass, “Seriously Dave, stop doing this to yourself…” she lowered it down “…you see that furrowed wrinkle 你 have up there?” she 说 pointing up to his forehead “…that’s 你 vein pulsing and making 你 older 由 minute…”
He grunted, pulling away “Put that damn thing down!!!” he said, reaching out to her finger.
She giggled once 更多 and put the glass to one side to haul herself over the edge.
Neither of them talked for a while. Even his watched sounded like being ticking teasingly at him, as 秒 passed and she kept on keeping him out of the loop, obnoxiously
He started to tap nervously on the table, staring hard to the ground.
“By the way…” she 说 though, after some time, at last; her tone sounded casually conversational.
He pulled a puckered face, looking up at her sidelong” 你 having fun?!”
She smiled and pretended to be polishing her fingers “Some…” she admitted.
He snorted.
“But anyway....Hugh’s arrived too…” she said, dropping the news just like that.
David’s eyes opened wide “When?!” Katie crossed her legs “Where is he? How? Was he….is he ready? I mean…” he turned ahead, staring at the entrance “When? I didn’t see….his bike was….I mean….were they…”
“Wait, wait, wait…pull the hand-brake Speedy” she laughed “….I have no crystal ball here…”
“Well but 你 说 你 talked to her and…”
“I never 说 I knew how thing have gone, though…” she told him, flourishing a finger right under his nose.
He wrinkled and pushed himself upright “Then what….”
“I SAID….” she cut him off, stressing the words “I would tell 你 what I thought…might have happened…” she said, shooting him an ever so knowingly eloquent look at his muddled-headed expression.
He dropped his shoulders, “Then what the hell do 你 think is happening here for heaven’s sake? Feel like sharing?!”
Katie arched her eyebrows, smirking. This was gonna be fun to her.
She had first experienced a true moment of panic.
Just a moment, though. One single, everlasting moment in which her 心 leapt into her throat and all she seemed able to be thinking about was that crazy thud against her chest and the way heat had shot through her veins. A sense of dizziness, maybe, as if she had been shot away with a gasp and 迷失 her grip on something which had felt even too irremediably addictive. As if she had been snapped back against her will and some part of her couldn’t see anything else yet.
She remembered the effort then, almost a physical one; how she had tried to do mind over matter in order to regain some control.
It hadn’t lasted but a moment though.
An everlasting elapse of time.
A moment.
A glance.
A silent understanding between them.
And then she was yelling back to Katie already, telling her to hold on, that she had just gotten into the shower, but she would be on set in a minute. And she was dragging him, dragging him along and away from there. And Hugh was following her putting up no resistance.
She would wait for her to finish she had answered her back, though. They were slightly worried. They hadn’t heard from her all 日 long. Her phone appeared to be dead. No one knew how to reach her and David had been looking for Hugh like crazy as well for hours already. They couldn’t find him anywhere. They were wondering whether she had heard from him. They feared he might have slept in 或者 something, she had joked. Perhaps flew over back to 伦敦 earlier than he had originally planned she had laughed, keeping on fooling around with crazy idea.
Her hand had involuntary tightened around his.
She couldn’t hear her very well she had said, deflecting; it wouldn’t have taken her long. A quick shower, but perhaps she might wait for her at the make-up.
She had insisted. She would wait. She wanted to talk to her anyway. This one required some girl-to-girl kind of talk. She didn’t want to talk it out of course. She wasn’t there for that. She trusted their acting. But just to be sure. She and David had quite a different view on this one, she had joked. She wanted it to look natural, but special, unique; a one-of-a-kind kind of kiss…
And then all of sudden she had found herself realizing how natural and unexpectedly legitimate holding his hand was feeling - the bare act of touching him, just right and yet devastatingly scaring at the same time. Her skinny hand – such a tiny little thing compared to his - so casually and yet still so apprehensively wrapped around his as if it were naively trying to hedge it in hers.
She had had the feeling time had slipped away; faded in her very hands; that she wasn’t managing to stop it; stop herself from….
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on a second!!” David interrupted, putting out a hand. He furrowed in concentration as if he was trying to keep up with it.
He finally brought it to his forehead pinching between his eyes, “Who….” he paused, scoffing lightly “…who told 你 those things…if I’m allowed to ask?”
Katie turned ahead towards him. She blinked “What do 你 mean?”
He pursed his lips and squeezed his eyes as if he was unsuccessfully trying to keep a massive headache from bursting out again.
“Who told you” he snapped “who told 你 they had seen each other?! Did she say something like that?!”
Katie tilted her head to one side, staring at him as if she was studying a rare kind of a specimen. She lifted up her brows in the end amusingly “We’re women Dave. I don’t need subtitles 或者 stage directions to get the subtext of a silent movie…..it was all over her face that…”
He swung his head, pushing himself upright “Oh well then if 你 say so!!” he snapped making a wide, sarcastic gesture with his hand “We are as 安全 as houses…”
Katie licked her lips, rolling her eyes “Will 你 just listen to me for once 你 idiot….” he heaved a scoffed-like laugh. She brought one hand to her chest “I was there. I talked to her….”
He shoved his teeth into his lower lip, going back on pacing “Yeah right, pretty good job. Now we still don’t have 答案 but female instinct kicking off, just great…”
Katie dropped her jaw, hissing to him “Well, I couldn’t obviously ask her straight out David, don’t 你 think?!” she paused, watching him “Or 你 think I would have done a better job at subtleness if I had commenced with ‘Hey Liz, hi…how 你 doing? How’s been your day? Seen Hugh? Oh listen, are 你 guys back sleeping together 由 any chance?” she slapped her forehead [/i]“Oh right, sorry I wasn’t supposed to know that 你 already used to once…”[/i] she made a face “ops. Major slip. Anyway, are you? Is Dave’s finale going to make it? Are 你 ok with each other? Please take note, mine are just friendly concerns…” she trailed off, self-mockingly
David kept quiet for a moment, until he pulled another face - like an inexperienced teenager who was been scolding for his lack of knowledge in the things of life - and crossed his arms over chest, dropping himself backwards against the 表 all over again.
He glanced down at his watch. It was 2.30 already. How much longer was he supposed to keep going like this, hanging on in this fucking land of despair in which he didn’t even know whether this damn finale would be shot as it deserved, let alone a whole season like this. He felt something pressuring his chest. A 心 attack. That must be it.
Who had gotten this crazy, very-unlike of him idea into this….
“Beside 你 should have seen how Hugh looked just a few 分钟 ago…” Katie added all of sudden.
He stopped pacing and looked up at her.
“It was all over his face as well…” she 说 “I’m telling you…something’s going on here…”
And then she nodded again as if that had been the litmus test to her.
He had not very clear to what. They had nothing. Nothing altogether in their hands and he wasn’t even sure he would see a tomorrow. His chest kept aching….
Regardless, after a 分钟 或者 too, he found himself pouting lightly. Then he gnashed his teeth, stretched his jaw 前锋, 期待 into a snout and grumbled.
Katie pressed her lips into a tight line.
“I know…” he started “…I know I very much will regret asking…”
They wrinkled into an amused little smile, her eyes sparkling.
He shook his head, tiredly and darted his eyes to the roof “Alright….how did he look?”
Hugh had stood motionless, with his chin cupped in his hand, simply looking at her.
The only thing he had seemed able to do as far as he was concerned: watching her, from the glistening-lighted, large, squared mirror of the make-up room, his chest puffing out rhythmically as blood wouldn’t want stop pulsing through his veins.
She had just arrived. Katie was there too.
She had put her hands on the back of her chair and started to instruct Stephanie, briefly. They wanted her hair to look casually arranged. Her hands had moved around her face, brushed some locks off her neck, gathered it up in some sort of ponytail. He had found his eyes lingering on her skin. Some dark ones had remained down and curled up behind her nape. But it was essential this time, Katie had kept on saying, her appearance didn’t look messy 或者 too neat on the other hand. ‘Offhandedly beautiful, possibly’ she had said. Those had been her exact words.
He believed a slight smile must have flushed across his face, ‘cause Katie’s eyes had slipped on him for a 秒 in that moment and she had smiled a weird half-smile to him, with her lips tightly pressed. And then gone back focusing on Lisa, whispering something in her ear.
She had stifled a smile. A very little one, and then when Katie had left she had simply grabbed a magazine without saying a word. But she couldn’t help smile up to him this time. A tentative beam yet. The most engaging one for him. Eyes like bright silver coins framing the night.
And he simply couldn’t rip his eyes away from that glow, as much as flickering and dim it still looked compared to the one he knew and wish to spot again tonight. Back being unsure somehow, as he had never realized she felt…
Terrified. That was how she had felt.
Did hours pass 或者 just minutes? Perhaps a bunch of seconds, at the utmost.
How many? How many 秒 had a life-changing event been worth missing? How long for everything to find a new place? How many for her to have succumbed to it at last as if there was no other possible choice but living it all over again? Once more.
But something had just changed between them. Nothing would ever be the same. Even if there still remained some unspoken words. And yet once uttered those words would truly change it all, completely, and altogether. Forever…
The thought had cowed her. She had started on moving faster in the darkness, walking up to the far end of her trailer, always in silence, Katie’s voiced always clear in her hear. She kept on talking to her, as if she was trying to make her company. As if she had things she wanted to tell which nevertheless she wasn’t addressing. That had been a thought she had pushed to the back of her mind.
She was trembling slightly now, a new upheaval roiling within her; so much she hadn’t been able to think straight anymore. And whether was it fear, panic 或者 wisdom the one that was making her act so quickly she didn’t know. She only knew she could clearly feel that there was something in her that hadn’t been appeased yet; a desire for him, a need, that kept on flaring up inside her dangerously, making her breath away. And then there was this sudden, impellent urge - she didn’t know herself she had been nursing up to a 分钟 以前 - to keep it for herself some more. Shelter it from the outside world and be just the two of them.
For a little longer...
They were also working on him now. Melanie was filling up the gaps in his hair. To make it quicker, Katie had said. She had called her last-minute. David knew nothing about it. She would deal with it later.
He couldn’t stop casting sideways glances at her. She was there with him and they would be shooting soon but there were still some part of him fearing illogically she might suddenly vanish all the same.
And yet there was so much 更多 than just that to it now, not just fear 或者 some lame lack of self-confidence anymore behind it. Very much 更多 simply instead, perhaps predictably, he was just unable to rip his away from her.
And he knew he wasn’t being any good at it. As Melanie set his him up with fake dust and blood, slashes and he didn’t know what else was still missing, he knew he wasn’t been any good at preventing his eyes from smiling 或者 his lips from twitching slightly at the corners whenever she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from glancing up to him either.
A little bit still too sneaky perhaps; shyly even, as if his stare on her might really have some power. But every time she would raise her eyes up from that magazine she was clearly just pretending to be 阅读 and would 交叉, 十字架 his stare, his stomach would flutter all the same and it would feel like his chest flood with something he hadn’t even had a name for. An odd thrill of triumph maybe. He didn’t know. Deep down inside him, he couldn’t simply stop beaming…
He had spotted her flushing up a bit, each one of those times they had made eye-contact.
No. That was wrong. Flushing up didn’t even convey. It was like a twilight sky got streaked in red. Her face seemed to have been woven from light to in those moments. He just loved being back having that effect on her. And he had missed that glow all over her so much it was now making the ache to touch her flaring up inside him all over again.
Her eyes were the ones searching his in the mirror this time. Pale and grey like stars at night: dazzling and glowing and just as spell-bounding as usual to him even if something seemed to be still creasing her features and it carved them deep into her face. They didn’t even have time to talk after all. Not for real anyway. What he remembered the most, what had remained inside him weren’t the words anyway. But the 总体, 整体 feeling of it: that hasty need to make it quick and put everything off and on hold for then, and yet that compulsion, that inability to let go of her until he had been forced to.
Just the two of them. The two of them. Them. There was a them.
The bare thought of it had been overwhelming to giddiness. So much that at some point he must have sensed it. Did he? It had felt like he had anyhow. As if his silence might have suddenly have changed and got laden with some sort of quiet concern. But if she didn’t even know herself how she felt, how could he? Everything felt so muddled and confused.
Katie wouldn’t stop keeping her busy with her talking, forcing her to stop, answer her - few words, her breath short, her mind pounding - answer her, then kept on dragging him along in the darkness, 心 pounding. It had felt like she had been forever, when it truth she’d been out there only for a few seconds. A 分钟 maybe, speaking up all the time as if she was trying to overcome the alleged noise of the water flowing and pouring in her ears.
Until she had felt his fingers knotting tighter with hers and a hand delicately tugging her backwards. A gentle cry for attention, which had strangely 给 her a funny feeling at the pit of her stomach, even before she had stopped once 更多 and turned ahead to meet the blue of his eyes and find reassurance inside th…
“Let me get this straight!!!” David yelled at that point.
Katie gestured for him to keep it quiet.
He bit his lips, lowered his head and inched it closer to hers “Sorry, sorry but….are 你 saying he was with her the whole time?” he hissed, hurriedly.
Katie dropped her leg down and scooted herself a little closer to him, whispering in turn “Well, I can’t be sure of course …I didn’t hear 或者 see anything….BUT….”
“But?!?!” David anticipated.
Peter casted a sideway glance at them then, frowning.
He was obviously asking himself what did they have to chit-chat so much about.
Katie smiled at him. An innocent smile, displaying such a false poise she herself didn’t know how she did it.
He shrugged going back reading. But it was like no one had ever butt in. David didn’t even spare a 秒 on him “Alright, which but is that but?! A good but 或者 a bad but?”
She turned ahead, staring at him, a little crooked smile slowly creeping on her lips.
“What are 你 smiling at?” David asked. He was standing on his feet and leaning backwards again now, arms and legs both crossed. He looked intently focused.
Katie shot him a look, “You really are starting to get hooked up on this, aren’t you?”
He looked at her for a long moment, narrowing his eyes, “Would 你 just shut the fuck up and keep going?” he snapped, finding no better line to counterargument.
She licked her lips, stifling a chuckle and bowed her head a little closer again, “Alright, I was standing right behind the window when…”
PS I do hope neither Hugh 或者 Lisa read this stuff, but if 你 do guys, just remember you're just, have been, will always be so amazing together that one can't help but hoping and dreaming and wishing that someday, somewhere, somehow a 爱情 like this so beautifully messy might indeed exists. It's just a dream. Forgive me for exploiting how wonderful 你 look to us.
*stops babbling*
--------------------------------------------------
Previously....like 你 need a reminder *arches brows micheviously*
There was a moment of hesitation.
Just a moment. When their lips touched and the salty, burning taste they were still soaked with blended with the flavor of something they both had never forgotten; only it didn’t taste of desperation this time, it didn’t taste of defeat 或者 bitterness 或者 any other bad feeling. For once it just tasted of something which can’t be avoided any longer.
It was just a decision that made itself….
There was a moment of hesitation then.
Until Lisa let herself becoming aware of how blood now felt like boiling under her skin and her lips set into fire, and she gave in to it, entirely, just opening her mouth against his and sliding her tongue into his mouth, inhaling his scent. And he answered her, gently at first twining his tongue with hers, caressing it until he found himself utterly and irrevocably 迷失 in that kiss, running his fingers up and down her back, slowly in the beginning, probing at her body once again, stroking the smoothly silken surface of her skin, tugging her closer a bit, just feeling that familiar shivering tingling running through his body as her fingers went to knot tightly in his hair, pulling him down closer to her, sweetly but very much urgently at the same time.
And then, all of sudden, it felt like everything had started to whirl as her arms wrapped around his neck and her lips got tucked into his mouth and his hands began to 移动 swifter and swifter round her small; and then they were sliding a little bit down, scooping her from the ground ever so slightly, lifting her into his arms, as she answered with the very same urgency, winding herself round him, feeling him as he lifted up her 衬衫 on the back, probing at her skin, as they never stopped kissing, not even for a second; and then she was desperately desiring him to tug her closer, pulling her into him some 更多 and some 更多 again, until his hands slid under her shirt, warily though, resting there, not daring to go whole hog with it; and she started to pull his own up his torso and he moved his arms up above him to let her peel it off, always 接吻 her, never wanting to come off the flavor of her lips…
Until someone knocked abruptly and loudly against the window glass right behind them causing them to startle and broke suddenly apart, panting away while staring to one another breathless…
--------------------------------------------------
Chapter 28
What’s the line standing between you
and your dreams, when they’re living them and yet
earth keeps relentlessly moving, whirlingly
and it whimsically sweeps 你 off your feet?
How do 你 know without doubts 你 can trust
your memories and rely on your senses if everything
seems to have lasted but a heartbeat?
How? How do 你 draw that line?
The little living room of the first floor setting was not very crowded that night. It was a thing for a few intimate. There were just a couple of lights guys, David the cameramen - the trustiest one – Peter, who was sitting cross-legged and patiently waiting on his chair for the shooting to start: a large cup of coffee cupped in his left hand, a swinging pencil between his lips, a rapt but still seraphic look in his eye as he kept on circling stuff, taking side-notes, chuckling to himself at whatever was popping out in his head even if that might never ever see the light of the 日 anyway. And then there was Greg who was, inexplicably, looking like he was been having the time of his life and he was simply playing God knew what kind of a silly, time-wasting pocket game using the 陀螺仪 of his i-phone….
He couldn’t understand how everybody might look so calm. And as he mulled over that, shock-headed, hollow-eyed and right over the edge as he looked, David took a turn to the left, keeping on consuming the fake parquet of the setting, as he had been restlessly doing for an 小时 already. Head-down, hands folded behind his back, ears strained and waiting, there wasn’t one single thing among the tiny ones he couldn’t help but keeping on noticing that wasn’t dangerously on his nerves, up to the point he feared sooner 或者 later he would burst and lashed out at the first unfortunate person at arm-length.
And THIS wasn’t any good.
He took a turn to the right. He had been practicing. He really had. But this taking-deep-long-loosening-deed-deep-breaths-thing wasn’t working. He didn’t used to be like this. He didn’t used to, did it? There was a time he was quite a peaceful person, self-controlled, a magician of the mass-media tightrope walking. What had happened? How could have things had slipped so much out of his hands? He turned around once again; his lips wrinkled in what might most closely resemble a snarl.
THIS wasn’t any good…
Let alone that damn vein in his forehead pulsing frenetically. His wife was right. He would end up causing himself a stroke one of his days if he didn’t take it easy.
No. She wasn’t right. She had no idea. He was SOOOO already past that phase, just outrun it SOOOO many hours 以前 he couldn’t even remember when this freaking 日 had started.
He took a turn to the left. Oh if he was past that phase…. he spinning straight down the path of ‘permanent neurological damages and complications'. Oh yes. He was sure of it. Did his symptoms listed among the ones for a post-traumatic cerebrovascular accident.
He took a turn to the right.
Let’s see. difficulty with verbal expression? Yes, he was staring to find very difficult to have any words at everything anymore. Memory deficit? Checked. He was currently groping in darkness as he tried to remember what kind of unhealthy lack of self-preservation had pushed him to 钱包 this storyline. He might have been already home, under a comfy blanket, his characters stuck in gloomy-land and everyone would be happy but the audience. Sorry for that. What else? Trouble concentrating? This was easy. Touchiness? High blood pressure? Everlasting head-ache? He might have epitomized a scholar book case. The patient of the week. Just awesome.
He went to massage his temples, energetically, two handed.
“Aaaaand back!”
Katie’s voice sound made him snapped his head up like a spring-loaded puppet.“Where the hell have 你 been?!It took 你 ages!!!” he said, snapping his hands open.
Katie smiled. It was one of her utterly, annoying peaceful beams. One of those she casted on him whenever she found herself amused.
It was happening a lot lately.
“Where do 你 think I was….” she asked him, shrugging lightly. She stopped right in front of him and stuffed her hands inside the back pocket of her pants, always smile with pressed lips now with that bright-eyed look of hers he didn’t know where she found the attitude for.
She arched her brows at him, swaying herself 前锋, 期待 a bit “You sent me there remember….” she said, fighting back a little smile.
David stared at her, inexpressive. She nodded for a while and then…turned around.
“Wait! What?” David spoke up after her.
Katie walked up to 涂层, 外套 rack. She took a crumpled cloth hankie out of her purse.
David went after her, “I sent 你 there, alright….aaaand?
She blew her nose “Am muat?!” she asked.
David remained watching her, stock-stiff. He furrowed his forehead at last “What?!?!”
She chocked a laugh inside the hankie, “I said…and what?”
David’s drowsy eyes flashed at her, “What does it mean and what? What did she tell you?” he asked, harshly raising his voice quite a bit already “Where is she? Where is he? Where are they?” he kept on staring to gesticulate “Are they 展示 up? When? What happened? Why did her phone go dead? Why is he not….?”
Katie swung her head up, glaring at him “DAVID RELAAAAAX!!!” she cried over the sound his voice.
He pursed his lips into a sulk pulling a face
She shook her head, a lopsided disapproving grimace on her lips “Why do 你 always have to force to play this part, Dave? Why?! ”
A thundering expression appeared on his face now. The scowl deepened.
Katie licked her lips, looking at him severely. Then she heaved a long sigh and turned from one side to another.
“What are 你 doing?” asked David.
She shushed him and stepped closer to take him 由 his elbow and walking him to the far end of the room, out of the setting space, towards the drinking table.
“What are 你 doing?!”
She placed him 由 her side “Alright…” she started under her breath “I’ll tell 你 what I think…but first…”
She began to pour him some water. David stared at her impenitent.
“Here” she said, handing him a glass “Have some water, gulp it down, take a long, deep breath and ZEN UP for the 爱情 of God!” she trailed off hissing.
David seized his glass blindly, open-mouthed.
Katie looked up at him with an innocent look “What?”
He narrowed his eyes at her “You serious?You really told me to zen up?! Are 你 trying to break me?!”
She turned ahead and put her hair behind her ears “Alright, I’m might be scoffing at you….” she admitted. She poured herself some Pepsi, laughing quietly.
David watched her, dead serious with the same liveliness as a pumice stone erupting from his eyes for a while. Then he swallowed some water.
“Just a little…” she added.
He guzzled the last sip, keeping it inside his mouth for a moment, his face abnormally plumped. She grimaced then as mimicking the small, insignificant amount with her fingers in a clear attempt to make him smile.
He gulped down, hitting off at her instead.
She laughed glancing up at him from over her glass, “Seriously Dave, stop doing this to yourself…” she lowered it down “…you see that furrowed wrinkle 你 have up there?” she 说 pointing up to his forehead “…that’s 你 vein pulsing and making 你 older 由 minute…”
He grunted, pulling away “Put that damn thing down!!!” he said, reaching out to her finger.
She giggled once 更多 and put the glass to one side to haul herself over the edge.
Neither of them talked for a while. Even his watched sounded like being ticking teasingly at him, as 秒 passed and she kept on keeping him out of the loop, obnoxiously
He started to tap nervously on the table, staring hard to the ground.
“By the way…” she 说 though, after some time, at last; her tone sounded casually conversational.
He pulled a puckered face, looking up at her sidelong” 你 having fun?!”
She smiled and pretended to be polishing her fingers “Some…” she admitted.
He snorted.
“But anyway....Hugh’s arrived too…” she said, dropping the news just like that.
David’s eyes opened wide “When?!” Katie crossed her legs “Where is he? How? Was he….is he ready? I mean…” he turned ahead, staring at the entrance “When? I didn’t see….his bike was….I mean….were they…”
“Wait, wait, wait…pull the hand-brake Speedy” she laughed “….I have no crystal ball here…”
“Well but 你 说 你 talked to her and…”
“I never 说 I knew how thing have gone, though…” she told him, flourishing a finger right under his nose.
He wrinkled and pushed himself upright “Then what….”
“I SAID….” she cut him off, stressing the words “I would tell 你 what I thought…might have happened…” she said, shooting him an ever so knowingly eloquent look at his muddled-headed expression.
He dropped his shoulders, “Then what the hell do 你 think is happening here for heaven’s sake? Feel like sharing?!”
Katie arched her eyebrows, smirking. This was gonna be fun to her.
She had first experienced a true moment of panic.
Just a moment, though. One single, everlasting moment in which her 心 leapt into her throat and all she seemed able to be thinking about was that crazy thud against her chest and the way heat had shot through her veins. A sense of dizziness, maybe, as if she had been shot away with a gasp and 迷失 her grip on something which had felt even too irremediably addictive. As if she had been snapped back against her will and some part of her couldn’t see anything else yet.
She remembered the effort then, almost a physical one; how she had tried to do mind over matter in order to regain some control.
It hadn’t lasted but a moment though.
An everlasting elapse of time.
A moment.
A glance.
A silent understanding between them.
And then she was yelling back to Katie already, telling her to hold on, that she had just gotten into the shower, but she would be on set in a minute. And she was dragging him, dragging him along and away from there. And Hugh was following her putting up no resistance.
She would wait for her to finish she had answered her back, though. They were slightly worried. They hadn’t heard from her all 日 long. Her phone appeared to be dead. No one knew how to reach her and David had been looking for Hugh like crazy as well for hours already. They couldn’t find him anywhere. They were wondering whether she had heard from him. They feared he might have slept in 或者 something, she had joked. Perhaps flew over back to 伦敦 earlier than he had originally planned she had laughed, keeping on fooling around with crazy idea.
Her hand had involuntary tightened around his.
She couldn’t hear her very well she had said, deflecting; it wouldn’t have taken her long. A quick shower, but perhaps she might wait for her at the make-up.
She had insisted. She would wait. She wanted to talk to her anyway. This one required some girl-to-girl kind of talk. She didn’t want to talk it out of course. She wasn’t there for that. She trusted their acting. But just to be sure. She and David had quite a different view on this one, she had joked. She wanted it to look natural, but special, unique; a one-of-a-kind kind of kiss…
And then all of sudden she had found herself realizing how natural and unexpectedly legitimate holding his hand was feeling - the bare act of touching him, just right and yet devastatingly scaring at the same time. Her skinny hand – such a tiny little thing compared to his - so casually and yet still so apprehensively wrapped around his as if it were naively trying to hedge it in hers.
She had had the feeling time had slipped away; faded in her very hands; that she wasn’t managing to stop it; stop herself from….
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on a second!!” David interrupted, putting out a hand. He furrowed in concentration as if he was trying to keep up with it.
He finally brought it to his forehead pinching between his eyes, “Who….” he paused, scoffing lightly “…who told 你 those things…if I’m allowed to ask?”
Katie turned ahead towards him. She blinked “What do 你 mean?”
He pursed his lips and squeezed his eyes as if he was unsuccessfully trying to keep a massive headache from bursting out again.
“Who told you” he snapped “who told 你 they had seen each other?! Did she say something like that?!”
Katie tilted her head to one side, staring at him as if she was studying a rare kind of a specimen. She lifted up her brows in the end amusingly “We’re women Dave. I don’t need subtitles 或者 stage directions to get the subtext of a silent movie…..it was all over her face that…”
He swung his head, pushing himself upright “Oh well then if 你 say so!!” he snapped making a wide, sarcastic gesture with his hand “We are as 安全 as houses…”
Katie licked her lips, rolling her eyes “Will 你 just listen to me for once 你 idiot….” he heaved a scoffed-like laugh. She brought one hand to her chest “I was there. I talked to her….”
He shoved his teeth into his lower lip, going back on pacing “Yeah right, pretty good job. Now we still don’t have 答案 but female instinct kicking off, just great…”
Katie dropped her jaw, hissing to him “Well, I couldn’t obviously ask her straight out David, don’t 你 think?!” she paused, watching him “Or 你 think I would have done a better job at subtleness if I had commenced with ‘Hey Liz, hi…how 你 doing? How’s been your day? Seen Hugh? Oh listen, are 你 guys back sleeping together 由 any chance?” she slapped her forehead [/i]“Oh right, sorry I wasn’t supposed to know that 你 already used to once…”[/i] she made a face “ops. Major slip. Anyway, are you? Is Dave’s finale going to make it? Are 你 ok with each other? Please take note, mine are just friendly concerns…” she trailed off, self-mockingly
David kept quiet for a moment, until he pulled another face - like an inexperienced teenager who was been scolding for his lack of knowledge in the things of life - and crossed his arms over chest, dropping himself backwards against the 表 all over again.
He glanced down at his watch. It was 2.30 already. How much longer was he supposed to keep going like this, hanging on in this fucking land of despair in which he didn’t even know whether this damn finale would be shot as it deserved, let alone a whole season like this. He felt something pressuring his chest. A 心 attack. That must be it.
Who had gotten this crazy, very-unlike of him idea into this….
“Beside 你 should have seen how Hugh looked just a few 分钟 ago…” Katie added all of sudden.
He stopped pacing and looked up at her.
“It was all over his face as well…” she 说 “I’m telling you…something’s going on here…”
And then she nodded again as if that had been the litmus test to her.
He had not very clear to what. They had nothing. Nothing altogether in their hands and he wasn’t even sure he would see a tomorrow. His chest kept aching….
Regardless, after a 分钟 或者 too, he found himself pouting lightly. Then he gnashed his teeth, stretched his jaw 前锋, 期待 into a snout and grumbled.
Katie pressed her lips into a tight line.
“I know…” he started “…I know I very much will regret asking…”
They wrinkled into an amused little smile, her eyes sparkling.
He shook his head, tiredly and darted his eyes to the roof “Alright….how did he look?”
Hugh had stood motionless, with his chin cupped in his hand, simply looking at her.
The only thing he had seemed able to do as far as he was concerned: watching her, from the glistening-lighted, large, squared mirror of the make-up room, his chest puffing out rhythmically as blood wouldn’t want stop pulsing through his veins.
She had just arrived. Katie was there too.
She had put her hands on the back of her chair and started to instruct Stephanie, briefly. They wanted her hair to look casually arranged. Her hands had moved around her face, brushed some locks off her neck, gathered it up in some sort of ponytail. He had found his eyes lingering on her skin. Some dark ones had remained down and curled up behind her nape. But it was essential this time, Katie had kept on saying, her appearance didn’t look messy 或者 too neat on the other hand. ‘Offhandedly beautiful, possibly’ she had said. Those had been her exact words.
He believed a slight smile must have flushed across his face, ‘cause Katie’s eyes had slipped on him for a 秒 in that moment and she had smiled a weird half-smile to him, with her lips tightly pressed. And then gone back focusing on Lisa, whispering something in her ear.
She had stifled a smile. A very little one, and then when Katie had left she had simply grabbed a magazine without saying a word. But she couldn’t help smile up to him this time. A tentative beam yet. The most engaging one for him. Eyes like bright silver coins framing the night.
And he simply couldn’t rip his eyes away from that glow, as much as flickering and dim it still looked compared to the one he knew and wish to spot again tonight. Back being unsure somehow, as he had never realized she felt…
Terrified. That was how she had felt.
Did hours pass 或者 just minutes? Perhaps a bunch of seconds, at the utmost.
How many? How many 秒 had a life-changing event been worth missing? How long for everything to find a new place? How many for her to have succumbed to it at last as if there was no other possible choice but living it all over again? Once more.
But something had just changed between them. Nothing would ever be the same. Even if there still remained some unspoken words. And yet once uttered those words would truly change it all, completely, and altogether. Forever…
The thought had cowed her. She had started on moving faster in the darkness, walking up to the far end of her trailer, always in silence, Katie’s voiced always clear in her hear. She kept on talking to her, as if she was trying to make her company. As if she had things she wanted to tell which nevertheless she wasn’t addressing. That had been a thought she had pushed to the back of her mind.
She was trembling slightly now, a new upheaval roiling within her; so much she hadn’t been able to think straight anymore. And whether was it fear, panic 或者 wisdom the one that was making her act so quickly she didn’t know. She only knew she could clearly feel that there was something in her that hadn’t been appeased yet; a desire for him, a need, that kept on flaring up inside her dangerously, making her breath away. And then there was this sudden, impellent urge - she didn’t know herself she had been nursing up to a 分钟 以前 - to keep it for herself some more. Shelter it from the outside world and be just the two of them.
For a little longer...
They were also working on him now. Melanie was filling up the gaps in his hair. To make it quicker, Katie had said. She had called her last-minute. David knew nothing about it. She would deal with it later.
He couldn’t stop casting sideways glances at her. She was there with him and they would be shooting soon but there were still some part of him fearing illogically she might suddenly vanish all the same.
And yet there was so much 更多 than just that to it now, not just fear 或者 some lame lack of self-confidence anymore behind it. Very much 更多 simply instead, perhaps predictably, he was just unable to rip his away from her.
And he knew he wasn’t being any good at it. As Melanie set his him up with fake dust and blood, slashes and he didn’t know what else was still missing, he knew he wasn’t been any good at preventing his eyes from smiling 或者 his lips from twitching slightly at the corners whenever she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from glancing up to him either.
A little bit still too sneaky perhaps; shyly even, as if his stare on her might really have some power. But every time she would raise her eyes up from that magazine she was clearly just pretending to be 阅读 and would 交叉, 十字架 his stare, his stomach would flutter all the same and it would feel like his chest flood with something he hadn’t even had a name for. An odd thrill of triumph maybe. He didn’t know. Deep down inside him, he couldn’t simply stop beaming…
He had spotted her flushing up a bit, each one of those times they had made eye-contact.
No. That was wrong. Flushing up didn’t even convey. It was like a twilight sky got streaked in red. Her face seemed to have been woven from light to in those moments. He just loved being back having that effect on her. And he had missed that glow all over her so much it was now making the ache to touch her flaring up inside him all over again.
Her eyes were the ones searching his in the mirror this time. Pale and grey like stars at night: dazzling and glowing and just as spell-bounding as usual to him even if something seemed to be still creasing her features and it carved them deep into her face. They didn’t even have time to talk after all. Not for real anyway. What he remembered the most, what had remained inside him weren’t the words anyway. But the 总体, 整体 feeling of it: that hasty need to make it quick and put everything off and on hold for then, and yet that compulsion, that inability to let go of her until he had been forced to.
Just the two of them. The two of them. Them. There was a them.
The bare thought of it had been overwhelming to giddiness. So much that at some point he must have sensed it. Did he? It had felt like he had anyhow. As if his silence might have suddenly have changed and got laden with some sort of quiet concern. But if she didn’t even know herself how she felt, how could he? Everything felt so muddled and confused.
Katie wouldn’t stop keeping her busy with her talking, forcing her to stop, answer her - few words, her breath short, her mind pounding - answer her, then kept on dragging him along in the darkness, 心 pounding. It had felt like she had been forever, when it truth she’d been out there only for a few seconds. A 分钟 maybe, speaking up all the time as if she was trying to overcome the alleged noise of the water flowing and pouring in her ears.
Until she had felt his fingers knotting tighter with hers and a hand delicately tugging her backwards. A gentle cry for attention, which had strangely 给 her a funny feeling at the pit of her stomach, even before she had stopped once 更多 and turned ahead to meet the blue of his eyes and find reassurance inside th…
“Let me get this straight!!!” David yelled at that point.
Katie gestured for him to keep it quiet.
He bit his lips, lowered his head and inched it closer to hers “Sorry, sorry but….are 你 saying he was with her the whole time?” he hissed, hurriedly.
Katie dropped her leg down and scooted herself a little closer to him, whispering in turn “Well, I can’t be sure of course …I didn’t hear 或者 see anything….BUT….”
“But?!?!” David anticipated.
Peter casted a sideway glance at them then, frowning.
He was obviously asking himself what did they have to chit-chat so much about.
Katie smiled at him. An innocent smile, displaying such a false poise she herself didn’t know how she did it.
He shrugged going back reading. But it was like no one had ever butt in. David didn’t even spare a 秒 on him “Alright, which but is that but?! A good but 或者 a bad but?”
She turned ahead, staring at him, a little crooked smile slowly creeping on her lips.
“What are 你 smiling at?” David asked. He was standing on his feet and leaning backwards again now, arms and legs both crossed. He looked intently focused.
Katie shot him a look, “You really are starting to get hooked up on this, aren’t you?”
He looked at her for a long moment, narrowing his eyes, “Would 你 just shut the fuck up and keep going?” he snapped, finding no better line to counterargument.
She licked her lips, stifling a chuckle and bowed her head a little closer again, “Alright, I was standing right behind the window when…”