Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,15
least the ones I’m supposed to be honestly portraying.”
I thought losing your virginity at fourteen for acting experience sounded pretty messed up for anyone’s situation, but I bit back my comment, letting her continue.
“My problem as an actress has always been empathizing with the characters I play. Some might say it’s a curse, or that it means I’m not naturally talented, but the way I look at it is that I have to work twice as hard to get into a character’s head, but when I do get it (and I always do eventually)…I’m the best. There is no one better than me.”
Madeline might have been the most single-minded, self-absorbed human being I’d ever met, but her passion was nothing short of admirable. Something drove her to demand more out of life, to succeed, to mean something in this world, and that, more than anything else, I could relate to.
The frivolous life I’d been born into, utterly lacking in goals and ambitions, had been steamrolled the day I found out I was pregnant. From that moment on, I had been on a mission to make something of myself, to make the decisions I’d made in the past worth it, to prove that I was someone who deserved being proud of again.
“I guess my reasons for sleeping with Cam weren’t all that noble either,” I began carefully, letting my memories wander into dangerous territory.
Predictably, Madeline zeroed in on me the second I opened my mouth as if I was about to offer her the secret to life. “So it wasn’t that you were just so convinced that you were in love with him? I’ve been working off that.”
“I’d thought I was in love with him the second he walked through the door at my house when he came home with my brother, Thomas, for Christmas. It was a long time after I’d even slept with him that I knew I was truly in love with him though.”
And as the words came out, the memories replayed a thousand times more vividly than a movie screen would ever be able to capture.
Cam had been different than anyone I’d ever met. He was mysterious with the background of a bad boy, and the most charming grin I’d ever seen. Thomas had been telling us stories about his roommate since he’d left for college, but Christmas during their junior year was the first time I met Cam in person.
It was one of my favorite Christmases. Cam fit right into our family. My parents loved him, and I couldn’t stop staring at him, wanting him to notice me as more than Thomas’ seventeen-year-old little sister.
There were a few tempting moments between us that Cam managed to keep from escalating, but at the end of holiday break, he went back to the East coast with Thomas and that was that.
Three months later, I’d flown across the country to spend my spring break with Thomas, and ended up seducing his best friend.
“But why did you do it?” Madeline impatiently interrupted. “You barely knew him, and the book makes it seem like you’d had plenty of serious boyfriends before you ever met Cameron. Why save it for such a long time, only to give it up to someone you knew you didn’t likely have a future with?”
I closed my eyes, and in my head I was in that bathroom again. I let myself go back there as a frightened seventeen-year-old, and I searched for the words. Finally, I opened my eyes, reluctant to admit the truth I’d just found within myself.
“I just wanted to get it over with,” I cringed as the confession was spoken out loud for the first time. It was certainly the first time I’d ever admitted it to myself. “In relationships there’s so much build up to the event, and with my other boyfriends, there had been this sense of inevitability that I hated. It was like I had no control, and that night, when I stared into the mirror of that bathroom, all I felt was control. I had the power to make it happen on my terms. No more waiting, wondering, and worrying, when I could just do it and get it over with.”
Once the words were out, I tensed with anticipation, like I’d asked her a question that deserved an answer, but Madeline sat quietly, looking more relaxed than I’d ever seen her.
“Okay,” she said, the single word filled with finality.
“Okay?”
Nodding distractedly, she stood and began to straighten her clothes.