Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,97
my intentions well enough. Along with avoiding any areas of the back lot where the public was permitted, I kept up a strict timetable. And I’d also learned that I could use their own weaknesses against them when it came to keeping Cam and Declan at bay. The brief awkwardness of hanging by Cam’s side was worth the distance Declan gave us when we were together.
If I wasn’t brooding silently in Cam’s shadow, then I was with Madeline, and almost everyone avoided her.
If there was one weak spot in my system, it was the three minute power walk to Madeline’s trailer every morning, but it went unnoticed – well, until Declan stepped out in front of me on the last day of filming.
“Not now, Declan.” I tried to brush by him, ignoring the hammering of my heart, a common side effect of being too close to him.
He blocked my path. “If not now, then when exactly? Today’s kind of the end, so were you thinking – I don’t know – never? I’m sorry, mate, that doesn’t really work for me.”
That had been exactly what I’d been thinking. The idea of just dropping out of his life without a word was both tempting and revolting at the same time. My insides were being torn apart as want and need battled for control.
Smoothing away signs of inner turmoil, I looked at him with feigned detachment.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Joseph Hoffman offered me Gone with the Wind,” he said, fireworks exploded the gray in his eyes with excitement. “I had lunch with him, and it was amazing. He’s unlike anything I ever imagined.”
“That’s excellent… Just really, really – what’s that word you use? Oh yeah – ace! That’s just really, really ace!” My outpour of words were dead, unenthusiastic, causing me to plunge deeper into ramblings, hoping quantity would substitute for quality. I wanted to be happy for him, I did. I knew how much it meant to him. It was written all over his face. My selfishness infected my goodwill, almost leaving it unrecognizable.
His eyes slipped backwards, rolling unimpressed with my display. “Oh, shut up.”
One moment I was standing there, preparing to summon up some semblance of a real response, and the next thing I knew I was being swept backwards like a limp ragdoll. Declan’s arms wrapped securely around me, and my body arched against him in comfortable recline.
God, he smelled amazing. Clark Gable couldn’t have possibly smelled better than he did.
“I’m not telling you so you’ll give me a pat on the back. No congratulations necessary. I’m not taking it.”
“What?” My jaw dropped, astounded. “Why?”
He planted his lips against mine in reminiscence of an old Hollywood kiss, better suited for black and white than the stunning color that exploded behind my eyelids. The feel of the kiss, his sweet rolling tongue and insistent mouth, made me lightheaded, but even the sensations he unloaded on me were nothing in comparison to the words that he told me silently.
When it came to me, Declan had always had the ability say more when he didn’t say anything at all, and that kiss spoke volumes. It wrote novels and twisted thoughts into reality.
He wasn’t going to take the role because of me. He felt the same way I felt about him. He cared for me as much as I’d hoped he hadn’t. I couldn’t call it love – couldn’t even think it – but my heart sang a different story.
It was painful to wrench away from him, as if some invisible – but nonetheless important – part of me stayed with him, lost to me forever. I gazed up into gray depths, trying to summon up enough strength to do what I knew was right.
“You should do the movie.”
The lines of his face sharpened with suspicious distrust, and I knew I had to strike again to keep him from figuring me out.
“You can’t be with someone like me, and I can’t be with someone like you. I’m not cut out for this life. And I don’t want it.”
“What do you mean someone like you?” He completely bypassed my curveball about his celebrity that I’d thrown to distract him.
“A girl who got pregnant at seventeen; someone who couldn’t even take care of their own flesh and blood...Everyone in the world knows my past, and if I was with you, then they’d never forget it...I could never forget it. I don’t want that.”
“It’s bullshit. This is all complete bullshit. When will it be enough,