Being in the entertainment industry for so long has changed you. It
changes everyone, you suppose. You hate that.
For so long you fought it, fought the change. You tried to keep your
smile real and didn’t force your humor. You didn't want to be polished and
golden, buffed to within an inch of your bones, stripped of your flesh and your
flaws, a perfect nothing.
Fighting the change changed you, too. Left you scarred in places too
deep to see. You fought the mould they tried to squeeze you into, rebelled with
your body because you've never been loud. You wore ugly clothes, grew your hair
long and never bothered to hide the lines around your eyes.
Sometimes, though, you still look in mirrors and can’t see yourself
through the sparkle. So you retreat inside your head, just to check, just to
reaffirm that yes, it is still you in there. Introspection, you think, is the
only thing keeping you sane in a world where so much that you touch turns to
dust. Or to gold.
When you look around, often all that you see is a blur, a mass of
movement and color that feels like smoke when you reach out to touch.
But you're far from blind.
You may not have noticed that you wrote a song about cyber-sex, that you
sometimes look goofy in photographs and often misuse words, but you notice the
important things.
You know, for example, the exact number of days since you first met
Justin, and how many short jokes Chris can take before he snaps. You know that
Lance is allergic to mohair and that Joey hates pink marshmallows.
You saw the way Chris sometimes looked at Lance, when he thought no one
was watching, and you notice the bounce in Lance's step a few weeks' later, and
the new hum in his voice when he talks about Chris.
You see Joey, and the pure, glittering joy that radiates from his smile
when he's with Brianna.
You see Justin.
You see the tilt in his lips when he talks to you; hear the way his
voice dips when you're alone. You see the indigo and silver in his eyes that
mean he's fighting tears. You feel the way his fingers like to dance low at the
base of your spine, and the nape of your neck, the way he brushes his hips
against yours like he thinks you won’t notice.
You notice.
You see the perfect red gasp of his mouth as you lean in to kiss him,
feel the deliberate slide of his thigh between yours.
His body may be golden, but he's far from hollow, far from the
reconstituted pop doll other people see.
You see the
tiny half moon scar inside his right thigh where he fell off his bike, feel his
shudders of laughter inside you when you throw your arm up and knock a picture
off the wall.
You see the way his eyes darken ocean-blue and ebony as he's losing
control.
You feel his lips hot and wet on you jaw as he curls up beside you, feel
words brush against your ear like warm rose petals, just as soft and twice as
beautiful.
Sometimes you used to get lost in your thoughts, searching for memories
inside your head to remind you of who you were, of who you wanted to be.
You watch Justin beside you, draped in shadows like night-colored silk
while he sleeps. He slings a heavy arm around you and pulls you into him,
mumbles into your neck.
He hasn't
changed, you think.
He's everything you are, everything you want to be. You don’t need to
look inside your thoughts to realize that, not when he's there, solid and real
and notquiteperfect.
You twine your fingers in his and smile.
Your mind slows. It feels like sunlight.