He doesn’t relent. He simply moves to the other side of you and pushes his fingers through your free hand.
“I’ve never understood why people find it unacceptable to touch each other,” he says when you pull your hand away from his. “Whether we’re strangers or friends or lovers, why is it so bad to be affectionate? I’ll never understand that.”
“You must have been hugged a lot as a child.”
His expression falls flat at your attempt at a joke. He quickly catches it and regains his composure, a half smile on his lips. “I wasn’t, actually.”
You breathe out a heavy breath of frustration at yourself. “I’m sorry I’m so bitchy. I’m not good with people.” You try to make excuses for yourself. It’s the truth, though; you never quite caught on to human interaction. You can carry on conversations, sure, but mostly only superficial ones. You haven’t had a candid discussion with someone about yourself, your self-loathing, your failures, your successes. You’ve never had a stranger touch you or hold your hand to comfort you.
“I’m not either,” he admits.
He’s lying—you were under his spell the moment he smiled at you.
“Liar.” You smile at him, not meaning to be harsh. “You were just fine with me and your fan club.”
He shakes his head and reaches for your hand again. You pull away.
“I’m an actor; it’s what I do.”
Can he really not feel comfortable with people? It’s impossible. You witnessed more than one example of his charisma. You wish it to be true, though, because that would mean you have something in common with him after all.
“Let’s walk,” he says.
But he doesn’t reach for your hand, and you’re relieved. Letting him touch you would be dangerous for your barely existent self-esteem. You can’t imagine how many people he touches every day, every week. You also can’t understand the irrational jealousy you feel when you think about it. He owes you absolutely nothing—it’s not his fault that he’s so likable. You feel a sense of comfort as he walks with you, away from the crowd of fans. They are quite slow. You look back at them and realize they’re all simply following him at a lumbering pace.
“Wouldn’t it be better to just take pictures with them instead of having them follow you?” you ask.
He looks toward them, and a slight frown plays at the corner of his lips. “They’ll follow me either way.”
He doesn’t look upset by this, or even remotely bothered, but it has to be annoying in some way. Even the most downtrodden person doesn’t enjoy being treated like an animal.
“Do you want me to tell them to fuck off?” you offer, and he bursts into laughter. Shaking his head, he grabs your hand again. You let him.
“No, we don’t need photos of you battling crowds of fans all over the tabloids.”
He’s still laughing, and you join him. You were completely serious, and still are. You have no problem being the bad guy if it makes the crowd go away. You think about his mention of tabloids for a moment. You scan the crowd for someone with a camera, and sure enough, almost all twenty or so of them are holding their phones in their hands. In the age of smartphones, everyone is the paparazzi. You pull your hand from his, and he sighs quietly.
“Doesn’t it bother you? Being followed around by people?” you ask.
He walks a little faster, and you rush to keep up with his pace. “No, I’m incredibly lucky to have the life that I do. I’ve worked my ass off for it, and I’m living my dream and millions of other people’s as well. Who would I be to complain about people who care about me following me around sometimes?”
“Do they care about you, though? They don’t even know you,” you say without thought. You’ve had your share of celebrity crushes, but you’re not sure where to draw the line between adoring someone and caring for them.
“They know a version of me that they choose to, and they care about that. If I make them happy, I believe they care about me. If that’s not the case”—his eyes become slightly hooded, almost challenging as he finishes—“then so be it. But I choose to believe they care, and that’s good enough for me, whether they know me or not. Truth be told, very, very few people know me outside of my brother and my mum.”
You appreciate his humble approach to his fans, but that doesn’t mean you understand it. “I still think it’s rude that they follow you around. Sorry, but I can’t find the normalcy there.”
“Your version of normalcy may not be the same as theirs, but really, is it hurting me to know they’re walking behind me on a beach?”
He pauses and you don’t answer, the beach silent except for the squishing of the sand beneath your boots.
“If anything, I’m grateful to have the option to not be alone when I choose.” His answer is odd, but as the seconds tick by and you actually think about what he’s saying, you begin to understand. You know being alone. You’re a master at the feeling of loneliness. Would you mind so much if at a moment’s notice you could be surrounded by a crowd of people who would love to meet you? You aren’t sure, but you appreciate his approach.
“You’ve got to be the most positive person I’ve ever met,” you say. Your voice is thick, and honesty drips from your words like honey.
He surprises you by laughing and touching his finger to the tip of your nose. What an odd gesture, you think. You like it, but you’ll never share this with him.
“If that’s true, then you haven’t met very many people.” You decide that you love his light and airy voice, the way his lips curve around each word, bringing importance to every sound. The comfort these things bring.
“I have, unfortunately,” you say. You’ve met enough people to know that most of them are nothing like Daniel. Where he is happiness and yellow tones, blue eyes and a soft smile, they are harsh, deceitful, and stained with black tar.
“You’ve got to be the most negative person I’ve ever met.” That he’s turned your words around you can’t help but find funny. You decide to do the same.
“If this is true, then you haven’t met very many people.” You smile up at him with a challenging smile. You reach for his hand, and he doesn’t even flinch when you touch his skin. You shiver when his thumb begins to caress the skin between your thumb and index finger.
“If that is true,” he says, correcting you. “I believe my line was ‘if that is true,’ and since I literally memorize lines for a living, I’m pretty sure I’m correct.”
You laugh, telling him that he’s a smartass. He gets a kick out of it, and you find yourself wanting to make him laugh again. The problem is that you’re not very funny. You’re not like him; humor doesn’t come any more easily to you than do smiles.
Despite these thoughts, you’re laughing now, you’re smiling now. As his laughter trails off, you approach a massive rock. One side of the brown mass is covered in moss, and th
e other has been messed up with little words and hearts etched into the rock.
“I love this thing.” He pulls you closer to him, but you keep as much distance as you can. He’s like a magnet, and you try to remind yourself that this isn’t real, none of this is real. In a few hours, he will go back to his castle in La La Land, and your carriage will turn back into a pumpkin. Except, in this fucked-up fairy tale, you don’t even have a carriage. Your bus will turn into a squash?
His fingers trace a few words on the rock: JEFF + SARAH 9/17/2011. A thin, sad heart is drawn next to their names.
“This? You like that people wrote their names on the side of a rock?”
You’re beginning to think that if you were to walk over to the blackbirds’ feast and bring the dead animal to Daniel, he would find something beautiful about it. He would praise the ecosystem or something.
He clears his throat and traces another declaration of love: KRYSTAL + KEITH = FOREVER. “Yes.”
You want to rain on his parade and tell him that Krystal and Keith probably hate each other by now, that Keith probably slept with Sarah from the other tag, but actually you’re enjoying the way his fingers are tracing the words and treating them as though they’re much more beautiful than black Sharpie scribbles on a dirty brown rock.
“I like to imagine how they felt as they did it. Try to think about it.” He pulls you closer to him and puts his hands on your shoulders, turning you to face the rock. “Think about them, running along the beach, holding hands, laughing, and only focused on one another.”
He really is the most positive person you’ve ever met. People like him must have made a deal with the devil and stolen all the happiness from people like you and everyone you’ve ever known. His hand moves from yours, and he loosely wraps his arm around you, pulling you against his back. You can feel his breath on your neck when he speaks again.
“Imagine how big this Krystal woman must have been smiling when Keith wrote their names on the rock. She was probably blushing, her heart was probably racing, and he probably turned to kiss her. . . .”