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They were young: that would serve as her defense’s cornerstone for years to come.
They were young. Spoiled stupid. Badly supervised and entitled. The world and its entirety unfolded before them, and they were barely seventeen.
They knew love — how could they not? The industry’s ingenues, they were called. Talent worthy of their legendary names: names blazed across marquees, names memorialized outside Grauman’s Theatre, names that opened doors. Most notably, the doors that led them here.
Their expressions on-screen exuded authenticity. They played lovers with such gravitas, such realism. And they eventually admitted: underneath the burning studio lights, reality blurred. The cameras and crew disappeared. Reality distilled to his eyes, her scar, his hands, her hair.
They knew love — surely, this was it.
Wasn’t it?
“Promise me,” he whispered, his lips against her ear, his fingertips leaving sand on her skin. “Promise me that it’s us forever, right?”
His canines glittered in the moonlight. His eyes, blue-green in the sun, now black as midnight.
She acquiesced. Sealed her promise with a kiss tasting like bubble-gum chapstick and saltwater.
His teeth stretched into a Cheshire Cat-grin as he twined a red shoelace around her wrist. A ratty thing pulled from his sneaker, now half-buried in the sand after they ran down the beach, as they stripped under the stars to skinny dip in the sea — to imbibe in one another after imbibing in one drink (maybe two, maybe three) too many.
They were young, she would say. Too young. Too sheltered. Too foolish to recognize that such a promise would tear them down — little by little, with every touch, every word, every passing insecurity — just as the crashing waves eroded the Malibu cliffsides.
***
They disrupted production.
Even if they were ensconced in her trailer, away from prying eyes and from free-mumbling mouths, she knew that everyone on set knew.
Then the press would know. Then the world would know.
Non-disclosure agreements could only do so much.
He had stalked onto the soundstage less than an hour ago, his hands balled into fists. Her director balked, nearly yelled that you can’t be here — until they realized that, actually, he could be here if he so damn pleased.
He would’ve broken her co-star’s nose; he would’ve preferred to maim him. But she had enough foresight to block his murderous path, to wordlessly apologize to the production crew, to mutter soothing words and usher him to her trailer as he shouted obscenities and threatened violence.
Her trailer’s rug glittered with glass, with shimmering highlighter and eyeshadow cakes trampled beneath his feet. She perched on her kitchenette counter. Arms crossed. Eyes following him as he frantically paced.
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”
His breathing was harsh. Blood pooled in his palm, between his fingers; her shattered mirror was dotted with red.
“You’re fucking insane,” she spat. “So goddamn delusional. Who do you think you are, coming here—?”
He was on her: his split, bloodied palm squeezing her throat; his nails digging into her cheek, the soft fat around her jaw.
She exhaled through her nose. Slowly met his rage-black eyes. Masked her racing heart with practiced composure.
His breath reeked of stale whiskey and ash. But, as always, she excused it. Everyone excused it: it was part of his art; it enabled him to access truth, to bear the artistic burdens of his family name…
“Stop,” she mumbled.
He squeezed harder. Her eyes watered; her vision blurred.
His mouth was on hers when he finally released her throat. She gasped for air; her first inhale was his exhale. Her tears spilled over as he licked into her mouth, as she tasted the sour remnants of whiskey tainted with shame, with a poor, silent intimation of an apology.
She couldn’t help it: she moaned. She twirled his hair between her fingers. She opened her mouth bigger, spread her legs wider to welcome every bit of him into her being.
“You promised,” he murmured as his lips traveled down her neck, his teeth nipping her skin. Tiny pains that made her wince.
She pulled him back to her and sighed into his mouth.
Purple dotted her thighs, her collarbone. Her makeup artist knew how much concealer would cover the bruises.
***
He was the blood that pulsed under her skin; she was the air that filled his lungs.
For years, they danced around and alongside each other. A never-ending, pulsing two-step down the glistening streets of Hollywood.
They were beautiful. They were brilliant. They were blinding: two otherworldly beings whose only anchors to this plane were each other.
They pushed one another’s boundaries. Artistically. Mentally. Physically. They left scars on the other’s skin, divots in the other’s soul. They laughed. They fought. They cried. They fucked.
But it was never destructive. No: it was always grounded in that beachside promise that tied their fates together. If you jump, I jump. It’s us — you and me — forever.
She drove him to smoke, to drink, to inhale crushed-up pills and lines of coke. He drove her to stick a needle in her arm.
That was how her manager — her cousin — found her: slumped over her couch, the syringe dangling from her fingertips, a spot of blood pooled inside her elbow. As red as the shoelace tied around her wrist.
He slapped her to consciousness. Hollered her name, hollered for someone to call 9-1-1, until her eyes flickered open. Mascara caking her lashes together. Smeared eyeliner dripping down her cheeks.
The first words she croaked through her dried lips: “Where is he?”
“Tch.” Her cousin’s narrow eyes narrowed further; his bangs cast a shadow across his face.
He didn’t answer her question until the paramedics had strapped her to a gurney, had administered an IV and (discreetly) brought her to their waiting ambulance.
“Well, he’s not here.”
***
Her team had suggested a restraining order. A new beaux. A clean slate. An opportunity to refresh her image, to start anew.
She refused; what would the world say?
Instead, she waited for him. Took refuge inside her palatial home until he showed up at her front door, months later, with sallow skin yet a refreshed air. His hair had grown long, but his face was cleanly shaven.
His fingers trembled as he grasped his luggage tight.
She hovered in the open doorway. She fingered the red string looped around her wrist.
She opened her arms; he crumpled into her. They collapsed onto the floor, a messy tangle of limbs. His tears soaked her shirt; she shushed him, combed her fingers through his hair, brushed the strands off his face.
“I love you.” His voice sounded strained. Tired from disuse. “I love you so much.”
“Promise me,” she whispered, her lips against his ear, her fingernails digging into his nape. “Promise me that it’s us forever, okay?”
He finally met her eyes — her fierce and foolishly forgiving eyes. He said nothing, just squeezed her harder; she took his silence as acquiescence.
They remained intertwined on her marble floor. For minutes. For hours. His luggage lay forgotten; their feet and legs had gone numb.
But they stayed, desperately clinging to one another as the shadows lengthened, as the sun dipped behind the Hollywood hills.