When Everything Feels like the Movies (17 page)
Read When Everything Feels like the Movies Online
Authors: Raziel Reid
He put the lipstick on my lips so carefully that he didn’t smudge even a little. For the first time in his life, he stayed in the lines. I hoped he wouldn’t make a habit of it. “Pink,” he said to me softly. “Your favourite.” He touched up my nails too, blowing on them as they dried.
“There,” my mom said, sitting next to him on the bed and holding him to her, crying into his hair, “an absolute angel.”
I heard my mom tell the doctors she wasn’t going to decide anything until my dad arrived. She’d gotten hold of him somehow, and he was on his way. Apparently, he was speeding like it mattered. Like if he was fast enough, he might be able to turn back time.
It was officially Valentine’s Day when he arrived. He sat next to me and took my hand. “You’re wearing nail polish,” he sobbed. He stayed with me for a while, then I heard my mom come into the room. The sound of her crying was soothingly familiar. When it became muffled, it was because she and my dad were hugging, their wet faces buried in the curves of each other’s necks like they were eighteen again.
They left my room together to tell the doctor it was time, and the only sound was the TV. Ray had turned it on earlier. He was pretending to comfort my mom but couldn’t help but check the score on the game. The news came on and it was about me. I had made it! The newscaster said I was on life support and that Luke Morris had been arrested. I imagined his mug shot. My only regret was that it couldn’t be the last thing I ever jerked off to.
The news talked more about Luke than about me. He was a typical “boy next door” trying desperately not to be stomped on by my stilettos. Most demons wear their horns on their heads, you see, but not me; I always had to be original. The reports claimed that Luke was being bullied. What about
his
rights? He was just trying to evade my shocking advances. They alleged that I was sexually harassing him, that I had been grinding on him at the dance.
Yeah, and then I tried to shove the five-pointed star on the tip of my wand straight up his ass …
His lawyers were going to use the “homo panic” defence in court because I’d been hitting on him in the change room. Because I’d asked him to be my Valentine.
Go ahead, blame the victim! The villain is my favourite role to play.
Just know that nothing the anonymous sources ever say is true, and I can attest to that, because I’m the source in most of my own stories. Don’t get me wrong; I love a good posthumous rumour, but I resent the suggestion that I had somehow asked for it.
Although, sometimes, when the price of fame became too much … No, I never would have, actually, I was too much of a megalomaniac. But in my weaker moments, when I was alone in my dressing room, I would imagine Britney’s “Lucky” playing in the background as I took a scarf, an Hermès, of course, and tied it to a pipe on the ceiling. Then, facing my Marilyn Monroe picture, I’d do a military hand-salute before kicking back the chair with my ruby slipper.
But I didn’t steal the shoes to be buried in them.
While I was still listening to the news, the door opened, and I heard footsteps walking quickly across the floor. Too quickly for a doctor. Someone was breathing heavily. I thought it might be my stalker. But he was too late.
Then I knew.
Luke had broken out of jail to be with me.
At least in my cut he had, the version the studio wouldn’t release because they were saving redemption for the sequel. But everyone deserves flowers on Valentine’s Day.
He cleared his throat as he stood next to my bed, looking down at me.
I could almost smell the roses in Luke’s hand. He took a deep breath. Deep enough for both of us. I swear I felt my heart flutter one last time.
“I came back,” he said, placing the roses on my chest.
And then the credits rolled.
PHOTO:
Ash McGregor
RAZIEL REID
is a graduate of the New York Film Academy. He currently lives in Vancouver where he is an anti-social columnist and creator of the pop culture blog Blitz & Shitz on
DailyXtra.com
. A song written and performed by Raziel entitled “Like a Movie Star,” inspired by
When Everything Feels like the Movies
, is available for download on iTunes. (Proceeds will benefit the organization Out in Schools, which “engages youth through film in the promotion of safer and more diverse learning environments, free from homophobia, transphobia and bullying.”) Follow him @razielreid.
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