Tom made Kelsey close her eyes as they approached their
final destination. He opened the car
door for her and guided her out of the car and into some sort of a
building. “Can I open my eyes yet?”
Kelsey asked impatiently.
“Not quite yet, darling.
Almost there.” He led her through
another set of doors, and then guided her through a narrow aisle - it felt like
there were rows of seats. It smelled like popcorn, so she guessed that they
were at a movie theatre. However, she
had never heard a theatre that was this quiet, so she was not quite positive.
They sat down at what Kelsey guessed must be about the middle of the row (it
made sense to her, anyway that they would stop in the middle). “Alright,” Tom said, “since you have been so
good at not peeking, you can now open your eyes.” Kelsey immediately started looking
around. They were the sole occupants of
a darkened movie theatre – she was right after all.
“We are the only ones here?” Kelsey asked. Tom replied,
“Well, what we are about to watch is not actually available
to the general public, but I wanted to watch it for the first time with you –
your opinion means a lot to me. So I rented
the theatre for the night.” He watched
as Kelsey’s hazel eyes sparkled with understanding and excitement.
“I can’t believe that I will be the first to see Thor 2!!!” Suddenly, Kelsey halted the
flow of thrilled words. “But the
Hollywood premiere…are you sure we can watch it?” Tom smiled.
“It took a lot of convincing for the producers to allow me
to take the advance copy, but I talked them into it.” Tom reassured her, “I
know that it would be hard for you to come with me to the premiere in
California, so I brought it to you.” The resulting smile Kelsey gave him made
up for every hour spent talking to the stubborn producers to make this event
happen. “Excuse me for a second,” Tom
requested, “I’ll go grab us a couple bags of popcorn.” Kelsey nodded and, after he left, hugged
herself.
“This is insane!” she spoke out loud to herself, “but so
wonderful.” The movie was everything she
thought it would be and more. Tom would lean over and tell her little
behind-the-scene insights every so often throughout the showing. She was very aware of his proximity in those
moments and really wished that he would put his arm around her. It was a slight disappointment that he never
did, but she had already noticed that he rarely touched her aside from a good
night hug or an impersonal hand on her back.
She figured it was probably a personal space thing – she resented it
slightly all the same. After the movie
he took her home. The falling snow gave
the scene a peaceful serenity. She
trusted him so completely.
“Tonight was wonderful.
You are wonderful, Kelsey…” Tom
tenderly spoke her name, but almost with a bit of regret.
“It was perfect,” Kelsey agreed quickly, before he could
continue. She could hear the ‘but’
hanging on the end of his sentence and was scared of what it would bring. He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his
eyes. Those eyes were darker than usual, darkened with sorrow, perhaps? Kelsey wasn’t sure. She could never read his emotions.
“Kelsey,” he began stiffly, but she stopped him.
“I understand,” she said coolly, holding back tears. “You no
longer want to see me.” She reached for
the door handle, but his hand grabbed her arm and swiveled her towards him.
“Kelsey, it is nothing to do with you. Nothing. Let me explain.” He sighed, and, releasing
her arm, hung his head slightly. “It’s
my fault. I have to go back to California for the premiere, and then I am
staying there for publicity reasons through the rest of winter. Then, at the end of April, I am going to
Florida to film Avengers 2. I can’t be
seeing you anymore.” He started to apologize again, but Kelsey cut him off,
angry tears pricking the corners of her eyes.
“You mean that you led me on for the last couple months,
when, all this time, you planned to leave?
Can’t we at least try to work something out?” He refused to look at her. He started speaking again,
“That is…impossible, I’m afraid. My managers don’t think that you will be good
for my image. That, coupled with the
difficulty of a long-distance relationship…” he trailed off. He knew she was crying and had no clue how to
make this easier. After a long silence,
he finally offered one last phrase in a broken voice. “Goodbye Kelsey.” She watched him walk away through her tears,
a dark figure against the white of the snow, and then just held herself and
sobbed.
No comments:
Post a Comment