Saying that aloud sucked and he knew it.
“I didn’t mean it that way-” he mumbled.
“Love has a whole bunch of different faces than that-«
“…You,” he sighed, searching for words.

“Is that really how you see me?”
“Not really, no,” he mumbled.

The air around them felt thick with things that once used to be so easy for them.
Words they normally found in flashes stood far away, for fear of fingers lost.

“I am trying to understand-” she yelped.
Want ricocheted between them where they stood«

To feel so close yet this far away sucked.
“Hear my heart-” he said and pulled her to him.
From the look softening on her face, he smiled.
“You feel it? Now¿ Does it make more-“he asked her timidly, like a child.

“It’s just so weird to do it like this, anything we both know that-” she sighedand stopped herself.

Not being on the same page sucked too.

That sensation was a cryptic, new one for them they fought tooth and nail against.
” I am not saying you’re weird,I “she stammered.
Want etched itself in her eyes even as words to express it hid from her.

“you can say it. I am weird-“
Not feeling judged by her was part of it.
To him, how she felt him amped his ability to see she never meant him harm«

“say my name?”
” but-I-” she stammered.
if she said his name it’d all become real.
“you don’t understand how unstable it’ll-“
only thing he could do is trust her eyes.”i-” he started.
“Knew once without you saying it,but-“

How time had passed.
Easy, over and under all they’d done.
It made all else they loved inconsequential.
Would have run roughshod over them too.
Be the cause of both last breaths.

To him that ending didn’t matter in any way, shape or form.
Show after show to the contrary or in confitmation meant nothing to him in the now.
“Me, as a concept weighing you-as the carrier of all things that make sense of it-“
How he felt fought out of his mouth.
“You remember when we first-” he whispered.
“Feel what you felt then-and then-“

“More-” noise erupted behind them.
“… than you saying my name-” he said.
words escaped him again, to his horrified chagrin.

“Is that going to be enough to get you through?”she mused nervously.
All conjecture was thrown out the window in the crucible of this between them.

“..you know the answer to that-“
“have you ever wondered what I want-?” she asked beseechingly.
To be asked that here in this moment, by her of all people, wounded him to the quick.
“Do you not see that wondering what you want is all I can bear to think about?”

---

To  keep rolling was the only option.

Light was leaving, all the same.

Make IT WORK, he grimaced.
IT would not be the end of him, or the rest of this long assed day still waiting for him.

real life nipped at his heels tucked under the footrest along the edge of set.

“Then we’ll fix it in post?” his right hand asked tentatively, knowing how little time they had.
“You know it-” he muttered and looked warmly up the still glowing, golden sky.
“Wouldn’t that be expensive?”he asked, as he was paid to dutifully do.

“Have you forgotten the cushion? It’s exactly for things like this” he huffed.

To think he’d scrap the day over this and send everyone packing was insane.
Say what they would in exhausted complaint to one another, they would obey.

That the light was fading made it make sense to push like crazy.
“you can go in closer-and pan up so it’s like her looking up his nose into his lashes-“

Love for his vision regained it’s footing.

“Me, when I see you,” he grabbed her hand, drenched wig all the emotions she roused in him.

“‘Cause  I  feel your eyes on me in my bones-“he whispered, tortured by this liminal existence.
“I’d say it but the last time I did you went almost completely off the rails-“

Already, a new wall tried to spring up between them, right in the rubble of one torn down.
“know what I think?”he asked asvshe shook her head no.

What he asked of her was too much for here and now, in this strange moment.
Would saying it solve anything, she doubted deep within herself.
” You  know i can’t just-people are all over the place-” she whispered, embarrassed.
“Do it anyway , just for us- fuck what they’d think or say-” he said simply.

If only she’d  say it, he thought to himself.
“my head would soar to the moon and back,” he cried out inside.

Hearts beat wildly trying to find each other across the universe suddenly between them.
Was there no other way towards resonance besides revolution or resolution?

Torn from the scene by a loud crash, he roared “cut!”

In one breath the light shifted.

Two more exhalations and darkness swallowed them all.

“More fast than usual,” one sighed.
“…than ever, “responded another dejectedly as the exhausted crew left set.

Words of both condolences and congratulations peppered his periphery as he made his way.
To wonder if he’d caught it was pointless since he wouldn’t know until he saw it.

“Show me  where it shifted in the dailies”
“You mean now?”his assistant started to stammer.
“Feel like waiting until tomorrow, on top of-” he asked pointedly.

That idea of pending pressure added to an already sure to be chocked full daywas killed.

“Your footage will be cued in five-“

Love cut through the atmosphere and called him back to his trailer to regroup.

For the both of them.

---

“Me with you-” he muttered to himself again and again.

“Is the entire line wrong?”
real alternatives lay across his lap to be explored by he was too listless to care.

What difference it could make hung around him in the air like ghosts waiting on roads.
would the tonal shift destroy all the hard work we just plowed through?

“you ready ? Or need more time?”his assistant asked through the door.
“say we Do say all of it differently and -” he murmured to himself as much as him.
“If you did have him say it,” he paused, sizing up the aura of his boss from outside.
“I  think you should leave it as is.”
“Took me long enough to get there-“

Those were the truest words of the day because it’d been a bloodbath.
“words find their way into this for a reason-” his assistant confirmed.

Away, on other things instantly, he waved him off from inside the trailer and, unseen, was heeded.

“Then you couldn’t  make things new Just by saying “I love you” wafted around him.

“La  di da, da di da, di  dai  dai da-“he  sang to himself, absently tapping the backbeat out as he thought of her.

He pulled out his phone and peered down at her last email to him again.

“If I can make each sentence or line start with a word from the song, in exact order, maybe the spirit and sense of the song will be embedded in the story. It might seem like gibberish on the surface, but the bear hug of the song , it’s potency…would hit the reader after all…if my premise is correct.  They’d feel the love, and walk away held, and kissed on the forehead at the least, regardless of what they top of mind thought of the shortstory. The extreme backbeat would have them in its snares, and assist in carrying them throughout their day-“

If she’d tried to explain that to anyone else before attempting it they would’ve locked her up. But she wouldn’t have been moved to with anyone else but him.

He scatched at his stubble, slid off her cashmere beanie and wrinkled his nose up at the ceiling in comical, borderline confusion. ” You try your experiment yet?”
He intimated telepathically.

His vibration crackled across the miles and time zones strewn between them and slapped her gently on the ass.

“Yeah, and hullo~” was beamed back down into his sternum with an aroused gruffness that let him know his psycho-cellular goose had landed effectively.

“Hi, love…” he grinned, “how did it go?” he asked in the empty two by two, the workout words had given him that day still a fresh bruise across his flesh.

“You tell me, you’re just walked out of the tail end of it now, she chuckled telepathically, slid through the ether suspended between them and kissed him full on the lips…

“More than  words…La di da, da di da~”