Love Unscripted

I tore the envelope open; inside was a hand-written letter.

I had to read the note twice; it didn’t sink in the first time. Does this mean that he likes me? He wants to see… ME? Why? So I can be a third leg of some new love triangle? So he could get his rocks off with the local selection while he’s in town?

He was a super celebrity and I wasn’t - and as much as I wanted to see him again, I’m intelligent enough to know that nothing lasting could come from it.

I grabbed a pen from next to the cash register, bit the cap off with my teeth, and with all my strength and resolve I wrote NO on the back of a Mitchell’s napkin. My heart was thumping from this ordinary but strangely painful action. He wasn’t the first guy I’d denied, but he was definitely the first for a denial on a napkin via teenager messenger service.

Ryan Christensen was not long-term boyfriend material and I had no interest in having a one-night stand with anyone, regardless of how famous they were – so why even go through the motions? I could not put my heart on the line for this one.

I swallowed hard, folded the napkin, and handed it to the boy.

“Please give this to him, Jason,” I muttered somberly. I was hoping not to regret this decision.

My eyes shot over to my trusty friend.

“Pete, please make sure this young man makes it safely to his car.” I stood there and watched as the boy left through the front door with my reply in his hand while an old, familiar pain caused the fissure in my heart to crack a bit wider. It would be another long night devoid of love.

The next morning, the sounds of the birds chirping outside my window pulled me from my dreamless sleep. It was gray in my bedroom; not the bright, sunny yellow I had hoped to wake to. The weather seemed to match my sullen mood perfectly.

I took a deep breath and held it in my lungs for a moment before exhaling with force while a vision of Ryan appeared in my thoughts. I pushed my hair back off my forehead and tried to rub the sleep from my eyes. Maybe if I press hard enough into my skull the vision would disappear?

As I trudged my way down the hall to the bathroom, my thoughts flashed back to writing “no” on a napkin. Why did I do that? He asked for my phone number and I chickened out.

A split second later, rationality sunk in. He’s not just another guy who has the potential to rip your heart out and hand it to you while it’s still beating. He would be capable of much more damage than that.

But he wanted to see me again – so he must think that I’m attractive enough. After all, his last known speculated girlfriend was beautiful.

I took a long look at myself in the mirror, trying to see if I could agree with his assessment.

I pulled the hair tie from my ponytail, brushing out my long hair. My summer tan was faded, my bikini lines were just about gone, but I still had a bit of glow left on my face.

I turned the sink on, splashing some cold water on my eyes. The more I rubbed, the bluer my eyes appeared.

“Not bad for a twenty-seven year old,” I whispered out loud to the mirror.

But so what if he likes me - then what? Do I get to add a famous person to my short list of friends? Deep in my brain, doubt slipped out of its cage.

Despite Ryan’s outward gesture, how could I ever compete with the many Hollywood starlets out there? All of them waiting in the shadows to bag their own leading man. With their designer clothes, designer hair, and high-gloss tans - not to mention their killer figures, silicone breasts, and filthy-rich bank accounts. Examples of them were listed conveniently in the supermarket tabloids, and they were all on the hunt for one of their own kind. Ryan Christensen was definitely on their eligible bachelor’s list.

Then I wondered why I thought the famous, single actresses would be any different from me. They too had their fair share of stardom hell with losing their men to on set hook-ups and wandering infidelity. Even the beautiful starlets were left broken-hearted.

And then my depressing thoughts got worse. Standing directly in line with the gorgeous actresses looking for husbands would be the legion of super-hot models looking for their own arm candy. Ooh, look at me, I have Mr. Super-Hot Actor Man on my arm.

If he wasn’t an actor and extremely famous at the moment, would any of these women ever, ever give him the time of day? I think not.

Heck, while I’m making the list, why not add in all the eligible daughters of the rich and powerful… and top it off with several million regular women around the globe who would kill for a shot at Ryan Christensen.

That would be an awful long line to stand in for one man.

Oh hell, what’s the point? In a few weeks he’ll be gone anyway. Off to another location to do his next movie with some totally sexy co-star who he’ll bond with, and in no time they will surely try to get into each other’s pants.

Every day millions of people go off to work, but how many of them have to fake romances or stick their tongues in someone else’s mouth for a living?

Honey, have a great day at work and I hope you get some good tongue action on set today! Oh, you’re doing a love scene today with a hot, single actress? Good for you! Should I call the lawyer now or wait until you officially leave me for her?

How many actors’ personal lives are ruined because of it?

I wondered if it would be possible for someone like Ryan to ever have a normal relationship. Maybe he would follow in the footsteps of so many others before him and just stick to brief relationships with a variety of actresses?

I thought about the majority of relationships amongst actors - only a handful of them were between actors and normal humans. The odds were stacked against me regardless.

I shook my fingers through my hair to toss the thoughts away. I am just deluding myself to think that this – whatever it was – could have ever amounted to anything.

Time to get back into the real world, Taryn. Men like that don’t fall for ordinary people like you. I suddenly felt very insignificant all over again.

“Why are you in such a bad mood?” Marie grumbled at me while she was making a drink. She knew me well enough to know that something was wrong.

I had spent the entire day beating myself up internally; by nine o’clock my internal struggle reached the outside of my body.

I shook my head and tried to shrug her off. Best friend or not, there was no way I’d ever spill my secret to her; my private faux pas would become the public knowledge of everyone who stepped foot in the bar because surely she would chastise me out loud for the rest of the night.

She leered at me, demanding an answer.

“Something didn’t work out the way I had hoped.” I figured that was good enough of an answer to give her. I met a wonderful, quirky guy who could make me really happy but he’s also extremely famous and could never be mine… “You want to talk about it?” Marie asked.