RPF: all the girls are wild thoughts

[fated_addiction]

all the girls are wild thoughts diane kruger/michael fassbender, pg13
you should know that they have secrets too, and in the end, they are as clumsy as you and me. 5,890 words.

note: this is for falseeeyelashes and her unconditional support of my crazy, crazy ideas. ilu too much, bb. ♥ this is also for the first notyourtea challenge, which is scandals. i have to say that this definitely turned out completely different from what i planned. such is life, yo.

-

Diane stands by the chair.

“Sit down,” says the nervous assistant; a glass of water is passed between their hands and Diane nearly drops it, sitting to hide it with her hands smoothing over her knees and her skirt.

She still asks, “Here okay?” and settles, perched, on the edge of her seat. The interviewer walks in and smiles. Diane smiles too. It’s how these things always relatively go, most of the time.

“Yes,” the interviewer says. “Right there. Are you comfortable?”

Diane smiles politely. “Yes, yes. I am, thanks.”

They laugh nervously.

“So this film, this film when it comes down to it, is about the choices we make and the choices that could’ve been - the road not taken, so to speak. And let me just say, you’re absolutely stunning -”

“Thank you,” she says quickly. This is after Cannes, after Basterds, but before a few, choice trips to Vancouver and phrases like saving face and united front. Diane smiles too, again, as she watches the interviewer play with the corner of his notes, his fingers running over the folded edge.

In another room, there is Jared Leto waxing about the philosophies of a secure life. She is here though, waiting for her question, and trying not to hate the idea of press as much as she really does.

The interviewer smiles his finish then.

“But the real question is this. Do you ever think about your choices this way?”

She is quiet.

She meets Rose after Vancouver.

They have been an unlikely pair for years. There is a movie, there is always a movie, and it’s something that they’d rather not talk about. Instead, there is always lunch and a few drinks. Maybe, there is even a party or two.

Today it is Diane inviting Rose. They pick a café, meeting halfway in the city. They take the table farthest away from the window. Diane wears sunglasses inside. Rose watches her strangely with a drink.

“You look ill,” the other woman says.

Diane frowns and reaches for her water. “How’s Nic Cage?” she asks.

“Fuck off,” Rose mutters. Her fingers play with the straw in her drink. It’s merely a name that brings a mutual appreciation for a paycheck.

But the city against the window is enough to distract them both. Diane watches the crowds, the traffic, and finds herself too glad to be at home. She figures Rose is trying to say that she notices. She doesn’t want to talk about it.

“You look a little pale,” Rose still says.

“Swine flu,” Diane says. “I’m fine,” she insists. “Flying gets to me.”

It’s a game of two truths and a lie that they always end up playing. For Diane, she is a nervous flyer. This is true. There is also Josh in Vancouver and a new fight about old, olds. She just chooses to ignore it all.

Rose presses because friends press, and it’s the sort of thing that keeps up appearances for conversation’s sake.

“You sure?” she asks.

“Fine, I’m fine.”

She takes a sip of her water. She watches a family of four with cameras and grins, as they skip into the city. The end of summer brings the earliest of the tourists.

“You just look different,” Rose says. Diane pays no attention.

Michael calls her from New Orleans. He talks about visiting New York a lot.

This is after Basterds, after press, and a vacation that Josh and Diane took to reacquaint themselves with each other. She tells him none of this but she’s sure he knows anyway. Around Michael, she still finds herself transparent.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” he says quietly, after a story. They were talking about anecdotes. Michael is worried about saying the same thing.

She’s quiet. “Liar,” she says then.

She is standing in her kitchen, fingering a box of chocolates that she bought with Rose. Rose is working this week. Diane is trying to take a break.

“I sound positively awful,” she adds.

There’s a chuckle. Diane tries not smile.

“Why? S’the sort of thing I say to everybody - s’good to hear your voice. Maybe I’ll be in town and we can sort ourselves over a few pints. How’s the family? How’s the job? Nothing beyond that.”

“You’re getting defensive,” she murmurs.

“You’ve started it,” he points out.

It’s the sort of thing that gets to her, that always rises between the two of them. She can remember particular incidents, small ones. A script correction here. A getting-to-know-you session there. Every film, every trip is guaranteed to change you; for Diane, this year has changed her the most.

She clears her throat.

“I’m just tired,” she says, and says it to end the conversation. There is a pause on the other line and she looks around her near-empty apartment with a little bit of disdain and regret. She doesn’t know where it comes from. Josh’s stuff is gone for the year.

He sighs though. She tries to picture him. She imagines him as she knows him: cigarette in hand, beer, and a fit of a nervous smile. She thinks about interviews and the things that she continues to say.

Michael is a good man. Michael is the best, new, and upcoming.

Only some of this is true.

“You would tell me,” he breaks though. He sighs again and she’s dizzy. Her hand falls away from the chocolate. There is a memory resurfacing.

“Tell you?” she asks.

He sighs. “If there’s anything wrong,” he says. “You know.”

Diane is quiet.

She cancels a meeting with her agent in the middle of the week.

She makes a doctor’s appointment in haste, for the following week, but doesn’t think about it yet as anything.

When she calls, Rose offers to bring wine. Diane doesn’t say no.

She’s sick, sicker than she’s been years. She keeps nothing inside of her; breakfast, lunch, and dinner kept her up last night, and a cup of tea does nothing to quell the sharp sensation of uneasiness.

Waiting for Rose, she stands in her bedroom and in front of her mirror. She doesn’t think, or put two and two together; her hands cup her breasts through her blouse. She shifts from foot to foot. Her hair sticks against her throat with sweat and all she can think is that September has been rather cool as of late.

There is a loud knock on the door.

Diane pulls herself away from her bedroom. She shuts her door behind her, as if to tell herself that she’s crazy for even beginning to think. There is a mirror by her door, sullen under a light, and at the second knock, Diane studies at herself.

Her skin is pale. She doesn’t think.

“US Weekly is calling you fat,” Rose says when she opens the door. There is a set of magazines being swallowed by a plastic bag in one of her hands and a bottle of wine tucked under her arm. She smiles with her teeth.

“I mean, I suppose it’s better than standing under headline about your skin and your bones and how worried all of America is about your high metabolism. But congratulations, you, you’ve got your first pregnancy speculation cover.”

Diane doesn’t laugh. “You’ve come to celebrate.”

“As all good friends would come and do what I’m doing, dear.”

They walk to the kitchen. Rose takes the wine and hands Diane the bag with the magazines. There is a box of tissues inside too, and Diane watches as Rose goes straight to the cabinets and pulls out a wine glass.

Her friend turns and throws her a smaller box.

“How long?”

She catches the box. It is pink and blue. There is a figure of a woman cradling a bundle next to the accuracy. She stares at it, completely lost, and swallows back a growing sense of horror.

“How long what?” she snaps, and stares helplessly at the box in her hands. “You’re a fucking riot, you know. It’s just a bad bout of food poisoning.”

“I had a friend that said that once,” Rose says calmly.

She shakes her head. The pregnancy test trembles as she passes it from hand to hand. She practically throws it onto the counter.

“This isn’t happening,” she says to herself but out loud. Rose scoffs and shakes her head. Diane begins to pace.

It happens so suddenly, even as her friend reaches for her to stop her from moving around. She feels small things: her blouse feels tight, her jeans, and she’s never had a problem with any of the meals she’s had yesterday. The idea is sensible, and logical, but admitting it something different.

“You don’t know,” Rose offers.

“It can’t happen,” Diane insists. “I can’t have this happening. I don’t fucking know what I’ll do if it’s -”

“I’ll order takeout.”

Rose smoothes her hair back. “The wine’s for me,” she says. There’s a smirk and shuffle of honesty over her face, as if she were already predicting the outcome of this entire thing.

She can only nod. Somehow the answer is already set in her head.

They are in Paris. This is an invited tradition, and a missing scene, as Michael and Diane stand quietly in front of the elevator.

There is a dinner. This is after that dinner. Guillaume and Marion have long since left the hotel. She’s taken Michael with her because she couldn’t sit like that alone.

“She’s beautiful,” Michael observes, and they watch the couple in the reflection of the elevator doors. They are draped in gold. Diane thinks about ironies as Michael leans in closer.

“Of course,” she nods, and sighs tiredly, “I wouldn’t expect anything less. She’s completely charming as well.”

“Are you angry?”

It is the sort of thing that she expects. She remembers to call Josh, and then after, she forgets. Michael’s hand wraps around her wrist and she smiles, oddly comforted by a gesture she doesn’t want or need.

Instead, she is honest.

“No. I suppose then I could’ve been. I just didn’t understand it. That’s the thing about it all, you spend a lot of time wondering what’s wrong with you.”

“You’re not so bad,” he says.

She laughs softly. Michael grins. The elevator doors open to an empty compartment, and he tugs her inside, gently pulling her to a corner. His hand stays around her wrist. She tells herself that she appreciates it, even leaning into his arm as they relax. They are friends here too.

“You didn’t have to come, you know.”

Her eyes are closed. He laughs and nudges her. She thinks about pulling her hand out of his and instead, turns her fingers so they lace tightly with his. Standing, they are steady. Her eyes open.

“I did,” he nods. “I wanted to,” he adds. “S’the sort of thing you do for a beautiful woman, you see, when you’re about to do something incredibly stupid too.”

“Yeah?”

He kisses her first. His mouth is hard, needy, and her hand pulls at the hair against the back of his neck. She scrapes his skin with her nails and he turns them so that he’s pressing her into the corner of the elevator. Maybe they stop at another floor.

But she keeps kissing him, and kissing him desperately; there’s the sort of intensity that is matched, that is there, that in her head, she can hear somebody saying “well, look at that!” as she sort of expects these things anyway.

She does let his hand slide under her blouse. His fingers are nervous over her skin as they stretch, pressing into her belly. There is a snap. There is no tell me to stop or this is a terrible idea as she fumbles for her room key and he buries his mouth against her neck. He presses her name into her skin and she moans, breathless as she pulls at his jacket.

Tomorrow, there is a premiere. They will answer questions and do separate interviews about separate things. Right now, no one will know she is kissing him back or that in the morning, she will not be in her own room. This is the problem.

Rose throws a dinner party. Josh arrives the night before.

It’s a surprise. He smiles and kisses her cheek. Diane is wearing a sheath that makes her shapeless. It’s red and Rose has already commented on irony.

“Have you told him yet?” she asks too in the kitchen.

“Told who?”

“Josh,” Rose says. They stand watching him in a conversation.

The door to the kitchen is open wide. There is music and a bunch of other people that she knows and doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to be here and she doesn’t want Josh to be here. It is stupid and selfish and she already knows that somehow, somehow soon, something is going to end.

“No,” Diane says.

Her friend shakes her head. There is a glass of wine in her hand and when Josh is looking, Rose passes it to her. Diane doesn’t drink and smiles at Josh as returns to his conversation.

Diane hands the wine back. Rose clears her throat.“Are you going to have the baby?”

“Fuck you,” she says quietly, and pulls herself away. She reaches for a glass of wine again but then her hand stops, dropping to the counter. She stands staring and her throat starts to tighten.

“Fuck you,” she repeats.

“It’s an important question, you know.”

And then there is Rose, Rose who sat with her the entire night and asked all the questions that she need to hear.

“I know,” she says.

“It’s just that I wouldn’t wish this on anybody,” Rose says.

Her agent calls. Her phone shudders after her plane lands in Vancouver.

“Are congratulations in order?”

“Excuse me?” she asks. Next to her Josh frowns. She’s come back with him. Diane clears her throat and turns her gaze away. “I’m sorry,” she starts again. “I’m just a little bit confused.”

“It was a tasteless joke.”

“A joke?”

She watches as Josh stands to get their bags. He mouths everything okay? and she nods. There is guilt that she tries to ignore.

“Listen,” the man says. “I like you a lot, Diane. I’m calling you because there’s a story and I figure you and Josh would like to put a statement out.”

Her eyes widen. Behind Josh, there are childish screams coming from some of the back seats. They are on a flight with a lot of families. Diane has already had the doctor’s appointment that nobody knows about.

“Is there anyway you could -”

“No,” he says firmly.

“I promised myself,” she says against Michael’s mouth, “I promised that I would never be that woman -”

And she can’t think, she stops thinking; he is over her, inside of her, and her body is buzzing as he presses into. Their skin is sticky and hot. She tastes a little of the dinner wine and faint pull of a cigarette at his mouth.

“Things happen, love,” he murmurs.

He means it, and she means it, and it’s all sort of strange how everything seems to make the most sense here.

“True,” she breathes, and she feels his hands curl with fistfuls of her hair, pulling her mouth back up to his. She kisses him back and curls her nails into his back, swallowing his hiss in return.

He makes her breathless. She hates him for it.

But she’ll remember it like this.

The headline breaks:

Josh and Diane is written in pink and red. There are particular phrases spread through out the blurb; overjoyed and in love, over the moon, and elated, which stands alone and by itself.

Her agent has called twice more, since the flight to the city. Diane thinks about calling her doctor back instead.

When Josh comes back to their room, he isn’t smiling. It’s as if he’s walked off seat: his jaw covered with a shadow, his eyes bleak, and a coffee fitted between his hands.

“Were you going to tell me?”

“I don’t know,” she says absently. “I mean, of course. I mean, I was trying to find the right time, I guess.”

“How long?”

“Five weeks,” she says quickly. She is sitting before she realizes. Her shoulders are set and she’s watching the television as the volume disappears. There are certain things, she decides, that she will not be able to share with him again. She wonders what will happen next.

“Oh,” he says.

She’s quiet, and then says it, says it because someone has to or this will go on as it has been. She cannot to do this to him, to herself, and to the decisions that she’s going to have to make. She swallows and turns to watch him. She steels herself too.

She clears her throat. Josh is watching her. She looks to him and tries to smile first, but her mouth stays standing as a line.

“It isn’t yours,” she tells him. Josh is quiet. He stands then to leave the room.

The interviewer returns to the room.

“Sorry,” comes the apology. “The tapes were acting up. I know you have places to be, so we’ll wrap up quickly.”

“Of course, thank you.”

“So last question then. You’ve had such a year, Diane, with this film and the Tarantino project. Do you ever get tired of being an actor?”

She laughs and the sound is sort of hard. She smiles too, drawing herself up to full height in her seat. Her hands extend out, her fingers flexing in mid-air; she is aware of the camera watching, not the interviewer, and pulls them back to rest on her legs instead.

“Sometimes,” she says absently. She shrugs, and then looks away. “Often, it’s the only way I know how to hide.”

She sees herself in airports then.

There is a lot of josh and diane and then Josh by himself, plastered under magazine headlines. They link him to a range of co-stars without touching her or the speculation that the baby is someone else.

Rose tells her that she’s big enough but not big enough. She should be grateful about stories and the length of time they take to disappear. But isn’t until Berlin does the speculation take a turn.

In Berlin there is Marion. Diane knows Marion as only Marion, as the quiet catalyst to a citation of irreconcilable differences. She is not showing yet when the other woman calls her for lunch and a bit of business.

“It’s all true,” she tells Marion, and the woman blushes.

Diane nods to the magazine peeking out of her purse. There is a crowd at their café and Diane, clinging to habit, sits closer to the shade.

Marion reaches for her sunglasses.

“I am sorry,” she says. “I was waiting and I was looking for something quick to read. Sometimes I cannot help it. C’est terrible.”

“Guillaume?”

“Coming tomorrow,” she says quickly.

Diane nods. Berlin is not home, but the closest thing to it. She thinks about going to see her parents and then stops herself. A few blocks down, there are cameras and her hotel. She couldn’t do that to them.

And then there’s Michael, of course.

“He’s angry,” she nods to the headlines in Marion’s purse. She reaches for the magazine without asking. It drops to the table between them and reads: Josh and Diane: Paradise Lost? It’s the sort of thing that should be funny.

“Of course.”

She looks up and pulls her sunglasses over her eyes. There is a snap behind her but she doesn’t turn around. They are late. This isn’t New York.

“It’s good for his career,” Diane says dryly. She brushes her fingers over Josh’s face. She waits to feel something and doesn’t. She hasn’t felt anything in a long time and it makes her sad, mores than she really wants to understand.

“Do you have a name?”

Marion tries to be polite and smiles kindly. Diane decides she’s a bit of paradox and begins to understand the sort of allure her ex-husband falls into.

She shakes her head. “No.”

This is a lie and the conversation stops. They start to talk about business.

“Will you come see me?”

In the morning after, they talk about it as if there is no one else. Diane thinks this is sad, and at some point, pathetic because she likes this with him and shouldn’t. There’s no doubt.

“I can try,” she doesn’t promise. Michael presses his mouth over her stomach. Her skin is still flushed and she pulls her fingers through his hair. “I can try,” she repeats. “But it would seem sort of silly, you know?”

“Would it?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says.

Her eyes move to the ceiling. She is thinking about her flight home. Her coming vacation stands as something she should be excited about but isn’t. Michael seems to understand this and chooses to talk about New Orleans.

Diane sighs.

“I would be down there and you would be down there, but working and I can’t really seem myself as the vacation type, you know? I have to be doing something, anything. You would be working?”

She stops herself before her rambling overtakes the moment. He’s smiling at her though and she’s not entirely sure what to make of him then. The moment feels too personal, too sudden, and too sure.

Looking away, she lets her eyes close. Her voice is soft:

“What would I do then?”

She calls Rose when she arrives in New Orleans.

“I assume you haven’t told him yet,” the other woman drawls, and it’s the closest thing that she’ll get to I’m worried. They don’t ask or say these things to each other. This is why they’re friends.

“No,” she says.

The sun is high in the airport windows. She is waiting for her bags. She has a hotel reservation but no plan. Rose knows that it’s Michael simply because Diane has chosen not to say anything else.

“Are you?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” Diane replies. She pauses and rubs her eyes, sitting on the edge of a chair. There is a loud buzz and bags start falling onto the conveyor belt. “I have a name though.”

“I hate kids,” Rose informs her.

“I want to name her Rose,” she says anyway. The two women are friends, long time friends, but this is the sort of thing that neither of them find particularly funny or ironic.

Diane even tries to smile as she hears a sigh on the other line. There is call of Rose’s name, a low voice, and the sound of glasses hitting the counter. She listens to Rose murmur something.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” she finally replies.

Her agent calls, and leaves a message.

“We’ve got to talk about this, Di,” he drawls and she decides she hates a little more. “It’s one of those things,” he adds. “There’s no particular damage but we’ve got to give something for a piece of your privacy.”

There is another message, but it’s her mother. Diane tries not to think of her parents much, unless she’s in Berlin. It’s utterly terrifying to navigate between the impressions of feelings that she craves; she wants approval, she wants comfort, but it’s been a long time since she’s understood how to ask for both from the two of them.

“I talked to Joshua,” her mother’s voice explains. “He tells me that you are not together anymore. I am worried about you, darling. I really wish you’d call and talk to us about what’s going on.”

Between that, there is a call and she lets it go. She thinks agents and mothers, old friends and ex-husbands. It’s this dizzying association that she has with her phone and communication.

In the end, it’s Rose but it’s also Matthew first, Matthew who she hasn’t talked to in ages. Matthew who’s never been more than just a little braver, as Rose tends to say.

“Well,” he says, and he says it as if he were delighted. She hears a asshole from Rose as it scratches against the message. “Rosie tells me that you’re going to have a little one running about soon. My commiserations.”

There is pause and then laughter. She imagines them and then stops. This is not her business; and it’s like this: Rose is to Matthew as Michael is to Diane. It’s a completely polarizing thought and as actors, they really should know better. There’s no one to tell them though.

He’s utterly serious when he finishes though.

“Rose,” he says, “Rose is a good, good name.”

The adventures outside her room are merely temporary.

She comes and goes within the hotel. She pretends she is not Diane Kruger and is a tourist, feels rather idiotic about it all, and returns to hiding in her room. It’s a crisis of faith until the third or fourth day, when her voicemail box is full, and she escapes to breakfast downstairs.

“You weren’t going to call?”

She looks up and sees Michael, standing in front of the table. He clutches a pack of cigarettes and his other hand is buried in his pocket. She sits straighter and shakes her head, swallowing as he sits across from her.

“I’m sorry,” she says then. She doesn’t ask how he’s found her, and it doesn’t seem to matter anyhow. There are people around them but no one is watching. She’s disappeared here and she needs that.

Michael can take it away. He studies her.

“Congratulations,” he murmurs. “At least,” he adds, “from what I hear.”

“It’s all true,” she says.

“Looks like, love.”

She frowns, and looks away. There is a group of waitresses standing off to the side, talking in delighted whispers. She swears she hears Michael’s name and images the sort of speculation that follows. She knows Brad is always in town. She knows that people are less likely to know her here.

“It’s all true,” she says again. “And I mean, I wanted to call you. I just didn’t think about it. Well, I did.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“It’s been an awful couple weeks,” she murmurs.

“I saw that too,” he says.

It’s like he’s waiting, and she doesn’t want him to wait. She wants him to sit or to kiss her - these are things that she can’t have, or simply won’t allow herself to have. By some justification, this is how she punishes herself. There is always someone else to think about.

“I’m pregnant,” she blurts. The sun feels hot against her skin. She’s a little dizzy and reaches for her water. Her fingers curl around her straw. She can’t look at him and her face flushes.

“I’m pregnant,” she says again, and louder. It’s not for him but for her. “And I have been trying to figure out how to tell you that this baby is not just mine, but yours as well.”

He says nothing. He stares at her. He stands there, completely silent. His gaze is blank and he is watching her like she’s not even here. There is a bitter taste in her mouth and the only thing that she understands is that she has to go.

She stands then. Her hands are shaking. She turns and walks away from the table without waiting for him or his reaction. At the door, she stops her waitress. She doesn’t point to her table.

“Anything he gets,” she says quietly as if it were enough. “Charge it to my room.”

She doesn’t know what else to do.

The first photo is already in print, and then the second and the third.

She is in New York when cameras meet her at the baggage claim. There are calls of diane, diane, diane! and for variety, there are a few is it true? as if they were daring her to deny everything. When she arrives home, it’s the same thing.

But she is starting to show.

A few weeks have become a few more days. Oprah does a show on divorces. When she changes the channel, she finds another show on single mothers. It’s all sort of sad until she turns the television off, heading out.

She passes the cameras and the shouts. A few neighbors allow her to have a polite hello. No one really understands, in the end. It’s not like she’s been placed on high, transparent perch of moral ground. She just understands that she’s different without having a choice, and that her mistakes and her decisions are consequences that she is supposed to take as deserving.

When she arrives at Rose’s, the other woman is not surprised.

“I’m thinking about going home,” she tells Rose, and walks into her apartment to Matthew in her kitchen. He is smiling in amusement at both of them, wearing nothing but his jeans.

Diane turns to Rose following her. She is wearing Matthew’s shirt.

“I’ve seen that movie before,” Rose mutters, and she walks to Matthew. She doesn’t touch him but they share a crooked smile. In a week or two, Brendan will be back in the picture. Matthew will go to his girlfriend. They are all exemplary ideas of fascination. This is usually how it starts.

“Actors are forever doomed to live in an ever-present Woody Allen sequence,” Matthew adds then. “It’s a big fucking joke, really.”

They stand facing her. Diane thinks of Josh and Guillaume. She thinks of Rose and Rose and Matthew, Rose and five years of Brendan, and how their lives are not measure by successes and failures these days. There are no more Audrey Hepburns and Grace Kellys; it’s all about what generation decides to die faster and how they do it.

“I can’t hide,” she says finally.

Rose shakes her head. “Nobody really does, in the end.”

In Europe, she is still divorced.

In the states, she is divorced and known for breaking the former Dawson’s Creek heartthrob. Teenage girls who are now twenty-something still use her for misplaced hatred.

It really stands as its own sort of joke. She waits to hear from Michael most days, and other days, she just reminds herself that she left without waiting, if that means much if anything at all. There is Rose, of course, and her mother with threats of coming to the city. Her mother says things too like, “I had only wished that you’d be a proper student,” and “I blame letting you go to Paris,” as if it explained a lifetime of decision.

But there are no messages from friends, old friends, and partners that she might need or could need, if she were allowed to let herself. She feels lonely and angry. She feels disappointed and unremarkable; there is this idea of herself that she’s always had, under the guise of being better and wanting to be better. Everything now stands as a craving and a disappointment.

She doesn’t know how to handle this.

Michael comes to New York then.

“I looked for ya,” he says, at her door, in the middle of the hallway; she finds him standing there, after a doctor’s appointment. She is wrapped in a leather jacket and keeps her head down as if she were ignoring the cameras that still follow her.

“I had to leave,” she says.

It is starting slow. Her hands have learned to fixate themselves over her belly. In the mornings, she stares at herself in the mirror. She even practices saying things like my daughter

She doesn’t tell him this. “You’re here,” she says instead.

He nods. “It’s the sort of thing that I can’t be angry about for long,” he says. “And I guess you really didn’t give me any chance to.”

“You scare me,” she says, and means it. It might be the closest she’s ever gotten to saying I’m in love with you to someone and meaning it in such a way that stands beyond her.

There is too much truth in how she feels but she also resents the fact that she couldn’t choose to be with him. That he was there, that she was there, and somehow, their lives decided to make all the choices for them.

“How are you?” he asks and nods to her belly.

“Tired.”

“How is -” he looks nervous, nodding to her belly again.

It hides under a long, wool sweater. Out of habit, she folds her hands over her belly. She rubs her fingers slowly. Later, she might decide to tell him that she is practicing with trying to imagine what their daughter might look like.

“Good,” she says. “Healthy,” she adds nervously, “and we’re having a little girl. She’ll be here in May, I suppose.”

“Good, good.”

They are not perfect. In her head, Paris stands as a decision that she made and that she has to live with. There are the feelings, of course, and the sensibility that they’re going to have to make adjustments.

But watching him, she decides that he looks tired. It makes her stomach twist and the hard, cool progress of affection inevitable.

“How are you?” she asks then.

“Don’t know. I suppose m’still sort of processin’ all of this. You were there and then you weren’t and then I just had to come because I’m a responsible bloke, you know, and if you were going to go through with this - either way, I have to be here. It’s not just you in all of this.”

Her eyes burn.

“You scare me,” she repeats, looking away. She is tired and worried, trying not admit either or without giving up another piece of herself. She wonders if he knows that what he has.

“We’ll figure it out,” he promises. He steps forward and cups her face. His hands are hot against her skin and she turns a little, pressing her lips into his palm. Her eyes close.

It might mean something, it might mean nothing, and she finds herself waiting for either or. There is no sense to any of this, and she supposes that this were she’s meant to leave it, outside everything else. It bothers her and it scares her, and she leans into him, clinging to that notion or a promise that he gives her. It’s selfish and undeserving but she takes it.

Her eyes open then. His hand stays in her hair and she’s serious, studying him before she answers.

“There’s someone else to think of now,” she murmurs then. It isn’t perfect.

In the morning he walks her to a coffee shop down the street.

A bulb snaps. Someone yells “Michael!” but neither of them turns around.

When they get to the shop, she takes his hand. The motion is too quick, nervous, and he seems to understand; he squeezes her fingers with reassurance. Diane smiles tiredly.

It’s a small moment, a private moment, but it’s lost to the comings and goings of people around them. They walk in front of the cameras with curses. They walk through the cameras as if they don’t see them. Diane leans in and kisses Michael’s shoulder briefly. The man returns her tired smile.

Come Monday morning, there is another photo. They are inside and the shot is blurred.

Everybody knows it never ends.