No One Who is Young
Title: No One Who is Young
Fandom: Twilight RPF
Pairing: Taylor Lautner/Kristen Stewart
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,764
Summary: Three places Kristen Stewart could've spent her twentieth birthday.
Author's Notes: I started this around KStew's birthday, then hated it, then decided to finish it today. It was inspired by the fuss about where exactly she spent her birthday. I think I'm losing my touch with these two. Meh. Oh well. Anyway, I like it when people are miserable, I guess. Apparently KStew's favorite book is East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which I've never read, but there's a quote that says, "No one who is young is ever going to be old." So there's your title. Just ignore the context of the Steinbeck quote, because apparently it's in a paragraph about prostitutes. Not what I'm going for here. Blah blah blah, taycob_kstew. Happy belated birthday, Kristen. ♥
No One Who is Young
or,
Three Places Kristen Stewart
Could've Spent Her Twentieth Birthday
1. AT HOME
It’s funny how sobering he can be.
Like, she’ll be drunk off her ass, staggering into shit and giggling at people like a lunatic for an entire night. But then she’ll hear his voice, or see the curve of his smile, and BAM, he’s a splash of cold water on her face, or the stinging sensation that lingers after being slapped. Except that that split second of perfect clarity that comes after the water or the slap, when everything makes sense and your eyes sharpen, and you actually see for the first time in what seems like forever? That stays. It’s not, like, a gradual awakening, like getting over a hangover. It’s a sudden shock. A prolonged instant that forgets how short it’s actually supposed to be.
She sometimes thinks of him as being her perfect hangover remedy, without the hangover. Which doesn’t make sense, but it’s the only way she knows how to describe it. There’s no cure for drunkenness except time, really, so this is the next best thing. Taylor is the Hair of the Dog, and an entire day’s worth of sleep in a dark room crammed into half a second and a heartbeat. A simple “Hey, Kristen” is like a fucking Bloody Mary.
Actually, she could use a Bloody Mary right about now. Or a “Hey, Kristen.”
Or something.
Because the truth is, she isn’t drunk off her ass. Maybe she’d like to be. Okay, no. She would definitely like to be. But Kristen Stewart is keepin’ it classy on her twentieth birthday, folks, you heard it here first. People can call her trashy all they want. She isn’t trash. She’s a person.
She’s a classy person who’d like to be drunk on her fucking birthday. And the glass of wine she’s been staring at dismally for the past hour hasn’t done shit to help with that. Not even close. No fucking cigars. (And where the hell did that phrase come from, anyway? Who the fuck even smokes cigars anymore? Probably no one without a mustache.)
Because it’s kind of funny, how she can be in a room full of people who love her - like, really love her, because this is family, literally - and still feel lonely. Still feel the need to lose all reason in, like, a drink-your-sorrows-away way, not a hell-yeah-let’s-party one.
This isn’t a hell-yeah kind of party, anyway. This is a quiet party at home - actually at home, with her parents and her brothers. This is the kind of party where her mom brings out a bottle of wine and acts like it’s something Kristen doesn’t get to have all the time. This is special. This is a day off.
This would be fucking wonderful if Taylor were here, and that simple wish in itself makes her feel even shittier.
Kristen listlessly swirls her glass of wine around in her hand. She’s moping. She knows she’s moping. She’s at that point where she wants to drop something in her glass and watch it sink down to the bottom. Down, down, dooooowwwn. She’s twenty years old, and all she wants to do is drop shit in her drink like a little kid. She’s classy, remember?
Real classy.
It’s not that she doesn’t love her family. She loves them so much that sometimes it hurts. It’s just that when you meet and work with so many people, constantly, your family kinda starts expanding without actual blood ties. You gradually get a whole lot more brothers and sisters and foster parents than you ever had before. You get more grandparents. You even get a few crazy uncles to call your very own, as if one isn’t enough. (Or three.) And as in any family, people move across countries, fall out, just lose touch for a while until an unexpected reunion. The true friends you get along the way become your family; that lasts forever, no matter how hard you try to get rid of them.
Taylor is like her cousin in the whole family analogy thing. She’d call him her little brother, or something, but she’s pretty sure that would make it pretty fucked up for her to make out with him. Even if it’s just for a movie.
(Even if she’s just thought about it once or twice, cameras not rolling.)
Ah. Kristen frowns and swirls her wineglass again.
Maybe she should demote him to second-cousin.
It isn’t until there’s a lull in the conversation around her and “Love Story” comes on the radio that she nearly sloshes wine on the carpet.
“Shit!”
Hastily, she sets the glass down on an end table, lingers indecisively a moment, and then stands up. Thereby knocking into the end table. Thereby causing her wineglass to take a nosedive. Shit.
“Kristen, honey, are you okay?” Her mom stands up now, too, concentrating not on the possibly ruined carpet, but on Kristen’s face.
“Um. I’m - yeah. I’m fine. I just - I’ll, um, get paper towels, or...”
In the process of moving toward the kitchen, she stumbles into an innocent ottoman and sends it skidding a few inches away.
Shit.
It’s like her brain is working, but her body isn’t listening. What the fuck is wrong with her? She’s acting drunk.
One of her brothers laughs. Her mom hurries to head her off.
“It’s okay,” her mom says. “I’ll get it. Why don’t you sit down? It’s your birthday.”
Like turning twenty is an excuse to act like an idiot.
Kristen doesn’t sit. She blinks, standing in the middle of the room, probably with her mouth open. Like an idiot. Of course.
“I think I’m gonna go outside. If that’s okay.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. In fact, she doesn’t even grab a cigarette, which might’ve been mildly productive. No, she just barges on outside like a stampeding cow and plops down onto the ground.
Moo.
(She isn’t usually like this, you know.)
When she stares upward, she notices that there aren’t even any stars. Fan-fucking-tastic. She could use some stars right now. Something sharp and clear to fix her eyes on and put her in perspective. In perspective with what, she doesn’t know. Or honestly care. What she does know is that LA is so bright, so full of people, that it’s finally managed to blot out the stars. Hasn’t anyone ever looked up and noticed that something’s missing? Or does nobody look up anymore, since they figure they’re already on top of the world?
Well. There’s some fucking perspective for you.
She rubs her eyes until the sky is blurred. It’s a drunk sky. Swimming, spinning with clouds and artificial light. Maybe Canada’s spoiled her, the few times she’s been there. Maybe she’s losing herself to it.
She has a bleary sort of heart attack when her phone starts vibrating in her pocket. She fumbles for it, answers it automatically without checking to see who’s calling. She isn’t even sure what she says.
And then -
“Hey, Kristen.”
Oh, Jesus.
For a split second, she has no idea where the hell she is. She isn’t even sure which way she’s looking, be it up or down or over her own shoulder. But when that split-second passes -
BAM.
Cold water, slap in the face, all that.
“Happy birthday.”
The sky stops spinning.
Perspective.
“I thought you weren’t gonna call,” she says. Not a whine, not an accusation. Not exactly.
“Sorry,” Taylor says. He sounds sorry, at the same time that there’s a smile in his voice. “It’s kinda completely crazy. I may or may not be hiding out in a dark corner somewhere.”
“Oh, man. Dark corners. I hear those are pretty useful for secret affairs and stuff.”
“Yeah. Funnily enough, I’ve heard that, too. ‘Cept, the only thing I’ve managed to convince to come with me into this corner is my cellphone.”
“Ah. Steamy. How’s that working out for you two?”
“It’s great, actually. We’re thinking about going public with our relationship soon.”
She laughs, and runs a hand through her hair. She can hear crickets now. Distant, but clear. She swears there weren’t crickets before.
(Were there?)
“So how does it feel?” he asks eventually.
“What?”
She knows what he means; her parents already asked her this morning, and she’s sure it’s going to win, like, the Interview Question of the Month award soon, or something. But she doesn’t mind going through the whole routine again with Taylor. She feels like, out of everyone who’s asked her, and who’s going to ask her, he’s one of the only people who really wants to know.
“Y’know. The big two-oh. I hear you’re officially all grown up.”
She snorts. “Yeah. Right. Since turning eighteen two years ago was no big deal.”
“Uh huh. But no, really. How does it feel?”
She remembers vaguely asking him the same question when he turned eighteen last February.
Of course, the standard answer is: It feels the same.
The real answer?
“It’s different,” she admits. “I mean, it shouldn’t be, but it is. I’m like... I’m old, I guess. I don’t know. I can’t really explain it. I feel like it should mean something, but I don’t know what... That’s, um... I guess that’s what I thought of when I woke up this morning.”
There’s a silence as he digests this answer. She’s probably freaked him out, getting all deep and shit. Getting all lost while he listens, miles and miles away.
“I wish I was there,” he says after a while. Maybe he’s reading her mind (again).
“Me too.” She pauses. “I mean... my mom made this really awesome dinner an’ everything. You’d’ve liked it. Also, we have leftovers. That’s totally your fault, you know.”
She can imagine him pretending to look pained, all alas-poor-leftovers-I-knew-them-Kristen, and it makes her smile.
She’s still smiling when he apologizes again, and she tells him to shut up, really, it’s not his fault, there will always be leftovers, even though nobody’s talking about leftovers anymore.
Yeah. She likes to imagine that their conversations often take a the metaphorical turn.
They talk for a long time after that. She isn’t sure how long, but it feels like a comfortable forever of banter and inside jokes.
Funny, how your life becomes kind of amazing when that missing piece you’ve been looking for finally fits back into place.
Because when she hangs up, she swears she can pick out a few bright stars.
2. IN AN AIRPORT
This is what she expects, because this is what she’s used to: real live vampires. Everywhere. Swarming. Feeding frenzy, right here. And by the way, the universe says happy fucking birthday. This is what she’s resolved herself to.
But it’s worth it, she thinks, to be able to spend the weekend with Rob. In, y’know, just that little place called Budapest. No big deal.
To be honest, though, she doesn’t exactly know what the hell she’s doing here.
Well, no. She knows what she’s doing. She’s going to hang out with Rob on the set of Bel Ami, and then they’re going to fly to London together. That’s the plan. Yeah. The plan is to have something to do, because she’s restless and between movies and honestly, who gives a fuck about turning twenty, anyway?
That’s the what.
The why is a big fat WHO KNOWS? She supposes the why is impulse. Maybe loneliness. Maybe throw in a few parts boredom too to this weirdo weekend cocktail.
But maybe it’s because she feels like she’s drifting away, or maybe just getting drifted away from. Like maybe it was her job to keep everybody together, and either she didn’t get the memo, or she just really fucked up or something because obviously it’s not working. Obviously she and Rob and Taylor are all in different places at the same time, getting their careers on, but they’re all forgetting to touch base like there’s no base to touch. You kind of drift when there’s nothing to hold on to in the first place. Would she kill for anyone, literally, anymore? She doesn’t know.
And she hates that. She hates that, and that’s why she’s here.
Probably. It makes sense, anyway. She’s feeling guilty and she’s impulsive as fuck, so that’s why she’s here.
She isn’t in Paris. She’s not going to show up at Taylor’s hotel, like, SURPRISE! I know you’re busy and shit, but it’s my birthday, so pay attention to meeeeee, okay?
No.
They’ll never ‘always have Paris’ or some crap like that. And whatever. What-the-fuck-ever. She doesn’t want to be there anyway, at the risk of becoming a cliché. (But if there’s ever a time to be clichéd, she thinks, it’s probably better to do it with your best friend. Do it with a stranger or someone you don’t give a shit about, and you just screw yourself over into becoming just like everybody else on the planet.)
It’s not like she’s bitter about it, or anything. Nah. Bitterness is for fifty-year-old divorcées with bad facelifts and broken hearts.
Which she totally is not. (Happy birthday.)
Kristen flinches instinctively as she steps off the plane and into the airport. She’s got her big scary bodyguard in front of her, her small but functional suitcase rolling along behind her (no bag checks make for quick getaways - and what do you mean, isn’t she rich enough for a private jet?). Here they come. God save the Queen. Jesus-Christ-it’s-the-paparazzi-get-in-the-car. Somebody get the Holy water and crank up the sun.
Except...
Except there’s nobody here.
Everything she’s been expecting just got flushed down the toilet and parachuted out into the middle of the ocean.
Somewhere in the world, it’s her birthday. She knows this. It definitely was when she got on that Red-Eye flight from LAX. But how many hours ahead is it here? Five? Ten? How long was that flight, anyway? She has no clue. No fucking clue at all. It’s dark through the airport windows, though, overhead lights reflecting in the now-black glass. Dark, and empty. She sees her own pale reflection in the windows, unkempt, unsure, and almost totally alone. It’s like, over some ocean, or some unidentifiable landmass, she lost her twentieth birthday. Like she’s older now, okay, but nobody told her.
Staring into the window, she feels an inexplicable sense of loss.
She doesn’t really like attention. Not hoards of it. She doesn’t like cameras in her face, or pictures of herself slapped across every single grocery store tabloid. She doesn’t like it when people make shit up about her that isn’t true, or is only half-true because they like giving an alternate explanation for every single fucking place she’s been. She’s not even all that famous, for Christ’s sake, not when you compare her to those legit movie stars who’ve earned every second of their time in the spotlight, and who everyone’ll remember a hundred years after they’re dead.
Maybe she’s spoiled. Maybe she really is the bitch people say she is.
But she never expected that she’d spend her twentieth birthday with a bodyguard named Cookie and a suitcase full of wrinkled jeans and shirts and a dogeared East of Eden as her only companions. She never expected that falling asleep and drooling against the airplane window was as exciting as turning twenty was going to get.
It’s lonely here, in this empty airport. It’s quiet (too quiet). She usually loves the quiet, but fuck, this is awful.
“I need to get the hell out of here,” she mutters.
Cookie agrees.
Today, or tomorrow, or whatever the fuck day it is? That’ll be better.
In the meantime, she’s going to show up at Rob’s hotel, bang on the door, because she doesn’t care what time it is, and smoke.
(SURPRISE! I know you’re tired and shit, but it’s my birthday, so pay attention to meeeeee, okay?)
3. IN A CANADIAN PARK
Being outside just kind of works for them. She has this, like, heightened sense of awareness when she’s with him, something that makes the night air sharper and the grass softer. There’s something about being with him that makes her want to fling her shoes off into the unknown and run her toes through every crumbling clump of dirt. This is what being wild is like. This is what makes a wolf pause and howl at the bright white moon.
This is probably kind of what being poetic is like, too.
Well. Okay.
In reality, Kristen’s shoes are off, but it’s only because they were shitty and gave her blisters almost as soon as she put them on. Her feet are dirty; she may or may not have stepped on a snail a few minutes ago, which is a really disgusting experience she’d rather not repeat (if she isn’t just imagining the whole thing). The grass is soupy from a broken sprinkler head. And if she happened to howl at the moon because she got snail guts between her toes, well. That’s probably just coincidental. Reality is a lot different from what it feels like it should be.
But maybe it’s that fucked up sense of reality that’s made everything seems so perfect, soupy grass be damned.
“You never told me what you want for your birthday,” Taylor reminds her for probably the millionth time.
Kristen rolls her eyes (also for the millionth time). “You mean you don’t know me, like, good enough to pick out some totally random thing and give it to me ‘cause it reminds you of, um, something totally random and meaningful?”
“I knew it,” he groans mournfully. “I’m the worst friend ever.”
She sways her hips to bump their clasped hands against his own, then buries her nose in his shoulder.
“So make it up to me.”
“What’s that? Your head’s in my armpit.”
Kristen shoves him. “You know what I said. Make it up to me.”
“Bossy.”
She sticks out her tongue. When he makes as if to grab it between his thumb and forefinger (which, ew, is gross, would he really?) she shrieks, and then promptly untangles their fingers to clap her hand over her mouth.
“Hey,” he smirks. “Whaddya know? That’s way better.”
Somewhere along the way to the swing set, she lets her hand and mutinous glare fall. The light from the street lamps only just reaches them here, with a bit of a soft glow coming from over by the picnic tables. It’s the kind of light where you can choose to either see, or not see. Whatever you want. Right now, she can see Taylor stopping to fish something out of his shoe.
Kristen plops herself down into one of the swings. The chains are cold, and she remembers coming out here to smoke a few times when she just wanted to get away from the set. Kinda fucked up, how kiddie parks attract adult problems.
She takes a few steps back, and then pumps her legs as she starts to soar forward. And backward. And forward. And backward. And -
“Fuck!” she screeches. “Fuck, you’re gonna die! Oh my God!”
Taylor is standing right in front of the path of her swing, simultaneously grinning at her and looking all terrified like it’s totally hilarious that she’s about to decapitate him with her bare feet. And like her being all freaked out about it is even funnier.
Which it totally isn’t. Jesus.
At the last possible second, though, Taylor deftly reaches up and grabs hold of her feet, stopping her mid-swing and pre-decapitation. And he cracks up.
“Fuck. You,” she tries to growl. She also tries to reach forward and smack him around a bit (show him who’s boss, yeah, that’s cool). But neither of those works out too well, and she just ends up flailing around like an idiot while, what do you know, laughing like one, too. He’s such a cocky little shit sometimes.
As he lets her go, she sticks her tongue out at him again, except she’s safely out of reach this time. She also may or may not flip him off. (You can either see or not see, remember?)
“So,” he says, “since I figure you kinda hate me now, does that mean I’m off the hook about getting you a present?”
“Nuh uh. And hey, I changed my mind, remember? So now you’ve actually got two things to make up to me for.”
“Two?”
“Yeah, you jerk. The second one is for almost giving me a fucking heart attack.”
“So I’m a jerk now?”
“Yup. The world’s gonna be, like, totally shocked when they find out. It’ll be total chaos with all the twelve-year-olds: Taylor Lautner’s living a lie under those adorably pudgy little cheeks.”
“Ha. Ha. There’s no way I have - ”
He’s still standing in the path of her swing, only he’s a little closer now. (Revenge!) So just when she’s about to barrel her feet into his stomach, she changes her mind and wraps her legs around his waist, instead, bringing them both to a standstill.
“There’s, um...” You either see or you don’t see, and Kristen sees the blush spreading across his cheeks like a wildfire. She also hears his voice go up an octave. Ha. “There’s no, um... no way I have pudgy, um... cheeks?”
He’s not the only cocky little shit in this here town. She lets go of the chains and pinches his cheeks smugly. “Pudgy like a baby,” she affirms sweetly. Which is bullshit, of course. If babies had six-packs, then maybe she’d be on the right track.
“But...” She taps him on the nose. “Just as cute, too. It’s, like, kind of disgusting how cute you are, actually.”
Unconsciously, he licks his lips, and she bites hers, and they’re just a couple of nervous not-exactly-teenagers-not-exactly-adults.
“So what d’you think?” she asks softly. She can feel her heart beating somewhere in her throat. “Make it up to me?”
They stare at each other for a few seconds. Then he wraps his hands around her waist, drawing her just a little bit closer. She can smell him, and he smells like such a guy, like dirt and cologne and sweat and - God - like everything she’s ever wanted.
“Happy birthday, Kristen,” he says. He gives her a shy half-smile all of her own, and then - oh, yes - and then he kisses her.
THE END
Fandom: Twilight RPF
Pairing: Taylor Lautner/Kristen Stewart
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,764
Summary: Three places Kristen Stewart could've spent her twentieth birthday.
Author's Notes: I started this around KStew's birthday, then hated it, then decided to finish it today. It was inspired by the fuss about where exactly she spent her birthday. I think I'm losing my touch with these two. Meh. Oh well. Anyway, I like it when people are miserable, I guess. Apparently KStew's favorite book is East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which I've never read, but there's a quote that says, "No one who is young is ever going to be old." So there's your title. Just ignore the context of the Steinbeck quote, because apparently it's in a paragraph about prostitutes. Not what I'm going for here. Blah blah blah, taycob_kstew. Happy belated birthday, Kristen. ♥
No One Who is Young
or,
Three Places Kristen Stewart
Could've Spent Her Twentieth Birthday
1. AT HOME
It’s funny how sobering he can be.
Like, she’ll be drunk off her ass, staggering into shit and giggling at people like a lunatic for an entire night. But then she’ll hear his voice, or see the curve of his smile, and BAM, he’s a splash of cold water on her face, or the stinging sensation that lingers after being slapped. Except that that split second of perfect clarity that comes after the water or the slap, when everything makes sense and your eyes sharpen, and you actually see for the first time in what seems like forever? That stays. It’s not, like, a gradual awakening, like getting over a hangover. It’s a sudden shock. A prolonged instant that forgets how short it’s actually supposed to be.
She sometimes thinks of him as being her perfect hangover remedy, without the hangover. Which doesn’t make sense, but it’s the only way she knows how to describe it. There’s no cure for drunkenness except time, really, so this is the next best thing. Taylor is the Hair of the Dog, and an entire day’s worth of sleep in a dark room crammed into half a second and a heartbeat. A simple “Hey, Kristen” is like a fucking Bloody Mary.
Actually, she could use a Bloody Mary right about now. Or a “Hey, Kristen.”
Or something.
Because the truth is, she isn’t drunk off her ass. Maybe she’d like to be. Okay, no. She would definitely like to be. But Kristen Stewart is keepin’ it classy on her twentieth birthday, folks, you heard it here first. People can call her trashy all they want. She isn’t trash. She’s a person.
She’s a classy person who’d like to be drunk on her fucking birthday. And the glass of wine she’s been staring at dismally for the past hour hasn’t done shit to help with that. Not even close. No fucking cigars. (And where the hell did that phrase come from, anyway? Who the fuck even smokes cigars anymore? Probably no one without a mustache.)
Because it’s kind of funny, how she can be in a room full of people who love her - like, really love her, because this is family, literally - and still feel lonely. Still feel the need to lose all reason in, like, a drink-your-sorrows-away way, not a hell-yeah-let’s-party one.
This isn’t a hell-yeah kind of party, anyway. This is a quiet party at home - actually at home, with her parents and her brothers. This is the kind of party where her mom brings out a bottle of wine and acts like it’s something Kristen doesn’t get to have all the time. This is special. This is a day off.
This would be fucking wonderful if Taylor were here, and that simple wish in itself makes her feel even shittier.
Kristen listlessly swirls her glass of wine around in her hand. She’s moping. She knows she’s moping. She’s at that point where she wants to drop something in her glass and watch it sink down to the bottom. Down, down, dooooowwwn. She’s twenty years old, and all she wants to do is drop shit in her drink like a little kid. She’s classy, remember?
Real classy.
It’s not that she doesn’t love her family. She loves them so much that sometimes it hurts. It’s just that when you meet and work with so many people, constantly, your family kinda starts expanding without actual blood ties. You gradually get a whole lot more brothers and sisters and foster parents than you ever had before. You get more grandparents. You even get a few crazy uncles to call your very own, as if one isn’t enough. (Or three.) And as in any family, people move across countries, fall out, just lose touch for a while until an unexpected reunion. The true friends you get along the way become your family; that lasts forever, no matter how hard you try to get rid of them.
Taylor is like her cousin in the whole family analogy thing. She’d call him her little brother, or something, but she’s pretty sure that would make it pretty fucked up for her to make out with him. Even if it’s just for a movie.
(Even if she’s just thought about it once or twice, cameras not rolling.)
Ah. Kristen frowns and swirls her wineglass again.
Maybe she should demote him to second-cousin.
It isn’t until there’s a lull in the conversation around her and “Love Story” comes on the radio that she nearly sloshes wine on the carpet.
“Shit!”
Hastily, she sets the glass down on an end table, lingers indecisively a moment, and then stands up. Thereby knocking into the end table. Thereby causing her wineglass to take a nosedive. Shit.
“Kristen, honey, are you okay?” Her mom stands up now, too, concentrating not on the possibly ruined carpet, but on Kristen’s face.
“Um. I’m - yeah. I’m fine. I just - I’ll, um, get paper towels, or...”
In the process of moving toward the kitchen, she stumbles into an innocent ottoman and sends it skidding a few inches away.
Shit.
It’s like her brain is working, but her body isn’t listening. What the fuck is wrong with her? She’s acting drunk.
One of her brothers laughs. Her mom hurries to head her off.
“It’s okay,” her mom says. “I’ll get it. Why don’t you sit down? It’s your birthday.”
Like turning twenty is an excuse to act like an idiot.
Kristen doesn’t sit. She blinks, standing in the middle of the room, probably with her mouth open. Like an idiot. Of course.
“I think I’m gonna go outside. If that’s okay.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. In fact, she doesn’t even grab a cigarette, which might’ve been mildly productive. No, she just barges on outside like a stampeding cow and plops down onto the ground.
Moo.
(She isn’t usually like this, you know.)
When she stares upward, she notices that there aren’t even any stars. Fan-fucking-tastic. She could use some stars right now. Something sharp and clear to fix her eyes on and put her in perspective. In perspective with what, she doesn’t know. Or honestly care. What she does know is that LA is so bright, so full of people, that it’s finally managed to blot out the stars. Hasn’t anyone ever looked up and noticed that something’s missing? Or does nobody look up anymore, since they figure they’re already on top of the world?
Well. There’s some fucking perspective for you.
She rubs her eyes until the sky is blurred. It’s a drunk sky. Swimming, spinning with clouds and artificial light. Maybe Canada’s spoiled her, the few times she’s been there. Maybe she’s losing herself to it.
She has a bleary sort of heart attack when her phone starts vibrating in her pocket. She fumbles for it, answers it automatically without checking to see who’s calling. She isn’t even sure what she says.
And then -
“Hey, Kristen.”
Oh, Jesus.
For a split second, she has no idea where the hell she is. She isn’t even sure which way she’s looking, be it up or down or over her own shoulder. But when that split-second passes -
BAM.
Cold water, slap in the face, all that.
“Happy birthday.”
The sky stops spinning.
Perspective.
“I thought you weren’t gonna call,” she says. Not a whine, not an accusation. Not exactly.
“Sorry,” Taylor says. He sounds sorry, at the same time that there’s a smile in his voice. “It’s kinda completely crazy. I may or may not be hiding out in a dark corner somewhere.”
“Oh, man. Dark corners. I hear those are pretty useful for secret affairs and stuff.”
“Yeah. Funnily enough, I’ve heard that, too. ‘Cept, the only thing I’ve managed to convince to come with me into this corner is my cellphone.”
“Ah. Steamy. How’s that working out for you two?”
“It’s great, actually. We’re thinking about going public with our relationship soon.”
She laughs, and runs a hand through her hair. She can hear crickets now. Distant, but clear. She swears there weren’t crickets before.
(Were there?)
“So how does it feel?” he asks eventually.
“What?”
She knows what he means; her parents already asked her this morning, and she’s sure it’s going to win, like, the Interview Question of the Month award soon, or something. But she doesn’t mind going through the whole routine again with Taylor. She feels like, out of everyone who’s asked her, and who’s going to ask her, he’s one of the only people who really wants to know.
“Y’know. The big two-oh. I hear you’re officially all grown up.”
She snorts. “Yeah. Right. Since turning eighteen two years ago was no big deal.”
“Uh huh. But no, really. How does it feel?”
She remembers vaguely asking him the same question when he turned eighteen last February.
Of course, the standard answer is: It feels the same.
The real answer?
“It’s different,” she admits. “I mean, it shouldn’t be, but it is. I’m like... I’m old, I guess. I don’t know. I can’t really explain it. I feel like it should mean something, but I don’t know what... That’s, um... I guess that’s what I thought of when I woke up this morning.”
There’s a silence as he digests this answer. She’s probably freaked him out, getting all deep and shit. Getting all lost while he listens, miles and miles away.
“I wish I was there,” he says after a while. Maybe he’s reading her mind (again).
“Me too.” She pauses. “I mean... my mom made this really awesome dinner an’ everything. You’d’ve liked it. Also, we have leftovers. That’s totally your fault, you know.”
She can imagine him pretending to look pained, all alas-poor-leftovers-I-knew-them-Kristen, and it makes her smile.
She’s still smiling when he apologizes again, and she tells him to shut up, really, it’s not his fault, there will always be leftovers, even though nobody’s talking about leftovers anymore.
Yeah. She likes to imagine that their conversations often take a the metaphorical turn.
They talk for a long time after that. She isn’t sure how long, but it feels like a comfortable forever of banter and inside jokes.
Funny, how your life becomes kind of amazing when that missing piece you’ve been looking for finally fits back into place.
Because when she hangs up, she swears she can pick out a few bright stars.
2. IN AN AIRPORT
This is what she expects, because this is what she’s used to: real live vampires. Everywhere. Swarming. Feeding frenzy, right here. And by the way, the universe says happy fucking birthday. This is what she’s resolved herself to.
But it’s worth it, she thinks, to be able to spend the weekend with Rob. In, y’know, just that little place called Budapest. No big deal.
To be honest, though, she doesn’t exactly know what the hell she’s doing here.
Well, no. She knows what she’s doing. She’s going to hang out with Rob on the set of Bel Ami, and then they’re going to fly to London together. That’s the plan. Yeah. The plan is to have something to do, because she’s restless and between movies and honestly, who gives a fuck about turning twenty, anyway?
That’s the what.
The why is a big fat WHO KNOWS? She supposes the why is impulse. Maybe loneliness. Maybe throw in a few parts boredom too to this weirdo weekend cocktail.
But maybe it’s because she feels like she’s drifting away, or maybe just getting drifted away from. Like maybe it was her job to keep everybody together, and either she didn’t get the memo, or she just really fucked up or something because obviously it’s not working. Obviously she and Rob and Taylor are all in different places at the same time, getting their careers on, but they’re all forgetting to touch base like there’s no base to touch. You kind of drift when there’s nothing to hold on to in the first place. Would she kill for anyone, literally, anymore? She doesn’t know.
And she hates that. She hates that, and that’s why she’s here.
Probably. It makes sense, anyway. She’s feeling guilty and she’s impulsive as fuck, so that’s why she’s here.
She isn’t in Paris. She’s not going to show up at Taylor’s hotel, like, SURPRISE! I know you’re busy and shit, but it’s my birthday, so pay attention to meeeeee, okay?
No.
They’ll never ‘always have Paris’ or some crap like that. And whatever. What-the-fuck-ever. She doesn’t want to be there anyway, at the risk of becoming a cliché. (But if there’s ever a time to be clichéd, she thinks, it’s probably better to do it with your best friend. Do it with a stranger or someone you don’t give a shit about, and you just screw yourself over into becoming just like everybody else on the planet.)
It’s not like she’s bitter about it, or anything. Nah. Bitterness is for fifty-year-old divorcées with bad facelifts and broken hearts.
Which she totally is not. (Happy birthday.)
Kristen flinches instinctively as she steps off the plane and into the airport. She’s got her big scary bodyguard in front of her, her small but functional suitcase rolling along behind her (no bag checks make for quick getaways - and what do you mean, isn’t she rich enough for a private jet?). Here they come. God save the Queen. Jesus-Christ-it’s-the-paparazzi-get-in-the-car. Somebody get the Holy water and crank up the sun.
Except...
Except there’s nobody here.
Everything she’s been expecting just got flushed down the toilet and parachuted out into the middle of the ocean.
Somewhere in the world, it’s her birthday. She knows this. It definitely was when she got on that Red-Eye flight from LAX. But how many hours ahead is it here? Five? Ten? How long was that flight, anyway? She has no clue. No fucking clue at all. It’s dark through the airport windows, though, overhead lights reflecting in the now-black glass. Dark, and empty. She sees her own pale reflection in the windows, unkempt, unsure, and almost totally alone. It’s like, over some ocean, or some unidentifiable landmass, she lost her twentieth birthday. Like she’s older now, okay, but nobody told her.
Staring into the window, she feels an inexplicable sense of loss.
She doesn’t really like attention. Not hoards of it. She doesn’t like cameras in her face, or pictures of herself slapped across every single grocery store tabloid. She doesn’t like it when people make shit up about her that isn’t true, or is only half-true because they like giving an alternate explanation for every single fucking place she’s been. She’s not even all that famous, for Christ’s sake, not when you compare her to those legit movie stars who’ve earned every second of their time in the spotlight, and who everyone’ll remember a hundred years after they’re dead.
Maybe she’s spoiled. Maybe she really is the bitch people say she is.
But she never expected that she’d spend her twentieth birthday with a bodyguard named Cookie and a suitcase full of wrinkled jeans and shirts and a dogeared East of Eden as her only companions. She never expected that falling asleep and drooling against the airplane window was as exciting as turning twenty was going to get.
It’s lonely here, in this empty airport. It’s quiet (too quiet). She usually loves the quiet, but fuck, this is awful.
“I need to get the hell out of here,” she mutters.
Cookie agrees.
Today, or tomorrow, or whatever the fuck day it is? That’ll be better.
In the meantime, she’s going to show up at Rob’s hotel, bang on the door, because she doesn’t care what time it is, and smoke.
(SURPRISE! I know you’re tired and shit, but it’s my birthday, so pay attention to meeeeee, okay?)
3. IN A CANADIAN PARK
Being outside just kind of works for them. She has this, like, heightened sense of awareness when she’s with him, something that makes the night air sharper and the grass softer. There’s something about being with him that makes her want to fling her shoes off into the unknown and run her toes through every crumbling clump of dirt. This is what being wild is like. This is what makes a wolf pause and howl at the bright white moon.
This is probably kind of what being poetic is like, too.
Well. Okay.
In reality, Kristen’s shoes are off, but it’s only because they were shitty and gave her blisters almost as soon as she put them on. Her feet are dirty; she may or may not have stepped on a snail a few minutes ago, which is a really disgusting experience she’d rather not repeat (if she isn’t just imagining the whole thing). The grass is soupy from a broken sprinkler head. And if she happened to howl at the moon because she got snail guts between her toes, well. That’s probably just coincidental. Reality is a lot different from what it feels like it should be.
But maybe it’s that fucked up sense of reality that’s made everything seems so perfect, soupy grass be damned.
“You never told me what you want for your birthday,” Taylor reminds her for probably the millionth time.
Kristen rolls her eyes (also for the millionth time). “You mean you don’t know me, like, good enough to pick out some totally random thing and give it to me ‘cause it reminds you of, um, something totally random and meaningful?”
“I knew it,” he groans mournfully. “I’m the worst friend ever.”
She sways her hips to bump their clasped hands against his own, then buries her nose in his shoulder.
“So make it up to me.”
“What’s that? Your head’s in my armpit.”
Kristen shoves him. “You know what I said. Make it up to me.”
“Bossy.”
She sticks out her tongue. When he makes as if to grab it between his thumb and forefinger (which, ew, is gross, would he really?) she shrieks, and then promptly untangles their fingers to clap her hand over her mouth.
“Hey,” he smirks. “Whaddya know? That’s way better.”
Somewhere along the way to the swing set, she lets her hand and mutinous glare fall. The light from the street lamps only just reaches them here, with a bit of a soft glow coming from over by the picnic tables. It’s the kind of light where you can choose to either see, or not see. Whatever you want. Right now, she can see Taylor stopping to fish something out of his shoe.
Kristen plops herself down into one of the swings. The chains are cold, and she remembers coming out here to smoke a few times when she just wanted to get away from the set. Kinda fucked up, how kiddie parks attract adult problems.
She takes a few steps back, and then pumps her legs as she starts to soar forward. And backward. And forward. And backward. And -
“Fuck!” she screeches. “Fuck, you’re gonna die! Oh my God!”
Taylor is standing right in front of the path of her swing, simultaneously grinning at her and looking all terrified like it’s totally hilarious that she’s about to decapitate him with her bare feet. And like her being all freaked out about it is even funnier.
Which it totally isn’t. Jesus.
At the last possible second, though, Taylor deftly reaches up and grabs hold of her feet, stopping her mid-swing and pre-decapitation. And he cracks up.
“Fuck. You,” she tries to growl. She also tries to reach forward and smack him around a bit (show him who’s boss, yeah, that’s cool). But neither of those works out too well, and she just ends up flailing around like an idiot while, what do you know, laughing like one, too. He’s such a cocky little shit sometimes.
As he lets her go, she sticks her tongue out at him again, except she’s safely out of reach this time. She also may or may not flip him off. (You can either see or not see, remember?)
“So,” he says, “since I figure you kinda hate me now, does that mean I’m off the hook about getting you a present?”
“Nuh uh. And hey, I changed my mind, remember? So now you’ve actually got two things to make up to me for.”
“Two?”
“Yeah, you jerk. The second one is for almost giving me a fucking heart attack.”
“So I’m a jerk now?”
“Yup. The world’s gonna be, like, totally shocked when they find out. It’ll be total chaos with all the twelve-year-olds: Taylor Lautner’s living a lie under those adorably pudgy little cheeks.”
“Ha. Ha. There’s no way I have - ”
He’s still standing in the path of her swing, only he’s a little closer now. (Revenge!) So just when she’s about to barrel her feet into his stomach, she changes her mind and wraps her legs around his waist, instead, bringing them both to a standstill.
“There’s, um...” You either see or you don’t see, and Kristen sees the blush spreading across his cheeks like a wildfire. She also hears his voice go up an octave. Ha. “There’s no, um... no way I have pudgy, um... cheeks?”
He’s not the only cocky little shit in this here town. She lets go of the chains and pinches his cheeks smugly. “Pudgy like a baby,” she affirms sweetly. Which is bullshit, of course. If babies had six-packs, then maybe she’d be on the right track.
“But...” She taps him on the nose. “Just as cute, too. It’s, like, kind of disgusting how cute you are, actually.”
Unconsciously, he licks his lips, and she bites hers, and they’re just a couple of nervous not-exactly-teenagers-not-exactly-adults.
“So what d’you think?” she asks softly. She can feel her heart beating somewhere in her throat. “Make it up to me?”
They stare at each other for a few seconds. Then he wraps his hands around her waist, drawing her just a little bit closer. She can smell him, and he smells like such a guy, like dirt and cologne and sweat and - God - like everything she’s ever wanted.
“Happy birthday, Kristen,” he says. He gives her a shy half-smile all of her own, and then - oh, yes - and then he kisses her.
THE END