camera boy

I.

Sunday, May 21st, 1998

Starting a new journal. It may not be like this for other people, but starting a new journal is like meeting a new person. It's kind of awkward at first. Get to know them first, and then unleash your insanity, and if they stick around, maybe they're not bad.

 So, I'm Persephone (that's per-seh-fuh-nee), I'm 18 years old, and I live alone. I'm an avid reader and I like movies, and I'm currently awaiting acceptance (or probably rejection) letters from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, the likes. It sounds auspicious but I've been working for it ever since I heard that it was hard to get into them. Even my parents were skeptical. That's probably why I went for those schools at all. Everyone I knew was skeptical about it.

I never really understood why my parents or friends didn't really care about reading or movies as much as I did, but understanding comes with age and I think it's because I search for who I so desperately want to be in those bodies of media. I want so bad to be that heroine, to have that hair, to have that intelligence. So reading, and watching, help me forget I am who I am, and let me pretend for an hour or two that everything is as I wished it would be.

Oh, hold on. There's someone at the door.

Cillian's my neighbor, he's pretty taciturn, pretty brilliant, pretty lovely. He's just come in and situated himself on the couch (loveee let me sleep tonight on your couchhhh) because we've known each other for a good while and he's like a brother to me.

I think if I were a man and I had a choice in how I looked I'd want to look every bit like Cillian Murphy. With the graceful blue eyes and lips blushed with color. Face in angles and lines, but softly curving all the same.

This has happened just now. He'd stood from the couch.

"What are you writin'?"

Oh yes, he's Irish. He's a struggling actor, but he's been successful of late. 

"You're not allowed to read it."

He walks away slowly, then doubles back and tries to snatch it. I hold it up, almost out of his reach, and he leaps on top of me and we wrestle like children. He smells like Guinness and aftershave and cologne. I'm acutely aware of the muscle of his thighs around my waist, his stocky yet gentle hands pretending to fight with me. 

Somewhere, floating among the red space in my body, is a perpetual compelling towards him. A tug.

"No, please, stop," I gasp, and then I grab his shoulders and pin him down. Quickly dismount and blow a strand of hair that had fallen from its braid out of my face. He sits up and leans on his elbows, smiling a little. More like smirking, but that sounds like he's mischievous and dangerous and dark, and he's not mischievous or dangerous or dark.

"I caught a glimpse."

"NO YOU DIDN'T!" I screech and fling myself on the couch, my face in the cushions.

"Graceful blue eyes, and rosy, full lips. If I were to look like anyone, I'd want to look exactly like Cillian Murphy," he mocks, raising his voice nasally higher than mine actually sounds like. "Someone's got a crush!"

"Ugh, don't be so full of yourself. In reality I think you look like a garden gnome. I was feeling quite romantic and then you ruined it," I sulk, turning my back away from him.

He's quiet. 

Then, "You think of me like your brother?"

"Yes." This I say sullenly.

"But you think I'm pretty lovely, pretty brilliant, and what was it? Taciturn?"

"Yes you're taciturn, but I guess when you get comfortable you're really annoying."

"Now I'm annoying! Such high praises."

"Why are you here?" I turn slightly towards him. He's sat up, his arms resting on his knees.

"Nothing, I was bored."

We're so juvenile. Sulking one minute, forgiven the next. With him it always felt natural, like we'd known each other for our whole and entire lives. "How'd your audition go?"

"Oh, you know. Every artist wishes they could do better, but I went out for this one movie for the Irish Film Board. It's a minor role, but it's something," a noncommittal shrug. I get up in socked feet and come sit next to him on the bed. We lean against the wall together, staring at nothing.

"I'm glad. You're gonna be a big movie star one day," I look over at him, smiling genuinely. He turns his head to mine. Eyes fall to my lips. I blink slowly. Then he reaches out and pulls my braid. 

"You look like a little lassie," he says in his thickest Cork accent. I elbow him, he turns his head from mine, the moment breaks off. I watch the swoop of his brown, slightly copper hair. 

He's left my apartment already (or flat as he calls it) to go out for some drinks with his friends, and now it's me who's bored and should go over to his room to bother him. But he's left, and I'm just going to watch a movie, as I do.