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kamspeaks · 21 hours ago

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This had my emotions all over the place….i was prepared to have my heart ripped outta my chest and tap danced on…instead I received a kiss on the forehead

𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎, 𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍 || 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚐𝚎 𝚋𝚞𝚎𝚌𝚔𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝚡 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛

in which the story ends where it should’ve started

wc - 5.2k

It’s been years since you last sat under this kind of light, soft but piercing, diffused by the lenses of a thousand cameras before, but now just one, pointed at you with patient expectation. The room is quiet, save for the soft hum of the recording equipment. The journalist across from you waits, legs crossed, notebook balanced delicately in her lap. You’d chosen her specifically—young, honest, with no agenda. She wasn’t interested in gossip, she wanted the truth. And for once, you think maybe you’re ready to give it.

“I can ask anything?” she repeats, gently. “You said you wouldn’t hold back.”

You nod, slow, lips parted just slightly as if the air might feel different if you breathed it in with your mouth instead. You’re wearing cream silk today. You always wear white when you’re about to lie.

But this time, you intend to tell the truth.

She flips to a page she’s clearly marked ahead of time, as if she knew this moment would come early. “Paige Bueckers,” she says, and watches you closely.

And there it is.

Your smile curls before you can stop it. The familiar ache in your chest, the shift of your ribs to accommodate the name. You’re too old to pretend it doesn’t matter anymore. The war is over and you’ve already lost.

You lower your gaze, laugh softly—a breath, not a sound. “You know,” you murmur, “I spent half my life loving her… and the other half trying to hide how much I did.”

The words feel warm as they leave your mouth, like they’d been waiting on the back of your tongue for years, aging like good wine. Your interviewer leans forward, just slightly, eyes wide and gentle. “What do you mean by that?”

You sigh. “I mean… if I could go back,” you begin slowly, deliberately, “I would’ve climbed up to the top of the Hollywood sign and shouted that I loved Paige Bueckers. So loud that the whole city could hear me. Consequences be damned.”

Your voice trembles slightly at the end, not enough to cry, just enough to betray how long you’ve carried this. The regret. The weight of years spent molding your life into something beautiful, but never quite… whole.

The interviewer waits. You appreciate that about her. No follow-up, no interruption. She lets the silence expand between you like a blooming wound.

And from that silence, you begin to bleed.

It started before you were famous. Before your face was on billboards, and before you could no longer go to outside without a dozen fans asking for selfies. You were still just a girl with big dreams and a bigger secret, stumbling into UConn dorm halls with scripts tucked in your backpack and stolen kisses in Paige’s room at midnight.

You remember the way she looked at you when no one else was around. Like you were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, even with your mascara smudged and your hair thrown up haphazardly. Like you weren’t just worthy of love, but of worship.

You’d lie beside her on her tiny twin bed, her legs tangled with yours, soft music playing on her speaker. She liked old R&B. Alicia Keys. Lauryn Hill. You didn’t listen to lyrics back then, you lived them. You pressed your forehead to hers and whispered things no one else knew. You made pinky promises about forever. You laughed into her skin and never questioned whether you were hers.

Not until the world began to look.

She warned you once, long before it mattered. “One day they’re gonna want to know everything about you,” she said, fingers tracing circles on your arm. “And I know you’ll have to give them most of it. Just promise me you’ll keep me.”

You didn’t promise, but you kissed her instead. You thought that was enough.

But kisses fade in memory. Promises don’t.

The interviewer sets her pen down. “You’ve never spoken about her. At least not publicly.”

You give a tired smile, the kind you reserve for people who don’t understand how brutal it is to keep something sacred inside a cage. “There’s a lot I’ve never spoken about. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

She hesitates. “Do you still love her?”

Your throat tightens, but you’ve learned how to answer questions with grace and poise. With heartbreak hidden beneath tailored sentences and charm.

“I think I’ll always love her,” you say. “The kind of love that... that doesn’t die. It just waits, quietly, for a time that may never come.” And softer, “But sometimes loving someone isn’t about holding them. It’s about knowing when to let them go and praying they come back.”

The last time you saw her, really saw her, she was standing in the back of a gym, leaning against the wall while reporters swarmed you. You were promoting your first major film. She was there because she always was—quiet, hidden, wearing a smile meant only for you.

Later that night, back in her dorm, you laid in bed in complete silence. You weren’t touching and that should’ve been your first sign.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she said. Not dramatically. Not like in the movies. Just... plain and honest.

You swallowed the lump in your throat and told her something you didn’t even believe. “We’ll have time later.”

She turned her head and stared at the ceiling. “Do you promise?”

You did. You promised her a future you can never give her.

Because later never came.

You were whisked away to LA. Then to Paris. Then to awards shows and press junkets and studios that asked you to smile brighter, act bolder, wear lipstick in red instead of soft pink because it made you look more sellable.

You called when you could. She answered when she wasn’t in practice. Sometimes you just sat in silence, breathing together. Sometimes you argued. Once, she said, “I feel like you’re turning into someone I don’t recognize.”

You didn’t tell her that you felt the same. About yourself.

Your voice softens when you continue. “There are things in this life I got because I let her go. But I lost the only thing I wanted to come home to.” You pause. “I was her before I became me.”

The interviewer’s eyes glisten, but she doesn’t cry. She knows she’s witnessing something raw. A confession dressed in velvet.

You lean back in the chair and run your thumb along the inside of your wrist, over a scar no one else knows the story behind. A scar from a bracelet Paige once gave you, worn too tightly, too proudly. You never told anyone it cut you. You didn’t care. You wanted it to stay on. You wanted her to stay on.

“She asked me once if I’d ever be proud to love her in front of the world,” you say. “I told her the world didn’t deserve to know something that sacred.” You shake your head now, a bitter smile curving your lips. “But the truth is, I was just afraid. Afraid they’d take her from me the second they knew.”

The interviewer finally asks, “And did they?”

You look away, the answer burning.

“No,” you whisper. “I did.”

It’s easy to say it now, under the soft hush of the interview lights and with a warm tea in your hands, that you would’ve chosen differently. That love should’ve been louder than fear. But at the time, you were young and terrified. You didn’t just want to be someone. You wanted to be unforgettable. You wanted to win awards and wear diamonds and have the world bend in awe when you stepped onto a stage.

And you did. You got all of it.

But no one tells you what it costs until you’re too far from the shore to swim back.

Your first major red carpet came in a golden hour glow. Los Angeles in June, that kind of summer warmth that never breaks, only softens around the edges. You wore a dress that made stylists gasp when you stepped out of the trailer—champagne silk, low back, your hair swept up to expose the slender column of your neck. You were a star. Even if you didn’t feel like one yet.

Paige flew out that weekend, a quiet arrival no one noticed. She stayed in the hotel room, curled on the couch in sweats, scrolling aimlessly on her phone while you let a glam team paint you into a myth.

You’d tried to convince her to come with you. “You could walk behind me,” you teased. “Like my security.”

She gave a small laugh, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’d ruin it,” she murmured.

You turned. “Ruin what?”

“You,” she said, simply.

And you didn’t argue. That was your mistake. You didn’t say, ‘You make me real.’ You didn’t say, ‘You’re the only thing that reminds me who I am beneath all this glitter.’

You let the silence answer for you.

The photographs were perfect that night. You smiled in every single one. The industry started to whisper your name like they knew you were the next big thing. They said you had that glow, that ‘it’ factor, that untouchable, almost mythical quality.

But they didn’t see you get back to the hotel room at midnight, heels in hand, makeup cracking at the corners of your eyes. They didn’t see the way Paige stood up wordlessly and opened her arms, and you folded into them like a crumpled dress on the floor.

“I missed you,” she whispered, nose pressed to your neck.

“I’m right here,” you said back.

But even then, you both knew you weren’t.

The interviewer looks up from her notes. “She never went public either. Even when her career took off. Don’t you think that means something?”

You think about that often. The way Paige stayed silent too. The way she never posted a single photo, never let her gaze linger too long during press conferences, never let a single rumor slip through the cracks. You wonder if that was her protecting you… or protecting herself.

“I think,” you say, slowly, “we both made the mistake of believing that hiding meant preserving something. But sometimes, when you keep something a secret for too long, it stops feeling real. Even to the people in it.”

You take a sip of your tea. It’s gone lukewarm.

“Do you regret it?” she asks. “The hiding?”

You give a long exhale. “Not the hiding,” you say. “The not telling her she was worth being seen.”

It was your second film. The breakout one. The one that earned you a Best Actress nomination and landed you on the cover of Variety. You were gone for months. Shooting in the French countryside. You sent photos—fields of lavender, stone courtyards, your name on the back of a canvas chair.

She sent back photos of the weight room, of her team celebrating a win, of her late-night Chipotle runs. You replied with heart emojis. She replied with a thumbs up.

You called when you could. Sometimes she answered. Sometimes she didn’t.

One night, she finally did. You were sitting on a balcony wrapped in a hotel robe, champagne in hand, lights of Paris blinking in the distance.

“I’m tired,” she said. Her voice was distant, quiet. “Not physically. Just… tired of missing you.”

You pressed the phone closer to your ear. “I miss you too.”

“No,” she said. “You miss the idea of me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?”

You wanted to fight. You wanted to beg. But you were tired too. And drunk. And scared that maybe she was right.

So instead, you whispered, “Just wait a little longer. It’s all happening so fast, but once I catch my breath… I’ll come home.”

Her silence lasted long enough that you could hear her breathing.

“I’m not sure you even know where home is anymore.”

You’ve been nominated for three Oscars. Won two. Your shelf is heavy with trophies. And yet, in quiet hours like this, it all feels like consolation prizes.

You let the interviewer glimpse that truth.

“People always think the saddest thing I lost was her,” you say. “But it wasn’t.”

She waits.

“I lost me. The version of me she loved. The one who laughed without thinking about how it looked. The one who sang in the car even when I missed every note. She didn’t love the actress. She loved the girl I was before.”

The ache sits behind your ribs like a quiet bruise.

“She saw me before the world did. And I think… maybe that’s why I let her go. Because the moment the world started to love me too, I wasn’t sure how to carry both loves at once.”

The interviewer sets her pen down.

“Did you ever try? To get her back?”

You stare at her, and for the first time since the interview began, you look old. Not in a tired way. But in the way of someone who has known deep love and deeper loss.

“She called once,” you say. “A year after I won my second Oscar. She was in New York. I was in LA. She said she’d be passing through. Asked if I wanted to meet.”

The interviewer leans in, breath held.

“And?” she asks.

You smile again, hollow. “I never replied.”

It’s strange, the things you remember most vividly. Not the premieres, not the awards, not even the kisses that stole your breath in Paige’s tiny dorm room. What you remember is the silence after. The way your phone stayed lit up with her name, glowing like a pulse against the dark. The way you stared at it, thumb hovering, then lowering. You didn’t answer. You were standing in the middle of your dressing room, being zipped into a gown worth more than your mother’s house, your face half-painted, your agent waiting with two missed calls of her own.

You told yourself you’d call back.

You never did.

There was a time when Paige would sit cross-legged at the end of her bed, your script pages spread across her lap like a sacred text, and read each line aloud like she meant it.

You’d come into her room after class, tired and unsure, and collapse into her pillows while she shuffled through the crinkled pages. “This character’s a mess,” she’d tease, eyebrows raised, before slipping into the dialogue with a surprising rhythm. Her voice wasn’t theatrical, not like yours, but steady. Real.

You always listened to her like she was the last voice on Earth.

She’d glance up between lines and ask, “What’s this character scared of?”

“Being known,” you’d murmur.

She’d nod, lips twitching. “So basically… you.”

You threw a pillow at her. She caught it, always.

Later, she’d pull you into her lap and press her mouth to your jaw, warm and slow and perfect. “I like the messy characters,” she whispered once, breath hot against your neck. “They're the realest ones.”

The night you won your second Oscar, the room erupted in a way that felt almost surreal. Your name had barely finished echoing through the Dolby Theatre before you were on your feet, dress glittering like a wound, a practiced smile on your lips. The camera cut to your face. Your co-star held your hand. The crowd stood.

But all you could think of was Paige.

You searched the audience instinctively, even though you knew she wasn’t there. She hadn’t been for years.

Still, some traitorous part of you expected to see her in the back, in the shadows, arms crossed with that quiet smirk she always wore when you proved the world wrong.

You took the stage. Thanked the producers. The director. Your mother. Your agent. You even thanked your fans.

But the name you wanted to thank burned a hole in your throat.

Backstage, champagne flowed. People hugged you like you were made of gold. Your publicist cried. Your co-star kissed your cheek and whispered, “You did it, baby.”

But you felt empty.

Because the only person you wanted to call wouldn’t answer. Not anymore.

One night during your last year at UConn, you met her outside the gym after practice. She was sweaty, her tank sticking to her back, a Gatorade in one hand and her phone in the other. She lit up the moment she saw you. No cameras, no coaches, no fans, just her.

“Walk me back?” she asked, and you nodded.

You strolled through the campus like you weren’t two girls in love in a world that couldn’t hold it. You talked about nothing and everything—the new movie out, her teammate’s playlist, how the moon looked too close that night.

At her dorm door, she turned and said something you didn’t understand until years later.

“You could win every award in the world,” she said, softly, “and I’d still want to hold your hand after practice.”

You smiled, kissed her forehead, and replied, “Then don’t let go.”

She didn’t.

You did.

You’ve never told anyone about the message. Not your assistant, not your therapist, not even your best friend.

But it’s there, saved and untouched.

Hey... it’s me. Her voice worn at the edges but still Paige. I was in LA for something… nothing important. I was gonna text, but that felt stupid. A soft laugh. You can hear her breath. Anyway, I thought maybe we could grab coffee. Or just sit. I don’t need a conversation. I just wanna see you. Silence. I still think about you. Every day. Even when I don’t want to. Okay. Um. That’s it. No pressure. Just… if you ever wanna find me, you know where.

The message ends. You haven’t listened to it in over a year, but you could recite it from memory. Every pause. Every aching second.

She never called again after that.

And you? You never answered.

There was one night, just one, when you almost did it.

You were at an afterparty, three drinks in, laughter caught in your throat like lightning. Someone had asked if you were seeing anyone. You looked straight at the camera, glass raised.

And for half a second, you said, “Yeah.”

Your publicist stepped in before they could follow up, ushering you away, eyes wide.

But it was too late.

Later that night, Paige texted you. ‘Yeah?’ That was all it said.

You stared at it for minutes. ‘Drunk answer. Don’t worry.’

She never responded.

That was the beginning of the end.

Sometimes, you wonder how different everything would’ve been if you had just turned around. If you’d skipped that premiere. If you had answered her call. If you had picked her up from the airport instead of sending a driver. If you had let her walk into a room with you, just once, hand in hand, like you used to under the cloak of midnight and college anonymity.

But you didn’t.

And now, every version of that alternate life only lives in your imagination. A hundred different paths you could have taken, and every one of them ends with her.

There was a night—years ago, before the lights, before the trophies—when a thunderstorm rolled through campus, shaking the windows of Paige’s dorm. You were staying over, wrapped in her favorite hoodie, legs tangled on the futon with a bowl of half-eaten popcorn on the floor and your laptop playing a movie neither of you had been watching.

You remember the way she instinctively pulled you closer with each crack of thunder. She wasn’t scared. Not of storms, anyway. But there was something about loud noise that made her reach for something solid. And you were always solid. At least, back then.

She kissed your temple, fingers tucked beneath the hem of your shirt, warm and grounding. “When you get famous,” she whispered, “just promise you won’t forget how this feels.”

You leaned back into her and whispered, “I’m scared of what I’ll lose.”

She kissed your shoulder. “Then don’t lose me.”

You didn’t answer. Because even then… you didn’t know how to keep her.

You remember falling asleep that night with your ear against her chest, listening to the beat of something that felt too permanent to ever be lost.

But permanence is a lie we tell ourselves when we’re in love.

You shift in your seat during the interview, fingers running along the edge of your sleeve. You’re wearing black now. Funny how you always wear light colors when you’re pretending and dark ones when you’re telling the truth.

The room is quiet. The tea has gone cold. The camera light blinks silently.

“She would’ve come with me,” you say suddenly, unprompted. “If I asked. To any premiere. Any red carpet. She would’ve worn whatever they told her to. Smiled for every camera. Stood beside me like she belonged there.”

You exhale.

“Because she did. She did belong there.”

The interviewer doesn’t speak. She knows you’re unraveling in real time, and she lets you.

“I just… I didn’t know how to give her what she deserved without sacrificing everything I’d built. And I was too young and too scared to believe I could have both.” A pause. A breath. “So I made her choose.”

The silence hangs heavy.

“Did she?” the interviewer asks.

You nod, eyes cast downward. “She chose herself.”

And god, you can’t even blame her for it.

The last time you saw her, really, truly saw her, wasn’t loud. It wasn’t a fight or a tearful goodbye at the airport or a storming out in the middle of an argument.

It was soft. Too soft.

She came to LA for a few days. You had press. She had an off-week. You were both tired. And things weren’t broken yet, not exactly… but the cracks had widened.

You remember sitting across from her on your couch, legs curled beneath you, her eyes tired but clear.

“I think you love me,” she said.

You blinked, startled. “Of course I do.”

“But I don’t think you want anyone to know.”

You opened your mouth. Closed it. “It’s not that simple.”

“It is to me.”

And she said it then. Not as a threat, not as a test. Just a quiet truth.

“I won’t be your secret anymore.”

You reached for her hand. She let you hold it. She even smiled, just barely.

And then she let go.

She left her sweatshirt behind. The one she always wore on flights. It still smelled like her for weeks.

You kept it for months, maybe longer.

You only tucked it away when you realized keeping it didn’t make her stay.

The interviewer watches you with gentle eyes. She looks like she’s weighing whether to say it out loud. You nod, letting her know she can.

“If she walked through that door right now,” she asks, “what would you do?”

Your chest tightens. The room feels smaller. Your hands shake just enough for you to fold them in your lap.

You picture it.The door creaking open. The creak of sneakers.

That quiet breath Paige always takes before she speaks.

You imagine her standing there, older, still golden. Hair longer, shoulders broader, eyes just as piercing.

You take a long moment, then look at the interviewer and answer the only way you can.

“I’d fall to my knees.”

You laugh, but there’s no humor in it. Only truth.

“I’d beg.”

You look up at the ceiling, eyes glassy.

“And then I’d ask if it’s too late to tell the world I never stopped loving her.”

You don’t know what makes you open the old storage box. Maybe it’s the weight of the interview. Maybe it’s the silence after the crew left. Maybe it’s just time. Real time, the kind you can no longer pretend you have endless amounts of.

The box is buried beneath your guest room bed. Covered in dust, edges worn from years of being ignored. You drag it out gently, like unearthing something sacred. You haven’t opened it since the last move, maybe longer.

Inside are things no one else knows about, the hoodie Paige left behind. A pair of worn sneakers that she once kicked off at your front door and never put back on. Polaroids faded with age, her holding a tub of popcorn bigger than her head, you asleep in her lap mid-movie night, the two of you on the roof of her dorm wrapped in one too-small blanket.

You sift through them slowly. Like peeling back layers of yourself.

And then, buried beneath a folded note from a birthday card she gave you, you find something you had truly, wholly forgotten.

Your old camcorder.

The cheap one you used to carry around in college. The one you stopped using once studios handed you cameras with assistants and lighting crews. It’s heavier than you remember. Sticky in one corner. But when you hold it in your hands, it hums with something ancient and real.

You press play. And there she is.

The screen is fuzzy, grainy, and beautiful. You’re behind the camera. Laughing. The audio crackles, but you hear yourself, “Say something to future me.”

Paige rolls her eyes, sitting on the floor of her dorm, hair tied up in a messy bun. She’s wearing your hoodie.

“Future you?” she repeats, raising an eyebrow. “You’re probably at Cannes or whatever. Winning something. Acting all cool.”

She grins then, that real smile, the one where her nose scrunches and her dimples show and the whole room lights up. Even the past looks brighter because of her.

She leans closer to the lens.

“I hope you didn’t forget who you are.”

You shift behind the camera, flustered.

“I hope you remember me,” she says, voice suddenly softer. “Not just me-me. But what it felt like when we were lying in bed with no future planned. Just that tiny fan squeaking above us and your cold toes on my legs.”

She pauses. Her expression grows serious.

“And I hope…” she begins, then stops herself. “Nah, forget it.”

You hear yourself again, insisting, “No, say it.”

Paige tilts her head. Then whispers something that nearly breaks you.

“I hope you didn’t trade all the light in the world just to be seen.”

You don’t cry when it ends. You just sit there, camcorder in your lap, breathing through the ache. It's not even grief anymore, not really. It's something older than that. A sadness so familiar, it’s become your shadow.

You rise slowly and make your way to the mirror.

You’ve played so many characters, worn so many faces, that sometimes you forget what your own looks like. But now you see it clearly. The fame. The beauty. The polish.

And the hollowness behind your eyes.

You were right, once. You did become unforgettable.

But she was the only one who remembered you before all of that. The only one who saw the you beneath the script, beneath the stage makeup, beneath the image.

You press your fingers to the mirror like you’re trying to reach through.

And for the first time in years, you whisper aloud, “I miss you.”

You stood barefoot in your kitchen, nursing a fresh cup of coffee, in a sweater too big, hair undone, face bare but tired. The sun is warm through the windows as you stare into oblivion.

A knock breaks you out of your daydream. You trudge toward the door, opening it, expecting a neighbor or a package delivery, but who you find makes you freeze in your spot.

“Hey.”

It’s barely a word, more breath than sound, but your body recognizes it before your mind can catch up.

She’s here. Right in front of you. Older. Different. And yet, still the exact same Paige you knew.

A few more lines, one near her mouth, from years of laughing or maybe frowning. She’s wearing jeans, a white shirt, and a necklace you haven’t seen in a decade. Her hair is pulled back in a bun, soft and messy. Her eyes, god, her eyes, are still that same blue you fell in love with.

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. She takes a step forward.

“I saw the interview,” she says quietly.

You swallow, trying to find your voice. “You watched it?”

She nods. “The whole thing.”

Her hands are at her sides. She looks unsure and for a moment you hate yourself all over again for ever making her feel that way.

“I didn’t know if you wanted to see me,” she admits.

You step closer. “I’ve wanted to see you everyday since the last time I did.” That makes her eyes close just for a second, like she’s bracing for impact. “I never stopped loving you,” you say, voice barely a whisper.

“I know,” she says. “I never stopped either.” The air between you trembles. “I didn’t come here to make you feel guilty,” she adds. “I just… I needed you to know I still think about you. About us.”

You stare at her, raw and unshielded. “Do you think,” you say slowly, “we could… try again?”

Her breath catches. “We’re not those girls anymore,” she says.

“No,” you agree. “But maybe that’s the point.”

She looks at you, long and hard. And then she takes a step closer. Then another. Until she’s right in front of you. She reaches out, tentative and slow, and you let her take your hand. It fits. Like it never stopped.

“I don’t need a red carpet,” she whispers.

“I don’t need an audience,” you reply.

Silence.

“I just want the version of you who used to fall asleep with your scripts open with your head laid on my chest,” she says.

“She’s still here,” you whisper. “You’re the only one who can reach her.”

She smiles and this time, when she steps into your arms, you don’t hesitate. You don’t look over your shoulder or flinch at the idea of being seen.

Because for the first time in a long, long time, you want the whole world to know.

You’d spent so many years hiding that you forgot what it felt like to breathe in public. To hold someone’s hand without looking over your shoulder. To laugh with your head back and not wonder if someone had a camera pointed your way. You used to shrink yourself to fit into the corners of your life. Now, a year later, with Paige’s fingers laced between yours and the wind teasing her curls under the golden LA sun, you take up all the space you want.

It’s different now. Everything is.

You live in a quiet house tucked in the hills—not hidden, but not flaunted either. Just enough privacy to be sacred. Just enough openness to never feel like you’re in a cage. There are nights when she plays music in the kitchen while she cooks—barefoot, dancing like no one’s watching, except you always are. And there are mornings when she wakes up before you do and leaves a note on your mirror, written in your eyeliner pencil, reminding you how proud she is. How lucky she feels.

You’ve stopped trying to explain what she means to you in poetic metaphors. Now, it’s simpler.

She’s your person.

And you don’t care who knows it.

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kamspeaks · 22 hours ago