We paint a lover's tryst.
We're neither clear nor descript.
We kept it safe and slow.
The quiet things that no one ever knows.

He once read a poem by Frost that talked about two roads in the woods, but it seems that no matter what path he takes it always lead back here, back to her.

They are on set, and they are pretending that they haven't spent the past three months falling in and out of bed; they are pretending that nothing ever happened, and that nothing has changed.

They are friends, and they sing songs, and they laugh at the right moments. Her smile isn't quite as bright anymore, and he knows he's not the only who notices.

Monique, being Monique, senses something has changed, she shoots them looks, and he can see the questions in her eyes. She's the oldest and the most sensitive to the subtle shifts, but she says nothing, just quietly watches the two of them dance around each other.

He broke her and watched her fall apart, and now he's so fucking scared because he wants to put her back together. He wants to scream at her, he wants to make her angry, he wants her to hate him, and he wants to see her eyes fill with life again.

Because she's empty, and she's wilting away, but when he touches her she flinches like it burns, and finally he can see something (anything) in her eyes.

He's dying inside, and he's so sick of pretending, so sick of not being able to get close, so sick of acting like it was nothing, acting like pushing her away was easy.

And he let the real world get in the way, he let their jobs, and the press, and the publicists control their lives.

They let something that was in their control spiral out of it, and it was the biggest mistake of his entire life, because he misses her. If his career, and this godforsaken movie brought him her, and brought him fame, it has taken it all away. It has been a cruel joke, because it brought light and music, and it changed his entire future- and then it took it all away.

He didn't deserve her, and he probably never will, but he wants her so bad, and his body aches just being in the same room with her.

He remembers London, her fingers wrapped around his and the lights flashing, and he remembers later that night, and the way she felt beneath him. He remembers waking up in the morning with her body next to his, and he remembers the way her eyes looked cloudy with lust and sleep.

She haunts him, and it's not just the memories, but her scent lingers in the makeup trailer, and when they dance at rehearsals and her body presses against his it's hard not to back away when electricity passes between them.

When Ashley tells him she was crying in her hotel room last night. He can hear his words like a distant echo, his mouth bitter remembering the lies.

I think that it's best if we go back to friends.

I love you…like a friend, like a sister.

I'm sorry.

I can't do this.

This isn't right.

This isn't what I'm looking for.

This isn't what I want.

Of course he loves her, and of course it's right, and of course it's what he's looking for, and obviously she's what he wants. Sometimes he's angry that she let him get away, he's angry that she didn't fight, he's angry that she didn't look up at him and call him out his complete bull shit.

But mostly he's just angry because it's his fault it's over, and it wasn't supposed to end. He's pretty sure that that the cycle should have lasted forever, but apparently nothing gold can stay.