THIRTY

Charlie had jolted up to start pacing the floor frantically. His expression and his overall looking were those of a deranged man. Scanning his fingers repeatedly running through his hair and fearing the possibility of him beginning to hurl objects at walls, October saw fit to stay quietly in her corner, waiting for him to come to terms with the whole situation.

"I can make an extra effort for you and try to take everything you said about this future thing as valid" he blurted out after several seconds of tense silence, "but I can't really understand how you're expecting me to believe this load of crap."

She gloomily sighed, mustering all the patience she had.

"I'm not, but that's it" she countered. "So take your time. We can talk about it when you're ready."

His bloodshot eyes darted towards her.

"I'm sorry, ready for what? Assuming you're not telling bullshit – and right now it's very hard for me to believe you are not – this is a fucking movie, my whole life doesn't really exist and you want me to sit in front of a tea with you, chatting about sunshine and rainbows? I expected better from you."

"Okay, now that's enough" she spat, standing up as well and stressing every word with wild gestures of her hands. "I have no reason at all to tell lies, especially to you. And don't you dare act as if it's just you. It's the two of us. My life was in another era. And suddenly I'm living fifty-four years in the past, and in a movie to boot." She took a break and stared at him. "Do you think it's been easy for me, after it became clear I was not dreaming? Do you think I tried to get the job at the library only out of my love for books? I was searching for explanations, for answers! There's nothing whatsoever about television gates or similar. This is not mere time traveling, can you get that? And probably this is not the right moment in time to have this kind of information, it's too early."

She paused again to calm down and rubbed her forehead, breathing heavily.

"Don't you think I too had to question every single thing I thought I knew about science, about reality, about my own mental health? But I was alone, you have me!"

"You? I have you?" Charlie cut in. Her neck shot backward and she blinked. She didn't like the tone of his voice while using the object.

"Pardon?"

"You lied to me. You faked the whole time" he elaborated. She goggled, incredulous.

"What?"

"You knew this and you acted like nothing was wrong. And every time you knew something, you pretended to be completely unaware. This is lying to me!"

Her jaw dropped in disbelief.

"Are you kidding me? What was I meant to do? To clap my hands and yell action at you?!"

Charlie slapped his forehead grimacing. He then leaned against a rock wall, resting both of his hands on it, and started bumping his head softly into it.

"I can't believe this..."

"Will you please stop? Don't be immature."

He stiffened and turned to her in anger.

"Immature? October, I'm a fictional character! I don't really exist!"

"That's not true!"

"You just said that!"

"Oh, for God's sake... Here."

She picked a sharp rock up from the floor, grabbed his hand and cut a slit in his palm before he could keep her from doing it. She did the same with her own right afterward. A red line blossomed on their flesh.

"See? It's blood. Taste it. Is it sweet? Does it hurt? Of course, right? Then stop being a jerk! You are here, life exists, and identity. You know these words, don't you? Keating recited them during a lesson. I know that because I saw that. It's all for real. But you are real as well. So don't force me to slap you and make you come back to your senses. We're here together. We need to understand some things, it's true. Is that paradoxical? True again. Is that surreal? You can bet on it. But we are not less alive than before and not less tangible than any other human being."

Charlie had fallen in a heap on the floor in the middle of her speech and was examining the wound as if it was the most interesting thing on earth. October felt her heart clench. She could understand him, his thoughts and feelings. Had she been in his shoes, she would freak out. But she knew he was stronger than that. She knew he would deal with it all in no time. That was why she was being a bit rough.

"When... When will the movie be released?" he murmured after a while.

She closed her eyes. It was unavoidable. But that meant they were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. She knelt in front of him, opting for a more soothing tone this time.

"End of the eighties."

She watched him blink.

"What can you see in it?"

"Your current school year till Neil's death and just some more days."

"What happens afterward?"

Your expulsion. Mr. Keating's expulsion. Things spiraling out of control.

She shook her head.

"I can't tell you. I have already changed a lot of things in the plot since I was not part of it, I don't know if the last scenes will occur or not."

He seemed to ponder that.

"Does that mean there is someone... An actor... Who plays my role?"

She inhaled deeply.

"Yes. There's one for all of you."

"Does he look like me?"

She swallowed, finding the situation even more difficult than she had thought. Why did the whole thing sound so much more distressing when seen through his eyes?

"Yes... I mean, he did, back then. Or he will, if you consider it from your temporal point of view. It depends on the perspective."

"So I'm... He is... Older than my actual self in your era. He is real, with his own life."

"He is."

"But... But... What will happen to me then? To all of us? Are we going to be forever young and stuck in this school year? To recite for the audience's benefit?"

"I thought about that, actually" she sighed, standing up and beginning to slowly pace the cave. "You told me about a lot of things. For example, when Knox broke his arm when you were children. There's no mention of that in the movie. I think you had an actual life before, and this means you'll have one afterward. I guess we just have to wait and see. We're almost there, after all."

She cast a glance at him. He looked more self-aware than before, and no more trace of anger or insanity lingered on his face.

"And how... How is it possible that people can watch our lives for a short period? Does that happen for any movie? Or maybe there's a parallel universe where any fictional character exists and someone in another world interprets them for the population to see? Do they spy on us and then play our lives out? Do we start existing after someone writes a screenplay? Do we start existing because of that?"

"I don't know, Darlie, I don't really know. As I told you, I just found myself here. This is the movie I was watching before falling asleep, that's why I thought I was dreaming. Everything I got has been after deductions and attempts. But I think your last explanation is the most plausible."

He looked at her briefly, then averted his gaze again, tightening his lips.

"Will I... Will I be able to watch the movie?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I don't really know where the boundary between the two worlds is."

She thought it up a bit, then pointed at him.

"Who's the president of the United States now?"

Charlie looked at her puzzled. She had gone completely off her rocker, hadn't she?

"Uh?"

"Just answer."

"Eisenhower."

She beamed.

"That's correct. Oh, well, who can say what is correct and what is not? Maybe this is the real world and mine is not. Maybe they are both real, but one is for actors and one for their characters, and maybe there are also worlds for characters from books and so on. Maybe all worlds are imaginary. We cannot really know anything about existence, can we? But the point is that your answer is the same in my world. And if my world is considered to be the real one, that means yours is real as well. And you're not fictional. You're not tied to your character."

"To my actor, you mean."

October giggled, but Charlie had the same lost expression on his face. She smiled at him softly.

"Listen, I know it's a lot to digest. But you can. We can. I'm here with you. We will work it out together, step by step. I..."

"You said you've been having feelings for me for a long time" he cut her off all of a sudden.

She tilted her head in confusion, but he was still not looking at her.

"I did. Why so?"

"You had those feelings before meeting me. Is that correct?"

She swallowed and cleared her throat.

"What do you..."

"You were keen on an actor. And assuming you're able to tell apart the man from his role, you were keen on a character."

She groaned.

"Oh, come on. But then I met you, remember? Hello? You were there. I met you. This breathing self in front of me right now. You're clearly not the actor, and you're not the Charlie Dalton I used to know because of his lines in the movie. I mean, yes, you are, but you are more. And it's this Charlie Dalton I fell in..."

"Your love is an illusion."

He stood up and slowly cleaned his hands by rubbing them together, then brushed his trousers off. A bloodstain spoiled them. He never looked at her.

"Charlie?"

He headed to the entrance and stopped halfway, turning towards her. He kept his eyes on her shoes.

"I got it all. Okay, I need time to accept it, but I got it. I'm not mad at you. You had no part in this. You're from the future, okay, I'll deal with that. This is not exactly a movie, but there's a movie about this. Twisted, but I got it. I'm trying not to question my whole existence, I'm trying not to feel violated and part of some sort of freak show for you to enjoy. It's hard, but I'll come to terms with that, sooner or later. And last but not least, you saved Neil. He was probably just a movie character for you, but for me... He was one of my best friends. So I'll never thank you enough for that. But I was wrong." He paused and concentrated on the floor, a wrinkle digging a groove in his forehead, as if he was trying to get to the bottom of a very difficult equation. "Every time I thought you were able to understand me, to share my thoughts and points of view, you just knew me already. It was no affinity. You probably watched the movie so many times you came to know a relevant part of me. You studied me. Just like a poem you commit to memory."

Charlie's voice cracked and he took a deep breath, his eyelids down to conceal an upheaval greater than he could explain. He swallowed before resuming his argument.

"You don't love me. You love an idea. You probably got stuck with that idea and convinced yourself about your feelings for me. It's not your fault and I don't blame you for that. But you're right. I'm not the actor, I'm not the character. I'm just me. And it's not me who you love. I'm sorry."

She stared at him agape, following his way to the outside, unable to stop the anguished tears that had begun to flow as his words were tearing her heart apart.

"Charlie!" she yelled. But he didn't look back.

A/N: Hello guys, I'm so unforgivable that I won't even try to explain myself, I just hope you didn't forget about this story and you'll find both chapter and notes interesting.

First thing first, Charlie's original line was You had a crush on an actor, but I soon realized that this kind of language was probably anachronistic in 1959. Apparently, To be keen on someone was the common expression back then – but feel free to correct me otherwise.

I've been thinking a lot about the actor/character issue. Reasonably, I should have eliminated the existence of the actors downright, but this would have altered everything the protagonist knows and says. This would have turned the "real" world upside-down. After writing and erasing tons of words countless times, I realized that this way is much easier for the plot, really. It's paradoxically more logical. And this is obviously the reason why October tells Neil Some people will recognize you. You'll look like someone else in chapter twenty-eight. I hope you'll like it even if you would have done it differently :p

I do hope I won't be so late again in the future, but who can tell? Thank you all in any case if you got here, especially to beginningofsuffering for following my work :)