A/N: Yeah, not my best. Still establishing the plotline.
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Stars
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"Have you checked your email today?"
"Hi Marco. I'm fine, and you?" I say sarcastically. Jeez, no pleasentries now, what are we here guys? Well, Marco is but you know what I mean.
"Sorry. Where are you? Wait, don't answer." he says in that usual flippant I know everything brilliant gay man way of his. "Dumb question. You're at work right?"
"I'm not always at work Marco." I say huffily, looking around the magazine office. How does he always know everything? It's so hard to lie to your friends when they know you so well.
"Sure." The humor is evident in his voice and I don't like it. Not one little bit. "So have you checked it?"
With a deep sight to let him know tha I'm extremely busy and am only doing it to humor him, I click the icon that's a direct link to my inbox. There it is. What Marco is reffering to. It must be.
An email from Craig. Sitting right there in my inbox like some little digital bomb about to blow my day to peices.
But I'm over Craig. That's what I've been saying for months. That's what I need for everyone to believe. That way I can believe it myself. "What exactly am I suppossed to be looking for?"
I can almost hear his happy little face fall with disappointment. "You don't see it?"
"See what?"
"Craig. Didn't he send you an email?"
"Oh, yeah. He did. So?" There, that was good. Let him think that it was a normal occurrence. That Craig sends me emails, letters, calls me all the time. If he thinks that, then there's no reason for me to be excited about this. Becuase there's not. He's just Craig.
And Marco's impeccible fashion sense means nothing.
"So?" he practically screams. "So it's from Craig Ellie."
"Like I said, so? It's just another email."
Oh, I hate lying to him. But really, it's all for the best in the long run.
"Just another email?" I can practically hear the squeak of those little internal wheels turning in his brain. When Marco smells gossip he's worse than Paige Michalchuck after Heather Sinclaire's latest foray into the world of surgical inhancement. "El, it's not everyday that Craig takes a break from recording his first album to send an email."
"Maybe not to you." I mutter under my breath.
"WHAT!"
"Marco, I need my eardrums." I whine, bringing the phone tentataively back to my ear. I don't know why my shoulders aren't more cut from having to pull the phone back and forth from Marco's hystrionics over the years, but I guess that's life.
"Are you saying," he demands, "that Craig emails you all the time?"
"Well, I wouldn't say all te time ..." More like never, but why split hairs?
The pointed silence is one I'm used to with Marco, but non the less disconcerting. Finally, he ends my torment and speaks up. "So what does yours say?"
Clicking it open, I scan quickly. "Uh ... not much. He's finished recording and he's coming back to visit in a while."
"Yeah, mine say the same thing." Marco replies. "Guess I'll let you get back to work then."
We hang up and it's all I can do not to cry. There are times, especially times like this, when I really hate Craig. Even when he's not around he always manages to ruin my day. Actually, day, week, month ... it's all the same to him. And the worst part? He doesn't even do it on purpose. If I weren't so mind-numbingly in lo-, I mean like with him him I might even find all of those annoying little things cute.
Such as this email. There, at the bottom corner is a tiny little animated star dancing around. Everything Craig has sent me from Vancouver, not that there's a lot, has something to do with stars. I don't know is he's referring to the fact that he thinks he's going to be some superstar (which he is of course) or if it's suppossed to mean something to me. I've tried a million times and can't think of anything in our weird little history that pertains to stars.
Well ... that's not entirely true.
During 'That Summer' Craig insisted we go to this indie rock festival concert thing in Barrie. You know, the kind of thing where the last remaining hippies get together with the save the world contingent of today's youth and discuss Jerry Garcia and how to legalize pot and things like that. I went, to make him happy and to get away from my mom, and we actually had fun. We ate non dairy tofu ice cream and organic veggie burgers and listened to amazing music for hours under the sky. Later on we wondered around an area off to the side where some people had set up displays of crafts that they had made. One guy made one of a kind wooden creations, the most beautiful being an ornate box, about the size of a shoe box, painted deep purple with carved shimmery stars of silver, gold, and white. I fell in love with it at first sight, but it cost a hundred dollars. The next morning, I got up to find it sitting on my kitchen table. My mom said that it had been on the front steps when she'd gotten up that morning. The only way to explain it's presence was Craig's going back after he dropped me off at home and bought it. I saw him at group later that day. He didn't meantion it, so I offered up a vague 'thanks' and that was the end of it.
I thought about it on my way back to the dorms. Jesse had been in a meeting with the copy writers so I escaped the barrage of questions that undoubtably would have been hurled at me. He always knew when I was upset, even when I try so desperately to hide it. Guess I should rule out acting as a future career possibility.
But, back to the box. No sooner than I got it, I began putting things in it. But just any random item were not allowed inside. Oh no, the box was reserved for those little trinkets that reminded me of that oh so annoying musician friend of mine. In fact, it marks the transition of my thinking of Craig as just Ash's boyfriend, to my friend, to the deniable, unrealistic, slighty pathetic crush he remains to this day.
Little things are in there, things that wouldn't even make sense if seen by anyone other than Craig and myself. Flyers. Programs. Tickets stubs. Candy wrappers. Receipts. Fortunes from that horrible Chinese restaurant he loves so much. A dry, withered dasiy necklace that Angie had made me the day Craig and I took her to the park. The three postcards and one letter Craig had sent me from Vancouver tied with an old shoelace. A bunch of random things that didn't seem to have any connection to one another unless you knew the stories behind them. All the cheesy b-movies and amazing concerts that we'd attended provided the tickets stubs. Music festivals and plays in the park gave us the flyers and programs. The candy wrappers are from the day we skipped group to see who could eat the most Tootsie Rolls (He won of course. Guys are like trash compactors.) Receipts from anywhere and everwhere around Toronto. We had Chinese every Friday all summer and Angie had created a virtual flower wardrobe for both Craig and me the day we spent in the park. But I reflect on that day, all I ever seem to remember is that he got so sunburned even his ears peeled and I had to put aloe vera gel on them for him every day for a week.
I used to keep the box on my night table. It was always right there and that was comforting somehow. Then the idiot had to go and choose Manny coughtramp Santos over me at that stupid gig that none of us but him wanted to play anyway ... and I exiled it to the top shelf of my closet. Out of sight, out of mind.
Yeah, I know. Never works that way in reality. Sounds good though.
If it really were true, I'd have thrown the wretched thing out. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it. As much as they hurt, they're reminders of one of the best times in my life. That's why I brought them to college with me, to live once more in the top shelf of my closet. I mean seriously, how can I throw away a prsent that someone drove almost two hours and spent a hundred dollars to get? Not including the gas money. It would just seem ... like a betrayl.
I pull it down when I get back to my room. Every little thing is exactly like it was the last time I looked in here. I don't know what I was expecting. Some sense of clarity maybe? An epihany on why I can't seem to just let it go. A clue as to why Craig is such an ass. Whatever my search, it was fruitless.
I'm wearing one of Craig's shirts. He ambushed me on the hottest day of the year with water ballons in his front yard and drenched me head to toe. He let me wear it while mine dried. But I still wore his home. Ans since he never asked for it back, well you know how it goes. Posession's nine tenth of the law and all that. It's what I have on when I wonder what the stars mean. When I hear the knock on my door. When I open it, in Craig's shirt, the snowflake pajama bottoms, and no makeup. When I see Craig Manning standing on the other side.