(kwilcox@ea.oac.uci.edu)

Website: http://kristin.icculus.org/

I remember the day I fell out of love with movies.

She was speaking ever so carefully; sounds crept out on tiptoes between her lips. My beautiful Jen... She used to be a fairytale princess, you know. And I was the white knight, ever so true. But then it blurred and refocused, and my princess now had brown hair and brown eyes so
smooth-like sticky warm molasses-and soft dipping shoulders, frightened of the world.

I can remember the moment my heart turned to ice and splintered.

Her face seemed to hurt looking at me, eyes blank and flat like cardboard. She's sorry, God she's so sorry. And I wasn't a knight anymore. Some bastard shot my horse and all this sick feeling in my stomach wasn't a dragon that I can slay. And maybe life isn't a masterpiece at all. Maybe it's only moments you can crush down into memories-collecting just enough so you can live on. Like photographs...

And I was stuck in limbo, watching that fucking movie with a painfully perfect name. The Last Picture Show... why does life have to be so fucking ironic? It tricks you into believing that something so funny, so witty, so beautiful at times *has* to have a script. But he knew better.
Pacey threw the script out the goddamned window and never tried to play his part.

I was lost in a sea of possibilities, sick with choices I never knew I had. And I think I hated him for turning my life upside down. For showing me that it didn't *have* be the way it was-but it couldn't be my way either... not anymore.

I always carried that hope around-like a shiny silver button you slip into your pocket and forget about, except when your hand brushes against it while searching for change. Sometimes I'd wake up at night gasping his name, boxes wet and clinging to my legs. He was so beautiful in my
dreams. He never stopped laughing. And he never looked at Joey like he looks at her now...

But he went and broke the rules all on his own, leaving me here in the wake of the storm. The air smells like salt and it's heavy in my lungs. And I'm so sick of reacting, but the fat lady sang a pretty mean number and that last tidal wave tore the new script right out of my hands.

So I'm left standing here as he looks at me with wounded eyes, challenges and apologies dropping from his mouth in even spades. And all I can think about is what Jen breathed in my ear as she slipped away last night. He knew I would come. And I'm beginning to wonder if I ever really knew what was going on here at all. And maybe he *does* have a script, beaten and torn and stapled crookedly together as it is... And maybe he'll show it to me if I throw mine away this time-if I hurl it into the wind instead of waiting for it to be ripped away piece by
piece. And his tears give me strength, replacing the white armor that I don't need anymore. It was rusted anyway...

So I run after him, hands sliding over rough hair as his lips press into mine. He's branding me, taking the memory of my lips by pressure. And that's okay because it's like a photograph, and those kinds of memories are safe. We're both crying now, our tears mixing into a river that's
moving forward. It's gonna take us places we've never been and that's just fine because Pacey's used to this game of breaking barriers. And his kisses whisper that he'll show me how.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
-Robert Frost

The End.