secretspiral

[secretspiral]

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

“I’m not doing this. I’m not,” Charo says flatly, having gotten over ‘aghast’ about half a minute ago before promptly moving on to ‘appalled’. “This is the worst idea you’ve ever come up with.”

“You are, because it’s the best way to revive your dying career and you know it,” Fio chirps. “Plus, you know, I’ve kind of already told them you were on board with the whole thing, so.” He shrugs without the slightest hint of shame, and for the thousandth time, Charo regrets her hiring decisions with every inch of her being (which is, truth be told, not very many inches).

Fio has not brought a breath of fresh air to her demoralised team. He has not brought spunk and youth and new ideas. All he has brought with him is a cruel and unusual determination to ruin her life as she knows it.

“Told who?” she moans, sinking her face into her hands. “Which other poor soul is in such dire straits they’d agree to fake date for publicity?”

“So I put the feelers out and you’ll never guess who came back interested,” Fio says with so much glee as to strike fear into her heart. “Lorenzo Cruz. Do you know how popular he is now? I dunno what he’s gaining out of this, but this could seriously turn out so well for you.”

Charo raises her head slowly to stare at Fio’s beaming face in disbelief.

Lorenzo Cruz, one of the hottest rising young actors in recent months, guaranteed to shine a little spotlight on anyone associated with him, much less a girlfriend.

Better known to her as Enzo, her first love from so many years ago and the one who had all but laughed in her face in the middle of her confession.

“Yeah, no, I’m not doing this,” Charo repeats.

Unfortunately for her, they turn out to be famous last words.

***

“Huh. So it really is you.”

Enzo raises a brow the moment Charo walks in, mouth curling slightly in that disparaging smirk of his that leaves all his fangirls weak in the knees. He looks lazy and relaxed, like someone perfectly assured of his own power, and it takes every ounce of willpower in her not to turn around and walk right back out of the room.

They’re meeting on what’s supposed to be neutral ground, but Charo still feels distinctly off-balance. Not that she can remember ever feeling otherwise in Enzo’s presence.

“Were you expecting someone else?” She narrows her eyes slightly as she slowly takes a seat, unease making her hesitate. His mere presence is making her feel like she’s fifteen again, except in all the worst ways possible.

She can’t believe she let Fio talk her into this.

Enzo grins. “Nah, I knew it was you. It’s just weird to be seeing you in the flesh again.” He looks at her for a moment, seemingly fascinated. “It’s been so long.”

Charo allows herself a moment to breathe. She’s okay at small talk – not great, but not terrible either – and at least she actually knows Enzo. Kind of. He’s notoriously easy to keep up with through the tabloids.

“Very long,” she echoes, trying not to think about the fact that somehow her feelings from more than a decade ago seem to have been magically revived. “So why did you even say yes? Because we used to go to school together?”

If her voice comes out a little more brusque than originally intended, it’s because the thought has been eating at her for days. Sure, Lorenzo Cruz might remember her, quiet little Charo who used to sit in front of him in class, but it’s the details of his memories that concern her.

Does he remember the two of them standing on the grass, facing each other in the shadow of the school building? The little jar of hand-folded paper stars she spent a ridiculous number of nights slaving over? The way the chuckle burst out of him when he looked down at the jar, fitting perfectly in the palm of his hand?

She does, and it terrifies her that he might too.

(She used to wonder if he ever unfolded any of the stars. Now she knows better than to wonder.)

Enzo laughs easily. “Of course. It’s not often you see a familiar name, especially in this industry. I didn’t even know you acted.” He grins, and the corners of his eyes still crinkle in the exact same way she remembers. “No offense. I mean, that’s probably why you’re trying this gimmick.”

Charo blinks, her mouth twitching slightly. “If you’re not interested –” she starts, and her tone might almost be called cutting. She might still not be any good at confrontations, but she’d like to think that she’s just a little better at standing up for herself than before.

But Enzo scoffs and interrupts her, finally unfolding his arms and straightening a little in his seat. “No, no, I am,” he says laughingly, because just as before, anything and everything amuses him, although not necessarily in a pleasant way. “I’ve even gotten it all planned out. We’ll get you noticed alright.”

“What do you mean?” Charo asks suspiciously. Enzo is, after all, infamous for his short-lived flings, and she’s not quite desperate enough to stoop to that level of notoriety just yet.

He smiles, small and playful in a way that makes her want to smile back unthinkingly. “See, my fans love the bad boy act,” he says casually, “but that kind of thing gets old fast. Messing around with gold diggers who think I’m brainless – yeah, it’s only fun the first couple of times. I’m thinking of trying the good boy act now, and your role would be the lovely woman who managed to reform me.”

He spreads his arms slightly – ta-da – and truth be told, Charo is kind of impressed. It’s not a bad narrative at all, and the exposure it’ll give her will be unprecedented.

“Okay, so no – uh, no drunk groping outside of clubs and all the other stuff that the paps always get you for, right?” she clarifies, eyeing him with exasperation when he laughs again. She’s uncomfortably aware that it’s part of what makes him so easy to like, so easy to gloss over how genuinely mean he can get at times. (Although he might not even be like that anymore; she has to keep reminding herself of that.)

“None of that. We’re trying to clean up my image, remember? We’ll dress up and have nice dates at expensive restaurants, that kinda thing. And we can even lay down some ground rules for your peace of mind.” He’s teasing by the end, his eyes gleaming and his smile curling with that faint, familiar wisp of disdain at the edges.

It’s strangely fascinating, the way Enzo has grown into his confidence. What was once a teenage façade is now a comfortably innate part of him, and as she watches him, Charo can’t help but wonder what he thinks of her now.

Tougher. Smarter. Better at guarding her heart, or so she hopes.

She shrugs, affecting an air of nonchalance with every ounce of acting talent she possesses.

“Fine. It’s a deal.”

***

The results come far quicker than she would have expected.

Within a week of her first ‘date’ with Enzo, the headlines are chock-full of questions such as WHO IS LORENZO CRUZ’S NEW GIRL? and EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT EVETTE MATAPANG, THE NEW LEADING LADY OF LORENZO CRUZ’S LIFE.

A week later, they’ve somehow dug up her and Enzo’s shared middle school history and have started dramatizing the headlines accordingly. LOVE THROUGH THE YEARS: LORENZO CRUZ REUNITED WITH CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART. It’s a weird mix of absurd, hilarious and plain unnerving.

Even curled up on one of Enzo’s comfy couches in his stupidly large apartment, Charo is constantly aware of the photographers and curious onlookers waiting downstairs. She’d had to push through them to even enter the building after all – not hiding her visits is the name of the game here, and Enzo has given over one of his guest rooms for her inevitable overnight visits.

Right then, he looks pityingly amused at her frazzled state. “It’s easy, isn’t it? Just get spotted once or twice and they’re all over you like flies on honey.” He pushes a glass of water into her hands before sitting down and picking up his phone. “You’ll get used to the rest over time.”

Charo wrinkles her nose a little. It sounds like a lonely life, and it’s a little sad that he seems to have gotten used to the loneliness.

“Are you going home for Christmas?” she asks cautiously. “I can already imagine what they’d write about it – CHILDHOOD SWEETHEARTS HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.” She snickers at the thought in spite of herself, smiling down at her glass of water, and when she looks back up Enzo has his brows raised at her, caught somewhere halfway between exasperation and amusement.

“I haven’t been home in years,” he says with a harsh smile. “I send them money like a good son and that’s pretty much all they want. Sorry to disappoint your headline fantasies.”

“Oh.” Charo feels almost uncomfortable, that sinking realisation that always hits when someone appears to overshare without meaning to.

She thinks Enzo has effectively told her more about himself in that single moment than all the years she’s known (of) him. Even back in school, she’d been too enamoured of his dark eyes and pouty lips to think about his home life at all. To her, Enzo had simply been Enzo, existing somewhere outside the mortal realm she and everyone else resided in.

“Well,” she sputters on, almost glaring him in the face in her haste to cover up the settling silence, “that’s fine, because I’m not either. No, really. My family’s booked tickets overseas but my schedule wasn’t fixed back then – I mean, I was kind of hoping I’d be filming something. Anyway, I wasn’t planning on going back either – I just figured if you were –”

“Yeah, no,” Enzo says with a shrug, and he twirls his hand a little like he’s searching for the right words. “We can have a Christmas date or something. It will be very romantic. Do you want me to book an ice rink? Light it up with fairy lights spelling ‘I love you’ or something?”

Charo snorts. “No thanks. I don’t particularly like being humiliated, especially in public,” she scoffs, grinning at the very idea. She’s taken to it with an ease that surprises even herself, the teasing and the jabs that seem to constitute most of Enzo’s conversations, when before she would probably have frozen in mortification and spent the rest of the day dissecting his every word to its bare bones.

But Enzo, she now knows, is just as human as she is.

“Oh, and I won’t be coming over on Friday,” she says later, when the thought occurs to her just as she’s standing in the doorway of the guestroom, already dressed in her pyjamas and ready for bed. “Gotta do some Christmas shopping for my team, including that one meddling staff of mine.”

Enzo, who’s heard quite a bit and more about Fio’s antics, barks out a laugh.

Charo sighs. “He’s a good kid. He invited me home for Christmas, you know, back before when he thought I’d be spending it alone. Said he has a sister around my age that I’d probably get along well with.” She smiles to herself for a second. “If his sister’s anything like him – let’s just say you’re saving me from an evening of chaos with our Christmas date.”

Enzo smirks. “I live to serve, madam,” he says dryly.

“Sure you don’t want to come along on Friday?” Charo shoots him a pointed look that elicits a very put-upon groan in response. “The ultimate good boy act. Come and be photographed carrying your girlfriend’s shopping.” The words just slip out of her mouth before she can think them through – Enzo’s influence no doubt, the kind of thing he’d just say without thinking twice about it – and she can feel herself start to flush. In the dimness of the corridor, however, she can only hope that it’s not too visible.

“You’re impossible,” Enzo snaps, and she can feel his disgruntled glare all the way from across the hallway. “Let me know what time I’m supposed to pick you up or whatever.”

Charo giggles as he stalks off in a huff and she shuts the bedroom door. There’s always been so little reserve on Enzo’s part – maybe because she’s a familiar face, maybe because he just doesn’t have anyone else – and now that she’s grown up enough to lower her guard around him, to see him through a lens just a tad less rose-tinted, it’s all so easy.

Easy to slip into his life like she’s always been there, and easier still to get used to it.

It’s a stupid, self-indulgent thought, but it feels to her like a second chance, and she doesn’t even hate that she allows herself that daydream. After all, she’s always known that her heart has never been hers to keep.

***

Enzo doesn’t book them an ice rink, but he does buy out an entire restaurant for the night. For Christmas night, no less.

“What did your previous dates do for you then?” he demands, looking almost insulted when Charo expresses surprise at the extravagance.

The innocent (as innocent as Enzo can get, anyway) question makes her feel somehow judged, and her mouth twists slightly as she looks down at the napkin on her plate. “I didn’t date much. This line of work is hard enough without having to deal with someone else on top of it.” She pauses and lets out a breath through her nose as she flicks her gaze up. “What? Did you think I was secretly dating other B-list actors like you or something?”

“I was just asking.” Enzo rolls his eyes – it’s something that he does often, and Charo doesn’t know if he’s realised that it always softens her. It’s such a stupidly juvenile action, a remnant of the Enzo she remembers fondly with a chip on his shoulder and everything to prove to the world, that it never fails to make her smile.

It’s kind of endearing in an irritating way, the way he’s blunted his once-sharp edges but kept the asshole attitude anyway. It makes him seem charmingly redeemable, and Charo has to shake herself sternly the moment she realises she’s starting to sound a bit like one of his deranged fangirls.

Her phone buzzes as they’re waiting for dessert, and Enzo snaps to attention as she leans over to look at her screen.

“Is it your family?” he asks, with a curious tone to his voice that makes her look up briefly.

“Nope, it’s Laila wishing me Merry Christmas.” She flashes her phone at him and sighs at the stubbornly blank look on his face. “Jai’s twin? From school?”

Enzo scrunches up his face for a heartbeat. “I mean, I think I remember there being a pair of twins. Kind of. I guess I didn’t really hang out with them much.”

Charo snorts. “Yeah, I know. You barely hung out with anyone except that guy – what was his name again? Dominick?”

Enzo’s face brightens immediately, and Charo, as always, feels herself itching to just smile back. So much has changed when it comes to her feelings for Enzo, but there are some things that probably never will.

“Dom!” For the first time, there’s genuine excitement in his voice, the kind that’s gleefully infectious. “Funny that you remember him. I think he’s the only other person I keep in touch with now. Besides you, I mean, now that you’re here.”

“Oh, is he – does he not live in the city?” Charo gestures vaguely in confusion. For someone Enzo seems so pleased to talk about, she’s never seen or heard a thing about this Dom in the past weeks.

Enzo scoffs. “Dom? Move to the city? Nah, he’s still living back home.” He shakes his head, a grin tugging at his lips. “It’s not that surprising – I never expected him to leave his family and his hometown. It’s that sense of responsibility, you know. He’s no wanderer.”

Charo raises her brows and nods. Truth be told, she doesn’t remember much about Dominick apart from his connection with Enzo. She vaguely remembers him being nice, the kind of personality that the younger Enzo seemed like he would have stepped all over, except somehow their friendship hadn’t been like that at all. They had balanced each other, kept each other in check in some way that Charo had never bothered to puzzle out.

“It’s funny, the things we both remember and don’t,” she murmurs. “Probably not much overlap there.”

Enzo gives her a funny sort of look. “Does it really matter if you don’t remember? Nothing to miss if you don’t know you’re even missing it in the first place,” he says as he gets up, and Charo feels slightly mind-boggled at that strange perspective.

Naturally, he doesn’t move to help her pull out her chair (Enzo may be many things, but a gentleman he is not), although he does offer her his hand just before they leave the restaurant, his grip engulfing hers snugly in a way that is thoroughly familiar to her by now. She spots a few photographers lurking around as they make their way to the car, but she can’t bring herself to care about them right then.

“Send me home?” she says with a faint smile as she gets into the car. She feels warm and content, as if she’s just been on a real Christmas date, and she lets herself indulge in the dangerous feelings for a while longer.

“Please, as if I’d send a girlfriend home on Christmas,” Enzo scoffs playfully, half his face lit by a streetlamp shining down on them. “No way, we’re heading back to mine to get some action on if we want to be realistic.”

Charo squeaks, and she can tell that Enzo hears it from the utter glee on his face. “I can’t stand you,” she complains, turning abruptly to stare out of the window in a bid to hide her pink cheeks.

“No? You don’t like action?” Enzo says, so cheerfully it’s like he’s been infected by the holiday spirit. “I wanted to put a Fast and Furious movie on but if you’re that opposed to action…”

Charo groans in despair. “I really can’t stand you,” she repeats, but it doesn’t stop Enzo from continuing to mock her relentlessly the entire way home anyway.

***

When she gets the long-awaited call at last, the very first person her mind leaps to is Enzo.

“I got it!” she all but shrieks down the line. “It’s that audition I went for, the one just before Christmas, remember?” It’s not a major role, barely even a supporting role if that, but it’s still a larger project than anything she’s done before.

If all goes well, she’s going to be in actual movie that’s going to be shown in actual theatres. The idea is something she can hardly wrap her mind around. Her entire body feels like a vibrating mass of pure elation, and half of Enzo’s response is lost amidst her own wordless squeals.

“…Charo? Did you even hear a single thing I said?” Despite his exasperation, he’s laughing through his words and she giggles along out of sheer happiness. “Oh, for – just stay on the line, you goose. I’m coming over.”

Somehow, Enzo has the presence of mind to show up with a celebratory bottle of wine, and Charo attacks him with a hug for it that he doesn’t seem to know how to respond to. “You’re not already drunk, are you?” he asks, looking taken aback at her frantic energy.

“This is the best day of my life,” she insists as she pours them both a glass. “To you, because you agreed to this stupid plan that only ever works in movies and we managed to pull it off anyway. And to me, because I’m the one who got the role and I worked my ass off for it.”

Enzo raises his glass obligingly before sitting back, looking fascinated, like she’s some strange creature in a zoo he’s seeing for the first time.

“Why didn’t you look for me again after that day?” he asks suddenly out of nowhere, and Charo blinks owlishly at him with her glass raised halfway to her lips.

“What?” she asks, completely baffled. “Look for you when?”

Enzo’s dark brows pull together ever so slightly. “Back when you confessed to me,” he says, like it’s perfectly normal to be bringing up long ago events in everyday conversation.

All of a sudden, Charo is pretty sure she’s never been so sober in her life. He remembers oh God he remembers, her mind is screaming at her, and she can’t for the life of her think of anything appropriate to say in response.

“Oh, you remember that, huh?” is all she manages to croak out lamely. “It’s been more than a decade.”

Enzo shrugs. “You cornered me on the last day of the school year, confessed to me and then ran off, and I never saw you again. I’d call that pretty memorable,” he says dryly. “There wasn’t even a conclusion. I kept thinking you’d come back to get an answer.”

Charo gawks at him, unsure whether to feel distraught or insulted. “You and I remember that day very differently,” she mutters. “You laughed in my face when I gave you that gift. I didn’t need to look for you again to be rejected verbally too.”

“I didn’t laugh,” Enzo protests, looking so utterly clueless that Charo can feel her own mouth hanging open in disbelief. “Did I?”

Charo stares at him, marvelling in a somewhat detached manner at the complete turn the situation has taken. “You did. You made this sound, kind of like –” She makes an attempt at the little snorting chuckle that has been seared into her memory. “Of course I ran off.”

Enzo’s face flashes through a dozen different emotions at once, so jumbled as to be unreadable, and it makes Charo want to cry. Of all the days to bring up the past she’s been trying so hard to leave behind.

“I don’t think I laughed. Maybe I was just surprised.” Enzo tilts his head and cups one of his hands slightly. “I still have it, you know. The stars.”

Charo opens her mouth soundlessly until finally the whisper slips out. “What?”

His smile is wry, pensive in a way she’s never seen. “I shot to fame fast, but you know that. A lot of people were interested in me very, very quickly and very few of them had pure intentions. In the mess I guess you were the realest memory I could hold on to.” He pauses, then grins in a more characteristically devious manner. “Plus it was unfinished business. You know I hate that kind of thing. When I heard your name for the first time in years, it felt like – well, I had to say yes to that.”

Charo shakes her head, reeling from the influx of information and emotions flooding her senses. “I don’t know what to say,” she says truthfully.

“Just say that you still like me,” Enzo pushes, because he’s always been good at that, at cornering his prey without mercy.

Charo lets out a wet little laugh, powerless as ever against his cajoling. “Fine, I do, but it’s all different now. I know you now, and I like you more. I like you differently from before.” She doesn’t even know if she’s making sense, but Enzo seems to understand her just fine.

“It’s different,” he agrees, standing and moving around the table towards her. “You’re more than just the cute girl who asked me out back in school now.”

He makes it sound so easy, and maybe it is, because when he sits down beside her she curls against him, her head tucking naturally beneath his chin. His arm settles around her shoulders, his glass of wine still in his free hand.

“To us,” he says cheerfully, as brazen as ever.

Charo tilts her head slightly to look up at him, and the sight of his infuriating grin feels like a new kind of home.

***

“I can’t believe you really kept it!”

Charo gasps and rushes up to pluck the little jar of stars out of Enzo’s hand, peering at it in amazement. It looks just like how she remembers it, the cork still stoppering the jar firmly, the paper stars inside tumbling wildly around as she turns the jar over and over.

“Of course I did. Did you think I was lying about it?” Enzo snorts, watching her with a smile.

Charo laughs, carefully placing the jar back in his hands. “Did you ever open it?”

“No…?” His brow raises slightly. “Was I supposed to? Isn’t this for display or something?”

“Yeah, I can see how you’d think that,” Charo admits sheepishly, “but I actually wrote little messages in each star. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote. Typical sappy teenage bullshit, probably. I don’t know how I thought you were magically supposed to know about them.”

“Well, we can’t not open at least one now that you’ve mentioned it,” Enzo says, immediately starting to work at the cork with single-minded determination.

Charo grabs at his hand, mortified. “Let’s not. It’s going to be embarrassing – I can feel it,” she whines. “It’s probably just standard inspirational stuff like ‘Today’s gonna be a great day!’ or something like that. Maybe one or two love quotes thrown in. Ugh.”

Enzo’s eyes gleam with mischief. “Yeah, no, I feel like I really need teenage Charo’s life advice right now,” he says with a laugh, pulling away and lifting the jar over her head as she continues to complain. Plucking out a single star – pale pink, glittering vividly in the light – he quickly sets the jar down safely before nudging her out of the way and rushing off to the living room.

“Lorenzo Cruz, get back here!” Charo cries.

She finds him lying on the sofa unfolding the star and immediately throws herself bodily on top of him.

“Ow!” he grunts, but he shifts to make space for her, and together they look down at the years-old message the unfolded star contains for them.

fin.