OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND BROKEN HEARTS

i. The Prestige

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There were people in all directions. Strangers. Looking at you, through you. You were drowning in your thoughts and breathing hurts your lungs. It was your heart. It was getting pricked, it was being wringed till all the blood came rushing in forced beats.

It was painful.   

The dizzying kind, when even the colors didn't make sense and you were too tempted to take fistfuls of your shirt to will your stupid cardiac muscles to stop ing.

You weren't allowed to do so though. In the middle of the crowd with the camera's everywhere, filming, you were not yours. The fidgeting of your hands, the twitching of your feet, even the microscopic fault in your make up or the thread in your neck were being scrutinized, analyzed, criticized. You were merely a tool for a perfect magic trick, the prestige, for people's entertainment and the cash, don't ever forget the cash.

Cameras were sentinel like eyes of Sauron ever seeing, but its burning glares still felt like they were fleeting onto you. It could touch you, but it couldn’t even scrape the surface to make it hurt more, not even that could.

Those words were still ringing.

At least they have been more honest than she would probably ever be and at this very moment you wish you can stop feeling and breathing her more than the pain and the glaring lenses.

Krystal was whispering animatedly to the girl seated on her left, probably about the change of arrangements.

You were perfectly aware of what was happening but you wish somehow you weren't. You even stupidly wished that someone up there wakes you up from this, because god it was hurting before it actually came hitting you like tons of bricks. 

She was cruel, you wanted so badly to believe that, but beautiful still ---- achingly so. Even the lights worship her. It was beguiling, torturous, how can you hate an angel?

How could you, especially when her fingers were on you? They were gentle, slowly calming your soul that was threatening to shatter any minute now. Too gentle for the lies piling up, too gentle for the likes of you and you were thinking that I love you, tasted like the sour tinged on your tongue after drinking something sweet.

Krystal was acting normal around you. Comfortable, familiar, confusing, an almost lover but not really because they were still filming and it was all part of the make believe reality where not even the lights can bend the truthfulness of the universe where she was only yours and you were hers only, although she never was, and she  probably never will be.

Those lights were making your eyes hurt at the moment. It made you grateful that they wanted the fringes down for this event. It was covering the biggest give away. 

The only probable fall out of this magic trick. The secret, it was in your eyes. The unshed tear clogging your throat. The impeding shattering   that will probably puncture your lungs if it were glasses; they were all inside you, very well hidden. Irrelevant.

Then it started.

Krystal was leaning closer, too close even for your make believe worlds. There were camera's still flashing and the voices were still buzzing, but it felt like the fluidity of time was flowing in a slower pace. The altered rhythm didn't stop the pain though. It couldn't stop the chemical reactions within either.

The velcro lock feeling, the cliché stars aligning, colors bursting in bright neon, with the orchestrated skippy beats and stomach gymnastics. It was choking you. You were thinking about the one ed up question you always come up with every single ing time you stare at her.

Have you ever look at someone and feel like, tomorrow is actually worth it, no matter how ed up it is? No matter how much more painful it will be than today even when today felt like somebody was peeling your skin from inside out?

The intentional pause commenced.

You were looking at that someone intently. Out of words to say even when you knew all along what the script will be. It was unfair, because from this moment forward realities will clash and you knew in your heart that your version will never be true. 

After all, it was she was for a he.

It should be perfectly timed, well angled.

“I’m happy for you.” I was in love with you.

She acted surprised. She really was but you can’t linger on that because the show was still running and the smile must be as convincing as it can be. It was the prestige, the final part of the magic trick and the realities shifted. Your world came crashing down slowly, very slowly as she watched hurting just as much as you.