37. Seb

37

Seb

One Year Later

Here’s the problem when your ex is one of the hottest movie stars on the planet. You can’t escape him.

Even when I deliberately go out of my way to avoid seeing any mention of him, Marcus is still everywhere.

Magazine covers at the grocery store checkout blast Marcus’s handsome face across them. A late-night talk show clip featuring Marcus auto-plays when I open YouTube. A giant billboard on my commute to work shows Marcus smoldering in a Ralph Lauren suit.

And tonight, because the universe apparently likes messing with me, he happens to be starring in the film my date wants to see.

It’s the first time I’ve been on a date since I broke up with Marcus. I kept waiting for it to hurt less, for some sign I was getting over him. But the emptiness has persisted, expanding into all the spaces Marcus used to fill. I catch myself making mental notes of things to tell him—a fascinating article about deep-sea creatures, a new theory about dark matter—before remembering I can’t.

The human brain processes emotional pain in the same region it processes physical pain, which explains why every thought of Marcus feels like pressing on a bruise.

Everyone says time is the great healer. It’s complete bullshit. Time for me has been the great torturer. Time seems to have slowed to a crawl as if the universe wants me to experience every excruciating second of longing.

So I’d decided that instead of waiting to get over Marcus, I would fake it until I made it. Which meant accepting this date.

“Are you sure you want to see The Weight of Whispers ?” I ask my date Brad as I read through movie synopses on my phone. “ Belly Button Battleground is playing and looks really interesting. It’s where the aliens are actually microscopic and have been living in our belly buttons this whole time, secretly controlling world events.”

Brad gives me a skeptical look.

“Everyone is saying The Weight of Whispers is going to win the Oscar for best picture this year.”

I force my voice to be upbeat. “Okay. If you want to go for potential Oscar winner, we’ll have to save the extraterrestrial navel gazing for another time.”

Brad gives me another weird look.

The date is not going that great anyway. I accidentally knocked over my drink earlier, drenching our menus and Brad’s phone in iced tea. My attempt to help by suggesting he put his phone in rice somehow spawned a fifteen-minute lecture about the mythical nature of the rice-saving-phones theory.

Brad also spent twenty minutes explaining why pineapple on pizza is a culinary abomination, apparently unaware of the pineapple chunks nestled in my Hawaiian pizza.

We might as well add two hours of my ex-boyfriend to this date.

On paper, Brad is perfect for me. He’s a meteorologist and a keen hiker. His social media feed is devoid of selfies, instead filled with close-up shots of rare insects and impassioned posts about renewable energy.

But in person, we’re not exactly clicking.

Maybe I’m being unfair to the guy, holding him to impossible standards.

Because as we go into the movie theater and the movie begins with a close-up of Marcus’s handsome face as he stares into the grave of his fictional father, my stomach swirls.

Of course no other man will ever live up to Marcus Johnson.

Watching his face on the giant screen, it’s impossible to believe I’ve touched that skin, kissed that mouth.

I mean, the idea is so ludicrous, isn’t it?

It’s unbelievable.

“Did you know Marcus Johnson is gay?” Brad whispers to me.

Yes. I’m well-acquainted with Marcus Johnson’s sexuality, actually. All that hot sex we had kind of gave it away.

For a second, I toy with answering honestly before I default to a polite “Oh really?”

Luckily, Marcus is back on screen and Brad’s attention is drawn away from continuing the conversation.

I try to follow the plot, but instead, I catalog Marcus’s expressions, each familiar quirk of his lips sending a jolt through my system.

A year of being without him, and I just want to watch him. I want to hear his voice. I find myself leaning forward in my seat, drinking in every detail. The curve of his throat when he swallows back tears, the subtle shift in his posture when he’s trying to appear strong, the way his hands shake slightly when he’s overwhelmed.

The movie is an emotional tribute to the complexities of father-son relationships, exploring the unspoken words and missed opportunities that haunt us. I can’t imagine what feelings making this movie dredged up for Marcus. Every scene feels like he’s offering pieces of his broken relationship with his father, transforming his pain into art.

In the climactic scene, Marcus stands motionless in his childhood bedroom, tears streaming silently down his face as he gently touches the faded height marks on the doorframe.

He is exquisite. There is no other word for it.

I knew Marcus was talented, but this goes beyond acting—it’s like watching someone set themself on fire to provide light.

Every expression is raw, a masterclass in micro-expressions that convey volumes without a single word spoken.

He looks so tormented, his eyes reflecting a storm of conflicting emotion.

As I stare at Marcus’s giant face on the screen, my conversation with Saskia after Marcus and I broke up flits into my mind.

She’d come over to my house unexpectedly, disturbing my hermit status. She was carrying a bag of groceries and what looked suspiciously like the chocolate chip cookies Mum used to make whenever one of us was upset when we were kids.

I’d been home from London for a week at that point, and I had only left my room to go to work.

Standing in the doorway of my room, she’d taken in the mountain of unwashed laundry, empty takeout containers, and scattered scientific journals that covered every surface, and her face had contained nothing but sympathy.

“Oh, Seb,” she said softly, in the same tone she’d used when I broke my arm falling out of our treehouse when I was eight.

“Marcus talked to you,” I’d stated flatly.

“Yes, he talked to me.” She gingerly picked her way through the discarded clothes and pizza boxes, looking so out of place in her perfectly pressed suit and immaculately styled hair.

Her nose scrunched as she caught a whiff of the mix of unwashed clothes and days-old pizza.

“He asked me to check up on you, see if you were okay.” She started gathering the takeout containers. “You should have told me you’d broken up. I would have been here sooner.”

“I’m fine,” I lied, and Saskia didn’t even bother to pretend she believed me. Instead, she sat next to me on the bed, close enough that our shoulders touched, just like when we used to hide together during thunderstorms when we were kids.

“Why did you break up with him?” she asked.

“Because there’s no future for us,” I whispered, staring at the bedspread. “You told me that before, didn’t you? He’s broken. He’s not capable of loving me.”

“I was wrong,” she says. “I was so wrong. He does love you, Seb. Holy shit, he loves you. You should have heard him talking about you yesterday… I’ve never heard him speak about anyone that way.”

I raised my gaze to hers.

“I don’t think I understood how much he loved you,” Saskia said. “I honestly… I honestly didn’t think he was capable of that kind of love. But it appears he is with you.”

Hope bloomed for a second before it withered and died.

Even if Marcus did love me, he was not willing to admit that love. He was never going to believe he deserved to be loved and to love in return.

“Sometimes even love isn’t enough.” My voice broke as I said the words.

Saskia wrapped her arms around me then, and I buried my face in her shoulder, letting myself cry for the first time since London.

Now, watching Marcus on screen, I remind myself that sometimes even love isn’t enough.

The movie finishes. There’s a collective exhale from the audience, followed by the rustle of coats and purses, the soft murmur of awed conversations. The house lights come up slowly, revealing tear-streaked faces and red-rimmed eyes throughout the theater. People shuffle out in reverent silence as if they’ve just witnessed something holy rather than a movie.

“What did you think?” Brad asks breathlessly.

My throat feels like it’s lined with broken glass. I’ve spent two hours watching the love of my life pour his soul onto the screen, and now I’m supposed to discuss it like I’m reviewing the weather.

“It was good,” I manage.

“Good? It’s a masterpiece. Marcus Johnson was incredible. Holy shit, I can see why people are talking about it winning lots of Oscars.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I’m frustrating Brad with my lack of enthusiasm, but I’m working hard to hold myself together right now. My chest feels like a pressure cooker.

I want to reach out to Marcus to let him know how amazing he was. I have such a craving to talk to him that my fingers itch to grab my phone and type out a message. Consequences be damned.

Which is dangerous. Because I know exactly how it will play out—one message about his performance will become two, then it will become ten, and then it will end with me falling asleep clutching my phone, waiting for his reply.

“Thanks for a nice evening,” I say to Brad, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. Because, apparently, this is what moving on looks like—having an average date with a nice, normal guy while the love of your life breaks your heart all over again in stunning high definition.