The writer of my star

Roy

He woke up to the sound of clatter from the kitchen. He didn't try to move cause he wanted to lay there for longer.

"Aren't you still up?"

He heard his mom from the kitchen.

He didn't want to answer her. He was remembering the feel of Tomas's breath on his hands. He wanted to hold on to that feeling a little longer. He feared, if he got up and had a shower, he will wash it away.

"Roy, it's already 11. Just get up."

His mom's call put a stop to his stream of thoughts and he yelled back.

"Yes Ma, I am coming".

After a quick shower and washing up, he didn't bother to wear his shirt. He wore his boxer shorts and sat on the couch looking at his mom through the door.

Like everyday, she was busy preparing something or the other, guiding the maid to do things as she was told. He saw his coffee being made and her putting a spoon of sugar in to the mug. It's something his mother did everyday for him and his father, make their coffee and bring it to them.

"You came in too late yesterday. I slept while waiting for you".

"Ya, ma. I didn't want to wake you. I was at the success party".

"Did you see him, yesterday?"

He realised his cheeks turning bright pink and he knew his mom noticed too. He smiled awkwardly at her while she started humming a love song.

His mom was the only person who supported him when he said he wanted to meet Tomas. Everyone else thought it was a crazy idea and a student as brilliant as him should not go after something so impractical.

After his Engineering degree, everyone expected him to join his family business and run it. When he decided to become an Assistant writer, everyone was sure that the guy is delusional. His dad was furious to say the least. But his mom somehow convinced the dad to give him a few years and let him figure things out for himself. His dad was still healthy and Roy was a quick learner. His mom convinced his dad, if need be, he can start after an year or two.

It was a small business. They had a factory that made plastic bottles for drinking water and other drinks. It was started by his father and the business was going smoothly. He used to go with his father to the factory, when he was a teenager and he used to work there even during his Engineering. It neither interested him nor made him feel bad. He felt that it was routine, there was nothing exciting about it, there was nothing so bad either.

The only motive behind Roy becoming a writer was his wish to be with Tomas. But whenever, he was around him, it was as if he was on some drugs, his legs floating and the words not forming out of the mouth. That's how he asked his friend, the photographer, to let him be an assistant for a day during Tomas's shoot.

He sat there silently drinking his coffee, and suddenly he thought of Angel sitting on Tomas's laps. It stung him a little. He stopped seeing their Interviews and checking Instagram just because he couldn't stand the sight of them being together everywhere.

"Dad has left?"

"Yes, he left in the morning. He has some inspections to do today."

"Jasmine might come over for lunch today. She said she hadn't seen in for a while."

"Oh yes, ask her to come over. I haven't met her also in a while."

Jasmine is his best friend and they had been together since they were children. She was his secret keeper and confidant and she knew everything about him before he even knew it himself. She is the one who first understood he was bisexual and she is the one who supported him while he came out to his parents.

Before that, their parents used to think Jasmine and he were a thing. He knew she also convinced her parents to help his parents while they went through the heart break of knowing their only child may not end up with a girl.

His mom had accepted him for who he is and she would ask him about the boys he met every once in a while. But there weren't any, from the moment he saw Tomas for the first time.

He saw Tomas for the first time when he visited his University for some events. Then, he wasn't the star he is today. Roy wasn't interested in the cinema or the events at his school. He was just passing by the stage where the event was held and he saw Tomas sitting somewhere in the back of the stage. It was electric, he just stopped there and looked at him in awe. His friends were moving on and they grabbed his shirt to move along, but he was still in awe, staring at Tomas.

A few months after that, he began seeing Tomas everywhere. The billboards were full of his pictures all over the city. The strange sense of loss scared Roy and he wanted to escape somewhere. Somewhere away from his pictures and his haunting eyes.

The more he wanted to run away, the more he was drawn in. That's when one of his friends suggested that he become a writer in one of the movies Tomas was featuring in. The writer was their senior in University and a pretty nice chap.

After he became the assistant, he discovered he liked the job. It was fun giving words to certain things he was feeling. He never knew it could be that easy and difficult at the same time. Sometimes, he could think of words and events to describe feelings in a jiffy, but sometimes they were lost in a world of abyss.

Words couldn't create the meaning of the things he wanted to convey, the feelings he wanted to portray. It just lurked beneath the million layers of anticipation and anxiety, waiting to be discovered.

He also was incredibly aware of his presence around Tomas. He felt like the wind, the slow, peaceful one, the one that doesn't make you feel of it, but always around.

He hoped Tomas would notice him one day, will talk to him one day. Tomas wasn't very friendly, he was well behaved, silent, most times brooding in thoughts. He wasn't rude per say, but he was usually lost in his own thoughts, unaware of Roy or others who were loitering around him.

As days passed by, Roy became increasingly disappointed, for his level of fear to start talking to Tomas. He would sometimes pass beside him and leave without uttering a word.

The first time he finally talked to him, on the final day, even he could hear his heart beating out of his chest. He felt sweaty even when the day was cold and windy. He wanted to clench his chest and sit down because he felt he would faint if Tomas kept talking to him. All the things that he imagined he will talk about, all the one million scenarios that he planned in his head, all of them became pointless at that moment. All he could think of doing was shrieking and running away and hiding somewhere.

The sense of palpitations started happening again. He didn't know when he will meet Tomas again. The anticipation slowly started eating at him, like before.