"We make each other alive. Does it matter if it hurts?"
-INGMAR BERMAN, A LETTER TO LIV ULLMAN
Here's what happens next.
My heart did a backflip when I saw how mortified he was right after I told him about the secret admirer. I worried I might have scraped the inside of my cheeks after biting it too many times while trying to fight a smile as I watched him slowly become silent during that conversation. I felt like Maleficent the entire trip.
I was not sure why I found a guilty pleasure in telling him every story there is about the secret admirer I have. He would always answer in a way that I would not expect, and he had been constantly unimpressed at everything this secret admirer has done. I was intrigued and amused by his reactions, I couldn't help myself.
This time, we were on the set of a film we've been working on when a delivery boy came in and handed me a bouquet of flowers. I had them sitting on a stool next to me in the tent, and when James walked over, he repeatedly poked on the stems and leaves. I swatted his hand away and glared at him.
"I know only two places in the world that get flowers every Sunday. The church and your car."
"Basher." I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue at him. He reached for the bouquet and placed it on my lap forcefully so he can sit on the chair where it was once placed. "Of course, you're trying to win a girl's heart. You should know that's part of courting."
He slowly leaned towards me and spoke in a soft voice, "But that's not how I would do it."
I snorted and rolled my eyes at his words. "Of course, you'd just sit next to a girl, a beat, then poof. The girl is breathless. You're the kind of man who steps inside a dark room at 12 o'clock midnight and all the rays of the sun still bother to bend and twist just to shine on you."
James smiled at the ground and scratched the bridge of his nose with his thumb. "You're sitting next to me, are you still breathing?"
Blood came rushing like a tsunami to my head. I was pretty sure I looked like a red traffic light warning him to slow down and stop. Before I could even begin composing a reply, he chuckled, "Of course, because if that was the way it worked, your serial killer wouldn't be sending you all these."
I could have said something better, but I was still frozen yet burning from his question. The only comeback I had was, "He's not a serial killer."
He laughed again, but it sounded hollow and forced. "What I'm trying to say is this guy saw you and thought you were beautiful. So he sent you flowers and chocolates to let you know that he thinks that way. Which is so wrong."
He looked at me expectantly, but I was still trying to process whatever he just explained, so I just furrowed my brows at him. "In what universe does that makes sense?"
"See if I think you're beautiful, I wouldn't send you flowers every freaking week. That's redundant. That's boring. That's lazy. Even I can send you flowers, right?" He lifted my chin with his index finger so that we were eye-to-eye. "If I think you're beautiful, I would learn you. I did not mean stalking. Stalking means finding out all these bits of information and then forgetting it the next day. I meant learning; I meant knowing it is still you even if I go blind and all my senses go dull. I meant if someone asked me a question concerning you, I could still answer even in my sleep.
"I would get to know what your favorite band is. What kind of food you don't eat. What you love and hate. And then after learning, I would invent new ways to let you know that my heart thinks you're the best thing it ever looked at. Oh, so you like cold cuts and cheese? Here have it. So you like the 1975? I'll get us tickets. So you love photography? Here's an instax. Get crazy with it."
My mouth went dry. Of course, you'd just sit next to a girl, a beat, then poof. The girl is breathless.
But he wasn't finished yet. "If I think you're beautiful, I'll make it my mission to make you feel worthy to be called that. I'll give you proof so you wouldn't think for a second that you aren't." A pause, then, "You're beautiful, and you deserve more than stems and buds wrapped in fancy paper. You're an entire field of sunflowers."
I heard a voice from outside the tent calling us and yelling about takes and other things. I remember James standing up and walking out without asking me to come with him outside. Everything after our conversation seemed so distant; like I was underwater and looking through a glass door.
"You're an entire field of sunflowers."
You're the kind of man who steps inside a dark room at 12 o'clock midnight and all the rays of the sun still bother to bend and twist just to shine on you.
Tell me we did not just say that we belong together.
