When We Collided

The Beginning

Could a guy and a girl ever be strictly platonic? My friends and I had always wondered about this. My relationships with guys had mostly been romantic. If I were good friends with one, I'd always feel some sort of attraction, though I didn't always follow it through. Sure, there were several boys in the gang, but they were my friends' boyfriends so they were off-limits. I had never become close to a guy who was single and not feel a magnetic pull towards him.

Up until yesterday.

I was at an acting workshop with the other actors I was doing a film with. Granted it was a low-budget film by our management, Accelerate Entertainment, it was still the first time that I had ever been cast in the lead role. I was so nervous but happy!

Sitting right across me was Onyx Wilson, the male lead of this movie. My onscreen partner. The other half of the "ShanOn" love team.

Onyx was drop-dead gorgeous. He had the face and body of a Greek god. Rumour had it that he was all-natural. I noted with a little envy that even I needed dental surgery to look ready for the big screen.

Contrary to the stereotype, Onyx was not cocky nor conceited. He wasn't dumb or stupid either. He was just a regular guy. A nice, smart, good-looking guy.

He was like the perfect male specimen, if you ignore the fact that he was not as tall as the other guys in the room. And I did ignore it, since he was still taller than me. So why wasn't I already head over heels in love?

This I pondered as our workshop director Quent led us through the first romantic scene of the movie. Sure, I wasn't unaffected. I felt a bit shy and awkward in the face of all that male hotness. But when we said our lines and went through the motions (him holding my hand and me caressing his face) my initial awkwardness melted away and I donned my actor's hat. My brain calculated what the scene needed and then my body delivered. Ironically, I found that my face typically showed more emotion when my mind disconnected me from my true feelings.

But it wasn't just my professionalism that stopped me. After we ended the scene, I realized what it was. Onyx was a good actor. The delivery of his lines was believable; the yearning and love of his character for mine seemed genuine. But the moment we got back to reality, I could feel a wall close around him. He was only a few degrees shy of being stand-offish, but he was so polite I couldn't fault him for it.

I remembered the first time we met. It was during the shoot of his music video. As a requirement by AccEnt of all its actors, we had to know how to sing and dance, and he was excellent at both. I was chosen as his girl for the vid of his new song. We were strangers but he made me feel at ease, like we'd known each other for a while. It was so easy pretending to be in love with him because apart from his good looks, he had this boundless charm that was directed right at me. But when it was over he sort of turned it off, like a switch. He was back to his pleasantly distant self. Then we wrapped up and we just parted ways, as if nothing happened. Not another word spoken nor another look exchanged.

After the workshop, I watched him walk away to take a call. This wall I felt from him could be attributed to a lot of reasons, but I could only think of a couple. He could just be painfully shy. Or he might be unavailable.

'He has a jealous partner,' I decided, since he looked too pretty to be single anyway. Yes, that was it. I imagined being in a serious relationship with a guy of his caliber and I admitted that it would be highly possible for me to get jealous. Especially of a girl who was going to be his leading lady from here on out.

AccEnt decided to pair us up to advance both of our careers. I'd been in this industry for eleven years, ever since I started appearing in a TV show when I was nine. I had my highs and lows, mostly lows. I was part of an all-girl singing group, a few soap operas, small movie roles, none of which brought my dream of becoming a star to fruition. He had only joined show business recently after he won a reality TV contest. Our managers thought putting together our love team might work, seeing the successes of others before us.

It seemed they saw chemistry between us onscreen when we did that video. At that time, I must have been attracted to him, at least physically; it was hard not to be. But I guess the vibes he was giving off had stopped me from feeling anything more. I had just survived a relationship that ended badly anyway, so I wasn't too keen on entering a new one just yet.

Plus, Gracie Folani, one half of the greatest love team in the entertainment business to date, team WenCie (her pair up with Owen Cadmus), had listed only two rules for a long and successful career as a love team.

Rule Number 1: Be your onscreen partner's best friend.

And Rule Number 2: Never fall in love with him.

Photo credits: http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs11/i/2006/249/f/8/Chibi_commission__Dzappa7778_3_by_celesse.jpg