Before we knew it, BoRhap was done filming. Months and months of hard work by many talented people had come to an end. It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that it was finally over. It had become such a huge part of my life and our relationship that realizing it was over made me very emotional.
Joe and Ben had wrapped a day before Rami and Gwil. Dexter loudly announced the wrap for Joe and Ben's scenes and everyone cheered. No one was as loud as me. I was screaming and clapping. Cheering on Joe and Ben as they hugged. I could feel the tears coming to my eyes, but I stopped them. Just seeing the two of them hugging and knowing it would be the last time I would see them in costume really hit me hard. But, Joe and Ben vowed to come back the next day for Rami and Gwil's wrap.
Joe and I went home that night. An air of sadness lingering over us on the whole drive home. We went home and looked at our apartment in silence. A place that we had come to love in its smallness. The place where I had taken a leap of faith and moved in with Joe. It meant a lot to me. But, Joe's final day of shooting meant that we had to start packing up. We had to leave the apartment and go back home within two weeks.
"We better start packing," Joe said, patting my back. Joe moved into the living room and I went into the bedroom. I started grabbing bunches of clothes and items and started packing them up in boxes that we would ship back to Joe's house in LA. I would come and get them once we got back and bring them to my own apartment. I packed up a couple of boxes before I got to my bedside table. I opened up the top drawer and saw the box for my crown necklace sitting there. I had put the necklace away already, but the box was just sitting there. I grabbed it and sat down on the bed.
That box made me think about everything we had done together in this apartment. All of the sweet moments we had shared. Every meal I had made for him, late nights staying up and watching movies, laying in bed together talking, every relationship milestone we had here. It was all flooding my brain. My eyes met the boxes I had finished packing up and I could feel tears flood my eyes. Immediately covering my face and within seconds, I was sobbing. I'm very sentimental, so just the thought of leaving this place made me devastated. I rested my hand and the blue box in my lap, just crying. Joe came running in the room, worried that I had hurt myself somehow. He stopped dead in the doorway when he saw how carefully I was sitting on the bed. He sat next to me, wrapped a hand around my head and pulled me close to his chest without saying a word. Knowing that something was bothering me and I needed comfort. After a minute, he spoke up.
"What wrong, baby?" He purred. I took in sharp breaths trying to steady my breathing and sobs enough to talk. I sat there, releasing inhuman sounds as I tried to talk. "Okay," he said. "I'll wait." We sat there for another few minutes. Waiting for my crying to cease. When it finally did, I sat up and looked at him.
"I don't want to leave," I said. My words coming out warbled.
"Neither do I," Joe replied, softly stroking my hair to comfort me. "But, we knew this was going to happen at some point."
"I know," I sniffed. Tears still steadily falling onto my cheeks. "I've just gotten so used to being here with you and living here together. There's so much we did here," I gestured to the entire apartment. "I'm just going to miss it so much." Those words got caught in my throat and Joe pulled me in closer. Holding me in hopes of calming me down again.
"I was going to save this for when we got back to LA, but I guess this is as good a time as any," he said with a small chuckle. I raised my head again. The tears stopping as soon as Joe had finished speaking. I raised an eyebrow at him. "I was going to ask you if you wanted to move in with me." He paused and waited for an answer. I was too shocked to speak. I know we had been living together for the past 6 months, but that was because we had to if we wanted to stay together. This was big. "Julie?" He asked, bending down a bit to meet my eyes.
"Really?" I asked, completely breathless. I wiped a couple tears away from my face. Knowing that I wasn't going to be crying anymore.
"Yeah," He smiled and laughed. "We've been living together for a while now and I don't think we hated each other the entire time," I laughed at his joke. He brushed his thumb against my chin, happy that I was finally cheering up. "I just...I don't know. I feel confident. I think it could work," he explained. "And I know you have to get everything out of your apartment so it will be a while until you're moved in-" He cut himself off. "You haven't even said yes yet."
"Yes," I finally admitted. "Yes, of course I want to move in with you." I could have melted into him. I was so happy that I got to sleep next to him every night still and get comforted like this whenever I needed it. I was overflowing with joy. I tackled him in a hug, forcing him to fall back onto the bed. I kissed his face, peppering small kisses along his cheeks and jawline.
"Okay," he laughed. "You're excited." He continued to giggle as I kept kissing him. My mood had flipped on a dime. I was going to miss this place, but not as much anymore. Because I would get to go home and live with Joe.
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The next day on set, Rami and Gwil were filming the last scene. It was a scene where they were performing Love of my Life. Rami was wearing a sparkly onesie and Gwil was sitting on a stool softly strumming the chords to the song. It was beautiful to watch them work. And it didn't hurt that we were ending this movie on such a beautiful song. After running through the song a couple of times, Dexter took his headphones off, walked out in front of the camera and said, "Picture wrap!" Everyone began screaming, cheering, and hugging. There were tears, some of my own as well. Knowing that I wouldn't get to see these guys every day anymore made me really sad.
I went around to each of the guys, hugging them and telling them how much I was going to miss them and how great they were in their roles over the months. We all gathered together and talked about what the final product would look like, what scenes would be left on the cutting room floor, and how long it was until the press tour stuff started to pick up.
"Hey guys, I'll be back in a little bit, I have some presents that I want to hand out," Gwil said, gesturing to a full bag by his feet.
"Alright," Rami said.
"Yeah, I actually want to go say bye to a couple people too," Joe said. I had finished saying my goodbyes, but I wasn't one of the main actors in the movie.
"Okay, do you want me to stay here?" I asked.
"Yeah, if you want to. That's fine," he said with a smile. Joe left and I sat at the cafeteria table and waited for him. Rami and Ben left as well to make sure they had said goodbye to everyone. I was waiting for about half an hour before I got a text from Ben.
Come get ur man
He sent a picture of Joe getting a haircut from Julio in the makeup trailer. I started to burst out laughing. I got up from the table and made my way over to the makeup trailer. Opening the door, I could hear Joe and Ben bickering to each other.
"You know you wrapped yesterday, right?" Ben asked.
"Yeah, but when am I ever going to get a haircut from Julio again?" Joe shot back.
"Child star," Ben muttered under his breath. I walked up to them. Ben was sat slouching with his arms crossed on the sofa behind Joe. Joe smiled at me when I entered the frame of the mirror.
"Hi, Jule. How did you know I was in here?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. I pointed at Ben.
"Ben told me to 'come get my man'," I did air quotes in the air. Joe shot a look at Ben who just shrugged.
"It's just weird to me that you chose today to get a haircut when you had plenty of time yesterday," Ben was continuing their earlier conversation, completely ignoring my presence.
"I could have done it yesterday, but now I can go one extra day without needing a haircut from someone who isn't Julio," Joe fired back. I was cracking up at this argument. I agreed with Ben, but I wasn't going to let Joe know that. Julio was combing Joe's hair through. He was pretty much finished. I put my hand on his shoulder.
"Thanks, Julio," I said. He nodded before beginning to put his tools away.
"Thanks," Joe added. "Now, doesn't that look nice," Joe asked Ben, pulling his hand through his damp hair.
"I never said it didn't look nice, but you're imposing on the poor man," Ben retorted.
"I'm not imposing on anyone," Joe said, his pitch getting a bit higher. "Julio doesn't mind, do you?" he asked.
"No, I really don't," Julio responded before continuing to pack up.
"See?" Joe said. They weren't angry at each other, but they were just fighting like an old married couple. Ben swatted his hand at Julio.
"Ah," he said in disgust before leaving the trailer.
"What?" Joe said, throwing his arms up at Ben's back as he left. "Oh well, what do you think?" Joe asked. Turning his head back and forth so I could see all of it.
"I think it looks great," I smiled, holding him by his hips.
"That's all that matters," Joe replied, giving me a small kiss on my forehead. We left the trailer and said our goodbyes to everyone for a final time. When we finally left the set, it was like the end of a movie. The end of an era, even. I watched the set disappear in the rear-view mirror. I let out a big sigh. Joe placed his hand on my knee. "We'll see everyone again. Just because we won't be going to set every day doesn't mean it's over," I looked over at him and smiled. He was right. I didn't have the same experiences that he had when it came to movie shoots ending, but I knew I just needed to trust him and hope that everyone still stayed friends.
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As we were getting ready for bed that night, trying to maneuver around all of the packed boxes, Joe got a call from his mom. This wasn't an uncommon thing. Joe's mom would call just about every week just to update Joe on his dad's condition and what was going on in her life. They would also talk about how the movie was going, but I could tell that Joe was more interested in the things happening in New York.
He paced around the kitchen as they talked. His hands dragging along the counter and doing mindless things while the conversations went on for about an hour each time. When Joe was finished with this call, he came back into the bedroom like he wanted to say something to me. It didn't look like anything bad had happened, but he just wanted to ask me something. I sat up in bed and raised an eyebrow at him.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "How's your dad?" He sat on the edge of the bed by my legs, patting his phone in his hands trying to find a way to say what he wanted to say.
"I think he's getting worse." He said sorrowfully. "She didn't say that he was, but I could tell from her voice." I scooted closer to him, folding up my legs and wrapping my arms around him.
"I'm so sorry, Joe," I said. I rubbed my hands up and down trying to soothe him.
"I hoped he might be getting better, but I don't think that's going to happen." He said. He wasn't crying, but he looked like he was on the verge of tears. There was a long silence between us. I could feel the wheels in his head turning, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking about. I just assumed it was about his dad. When he finally spoke up, I was sort of right.
"I want to be with him," he said. I nodded and looked up at him.
"Okay, we can go visit them right after we leave here. We can even change our tickets to go right to New York if you want," I said. He sat there and thought about it before shaking his head.
"No, I-" He turned toward me a bit more. I released my grip on him a little to allow him to turn. "I mean, I want to be with him for a long time. For as long as I can before the press tour starts. I don't know how much time he has left, and I don't want to be sitting doing nothing in LA when I get the call. I want to be there with him." A tear was rolling down his cheek now. I was tearing up as well. I looked down toward the end of our bed, just trying to think about what he was saying. "I don't expect you to come with. You have to make more videos and you have your career to think about. I don't know how long I'll be up there, but I want to be there as long as possible." He explained.
"You want to live in New York for a while?" I was clarifying. Every word he was saying was sticking in my brain, but for some reason, it wasn't processing as quickly as it could.
"Yes," he said seriously. "I do. Maybe move back into my old room for the time being." I rested my head on his shoulder and looked down at his lap. "This doesn't change the fact that I want to live with you. At all. I love you so much, but I just need to do this. Because if I don't, I'm going to spend the rest of my life regretting it." I softly nodded against his shoulder. There was another pause. "I would understand if you don't want to go, but I think I need you there with me. I don't know if I could stay there alone."
I had followed Joe halfway across the world for six months. Taking a huge step by moving in with him. We grew closer every day, but moving to New York for god knows how long was a leap that required some thought. My mind began racing. Could I put my audience through another gauntlet of pre-recorded videos? Would I be able to mentally stay in another city that wasn't my home? Was I willing to watch the mental health of my boyfriend and the physical health of his father decline right before my eyes? All of this ran through my head. But, the one thought that kept coming back was the thought of being with Joe for the rest of my life.
If I was serious about this relationship, which I was, I needed to be there for him. I needed to be by his side and be his rock and his crutch to lean on when he couldn't take it anymore. Be there for him when his hero suddenly isn't there anymore. They say that you never truly know if you can marry someone until you've seen them extremely sick or lose a loved one. I loved him, and if I was any kind of loving, caring person, the person I love would come first.
"Okay," I breathed. I looked up at him with doe eyes. He looked down at me with bloodshot ones, tears dancing on the corners. "Let's go to New York."