Now Daxon
Now DAXON
“D axon, I don’t want to inflate your ego, but I have some incredibly exciting news for you,” says Wil two weeks later in between press interviews.
We’ve been locked in this room all day. Literally since the sun came up, one-by-one, every possible media outlet for entertainment has filed in, and asked us the same four questions:
1) What made you want to work on this film?
2) How do you film a romantic scene like the big kiss between Nick and Lila?
3) What was it like working together after all these years?
4) You two briefly dated, is your love story anything like Nick and Lila’s?
And I don’t know about Wil, but I’m about four seconds away from crawling into the nearest corner to rock back and forth and potentially eat my own hair as my sanity slips away. So this news, whatever it is, is life-giving.
“Tell me,” I say.
“I know you’ve always wanted to win an Academy Award,” Wil begins stoically, slowly, like she’s building to some huge reveal. “And I’m here to tell you that you and I”—she pauses, eyebrows raised, staring me down; I can feel the grin at my lips struggling to break free, but I try to hold it back for the sake of the bit—“have been nominated for Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards.”
I can’t hold it in anymore—I laugh.
I laugh so hard, my entire body is shaking, my face flushed and cheeks aching. Wil laughs too.
“Should we practice a speech?” I barely manage to ask.
“Absolutely,” she agrees, comically breathless with importance. “This is once-in-a-lifetime—there’s no room for error. The highest accomplishment.”
We both snort, clapping our hands and folding in half as a producer calls for quiet and the next interviewer settles themselves into the chair before us.
Finally, in the late afternoon, we’re done.
“Wanna grab something to eat?” I ask her as we head towards the elevators that’ll carry us down into the parking garage.
Wil stifles a yawn and leans her head against my shoulder, shutting her eyes. “I’m gonna head home, I think. Vegetate. I’m shooting a magazine cover tomorrow.”
I can’t blame her. We’ve been up late and up again early for the two weeks since the premiere, doing interviews, photoshoots and random press events nonstop. The elevator dings. Wil drags herself off my shoulder to walk inside, settling herself back into a slumped-over, half-asleep position against the elevator wall.
It’s just us.
I press the button for the garage, stand back beside her against the wall, and we start descending.
I have a choice here, a chance, and either way I look at it, I’m terrified of what’s going to happen next. Not with the movie, not with my career, but with Wil and I.
On the one hand, we make fantastic friends. She’s the first person I want to tell about anything that happens to me. I trust her with my life. Really, there’s no one on this earth who knows what it’s like to be us, who’s lived through what we’ve lived through together, shared what we’ve shared.
On the other hand, my soul will love her forever. Friends or otherwise. And if I don’t take a chance on this now, I don’t know when I’ll work up the courage again.
“Hey,” I say quietly, turning to her as the doors open, “I just have to tell you...”
Wil looks up into my face, her eyes big, waiting, maybe a little scared. “Yeah?”
“I’m in love with you.”
“Dax,” Wil starts.
“It never stopped for me.”
She shakes her head, her eyes darting away from mine. There’s no smile on her lips. When her eyes find their way back to me, my heart starts sinking to a lower depth than I’ve ever felt it.
“This next step is really crucial for me. Now that Stars is out, I need to... be my own person, make my own way,” she says. The elevator doors start to shut and she lurches forward, pressing her hand to the edge so that they stay open. “You’ve already done that, now it’s my turn.”
The thing is, I know she’s right. She has a huge alter-ego to shed. This is her moment to claim something on her own, without me attached. I know this. But the air in my lungs comes in too quickly and leaves too soon and I can’t get a good deep breath to calm the whirling panic inside my brain.
“Okay,” I manage. You don’t ever think that heartbreak is going to be like it is in cartoons, with your heart cracking into literal halves, but I think in this moment, mine does. It splits in a jagged line and falls away to crumbling dust. “I’m sorry, I should’ve... I’m sorry.”
“No,” Wil says quickly, shaking her head. She’s touching my arm, I think, but my entire body is numb. “It’s okay, it’s... Daxon, you know how much I love you. I just—I don’t know. I need to do this on my own.”
I nod. The elevator doors start to close again and it’s my turn to slap my hand against the frame, making them reopen. It would be so much easier to have this conversation out in the garage, or better yet, truly alone somewhere private. But that would mean someone has to make the first step to leave, and I don’t think either of us wants to be the first to walk away.
There’s a script sitting on my bedside table, waiting for me, and the first thing I’ll do, when I’m done drowning myself in my shower tonight, is settle in and read it. On to the next. Forward momentum.
When you start building something out of Lego, especially something intricate like the Falcon, sometimes you screw up and knock it over, the pieces flying in a million directions. Even if it’s supposed to be this unbeatable, iconic thing that never loses a fight, never really goes down—sometimes off-screen, in your own hands, it does.
I think I need a new hobby. There are too many scattered pieces this time.
“Right,” I say, nodding. “No, yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. You’re—it’s... you’ll be great. I’ll see you, uh, what? Wednesday? Whenever our next press thing is. Get home safe, okay?”
I take the first step out and I don’t stop walking until I’m at my car. Even then I get in quickly and shut the door, starting the ignition and shoving the gear into reverse like I’m being timed.
This is it. Minute one of the version of my life where Wil is a friend, of course, but also a memory, the best memory.
A ghost inside of me that years won’t fade.
It takes me a few seconds to register why my vision has blurred, but then I get it. The road clears as I blink, a cool tear rolling towards my jaw, dripping onto my T-shirt, and I understand that it’s dive headlong into the work for a distraction, for some semblance of a life fulfilled, or die slowly, piece by piece, of a broken heart.