Tragic Kingdom (80s/90s imagines)

65. Corey Haim

His personality was bright and warmed you into the deepest, darkest corners of your soul. He was sunshine personified. His laugh made your heart skip a beat. You lived for hours long conversations on the phone with him or taking
photos of him on your Polaroid to keep for when he was gone.

Corey was exactly what everyone told you being in love would be like.

You had met him in the time he was filming The Lost Boys, and you two had spun your own storyline that summer. You were in Santa Cruz staying with your cousins when you crossed paths, and you fell hard the second he spoke to you.

"Hey, do you have the time?" He had been in front of you in the line at the little convenience store just off the beach. He now looked at you expectantly. He had been so baby faced.

You hadn't been exactly been paying attention, so you responded with "The time for what?"

He lightly laughed before shaking his head. "No. Like do you know what time it is? I have to be somewhere at 3."

Realization of what you had said set in, and you sharply sighed at yourself. Glancing at your watch, you told him the time, assuring him it was still a while before 3 o'clock.

He had a grin that made his eyes seem a little brighter. "Thanks," he chirped before turning around. He turned to you again while taking a step forward in line. "You from here?"

You shook your head. "No. I'm visiting some family. We don't have a beach where I live, and my parents thought the saltwater would be good for me." He nodded, and before you could lose the moment, you continued. "I wish I lived here though. Do you? Live here, I mean."

He bobbed a little, weighing his answer. "Sort of. I live here right now, for work, but I'm from Canada."

From then on, you two kept bumping into each other. You became fast friends, and it came to no one's surprise when you officially started dating.

When the summer came to an end and you went home, you made the best of the situation. You began writing letters back and forth, and you had grown to love his handwriting. You could tell when he was writing in a rush, and he could tell when you had left a tear on the paper.

You excitedly told him over the phone that you would be seeing his movie as soon as it came to the theatre in your town.

"I can't wait to see your face again," you sighed into the receiver. "Even if it's on a screen."

"Well," he started, "I have some time off, and I was thinking... that I could... come see you?" The way he drew it out made it seem as though you might try to convince him it was a bad idea.

But the second he suggested it, you were ecstatic. "Really? That would be amazing!"

You counted down the days until you would get to see him again. You went to sleep thinking about how blue his eyes were, and you woke up mumbling his name. You had never felt this way about anyone. A cliche, but it was true. You had had crushes, and you had even had a couple boyfriends before, but nothing like this. Sometimes when you thought about him, you worked yourself up so much that you had to take a moment to calm yourself down. Your feelings for him were deep and pure. Butterflies were an understatement for what you felt.

You waited at the airport for him. He told you his flight information, and you showed up 30 minutes early, just in case. People began coming out into the baggage claim area, so you searched through the crowd for Corey's bright face.

He saw you before you could find him and grabbed you, causing you to yelp before throwing your arms around him. He wrapped his around your torso, holding you tight.

"You scared me, you jerk," you poured into his shoulder. It melted into a smile as you looked up at him. "I missed seeing your face."

His seemingly permanent grin shone down on you adoringly. "I missed you too." He loosened his grip on you long enough to get a better look at you, just taking in if or how you had changed since you'd been apart.

The years flew by. It had gone from a sweet term romance to a comfortable relationship. The distance got to you both sometimes, but you always found a way to make time for each other. Once you were adults, you moved closer. You and a friend from high school shared an apartment, and Corey and his friends, or whoever he was filming with at the time, would drop in from time to time when they weren't working. Your relationship was the envy of those around you, and anyone could see the love in your eyes when either of you looked at or even spoke about the other.

It wasn't to say you didn't have rough patches. His partying was no secret, nor were the things he did at these parties, and you had been firm with him from the beginning that it couldn't become a problem. You'd fought about it, and at some points nearly split up because of his addictions, but you knew it wouldn't help him. You worked with him. You helped him get better.

And he wanted to, for you. Because he loved you more than he loved anything else and seeing you hurt because of him wasn't something he could stand. He did his best.

But in the end, his best never got better. His habits overtook him just when you thought he was getting through it. You watched him go from the bubbly boy asking for the time to someone you hardly knew. You stayed with him through his times in rehab, and you waited for him to get better.

You waited and waited and waited, but you were just watching your sun set slowly.

Uhhh I wish I had ended it w "and they lived happily ever after" like I wanted to before that last paragraph, BUT I hate myself and apparently everyone that reads this book so... yeah. Be in pain w me ✌🏼😔

But on a real note, I didn't want to gloss over his life. I feel like we do that in fan fiction a lot just bc "it's fiction and I can write whatever I want" and yeah you can, but at some point you have to be honest about who you're writing about. Yeah, he did some shit that eventually caught up to him, does that mean we should adore him any less? No. We learn from his mistakes. I just want that to be clear. There's a big difference in loving a celebrity and idolizing/idealizing them.

Please stay healthy, mentally and physically. M'kay.

~Mariah