At The First Place

Sink or Swim

I'm too afraid to fall in love with you
If I get closer, I wouldn't know what to do
Love, I know that I have nothing on you
Loving you will need some courage too
(Can't Help Falling In Love, Harlem Yu)

There are times I fear Jerry Yan doesn't like me. It may be an overreaction on my part to come to such conclusions when he only started filming four days ago but the thought constantly bothers and nags at me. On that first day he joined us on set, it even felt like he wasn't the same person I had easily shared stories with just weeks before. Not that I had given much thought of it, it's just that I imagined our third meeting would be a lot different.

During my very casual daydreams, he would arrive on our set before me. When I come in, I imagined he would wave at me and smile that dimpled smile of his. His smile would be so inviting that it would be natural, necessary and just polite good manners that I walk over to him. We would of course first say the usual courtesies but then would start talking about all sorts of stuff - from the reasons behind his nicknames White Rabbit and T-Rex to my favorite pasta dishes. I believed it would be easy for us to talk and talk and talk until we were called for a scene.

Nothing of the sort happened. Instead on that first day, when Jerry arrived five minutes after I did, he threw a general polite bow and smile to everyone then proceeded to sit himself at the farthest corner of the room. The farthest corner from my where I was, it seemed to me too. For the next few days, this would be his norm. (Except yesterday when he chose to lean on a post when he found the only empty seat currently in the room was the chair next to mine).

It was unfathomable(where was the guy who promised to introduce me to his friends?) but I guess I should have somehow expected it. I was crazy to dream(imagine really) otherwise. Jerry Yan is a self-confessed introvert after all. Just because two meetings was enough for me think we had some sort of connection(in a friendly and platonic way) meant he felt it too. And even if he did, he was in no way obligated to acknowledge and act on it.

Also, haven't I pegged him as Hua Zhe Lei? As Lei, he will need time to truly be comfortable with someone. That is if he lets the person in to begin with.

So maybe I wasn't someone he wants to let in. . .

But that could of course just me overreacting because admittedly, there had been instances I could almost swear he has warmed up to me. Just yesterday after the subtle chair rejection(which made me so anxious my makeup artist had to scold me that my forlorn expression completely ruined her efforts), I walked to our director, pointedly ignoring the man standing next to him. I wanted to express my thoughts on the scene we were about to shoot(I was still ignoring the guy I was to shoot the scene with at this point). But what I said made our director squint his eyes in bewilderment then comment how much Jerry and I think exactly alike. Apparently, Jerry had the same idea about our poor misunderstood hero craving for some familial affection. Full of awe, our director added how he noticed Jerry and I mirrored each other's thoughts a lot, at times practically completing or echoing each other's sentences.

I felt Jerry's curious eyes at me then and although I didn't want to, my traitorous eyes turn to meet his. In his expression I saw the quiet understanding of living parallel lives. Of course we would tend to think alike. He grew up to be a mama's boy and me as a papa's princess; we both have one sibling to care for and protect, someone we shared and sometimes competed our parents' affections with. We both grew up having a bit of obsessive-compulsive tendencies, of which probably shaped us as to be the model students we became. Finally for economical reasons, he both grabbed the opportunity to be our family's breadwinner during our late teen years.

I stared back at Jerry Yan and not for the first time marveled how his dark eyes were so expressive it was unnerving. Once or twice, I have found my eyes helplessly locked on his when they had such intensity I could feel my lungs screaming. That was the expression on his eyes at that moment. His eyes were shouting at me that of course he completely understood the truth of our circumstances and he himself was trying hard to comprehend the gravity of it. How compatible(which sounds romantic but its really not, it was just the most appropriate term) our personalities were. How different we were yet so alike in many ways. Maybe he even thinks about how much a miracle it was to have Dao Ming Si(or Hua Zhe Lei maybe) meet Dong Shan Cai in another place and time. Maybe even our sun and moon names(which for days I had been thinking of ways to point out to him that combined makes the character Ming for his Dao Ming) might not be just some cosmic joke.