It was an accident. Seriously, it was! I didn’t mean to!

See, I want to be an actress. That’s where my real passion lies. I just really can’t help acting.

No. Crappy excuse.

I’m lost for words. Crap. I’m never lost for words. If only he wasn’t looking at me like that, I’d be able to think straight… What is he thinking? God, what do I say?

I never meant to let it happen. I’ve stopped myself a hundred times before. Why did I lose it this time?

We were just hanging out, like we’ve done a million times before. Hanging out, and listening to the soundtrack from our favorite musical, Moulin Rouge. I thought I was used to it. I thought I was good at pretending. At acting as if I’m acting.

“Your Song” almost killed me, like it always does. It’s because there’s no girl’s part, so I just have to sit there and listen to him. I can always pass my reaction off as an effect of Ewan McGregor singing, though.

It’s kind of ironic. I can’t genuinely fall for an actor, not like some girls can. Personality is always a huge part of crushing, for me. And you can’t really know an actor’s personality. You see him during interviews and that sort of thing, but he’s still acting, always. I can fall for a character easily. But actors…not really at all. I mean, Ewan McGregor is pretty freaking hot. As is Johnny Depp, in his earlier movies. Now he’s old, and that’s just a little creepy. But I can’t fall in love with them.

And in the same way, Ewan McGregor’s voice has kind of lost its power over me. I remember the first time my best friend showed me the brilliance that is Moulin Rouge, when she played “Come What May”—I nearly fainted. But now it doesn’t bother me at all.

But his voice…that’s another story entirely. Fortunately, I can still pretend it’s Ewan McGregor affecting me like that, but it’s…it’s like I’m lying. To him, and to myself.

And to Ewan McGregor. I wonder if he cares?

Moving on! Anyway, I can tolerate that song. We skipped the annoying ones, like usual, and went to “One Day I’ll Fly Away.” And I was almost on key for most of it! Go me.

He’s a brilliant singer. You’ve probably figured that out by now. He says I’m getting better. I still wonder if I’ll ever be good enough for him. Although even if I was, it probably wouldn’t matter anymore, because he’s looking at me like that and I can’t breathe, can’t talk, can’t think, I need to break the silence but there’s nothing to say.

See, because even though “Come What May” is far and away the best song on the whole CD, “Elephant Love Medley” is definitely the most fun. So we were listening to it and singing along. We’ve done it before. Nothing strange about that. We both know we don’t actually mean the words we sing.

“All you need is love!” “A girl has got to eat.” “All you need is love!” “She-she’ll end up on the street!” “All you need is lo-o-o-ove…” Et cetera, et cetera. We were casually lounging in our chairs, it was all good.

Then he, like the crazy idiot he is, stood and jumped up on the chair for “Love lifts us up where we belong/Where eagles fly, on a mountain high!” And like usual, in a voice as stereotypically girly as I could, I cried, “Get down! Get down!” That’s not in the soundtrack, but it’s in the movie. And it’s funny; at least it always cracks him up. And like usual, I reveled in the sound of his laughter, but secretly.

And we threw about seven other inside jokes in there. That’s what happens when you watch the same movie together more than fifteen times. Nothing incriminating yet.

But as the song crescendoed to the climax, he sang, “We could steal time, just for one day.” As we kept singing and I hit the harmony almost perfectly, he held out his hands to me. How could I not take them? It’s in character, for who I’m pretending to be—what I’m pretending to feel, or not feel.

We kept going and I threw myself into the music just to distract myself from the intoxicating feel of his hands on mine. And we sang, “Just because I…will always love you/I can’t help loving…” And he stared straight in my eyes and I locked my knees so I wouldn’t collapse and he sang, “How wonderful life is…now you’re in the world” and we were so close I could hardly breathe enough to say “You’re going to be bad for business; I can tell” which isn’t in the soundtrack either, incidentally, but I had to say it because it’s also in the movie.

And that was the part where we usually giggle awkwardly and step about four feet away from each other while the song ends. And I meant to, I really, really did.

But we were so close already, I just couldn’t help it. I only had to move six inches to lightly plant a kiss on his lips, and it felt so natural, and it was only when his arms didn’t wrap around me that I realized he was not, in fact, Ewan McGregor, and I was not, in fact, Nicole Kidman. So I pulled back and he was looking at me with those eyes and that indescribable expression and now I’m trying a thousand different excuses in my head and none of them are going to work and I have no idea what I’m going to do because I know I’ve just ruined it—he’ll never sing to me like that again.

God, what do I say? “I just got caught up in the music”? “I was acting, and I forgot to stop”? What’s he going to think of me?

You know what? Screw fear.

I take a deep breath, and smile weakly. “I’ve wanted to do that since the first time we sang together.”

And I’ve said the wrong thing, I know I’ve said the wrong thing because his look isn’t changing, and if my knees were working I’d run away. He hates me, I know he does. All I can do is support myself on the back of the chair next to me and pray…just pray…

And then he reaches out—so hesitantly—and covers my hand with his own. And his other hand goes around my neck and he’s pulling me to him and he covers my lips with his and my arm goes around him and my knees aren’t working at all but I’m forcing myself up as tall as I can and he’s squeezing my hand into the chair but I can’t even feel it and I’m drowning…drowning…

Now we pull back and jump four feet apart and just stare at each other.

He breaks the silence first. “Um.”

“‘Um’ is the appropriate response to that…that.”

We both giggle a little. I touch my hand from which I don’t think the imprint of him will ever go away and we’re both just staring.

Now I really don’t know what to say.

But maybe it’s going to be all right.