I woke to the sound of the shower running. She is always waking up before me now; her schedule is demanding and so are her fans. There is never anytime for her to sleep in. Sometimes I can wake up early enough to catch her as she floats out the bathroom in a hazy cloud of too much steam and pink skin. I was shocked the first time I saw how pink she could be, I never remembered her as ever being that pink before, when she was mine. Maybe it was the stark contrast of the new white scar that wound around her left side; maybe it was just the scar that shocked me. That scar happened somewhere in-between the times she was mine and theirs, when she first left home to follow her star, but I know no more than that. I didn't realize then all she was capable of and all she was willing to give away. I knew she was willing to give away me and that blinded me from seeing her true face in all the dust of our hometown. It blinded me with the resentment of being left behind. I won't ask her how she got it, but I once asked how she did the nude scene in that one movie that everyone gave her so much crap about. She said that they used a body double and trick photography. I use to watch that movie so often when she left. I paused the tape right at her big breakdown scene so I could just stare at her face, crying and hurt. That is until I ran over the tape over with my pick-up truck and had to pay the rental place for it as well as the late fees. She has made other movies since then, but I can't bring myself to watch them.

When she finally gets out of the shower in her full blown pink and steamy glory, I can't help but look away. I think she understands why; I can't bring myself to say anything about what we both know is the reason she looks so pink and raw. I know that each morning and each night she tries to wash away everything that's covering her, the lies, the business, the contracts, the truth. I know she sits on the floor of the bathroom crying as she waits for the water to get scalding so she can scrub away all her pain. I know she thinks this is better than the small, faded scars on the inside of her thigh that no one but me knows are there. I know but still I look away from her almost purified self in shame of all the things I can not bring myself to say. She knows it too, but I don't think she cares.

She sees I'm awake and kisses me on the side of my mouth. I don't kiss her back but she doesn't want me to anyway. She sits close enough that I can smell the soap on her. It isn't the fruity stuff the fan clubs send her in the crepe paper baskets or the designer generic stuff that the hotel leaves by the sink. It smells like the soap her mother use to make to wash everything with. I remember she use to say that soap is soap and dirt is dirt so why bother. The smell is enough to remember all those kind of things from back when she use to be mine. The truth is that smell makes me want to kiss her back, bring all those old memories back, but I don't because that's not what she needs right now. What she needs is to be able to scrub away the sin and kiss me to know she is still alive to sin again. That is why she called me up a month ago, so I could prove that there was a time she was not just an industry face. I know that she likes to remember then as proof of her own existence. Still, sometimes I think that she doesn't even remember what she was before at all and is only playing along for my sake. Yet other times she seems to remember the time in-between what was and what is and becomes lost to both worlds.

The sheets become wet from where she sits close to me yet far enough away so that neither of us is touching. I know when the time is right that she will shift closer and maybe someday let me hold her again. Then maybe I will tell her the things that cross my mind when she steps out of the bathroom. Then maybe I can kiss her back. Yet even then I will only be able to hold her, for she is no longer mine and never can be again. When that time comes I can only hope that she will let me cover her and not try to scrub me away as well.
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a/n- This is not writen with any real movie star in mind. Thank you for your time.