I don’t want to do this right now, not when he’s working on the magnum opus of his career. I imagine him reading this, rolling his eyes, sighing under his breath, “Not this shit again.” I mean, really, I get to thinking that being at the new job will afford me other exciting things to write about, but sometimes I really do fear that if I stop writing about him for too long, he’ll stop being interested. Then again, in reality I find myself constantly holding back on all the things I could and want to say. It won’t stop, at least not anytime soon. In the few short months I’ve known him, he’s become an absolute staple in my writing life, but all the official assignments have trailed off into the dust. We met for an interview — the magazine I was at decided on a different turn and I left before I could change their minds about any of the other people I’d profiled. I was almost supposed to write his official bio, though I was asked under different circumstances and he changed his mind, and I started on it anyway just for fun, but never showed him and it wasn’t the kind of official bio that could ever be used. In truth, I write about him all the time, it never stops, but it’s the real him inside, at least the one he’s opened up to me, and not the him that’s out there in the world.
One of these days, when he’s made more of his career than anybody could ever imagine, landed covers of The Source and XXL crowning him one of greatest rappers to ever emerge, when he’s a big Hollywood star, and he’s got a beautiful model/actress wife and three model/actor kids and a mansion in Malibu, when our little talks in bed and word association games over the phone have long been forgotten, I might just put it all together once and for all. One book and I’ll never have to write about him again. No tell-all memoirs of our sordid affair like I’m some kind of Hip Hop Helen of Troy or (cringe) Superhead, just a simple love story about the rapper, the hope of hip hop, who might have broken my heart, and yes, he will forever be shrouded in anonymity. Matter of fact, here is my solemn public vow to never again get caught up in somebody famous — “I’m looking for a nice Roger’s cable guy who thinks a ‘Technic’ is a way to make love to me.”
Admittedly I’ve fantasized the way girls usually do. Nothing like extravagant weddings or being the girl on his arm at red carpet events. There are no industry heads or flashbulbs or camera crews or anything of the sort. Just little, simple things like rolling through the Connecticut countryside, watching him make everyone laugh at family barbecues, trying to cook something in the kitchen together, and maybe more nights with my nose nuzzled in his neck, almost falling asleep, talking about everything and nothing in particular. I really just fantasize about those best friend parts with him, the kinds you can’t share with anybody else. And I think I crossed the line with that. It stopped being about having fun with a boy I liked and became about trying to find out how we fit into each others’ lives. It doesn’t even feel fair anymore.
I try to keep hope alive and have faith that I could will something to work out in the end, that I could wait for him to come around or maybe just be okay with having him wherever he fits in. I value his friendship, care about him too much to just give him up all together, but what’s a girl to do when she feels like she’s being taken in for a dummy? When does he mean what he says and when is it just that charisma, that gift of gab? I mean, I honestly wonder if other guys in his career field have any real capacity to love. There are a million and one girls trying to get to that side of him, and one of these days he’s gonna find one that floors him. One with the banginest body he’s ever imagined, one he’s always writing verses about, one he always wants to put in his videos, one he wants to call every day, no matter what part of the world or what planet he’s performing on.
And somehow I just don’t see that girl being me.
