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When I awoke the following morning, I jumped at the feel of arms wrapped around me. I’m not a morning person by any stretch, and it takes me a few minutes to fully wake up. Luckily, just before I started to scream bloody murder, I remembered the night before. I smiled and cuddled back down in the bed. Orlando was pressed against my back, his arms firmly locked around me as he slept. I shifted slightly so I could look at him. He was beautiful, his hair wild on the pillow, a peaceful expression on his face. I lightly ran a fingertip over his mouth, unable to help myself.

To my surprise, he kissed my finger, his eyes still closed. “Good morning, love,” he whispered, opening his eyes and smiling lazily at me.

“Good morning,” I said, shifting more so I was facing him. I slid my arms around his back and he hugged me to him. “I don’t ever want to get up.”

“I don’t either,” he said, nuzzling my neck. “I never expected that.”

“Expected what?” I leaned back a bit so I could look him in the face.

“To feel like this so fast,” he said, stroking his hands up and down my back.

“Like what?” I really am thick in the morning.

“To trust someone so completely, to feel so attached so quickly,” he said. “It’s been such a short time, and I already feel like I’ve known you forever.”

I grinned. “I know, it’s a bit unnerving. You do tend to grow on a person, you know.” I kissed his nose. He rolled onto his back and tucked me against his side, my head on his chest. “So what’s the plan for today?” It was almost noon. I figured we should get up and actually do something.

“We should leave in a couple hours, so we can be checked in before tea,” he said.

I laughed. “ ‘Tea’?” I said, propping up on my elbow to look him in the face.

He chuckled. “You know what I mean.”

“You really are British, aren’t you?” I teased, sitting up and pulling the blanket with me. I wrapped myself in the sheet and went into the bathroom to shower and change.

When I came out, dressed in dark grey jeans and a turquoise peasant blouse, Orlando was laying on his back, my quilt covering him to the waist. I stood in the doorway and grinned. “Are you planning on getting out of bed today?” I teased. I’d almost said “getting up,” but caught myself just in time. Innuendoes like that would end us back in bed, and we’d never get to Toronto. I couldn’t help but stare at him, though. He was so sweet-looking.

“Maybe,” he said, sitting up and stretching his arms above his head. I couldn’t help it, my stare intensified as he got up and came over to me, wearing nothing but his birthday suit. He hugged me tightly, kissed me, and went into the bathroom.

To distract myself from the idea of the perfect specimen in the next room, I made the bed and cleaned up the clothes that we’d haphazardly thrown everywhere the night before, then went into the kitchen to find food. I was ravenous. By the time Orlando had come out of the bathroom, I had omelets in the frying pan and the kettle on for tea. I was just pouring the boiling water into mugs when Orlando came into the kitchen.

“Smells good in here, love,” he said, getting the milk out of the fridge and setting it on the counter beside me. I finished with the tea and went to flip the omelets. “Charlie, is something wrong?” I hadn’t said a word.

I looked up at him and smiled. “No,” I said, shaking my head slightly. “I’m fine, don’t worry. I’m just not very talkative first thing in the morning.”

He kissed me and sat at the table. “Do you need to rehearse before we go?” he asked.

“I probably should,” I said, setting his plate in front of him. “Would you mind if I called a friend over to work with me?” I wanted Cooper, my voice coach, to work with me on a few songs before we went to Toronto.

“Not at all, love,” he said between bites. “I really enjoyed listening to you yesterday.”

“Really?” I said, wrinkling my nose. “I was just fooling around. Today when Cooper gets here, I can really perform because I’ll have a partner.”

“Cooper?”

“My voice coach,” I said, taking a sip of my tea. “I’ve been working with him for about three years, since my first coach retired. I should actually call him now and see if he has an hour or two free.” I got up and went into the living room.

I came back to find Orlando loading the dish washer with our empty breakfast dishes. “You don’t have to do that,” I said, taking a plate from him.

“I can clean, you know,” he said, taking the plate back. He kissed me gently. “Why don’t you go warm up?”

I did scales for about a half an hour, until I heard a knock on the door. Orlando was closer, so he answered it.

“Holy shit,” I heard Cooper say when the door opened. I hurried over.

“Cooper, this is Orlando,” I said, after I hugged him. I lead him into the living room.

They exchanged pleasantries, then Cooper sat at the piano, still looking a bit surprised. I sat beside him. “Don’t look so shocked,” I whispered as I arranged the sheet music in front of us. Out loud, I said, “Okay, I need to work on some Wicked stuff, but I needed a duet partner.”

“No problem, kiddo,” Cooper said, looking over the music. I loved singing with him, his voice was so rich and powerful. He wasn’t bad to look at, either. He was tall, about 6’1”, like Orlando, but where Orlando was dark, Cooper was blonde. He looked like a surfer, though he’d never been on a board in his life, and he was muscular and absolutely beautiful to look at. People often had a hard time believing he wasn’t gay, but he wasn’t. In fact, he was recently divorced, with a four-year-old daughter. I’d had a slight crush on him when I first started singing with him, but now he was more like a brother than anything.

“Do you remember this one?” I asked, handing him “As Long As You’re Mine”. It had been awhile since we’d performed any of the songs from Wicked, so I wasn’t sure if he’d worked with them at all.

“Sure do,” he said.

“I have the performance track if you’d rather use that,” I said, getting up and going to the stereo, where the CD was already in the player.

“That’ll be good,” Cooper said, coming over to me. Orlando was on the sofa behind us, his Pirates script on his lap. “Are we singing in front of him?” Cooper had lowered his voice.

“Is that a problem?”

“It’s a little unexpected, that’s all,” he said. “Since when do you know Orlando Bloom?”

“Since about two weeks ago,” I said, cueing up the song. “I’ll explain later. Can we do this?”

The music started and I closed my eyes, trying to really feel what I was singing about. The song was quite fitting for me at that moment, though, and I didn’t have any difficulty getting in character.

“Kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight, I need help believing you’re with me tonight,” I sang, trying to focus on Cooper, but not really pushing Orlando out of my mind. He made the song more real to me. “My wildest dreamings could not foresee lying beside you, with you wanting me.” It really hit me how accurate the song was. Since I’d met him, I had asked myself over and over again, why me? I mean, what was it about me that made him want me? A month ago, he was a hot movie star that I’d watched on the big screen, just a stranger playing a part, and now he was sitting in my living room, watching me sing. I’d made love with him, laughed with him, introduced him to my family. It didn’t seem real, and that helped me reach new heights with the song.

“And just for this moment, as long as you’re mine, I’ve lost all resistance and crossed some borderline,” the words just flowed from my mouth, the beautiful music making my heart ache for the loss that I knew was coming. “And if it turns out it’s over too fast, I’ll make every last moment last…”

Orlando had looked up from his script as we were singing, and his eyes locked on mine. I knew he understood how I felt, what I was singing about. Cooper just couldn’t hold my attention, even though he was singing the song beautifully.

“Say there’s no future for us as a pair, and though I may know, I don’t care, as long as you’re mine,” we sang together, Cooper and I, and I saw the same ache hit Orlando that I felt down to my toes. I wanted to grab him and hold him forever, never letting go, and it startled me, to feel something so intense, so overwhelming. I stepped away from Cooper, toward Orlando, wanting only to be near him as the words floated from me, as every ounce of emotion I was feeling flowed into the song.

When the song finished, I collapsed on the floor, panting. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to make the dull pain inside me go away. For a moment, no one moved, no one said anything, we just reveled in the passion and force of the music.

“Charlie, are you okay?” Cooper said finally, offering me his hand to help me up.

I nodded as I rose. “Yeah, it just hit me kind of hard, that’s all,” I said, dashing my hand over my eyes to clear the tears that lingered there. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be sorry, kiddo,” he said, taking me in his arms. “That’s exactly what they’ll want from you in the show. I’ve never seen emotion that raw come from you before, and it was a beautiful thing, truly. What inspired it?” He looked at Orlando, then back at me.

“I just felt what the song is really about,” I said, shrugging. I tore my eyes away from Orlando to look at Cooper to give him the character analysis he always demanded when he was coaching me. “I know how Elphaba feels when she sings this, how she can’t believe that this incredible man loves her, wants her, and how she knows it’s only temporary, that they can’t be together forever. She’s saying she’ll take what she can get and cherish it while she has it. It’s a pretty poignant message.”

“If you can do that when you’re on stage in the green make-up, there won’t be a dry eye in the house,” Cooper said, putting his arm around me again. He kissed the top of my head. “I’m proud of you, sweetie. That was phenomenal. Do you want to do it again?”

“I’m kind of wrung out, actually,” I said. Though it was partially true, what I really wanted was to be alone with Orlando, to see if he felt the way I did. “Can we call it a day? I know we only did one song, but I can’t do anymore, I just can’t.”

Cooper smiled at me. “Of course,” he said. “We’ll get together again before you go to New York, though, okay? I want to go through ‘Defying Gravity’ and ‘For Good’ with you and Janna, just to make sure you’re on the right track. Sound fair?”

“Yeah, we can do that,” I said, leading him to the door. “I’ll call you in a few days.” I kissed him on the cheek, he said good-bye to Orlando, and left.

Orlando still hadn’t said anything to me, and I was afraid to look at him after Cooper left. I turned slowly away from the door, toward him, dragging my eyes up his body before meeting his.

“Charlie,” he whispered, tears glistening in his eyes. The next thing I knew, I was swept up in his arms, and he was crushing me against him, his mouth tackling mine. I kissed him back, matched every ferocious connection, never wanting to let him go.

When he finally pulled back from me, I saw something different in his eyes than I’d ever seen before. I wasn’t sure quite what it was, but the way he looked at me made me melt against him.

“That was powerful,” he whispered, touching his forehead to mine. “I never expected to be affected that way.”

I shook my head softly. “I didn’t either,” I said, gently caressing his face. “I’ve never experienced emotion like that when I sing, and, I must say, it was a little frightening. If I can hang on to that feeling, I’ll knock them dead in New York.”

He smiled gently. “Do you really know how the character feels? Did you mean what you said?”

“Yes,” I said, kissing him softly. I sat down on the sofa, unable to stand anymore. I seriously had no energy left. “You have to see this from my point of view, Orlando. Women fall for you all the time, you’re used to it, but I’m no one special, and you came all this way to be with me. I don’t even know why, but I don’t care anymore. I’m afraid I’m going to wake up one morning and all of this will have been a dream, that it won’t be real. And knowing that we don’t really have a future together makes each second that much more important, that much more precious. Elphaba feels that way in the show, and I feel that way now.”

He sat beside me and took my hands. “Do you really think we can walk away from this when our time is up, love?” he said, squeezing my fingers gently. “I know that was the plan, but don’t you think some things have changed?”

“You mean because we made love?”

“Not just that.” He looked very disconcerted, like he didn’t really understand what was going on in his own head. “I’ve seen you in your own environment now, with your family. You’re not just a girl I met and wanted to sleep with, there’s more to it than that. I’ve had a lot of women come and go in my life, and most, though I enjoyed the time I had with them, I wasn’t really upset to see them leave, to move on. For some reason I can’t put this back into the perspective I need it to be in so that I can just walk away. And what’s more, I don’t want to.”

“I think this is getting bigger than either of us had ever intended it to become,” I said, withdrawing my hands from his. I couldn’t think with him touching me. “I never should have taken you to the dinner last night, I shouldn’t have introduced you to my family. Sex is one thing, but you’re right, there’s more to it now. I’ve just made it impossible for us to put a clean ending where we need one. Damn it.” I stood up and slammed my hands through my hair. “So now what? I don’t know what to do here, Orlando, I really don’t.”

“It’s only going to get worse, Charlie,” he said, staring up at me. “The more time we spend together, the harder it’s going to be to walk away. You know that as well as I do. If you really don’t want anything to come of this when we leave here, then we need to move on now and not let it get any more complicated.”

“You’re right,” I sighed, seeing no hope for it. “I think you should go to Toronto by yourself, and leave me here. We’ll cut our losses now and not think about what could have been.” Each word made my chest ache like someone had knocked the wind out of me.

“Is that what you want?” he asked, rising from his seat. He stood mere inches in front of me, but didn’t dare touch me. I could feel the emotion radiating from him, as I’m sure he could from me.

I looked him straight in the eye, as hard as it was because I knew I was about to lie to him, and said, “Yes, Orlando, it’s what I want.”

Without a word, he stepped away from me and went into the bedroom. He gathered up his suitcase, while I stood completely still in the middle of the living room, wondering what I’d done. But I couldn’t make myself say the words to get him to stop, to tell him I was sorry and that I didn’t mean it.
When he had packed all of his stuff and grabbed his car keys, I followed him to the door, even though he was rigid and stiff, and I was pretty sure he was upset with me. As he opened the door, he turned to me.

“Good-bye, Charlie,” he said, his tone very formal, as though we were strangers. He didn’t kiss me, didn’t hug me, just turned on his heel and walked out. I closed the door behind me, then collapsed on the floor in tears. He’d really left, with so little feeling, so little consideration for what we’d shared, however brief it may have been. It burned me to my very core, and I couldn’t even breathe. He was gone, and it was all my fault.