Arm in arm we went up to the roof, which was the sixteenth-birthday zone. A tall chain-link fence enclosed the rooftop basketball court, and teenagers stood about. A DJ was set up playing sick tunes, but none of the kids were dancing, not one. I imagined they were discussing how to get alcohol, or whatever it is teenagers do in Los Angeles.
The DJ was more our vibe than the downstairs band. Beyoncé, Missy Elliott … we dove in without speaking. Lost in movement, Kate, the only thing in focus. Nothing but us. We stared directly, unshakable, bodies feeding off each other, saying what words could not. The dancing, more intimate than touch, was shameless and unreserved. I’d never seen Kate that unconstrained. I felt the universe split open. And myself with it. I was a goner.
A week later, we sat on the lawn on the northeast side of the Silver Lake Reservoir, immersed in our bubble, jotting down notes in a small Moleskine. We thought it was a fantastic idea to make a film together, specifically a love story. Kate and I emailed our agents about finding something for us to do together.
The wheels were set in motion. Quickly we were sent a script by Joe Barton. It was short, only eighty-something pages, it needed work and expanding, but the skeleton of a painful but beautiful film was there. Joe Skyped with us, a lovely Brit who wrote queer female characters with such nuance I was shocked. We discussed story, the characters, and what we felt needed elaboration.
“I wrote that script so long ago. Give me a month and I will come back with a new draft,” Joe said.
And he did, taking the script to a whole new level, and the project started to develop.
Time away from Kate started to hurt. Electric and elated, flying high in the moment, but always an end. The places we couldn’t go. The places I should not have been wishing for. Friends would encourage me to step back, rightfully so, again someone is unavailable. Even now that I was out, I found something to get in the way.
“You remind me of my friends who only date married men,” a friend said to me. Chasing the high, coming down, searching for it again.
Later, the same friend saw us as a duo in the flesh, and got it, which was validating and annoying. The love was tangible, we glowed together.
But Max. Max! Max. A truly delightful human, he has been nothing but wonderful to me. Kate loved him, how could she not? But whatever was happening between us was finding new language, it seeped through the cracks. Well, I was letting it. I shouldn’t have. I was the one entering a situation involving a serious relationship.
The first time I was struck with a pain too sharp was when Kate and I were supposed to have time in New York City together, but schedules were altered and Max came with her. I’d been anticipating a delightful romantic couple of days in NYC. It hurt. It really hurt. But again, I took it as being on me, the side piece.
I was there doing press for X-Men: Days of Future Past, a film where I spent almost all of it sitting behind Hugh Jackman, an unconscious Wolverine, with my hands held on either side of his head, hovering by his temples. A lovely place to be every day, Hugh Jackman is so fucking nice it is annoying, one of the kindest people I’ve ever worked with, literally never have I seen him in a bad mood.
But after this news from Kate, I was in a pretty bad mood. When I saw paparazzi photos of them walking around the city, I was in a worse mood. And when I thought of them fucking, well. I was doing an interview with Josh Horowitz when a fan question from someone named Kate asked what I thought about bananas. It referenced an inside joke we had together. Kate was friends with Josh and thought this would be funny. It took a second, then I got it. It wasn’t comical to me. I was in pain, missing her.
I was angry. Pissed. It felt manipulative. This was a pattern I was familiar with, that I perpetuated and shamed myself for. I found myself blaming her: if she couldn’t be with me, she’d manage to find another way to enter my field, my mind. I’d always get sucked back in, convincing myself it was healthy, convincing myself that my yearning wasn’t slowly chipping away at my integrity. I did not feel I was being treated thoughtfully, my feelings weren’t being considered. I unfairly assumed she could read my mind. I was saying, “all good, of course,” but I was asking her to interpret it as the opposite.
I probably should have bounced at this point, for many reasons. Mostly to be a good person and respect their relationship, but I was not feeling like a very good person, more like a selfish person who wanted someone. But a genuine connection, like the one we had, is rare and difficult to walk away from. I sat in my hotel room at the Bowery, smoking a cigarette on the balcony, Kate and I had been in this room before. I couldn’t help the flashes of her lifting me naked onto the desk, fucking me while she watched my ass in the mirror.
Everything with Kate was becoming more complicated, more loaded. I was feeling let down. Perhaps the excitement no longer outweighed the challenges. It was my choice to enter the situation, my decision to not take care of my heart, but to remain, ignoring the fissure as it grew. I was chasing something that could not be, letting lust overwhelm me.
This dynamic was familiar. Alone you thrive, secret and safe, but separate you feel invisible. It’s there and then it is gone, not even a second thought, but an afterthought. I was projecting this onto her, a pattern and a narrative that would take me time to shake—please love me.
Kate sensed my pain, the heartache, the last thing she wanted to do was hurt me. Kate was away working but made time to talk. I told her about the agony I had felt in New York.
“I was missing you so much, beyond excited to see you and then I couldn’t. I didn’t get to see you and I barely heard from you and then you do that,” I said, in reference to the interview. “It made me feel like shit.”
“I get it, I’m so sorry, I just thought it would be funny.” She paused. A moment of still on the screen. “I miss you, too. It hurt not to see you, too.”
And at that, the floodgates opened. I started to cry and then she joined in and we spoke of everything. Our love for each other, how organic and meaningful it felt, the depth of care.
“But I love Max, too, and we have a life together,” she said. “I didn’t believe someone could love two people at the same time before. I do now.”
We shared a sadness, the grief in letting go, but first and foremost we cared about having a future, however that looked, forming a new kind of relationship. We decided to take space, no correspondence for at least a month.
I always need to remind myself just how beneficial space can be. It can be agonizing, even if you are the one who initiates it. It is so easy to trick ourselves. I’d convince myself communication was fine, healthy, mature. Yet no matter how much my brain understood, those feelings would lurk and disguise, whisper and poke, my heart jonesing for more.
“You remind me of my friends who only date married men.” I understand this more now.
It is true, desperate for the serotonin bump and then wallowing in the pain of rejection. Ultimately abandoning myself in the process, evanesce, which perhaps is what we are looking for, safer to have love unfulfilled, to yearn for those unavailable.
Max and Kate ended their relationship not long afterward and shortly before I would be filming with Max. The breakup wasn’t about Kate wanting to be with me, but a mutual understanding that it was time to move on. Kate and I kept the space going. Max was nothing but wonderful to me, superb in the film, a generous and present actor to work with. We had a sex scene, one of the more intimate ones I have done, both of us practically naked, my chest on display. It felt safe and easy, not strange, despite it being, frankly, strange.
I still had feelings for Kate, desired her, wanted to be with her. The distance helped. I felt like I had just about let it go, but we found ourselves both back in LA, and the same city stirred the heart once again. I was confused, dejected, resentful even. She could be with me now. But she doesn’t want to be with me now.
“Love doesn’t constitute a relationship,” as my therapist would say.
Once again, I was in pain. Anger was squirreling its way out.
Minutes crawled and healed. It helped not talking or texting. I slowly started to unhook, to reflect, to be accountable. My fixation removed, I was able to date properly, to meet women who were available and out. Friends set up Samantha and me, we were together for about two years. She visited me in Ohio on the outskirts of Cincinnati when I was making My Days of Mercy with Kate, the film we produced and starred in together. Sam was supportive, not jealous, the three of us went to an Amy Schumer show in Kentucky just across the border. Kate was dating Jamie, now her husband.
Considering the situation, the shoot went well.