I stand on the corner outside a café, seemingly waiting for someone, as people going about their daily business slide past me along the empty narrow section of pavement. I look up and smile as I see him making his way towards me, my heart suddenly beating double time.
"Hey." He smiles right back at me.
"Hey, yourself." My arms seem to lift themselves and wrap around him, pulling him in for a hug. I gently pull back and clear my throat and laugh slightly. "Sorry. This is just a little surreal for me – being here, with you."
His laugh is like music to my ears. "No worries." He moves a step closer and gestures in front of us. "Maybe you'd feel more comfortable if we went inside and sat down?"
I nod my head, as if completely lost for words in his presence and take the lead, noticing the feel of his hand on my lower back. Before I know it we are sat down at a table away from the other customers (just how I like it), drinks already in hand.
We chat and laugh about this and that and I feel myself start to smile at the image. Everything feels so real and I lose myself in the moment as we stand outside the café as the light of day starts to descend. He stands in front of me, almost a little nervous, which is odd given he was nothing but charming and chatty before this.
As if I have no control over anything that is happening, he is leaning into me clearly about to kiss me so I follow suit and close the gap the between us, resting my hands on his chest and he holds the back of my head before pressing his lips to mine.
I smile wider than ever before as my heart leaps, which doesn't make any sense when I can still see myself kissing him. It becomes apparent rather quickly that this is just yet another figment of my imagination, from a long line of them, and I shake my head bringing myself back to reality.
Now back with the land of the living, I glance around my lounge, the lingering feelings of sadness descending upon me. I never used to be like this; I never used to get this hung up on a guy. Not until he came into my life.
Nolan Taylor.
I smile every time I see, hear or think his name. It's just a natural reaction and I always find myself making connections to him no one else could possibly think of. Unless you are also a fan of him of course. Thing is, then I make the mistake of telling my friends about it and they just don't get it. Any of it. They don't get my love for him; they don't get the whole fangirl thing so it's a wonder I ever told them about my fan page for him. It sounds childish, but it's my own way of fangirling about him without getting judged. It's an outlet for my ridiculous dreams and desires surrounding him. I get a safe place to vent and my friends don't have to hear it - it's a win win situation really.
Although, I do have AJ my other best friend, who thankfully also loves Nolan as much as I do. Well, almost. I'll get to that later. Maybe when I've got a few drinks in me, because honestly that is the craziest shit you'll ever hear about, and you'll definitely wonder how I still function as a normal human being. At least, most of the time I do. Except when he is around. Whether it be his voice, his smile, just his face in my head sometimes - whatever it is, if it's got Trent Newman all over it, then I am unreachable in the real world for the foreseeable future.
I act like the whole thing makes sense to me but it doesn't. I don't have one clue why Nolan affects me the way he does; why his voice affects me the way it does. Or even just his name. If I hear his name, I smile instantly without fail. Even when I am going through a period of hating him for whatever reason. Usually because of how he makes me feel. Yet, sometimes even I don't know how to class that feeling. Sometimes I think I'm in love with him, but then I give myself an instant reality check and tell myself it's just a supremely, awfully, ridiculously huge crush.
I know what you're thinking, how can I be "in love" with someone I don't know? That's the thing I do kind of know him. Because of the fan page and the fact he is not famous famous yet, I sometimes get the odd message, or like, or comment from him. It's been like that for the past couple of years since I came across his music. It was that moment of hearing one song and instantly loving it so I had to check out the others and then find his social media pages and follow all of them. Usually, I wouldn't care for making fan pages - it's so much work to keep them going and remembering to post - but for some reason I just had to for him. I took some time to think it over in case it was just a fleeting idea I'd forget about a few days later, but it stuck with me for the first few months that I was a fan of him and I got to the point where I couldn't hold in the excitement of it anymore, so my fan page was born.
It took some time to build followers and get Nolan to follow me, but when that day happened, AJ and I gushed about it for so long during our Skype chat and now, he likes a lot of my posts. It's even gotten to the point where I will post something just because I know he'd find it funny and when he likes it, it's the best feeling ever. It makes me smile so much and no matter how much of a crappy day I'm having (even if the crappy feeling is because of him) he makes it so much better in a instant.
Yet, therein lies the problem of this whole fangirl, major crush on him thing I've got going on. It certainly brings out the crazy in me. And I mean crazy. Let me paint you a little picture.
If you don't know Nolan, this is him in a nutshell: he's mad and he's crazy; he's sweet and he's a down right idiot sometimes (in a good way); he's funny and he's caring; he's cute and he's a little bit sexy at the same time and I will never ever get enough of anything about him. He's everything I want and need, but he's also everything I hate about him because he makes me fall for him more every damn day and he will never ever know a fucking thing about it because I can't ever tell him. And even if I could, I wouldn't even have the words to start, or to finish, now that I think about it. I mean, you literally could use every possible positive adjective to describe him and it still wouldn't be enough.
I could use every single conceivable way of telling someone how I feel but it still wouldn't be enough to explain exactly what I feel for him. There will never be enough words in the English language, or any language for that matter, that could ever fully describe what he does to me on a daily basis, sometimes when he hasn't even done anything at all.
He is genuinely the only guy in the world to make me love and hate him at the same time. I love everything about him, but because he makes me love him, I hate him, but obviously I don't actually hate him; I love him, but because he makes me love him even when I hate him; I hate him even more. I'm trapped in this viscous circle of love and hate for him. It's too much love and hate to feel towards one single person all at the same time really, but somehow, he makes me feel that way without really doing anything, and he has no fucking idea. And he never will.
And I know what you're thinking now - this girl is cuckoo and desperately needs some help. You're right, I do and I openly admit that. Thing is, the only one who can help me is Nolan. He is the only one who can make me happy no matter how I'm feeling, even when I'm mad at him for whatever stupid reason. When I'm sad, I listen to him; when I'm happy, I listen to him; when I'm angry, I listen to him and definitely when I'm anxious, I listen to him. He just has a way of calming me with just his voice, whether he is singing or speaking (did I mention he was Irish?) that nobody else can. That is one of his many special talents, which I am sure to remind him of every now and then. Yes, I do maybe on occasion write some posts that are a little over the top, but then don't most fangirls at some point, make some slightly crazy comments every now and then? The difference with me being, that most of the time I am just joking around (which Nolan seems to get) and I do actually know what I am posting. I am aware of exactly what I'm saying and how it sounds even if that doesn't seem obvious at the time.
And that's the weird thing about being a fan girl - you get to know nearly anything and everything about someone (at least it feels that way); they become your favourite person in the entire world. You'd literally do anything for them - you'd defend them to the ends of the Earth; you'd run into a burning building for them; you'd give up your last breath for them. Without a second thought, anything they'd ask of you you'd do, if you think it would make them happy. You'd give up every second of your life and devote it to them if they asked you to and yet they'll never know just how much you'd drop everything in your life if you had to, if it meant saving theirs.
So that's then where the misconception of obsessive behaviour comes into it. Everyone around you assumes you must be in some kind of obsessive mental state but really, it's no different to how you would feel towards a friend or family member. All that stuff you'd do for them too, so why is it so weird that you'd do it for a favourite singer, musician or actor as well? They are people too, just like us, and there are also the lucky few that get to know someone before they hit the big time, so you are one of the few fans that person knows from the beginning of their career. We're all human here, so why does that make it obsessive?
So, that's my current lifestyle at the moment. Go to work, trying desperately hard not to daydream about Nolan; come home to fan girl about him with AJ, or on the fan page when she isn't available to chat; listen to his music; sleep (and usually dream about him in the process) and do it all over again the next day.
I read once that after having a crush on someone for three years, you either forget about them or fall in love with them. It may have only been two for me so far, but I just know deep down that isn't going away any time soon and I will still be as invested in every single way, for years to come, and I cannot for one second imagine my life without him in it, even if we only know each through a computer screen; even if that's the only way we communicate for the rest of our lives.
He has left a mark on me, no man ever has before him and I'm not going to stop until I find out why. Why he is so different to any guy I've not only met, but had a crush on (or claimed to have had a crush on); why he is the only guy to make me love him even when he pisses me off; why he is the only guy to make me crave his attention again and again seconds after it's already happened; why he is the only guy on planet Earth who is such a mystery that I can never work out exactly what he is thinking or how his mind works, that I almost curl up and cry in frustration because he is so damn secretive and cryptic without even trying; why that no matter what I do or say, I cannot break through his wall and read him like a book; and most importantly, why I can still love him like I do despite all of that because that's who he is.
And yet, at the end of the day, I wouldn't change him or any of it for the entire world!
Rebecca Louise
