Corey Mason is my favorite character from Empire Records, and honestly, altogether, the one who's most me. Soft, agreeable, quietly overachieving, because that's what kept things running smoothly. That's what got me kept around. Like her, the overachieving was never really a choice. It was built into me early, by people who wanted me polished and impressive and never once asked how I was actually doing underneath it.
I hold things together. I show up. I don't make waves. But there's a ceiling on that, and when I hit it, it's not pretty. It's not a slow leak. It's everything at once, because I'd been swallowing it for so long there was nothing left to catch it when it finally came up. Nobody sees it coming either, because I look like I've got it handled. I'm good at looking like I've got it handled.
Then there's the love thing. Corey idealizes it, lets people in she has no business letting in, not because she's stupid, but because some part of her still wants it to be real. I've let people in that I had every reason not to, eyes half open the whole time, some part of me saying be careful and another part just choosing to hope anyway. And when it turned out my softness was just something to use, not something to actually meet. I felt exactly what she feels watching Rex for what he is. That gut-punch mix of humiliation and grief. Over handing something real to someone who was never going to treat it with the care or respect it deserved.
But here's the part that actually matters. I don't stop believing love's worth it. I just get sharper. Faster to clock when someone's not being real, quicker to feel it in my chest when I'm being treated like an after thought. And once I feel that, I'm done. I don't stick around to argue for a seat I was never actually offered. I go quiet, I pull back, I redirect everything into my own life, my work, my art, the stuff that's actually mine. Corey doesn't end the movie hardened. She ends it clear-eyed. That's where I'm at. Still soft. Just done being an easy mark for it.
x Angela Bella Morte x
Corey's Playlist
Here's a playlist I compiled that I think Corey would've loved listening to on repeat. She's always felt like the closest thing to a mirror I've found in a fictional character, so this one's as much for me as it is for her.
