The camera flashes and I try my best to keep my model face on. The model face was a concept invented as a joke by my friends but turned out to be pretty helpful recently. I never always loved to be in the center of attention but once I spotted the girl of my dreams, I had no choice but to be the center of attention or so I thought. She turned out to be just a normal person whom I fantasize about, I worked so hard to be perfect yet, my efforts were in vain. I never got through to her and instead ended up being a celebrity with intervening people with cameras following you and asking questions about your personal life.
I always had a dream since I was a child, it was fall, and the trees bare yellowish-orange leaves and slowly they fall off one by one. I walked down the boardwalk and on the end was a little girl wearing a yellow dress, sitting all by herself waving her feet forward and backward. I could never see her face, but every time I have this dream, no matter how old I grow, I could only see that she grows with me. And every time I dream, I walk towards her and sit next to her and we both start laughing. Maybe it was a joke I told her or maybe it was just me talking about this moment I've been dreaming all these years, but I truly don't know and may never know.
The first time I laid eyes on the new transfer student in high school, Loreal, I thought she was "The One". I was the loser in the class and I knew I was no match to the other popular kids in the class but I had no choice but to try. I started improving my talent as an actor, joining the Drama club everyone made out to be lame and I took part in the short film the popular kids have been making which I'm pretty sure they only added me because there was no one else interested to take part in it due to the exams they've been preparing for.
I even dropped out of college to go into acting and I succeeded. One of the many movies I've played the lead role turned out to be a hit. Like the movies I've been playing a role in, I was just too sad that I drifted away from the one person. I've been doing all of this for.
Years passed and I could feel it pass by slowly. I felt the cold December pass with lights outside and everyone happily chant holiday wishes. I felt the flowers bloom in the spring with men taking these flowers to their partners wishing them various special days. I felt the blistering summer pass with everyone buying a new air conditioner, saying 'This is the hottest summer ever' just like they say every year. I felt each drop from the sky as they batted onto my windows making beats and maybe even inspiring a musician somewhere out there. Year after year, I became more and more popular on TV and on the big screen yet I didn't care. I kept up my model face every time I see a camera pointed at me. I take part in some charity work as a celebrity and I keep up my pity face during the events and I come home after everything and just shed a tear or two. I just wonder what happened to me, why do I cry when I'm alone and why do I fake myself and even lie to myself that I'm happy and finally come to a conclusion after nineteen years. It's never the success that counts, It's the fact about who is there to enjoy the success with you that matters.
Now, I'm just standing on the top of a three-story hotel which was supposed to be a fan meetup and it seems like I've run out of my fake smile, I've just finished it up when I saw Loreal back at a flower shop to buy some before a date yesterday. Everything came back to me 'why I started acting' and 'why I became the center of attention.
Even though I questioned the decisions of my life, I've learned a lot about social interaction. All we have to do is put on the model face when approaching a new person and then put on the pity face when they say something sad and the fake smile when they say something content.
So, I approached Loreal with a slow walk which felt like a decade, questioning all my decisions and all my downfalls. I was pretty confident, thanks to the celebrity thing, I've never been let down. I went there and started a conversation with 'the one' and that was all I wanted, since high school. Everyone might want to be a celebrity, but that life really does suck, especially alone.
We talked and talked for hours, but as I walked her home, she was really interested in the fact of being with a star. Dumbstruck was I when I noticed a giant ring on her ring finger as we reached her home and I stood back as she rang the bell to the enigmatic door which held all the fear I had dreamt of.
I watched patiently, praying and hoping that it was nothing bad, as the door slowly opened and a man with a child appeared at it from the other side. I stand now on top of this hotel, questioning all my life decisions.
Questioning all my work, questioning the fact I never would've enjoyed anything remotely close to this, and ready to jump down. I got up on the ledge, too scared to jump off, but I had to...I have no purpose in life, everything I did was wrong and meaningless. I slowly felt my balance shifting to the emptiness, going down with gravity leading me down.
I knew this was it but suddenly,
"Why did I do this?" I asked myself out loud. I shouldn't do this; this was a mistake. But I knew there was no going back. As I went down, time froze and I relived all the moments in my life so far. Everything I loved came before me, I saw how much I really enjoyed this celebrity thing and the times I did the good deeds I was actually feeling pity and sincerely happy for the unfortunate.
At times, I was actually not faking things. I took a reckless decision by being swayed by the emptiness in my heart and was stuck in the past. I shouldn't let it end here. It does not end here, I know it.