In the spotlight

25

Matteo Rodriguez

The sudden, loud bang of thunder has struck my room. My eyes shot open, which made me sit up suddenly in bed. Lightning lit up everything around me, casting a sinister shadow upon my furniture before another thunder echoed in the sky.

My heart was racing in my chest as I realized what was going on. I looked over to my alarm clock, the numbers on it blinding me for a spare second as another flash struck into my eyes. It is barely past 3 in the morning.

The cold sweat covering my body was starting to feel very cold on my bare upper body. The sheets were all over the place around me, while my sweatpants were all twisted and wrinkly on my legs. Another bad dream, it seems.

The pouring rain was knocking on my windows behind the curtains; the drops were only visible whenever another lightning struck, shining through them with ease. I came to the realization that every ounce of tiredness I had after waking up had left my body at once.

I ran through my messy hair, swiping away the strands that got stuck to my forehead due to the sweat. I leaned to the side to turn on the night lamp before getting up completely and heading to my wardrobe. The cold sweat sticking to my body gave me a very unpleasant feeling, so I picked out a random hoodie I could find and pulled it over my head.

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and opened the door in front of me, stepping outside to the living room. Everything was completely silent around me except the moments when thunder rumbled in the sky after another lightning flashed into the room from every side of the house.

I turned on the small light under the kitchen cabinet, above the sink, before pulling out a glass and filling it up with water. I sat down next to the kitchen counter, unlocking my phone, to kill some time until I felt tired enough to go back to sleep.

My screen's light flickered for a moment before the face ID recognized me. My socials were as silent as my surroundings. I looked around every single application I had downloaded, but the only notification that popped up was from my manager, sending me another goddamned article from some third-world site.

I didn't even bother with reading them anymore. I tried to keep up with them for a while after the incident, but every single article I read ruined me even more. I couldn't care less about what they had to say about me, and even less about the hate comments I received all over social media.

I was a professional athlete for almost two decades now, and people always had something to say about me or my performance throughout these years. Sure, the situation was slightly out of hand this time, but I had my manager handle these for me.

Something that neither of us could handle, however, was the hate my so-called "fans" gave to Sofia. No matter how many times I asked them to please stop, the endless hatred wouldn't stop.

The guilt I left France with was just enough already, but social media fueled it to the point where it turned into self-hatred. I hated myself for everything I have done, literally to the point where I couldn't look into my own eyes in the mirror. This feeling has been eating me up since the hour I left the beachside mansion.

I wished that I had made a different decision in that moment of weakness so many times, but the more I thought about that moment, the more I couldn't let go of the pressuring feeling in my chest.

I have tried desperately to fix what I have ruined more times than I have dared to count. First, I tried to reach out to her directly, but she blocked my number as soon as my message arrived, and on other social platforms, no answer has ever followed. She basically just disappeared from the public eye, and while people expressed their concerns about the girl's well-being, she hasn't returned since.