"Dear Clarence,..." ~a teen idol story

Breaking the bars

Daniel LaRusso opened his eyes, starring at the familiar, white ceiling above him.
He was surrounded by the soothing scent of lavender from the bubble bath he was enjoying.

Well.. enjoying was a little far-fetched.

The popular actor was suffering from insomnia for about a year now and needed every little trick he could find to ease his mind.

Daniel was the 'Lucky' boy. He should be happy, but he wasn't. Living in a nice house but isolated from the public, with no friends and only his mom by his side, ..that wasn't how he imagined his life to be.

Retrospectively, he had been much happier when he was still a poor nobody from Newark.
Daniel was glad he could afford buying a house for him and his mom, though he preferred it to be not too big and intimidating.
It was still a nice house, with a Mediterranean flair, a pool with actual water and a room for Mr. Miyagi, a friend of the family, who took care of the garden. They met when they first moved to Reseda in 1980, shortly before Daniel got discovered by a talent scout, who still was his manager to this day.
The man called Terry Silver was the man who made him big, but not without sacrifices.

The fame made Daniel miss all the small things in life a kid looked forward to while growing up.
Besides his mom and Mr. Miyagi, there was no one he could trust. No one was really interested in him and who he was behind all the glam and glory. They all just wanted a piece of the cake.

Daniel closed his eyes and drowned in the hot water, enjoying how it numbed everything that felt real.
He dragged the moment until he couldn't hold his breath anymore and surfaced, gasping for air.
His eyes burnt from the soap and he blindly stepped out of the bathtub to find a towel, but slipped and clumsily landed on his butt.

Daniel groaned in pain and crawled over the floor, searching for a towel, all wet and covered with bubbles and when he found it, he dried his face and just wrapped himself up, starting to shiver.

He was the most popular kid and most desired young actor in the US and yet, he felt so alone.

It was the last day of August and school was starting for most kids the following week. Daniel was home schooled, but if he hadn't been, he would have started senior year at high school this year.

Daniel got up after he had been sitting on the bathroom floor for so long that he had dried all on his own and got dressed for the night.

On the way to his bedroom, he heard his mom chatting with Mr. Miyagi in the living room and just called: "Good night!" as a sign that he wanted to be left alone for the rest of the day.

His room was dark and before he was able to find the light switch, he stumbled over a box and almost fell again, but could balance himself out and turned on the light. In the middle of his room, he spotted the now damaged cardboard box with tons of fan-letters, scattered all over the floor.

"Oh, man.." Daniel slouched his shoulders, sighed with frustration and just walked over them, not caring to read any.
He dropped himself on his king size bed, grunting, because of the tape that was sticking to his foot, trying to shake it off, but it kept sticking and Daniel had to manually rip the attached envelope off.

It was the ugliest self made envelope he had ever seen, but it wasn't pastel colored, didn't smell like stomach twisting sweet perfume and had no hearts or stickers on it whatsoever, so it made Daniel curious enough to open it. Not expecting to already know what was waiting for him inside felt like a refreshing experience.

Daniel made himself comfortable on the bed and unfolded the letter that was written on the same paper as the envelope. A bracelet dropped on his chest and he gave it exactly one second of attention before he put it aside and started reading the words, smeared across the paper.