Erised

i

Oscar Branca wakes up without opening his eyes.

Consciousness seeps into him slowly, like sunlight permeating through thick white clouds. He lays in bed dreaming of red lips and manicured nails against sweat-soaked skin, before he begins remembering reality—the synthetic sound inside his head. As he comes to, it dawns on him once again that everything he remembers doesn't exist.

He laments it all without even peeking through the heaviness weighing down his eyelids.

Even without much effort, he can hear the sound of sirens blaring through the neighborhood. Another one in the past two weeks. He doesn't even live near a police station.

Fucking hell.

He had envisioned himself cruising in a mega yacht the first time he opened his eyes in this strange new world. The tangible memories of a billion-dollar mansion in the cliffside, built on glass and concrete, sixty feet above the coastline, a steep walk down the rocks and steps to his array of supercars.

But that hadn't been real.

The life that he has now determines him as an orphaned teenager, with one fifty crumpled up dollar bill to his name, a constantly nagging voice in his head playing the role of God and the Holy Spirits, and no memories of ever existing as Isaac Park.

Oscar ignores the sirens as best as he can and doesn't open his eyes. There is nothing for him to look forward to.

The person he loves is not in his bed. He isn't in the city. He isn't even in the country. He is in Oscar's memories, along with his wealthy third-generation self and the multi-billion-dollar company he owns.

Fucking. Hell.

The only thing he has in this life is his face and good fortune. They are the sole reason he is able to be on the cover of the November issue of a gossip magazine under the headline MILLIONAIRE HEIRESS IRIS HEMMINGWAY SPOTTED CANOODLING WITH HANDSOME BOYTOY AT PRIVATE HALLOWEEN PARTY.

The entire article is dedicated to the bogus wayward rendezvous between him and Iris Hemmingway.

The cover image is flattering enough. They had taken one of him escorting the millionaire heiress out of her Bentley and inside the establishment he works part-time at, wearing an evening tailcoat that looks convincingly attractive through the paparazzi's lenses, with his hair tousled from being blasted by the air-conditioner all day. On the cover, he doesn't look like he is one reason away from jumping off the nearest skyscraper.

Inside the magazine, there is a picture of Oscar outside a convenience store from earlier that week. He was wearing his school uniform. There's a cigarette hanging off his lips from the pack someone left behind. If you look closely, you can tell he had just experienced a life-altering event.

Next to it, they put a photo of Iris Hemmingway's ex-husband. He is tall and conventionally handsome in his polo and tailored pants, carrying a golf bag in one shoulder. Over the photos ran the title IRIS HEMMINGWAY DATING JAILBAIT FOLLOWING SPLIT WITH HUSBAND.

They had framed him as the boytoy of a rich woman on the cover, the jailbait rival of a rich man on the inside. Every time he thinks about it, he feels his pride shattering all over again.

He finally opens his eyes and looks at his dirty ceiling. He gets out of bed, puts on a battered old coat. He walks down the stairs, into the cramped hallway, opens the sliding glass doors that lead to the entrance of the building, and wanders out the streets.

He breathes in the crisp air.

It's a cold morning; the winter breeze that stalks through every building in the country carries a hint of snowflakes. He can feel the wind through the worn padding as he passes through the first intersection to the main road, feeling the bite on his exposed skin. He walks until he gets to a nice communal park outside of his neighborhood.