Lights, Cameras, and Fake Action

Maggie

I'm too tired to think. For the first time, I don't have the energy to feel angry at Landon or feel bitter about the way he's acted to me in the past. None of that matters. All I see is an endless tunnel that I am etching to see the end of. Let me see it. Let me just take a glance. I promise I won't ask for more.

All around me are voices. They are so familiar. With every step I take, they get louder. I stretch my arm out in the hope of reaching the voices easier. I hear my sister, her comforting voice as she lulled me to sleep. I hear my father in the teasing voice he made when he cracked jokes around us. I heard my mother, her voice using its palms to rub my back and end all my cries.

I hear my voice.

I no longer feel comforted. Goosebumps form all over my skin. The environment becomes hostile.

"But, where will I go? Where are you taking me?"

"We will see you again soon. We are just sending you to a relative for a short while so you guys can go on vacation."

"But, I don't want to leave. Please don't leave me."

"Your sister will be with you, it will be okay."

Somehow I know that this is a lie.

Figures become visible. The hostile environment became comforting and calm, like a warm hug I could sink into.

I smiled as I ran towards the figures. For a second, I saw their faces. Gosh, it had been so long that the memory of what they looked like was almost completely faded away. I saw the mole on the side of my mother's lips, the wrinkle next to my father's eyebrow, and the tiny dimple that formed on my sister's cheeks when she smiled. I forgot that all. How could I have forgotten?

I reached out my arm to touch them, or even just graze their arms. I wanted to know it was real. I just wanted to remember again.

I quickly flinched and pulled my arm away. A fire raged on all of them, and I screamed. I quickly bolted away, until I noticed that the fire which was burning on them was burning on me. It was raging through me. I couldn't stop it. It just kept growing. Soon I would become like them, I'd be gone and disappear too, and-

I jolt out of my sleep.

A finger stings my arm. A low buzz fills my ears, and when I looked up, I realized I was in a car. Landon's car. My chest heaved up and down. The sleeve of the jacket was damp.

"You were crying."

I pursed my lips and I looked up to his eyes. Immediately I thought of what could been with my family if, in some unimaginable universe, things went right. I thought of the family movie, going out to restaurants, sobbing to my mother about boy problems, fighting and making up with my older sister, spending holidays together, going prom dress shopping, them attending my prom graduation, eating dinner together, spending evenings together— just a time when I could be with them.

Honestly? I felt jealous. Really jealous. Jealous that one person could have so much, while another could have so little. I didn't want to be ungrateful though. I was so glad I made that role and finally got an opportunity to prove myself to the world. Even though it wasn't the most favorable condition, at least I had somewhere to stay for free. I didn't know how I could afford to stay in a motel every night. My other only option was to live on the streets, so things could've been worse, but hopefully, things would eventually change for me.

"I'm not just a lowlife!" I imagined one day screaming from a rooftop. "I am somebody, and I will be greater than anyone ever expected!"

Ironically, now I'm sitting in the back of someone else's luxury car, getting driven by someone else's chauffeur, going to live in someone else's luxury home, while I am here now, left with nothing.