Chapter Thirty Eight

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The awful reality soon hit me like a freight train. Both me and my mom first had to identify Maci, then we waited for the high priority autopsy results and then we organised a really quick funeral.

Life has been difficult. It has been publicly painful and privately excruciating. The whole world now knows about my sister—the sister of some famous guy who overdosed down some dirty alley behind a really cheap restaurant.

The story has been huge, but I've been purposely detached from all that's been printed, televised and talked about. Maci's addiction and my family's burden is nothing more than dollars and dimes to the press and the tv stations. Boundaries always become greedily blurred for the relentless paps, too. All they want is a picture. No picture, no fee. And it is always about the fee. My sister is dead, but the fee is still way more important.

They didn't have to see my sister cold and lifeless. They don't feel the suffocation of outwardly appearing strong, while inwardly feeling nothing but weak.

I have been acting one way.

Yet been feeling quite another.

I've been getting shit done, but have struggled every single step of the way. That is what Rhys Ryan does. It's what he has always done.

But as soon as I am away from my mom, from the guys and the entire world—I can be me.

With Clara, I let her see a little of me, but always hold back a whole lot more, because I'm still trying to be that man who is deserving of her.

For her, I am still trying to look strong.

For my mom, I am having to be strong.

For the world, I am strong.

But, I'm not.

Not at all.

It's the façade of being a man. It's the façade of Rhys Ryan. The façade of fame.

When I'm not busy trying to look like I have strength and determination, I really am still wallowing in a lonesome slurry of insecurity.

I still feel like I have let my sister down.

I still feel like I have let my mom down.

And I still feel like I will eventually let Clara down.

Those feelings never leave me. I wish they would. I try hard to make them go away, but they always silently crawl their way back to me and start attaching themselves to every one of my bones, veins and muscles.

It's exhausting.

Pretending is just so damn debilitating.

Yet the pretending goes on and on. I've just had to sit down with the high rollers over at my record company. It was a meeting to just offer their condolences and their ongoing support, all the while encouraging me to try and focus on my many future commitments. Slipping into my pop icon shoes, has kind of taken my mind off some things. It has oddly helped. My ego has needed stroking, and my record company have been stroking it with giant and coercive fingers. So when they persuasively remind me of the record companies big birthday party later on, I find myself agreeing to go.

Clara isn't keen. I know she's worried about me. But maybe this is just what I need? Being the pop star that people always expect me to be? It has to be better than all the wallowing and the scurrying around in guilt and insecurity, right?

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