The ENTOURAGE

p r o l o g u e

I am perpetually stuck at the same stiflingly posh party.

Everyone waltzes around in their finery holding wine glasses and gin tumblers, chattering amiable chatter and laughing fruitless laughter to distract themselves, to fill the cavity of this sugary scene we forget is purgatory. Or perhaps that's what the alcohol, the drug dressed as a social accessory, is for.

The small talk is forced. The air is cold but my face feels far too warm from the gin and the pressure of forgetting myself. Fortunately, present is a small quartet stringing us along, alluding to the idea that this isn't divine hell. The room is immaculately decorated, the interior intricate. But it's an old, tired façade; I can see it is cracking from across the room whenever I catch a conversation that has paused a moment too long, a word stumbled over.

The people are predictably boring, sometimes entertainingly so; pretentious, exclusive, demanding, gossiping, intrusive, imposing, and - worst of all - infuriatingly okay with themselves. Even worse is, I, like a bystander as bad as the bully, pretend to be one of them. Reputation is everything, after all. Every move is watched, every breath heard.

As I stand at the stage with Edith - congratulated on being accepted into the universities of our choices, the family of staff we've grown up with surrounding us - I struggle to get enough air into my lungs, every breath stressed. Edith lets out a sigh through her smile but doesn't let her shoulders slump, and I can tell she is feeling similar. Our father claps me firmly on the back and hugs Edith, while our mother ghosts a kiss to each of us on the cheek. Edith's side look at me, only for a second, confirms my suspicion. She can't stand this more than I can.

Camera flashes go off, smiles are plastered on our faces. Edith and I have one week left together - one more week where I know someone as sane as me, who thinks like me, knows me. Talks about more than people, more than events, more than just small talk and offering empty promises and demanding expectations I don't care to meet - then we are off to separate colleges, separated by the longest distance and time us twins have ever been, only home for thanksgiving. Both of us will have to make friends... and Edith will have no trouble.

Part of me wishes Edith was coming with me to New York Academy of the Arts, because we've always done everything together. Sometimes I wish we were more independent before now, so this wouldn't feel so intimidating. But she will flourish at Harvard, and the Academy has to be better than this.

Father sets his cold smile on me upon finishing his congratulatory good-luck speech, and I am reminded as he raised a toast to us he is not impressed with my choice of study, even though I highlighted the media-marketing electives I chose to satisfy him.

Another flash goes off as we shake hands.

The inexorable alienation of existing alongside people who think nothing like yourself is tolerable, but exceptionally lonely.

I'm always waiting, waiting, waiting. For someone to be interesting, for someone new to arrive at this airless party. For the façade to shatter and crumble plaster onto everyone's finery, for someone to come along and smash their champagne glass against the doors, shatter windows with them so we can breathe. I've been waiting my whole short life for the show to begin, only to be disillusioned as the party wears on.