Breaking the Fantasy (Polyfidelity)

Chapter 1 - The Empty Oscars

Chapter 1

(Saville 'Sav' Carter and Gillian Holter pictured above)

Saville's POV:

    It started like a dream. I mean to say, there were days I would wake up and I was so happy and content in my life, I thought I was living in a dream. To think all it took was reading a few lines for my life to change almost completely.
    It started 5 years ago on an uneventful day in my UCLA dorm room. I was writing a paper on 'Economical Development in new and emerging democratic countries'. While I was practically banging my head against my computer to write even a few words, when my friend Evan came barging into the room. She started talking a mile-a-minute and so I used this time to save the few words I had written, and then made her start over.
    After huffing and puffing, Evan began to explain what she was saying slower and with more coherent language. From what she had laid out, there was a best-selling book series in television production. Apparently the auditions were open to new-comers, unknown personalities and the basic public. The books had become a cult favorite amongst teenagers, girls and boys alike. While it was based in fantasy and mythology, it had real world connectivity and teenage issues being illustrated.
    My only question for Evan in this moment, was why on Earth she was here, explaining this all to me and practically hyperventilating. Well, her response was to inform me that I looked almost identical to the described main male character in these books. So, I again asked her what this had to do with anything.
    Long story short, 5 hours later, I was standing in front of production assistants, directors, executive producers and creators reading lines for a television series. While I had been apart of some theater in college, I never focused on it as I would have liked and dreamed too because it didn't seem plausible.
    Acting is such a cutthroat business and with its toxicity and unsustainable living wages for the majority, I pushed it away. I focused on other things, took other courses and little by little, I forgot what fun it all was. Before I got to my audition though, I had read through the script, and as silly as it sounded, these characters made a lot of sense. They were fleshed out, real people with complexity and intrigue which I immediately connected with.
    I didn't even really realize until I was finished with my audition, that I had been acting. I just read, I felt the words and the emotions flow out and through me, into this room of people, openly judging me. After being asked to step out into the hall, I was then brought back in and told that I would be auditioning again, a week from now.
    I went through about 3 more auditions in the next few weeks, and I noticed as I did this, the crowds kept getting smaller and tighter knit. Of course I was suspicious, I was worried and nervous about everything that was about to go on. My imagination and hopes were getting too high, and at some point, I was desperately hoping that they chose someone else.
    They say 'hope breeds heartbreak', and these auditions were raising so much hope in myself, my talent and what I was really capable of achieving. If I'm being honest, college was like a swimming pool, you swim, struggle, or drown.
    I was drowning there. I was suffering through class after class because I didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and in my eyes, college isn't the place for finding your place. It wasn't like that for me anyway.
    After the fourth audition, I was done. I wasn't going to be doing this anymore, it was becoming too hard, too difficult to deal with the rising hope and the inevitable disappointment. I went to one of the production assistants, and I told her, I was done.
    She, in turn, alerted her boss who proceeded to tell me that I had gotten the part. A lead role in the upcoming television series, 'Dark Creatures', which was expected to break records. When those words hit me, I swear I blacked out for a second. I don't remember the precise conversation that followed, or what was said to me, but every nerve in my body lit up.
    It's more than five years later now, and while the those years were the best of my life, I'm very happy about the ending of 'Dark Creatures'. My show ended beautifully, as it was always planned and to say it was bittersweet is underselling it. The fans were mad, worried, and overall emotional, but like I learned in this business so far...
You can't make everyone happy, and that, just has to be ok.
    At 23, I'm being chaffered in a big, sleek, black SUV to the Oscar Award Show for the very first time. The nomination for Best Actor came out of absolutely no-where. I just began been shooting the last season of "Dark Creatures", while at the same time, filming a movie.
    I was being woken up at 5am to start shooting and not getting back home, let alone in bed until after midnight. Everything I had went into giving my all to both these projects that had connected with me on deep levels. In the beginning it was hard to be away from home, but... let's just say it got easier.
    You can say I'm being sentimental and sappy for thinking so far into my past, but, it's not for the reasons you think. And, I bet you can see it now, television turned movie star arriving at the Oscars, how glamorous... If I'm being honest, I'm dreading it.
    As we pull up and the car slows to a stop, my manager and publicist are whispering in my ear. While, the only person whose hand I would want to hold right now, isn't here. I don't need it for strength, or emotional support, I just don't want to deal with the speculators and the questions about where my husband is...