Spotlight on Nobody

- 6 -

~ song: All The Pretty Girls by KALEO ~

"So Nell, tell me about you. What's your story?"

We are sitting on one of the benches on a side street outside of Wawa, two meatball hoagies in hand.

"I'm finishing up my second year as a chemistry major and I want to go to medical school. When I'm not doing all my biology and biochemistry and physics classes, I'm taking French. I'm the president of our Student Entertainment Board (SEB) which booked you for tonight but organizes a hundred and one other things. I give tours of campus between classes and on weekends. I work in a material science lab like 15 hours a week and serve meals once a week with my roommate. And if I'm not doing any of that, I play guitar and hang out with my best friends who also happen to be my roommates."

Leo stops eating, puts his hoagie down and stares at me.

"How the hell – I mean... what? How do you do all of that?"

"It's not like I'm any different from anyone else," I say with a full mouth. Very lady like Nell.

"Nell, you cannot seriously believe that. You are doing so much more than any 20-year-old person I know. It sounds like you're one step away from changing the world."

"No, I'm not. I'm still just a regular 20-year-old girl," I finish chewing and turn to him. "I still cry at every Nicholas Sparks movie and procrastinate studying and drink to forget the shitty grade I just got on a physics test. I still have crushes on cute boys that won't even look at me, I nap when I should study, and I eat Wawa at midnight," I say motioning to my hoagie. "I still laugh until I cry with my friends, and sometimes just cry." I let out a deep breath and laugh shakily. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm talking so much to you!"

"No, please, keep going."

"Um, okay, to me it's like this: you ever get this ache? Just a little nag here," I point to my chest, "like when you listen to a beautifully tragic song and relate just a little too much to it? And then, at the end of the day, you feel that little ball of emptiness swell and consume you and you get that hole-in-your-chest feeling that makes you cry in the shower. I get that a lot, just like every other young person. I'm not depressed or sad even – most of my friends say I have a bubbly disposition. But I still get that feeling, still cry when no one is watching about nothing in particular. Everyone is going through that – that hole exists in everyone. We just cope with it, handle it until something or someone can fill it. You cope by writing songs. Parker copes by making people laugh. Me? What you think is drive and passion and overachieving? That's mecoping."

Leo nods his head and doesn't say anything. Which is good because it gives me time to think about how I just dumped all my baggage on not only a guy I literally just met, but a guy who also happens to be Leo Griffiths. Fuck.

"I wouldn't say I miss it," he says all of the sudden, "because how could I miss something I've never known?"

"Being normal?" I ask.

"Yeah, you could say that. Like, okay, how old where you when you had your first drink of alcohol?"

"Uh, fifteen I think."

"Okay, and your first real kiss?"

"Also fifteen," I answer.

"And you started to drive to friends' houses when you were sixteen, started dating boys and going to school dances and proms. I'm guessing you only stayed up until midnight cramming for tests in high school too."

"Yes, and?" I ask, wondering where he's going with this.

"All the life experiences that make your current life 'normal' you had in the past five years. I got discovered when I was fifteen. I have never known your version of normal. To me, tour buses, stadium theaters, talk shows and fans are my normal. Never going somewhere without being recognized. Not being able to trust people, to tell them personal details for fear of them selling my secrets to the magazines. Sleeping in a different bed every night but never making a lasting connection with anyone. That is my normal." He's quiet for a second, and I don't say anything.