This Is My Version; A Conor Maynard Fanfiction

Chapter 21

Conor's POV

I try to calm my breathing, my heart racing in my chest without me really knowing why.

Nothing had happened to cause this reaction, no bad dream or flashback. No, it'd just come on from nowhere and here I am, sat on the floor all alone in the flat at two am.

Why, you ask?

To be honest I don't know, my legs just simply buckling as soon as the panic washed over me about twenty minutes ago now.

I'm supposed to be excited, excited for the first time in over a year because somehow things are actually looking up for me.

My label which for long have had close to no interest in me whatsoever had suddenly become a lot more invested in my life. YouTube is popping off and my fanbase has grown with almost two million subscribers in the last six months.

But my excitement is nowhere to be seen. All that's there is fear and anxiety. I'm afraid to start over, afraid of the change that's currently happening all around me.

All I want is to leave this life behind, leave the fame, the constant attention and the pressure.

I want a normal life but this is all I know, all I'm able to do. Singing has slowly but surely taken over my life and there really isn't anything I can see myself doing.

My head is pounding, but then when do I not have a headache nowadays, the constant hangover not mixing well with the lack of sleep I'd had over the past twelve months.

I need sleep but the bed still feels way too big, the thought of trying for hours to fall asleep yet another night making me question everything that's led me to this position.

Why is it so hard to be happy?

The thought is enough to make me chuckle. Never in my life had I ever thought I'd be sat on the floor asking myself such a question. It really shows how far gone I am, how overall fucked up I am.

It's not that I'd expected to always be happy, that would make me completely delusional. Everyone has bad days, even the happiest people on earth have days where day feel a bit shit. But I'd never thought I'd ever end up here, I never thought I'd lose control the way I've done this year.

I'm lost, consistently walking in circles in hope of finding the way back home. Though the only problem with that was the fact that I currently don't have one.

Because my home had been ripped away from me, and I was the only one to blame.

I know I was too invested in our love, too obsessed, too in love even. But all I ever did was follow my heart, giving my all to the person who after three years was part of me.

I'm scared to love again, scared to trust someone when I can't even trust myself. Not that there's someone to love or trust anyway even though many would say I'm surrounded by girls twenty four seven.

Numb, I think that's a good way to describe how I'm feeling. The pain had been so intense it'd left me numb, unable to feel anything or anyone. And there's nothing I can do about it.

It's weird how something can feel so right but be so wrong in the same time.

I'd seen my future with Victoria, marriage, children, the lot. But somehow I had to go and ruin it, I had to become naive and cocky. And not only did it ruin what we had, it also ruined me, took away what I'd worked years to achieve.

My dream had been crushed, completely thrown out the window and I should be happy if Are You Sure even charts at this point.

Just the fact that Kris Kross Amsterdam want to work with me is a miracle to be honest, seeing all I've been doing the last few years has been covering other people's songs in an attempt to keep my head above the water that is the fast paced industry I'm in.

I shake my head, the sound of my phone pulling me back to reality. It's time to get back to the thing that most people call life, something that for me is classed as hell at this moment in time.

My phone has sort of become my escape, my safe zone. It's a place where I hide from everything that's going on around me because on my phone I get to pretend that everything is fine.

Yet the most ironic thing is that social media is the cause behind my current predicament.

Social media caused a constant pressure, a constant need to continue to stay relevant. There wasn't one day where I didn't receive a DM or a tweet to ask about what's going on. When the album I've been promising for years is coming out, the album I already know will never see the light of day.

I sigh, finally deciding to check the notification that had previously come through only to realise that it's from tinder, telling me there's a higher chance of matching with people at this time of night.

Ignoring it I inhale one deep breath before pushing myself up from the floor, steadying myself against the wall once I'm back on my feet.

I'm expecting the panic to come back but to my own surprise does my breathing stay calm, the tight knot in my tummy not moving up towards my chest like it usually does.

Maybe things are getting better.

I force myself to smile, to acknowledge the fact that I'd just managed to stop myself from having a full blown panic attack, all on my own.

A year ago I would've laughed at this, laughed at the fact that I class this as a success, an improvement.

It's sad really, what my life has become.

I never intended on ending up here, never thought a heartbreak would cause me to lose my footing the way it had.

But I guess nothing would've changed even if I knew I'd be like this twelve months later.

We would've still have broken up, still have fought until the very end to keep us together, only to fail in the most horrible way possible.

I shake my head, slowly moving my heavy body up to my room, falling back against the mattress without bothering with getting changed, I wouldn't be able to fall asleep anyway so why would it matter.

Tomorrow will be better, I force myself to think that way, because surely it couldn't get worse than this, surely not.