15 Seconds Of Fame

ONE

Nodus Tollens (n.)
The realization that the plot of your life doesn't make sense to you anymore.

Kailani Hale

I was raised Catholic. I grew up attending church, or rather being forced to attend church every Sunday until I turned 16. It's bizarre that as a child you're forced to believe in a concept that is unfathomable to you. As a teenager, you're essentially forced to decide what you want to be when you 'grow up' and there's not much room for mistakes. When you're seventeen you have to decide what you wanna be when you're twenty-five, thirty and fifty. God forbid you take an extra year off to figure that shit out. Of course, when you get older and learn more about life and faith, you may decide that Catholicism just isn't for you. The same can't be said about your profession, at least not in most cases.

My brother, Keanu, was living in our wealthy father's more-than-comfortable apartment in London, studying to one day become a surgeon. Keanu and I were in everything together, we were life partners since pretty much our first day of life together, but as soon as he got his acceptance to the Queen Mary University of London, I knew I had to find my own path.

I've always known that music was my passion, but what do you do with that? Most people will tell you that music is a risky field to go into because it's difficult to move past the 'struggling musician' phase, and if you find yourself in that situation then 'those who can't do, teach'. I could've applied to The University of Manchester to study music as Evan did, but instead, I let my anxiety swallow me, thus, thrusting myself into a depressing, monotonous gap-year. All it has brought is the realization of how much I want to go back home, but I can't.

I felt as if everyone was moving forward in life, except me. Evan was getting his music degree, Keanu was getting his medical degree, Zoey co-managed a pub, MacKenzie was training to take over her family's restaurant and Jade was an au pair for an affluent French family. The band came in second to all of them, but first to me, which is why I did whatever they asked of me, fearing being replaced with a snap of Zoey's fingers. I could've blamed them for the breakdown I had outside the café in my car, but that wasn't fair.

The moment I got into the car and closed the door, I felt the lump in my throat and build-up of tears pooling in my eyes. The fact that I couldn't pinpoint a cause, evoked even more distress. I placed the beverage tray on the passenger seat and then let my head fall against the steering wheel, making a 'thud' as it landed. I let the tears spill, burying my face in my icy hands.

I was hit by a sudden wave of unease, a feeling on the back of my neck, like when you feel as if you're being watched. I dried my face and scanned the parking area and my eyes landed on a strange figure, a few yards away, standing by a black Range Rover with something in their hand. Suddenly I remembered what Evan said about the road not being safe at night, and started praying to a higher power that they would go away. It was dark out, the streetlights were high up and quite dim, and they wore dark clothes that blended in with the colour of the vehicle, making the figure barely distinguishable. They must've noticed me looking back because the figure started moving towards my car, sending me into panic mode. What the hell was that person watching me cry for? I fumbled around with my keys until my shaky hands finally grasped the right one and jammed it into the ignition. The car started, startling the man, but not scaring him away.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be weird," he said, his voice was muffled through the window. I was put slightly at ease when I saw it was Charlie, the guy I met in the café just minutes before, and that the object in his hand was a cup from the café. Against my better judgement, I rolled down the window a few inches, "I saw you crying and I was wondering why. That's all."

"I wasn't crying," I defended blinking harder to deter any more tears that night threaten to spill, "My allergies act up in the winter."

"Oh, yeah, that's what it looked like," he said, gentle sarcasm in his voice. I avoided eye contact for a few minutes and stared out the windshield, which turned out to be a bad idea because it just made me think about everything that led to the breakdown that just happened. Water pooled in my eyes again, but I wiped it away quickly, "Hey, are you okay?"