Somewhere Inbetween

Dylan POV

This is a nightmare. I just wanted to relax, spend sometime with my friends and have a good time for a couple of days before I had to go back to work. Why do people always have to assume the worst and fabricate all these lies. Isn't it enough I sacrifice most of my time to work... I haven't been home in so long. I miss my family and friends. I'm always too busy with work that I barely have time for myself let alone for them... I'm so tired.

I hate that I have to always be so fu**ing careful about everything, like everything I do is a fu**ing crime... I don't understand why as an actor every action and word has to be under scrutiny by everyone. We always try our best but we are humans with flaws. No one is perfect and I never did say that I was. I value what I do but sometimes I think the price we pay as actors is too high... everything we do must be monitored and controlled by our management and our publics opinion. Are we just robots to be controlled by everyone else but ourselves? Why are our emotions and thoughts worth so little too everyone? Is it because i'm still too new to this industry that I do not understand all these rules and restrictions.

I sometimes look at my colleagues and wonder how do they do it. We must always paint a picture of perfection... it's exhausting. Perfect, everything must be perfect... our hair, our skin, our clothes, how we walk, talk. If we ever make a mistake, it's almost never completely forgiven or forgotten. It's like in a game of basketball when your team is down by one point, you have the ball with a couple of seconds left on the clock and you shoot the ball praying the ball goes in so you'll win the game for your team because if you win you'll be everyones hero... Perfect. If you lose... if you lose you're all on your own to deal with everyones disappointment and judgmental words towards you and they will never forget it nor forgive you for it. I don't like to disappoint anyone and always give my one hundred percent to everything I do but sometimes I think that my one hundred percent isn't enough for everyone.

I will admit that the perks of being an actor are great and i'm grateful to be able to provide for my family, buy everything that I desire, travel to places that I never dreamed of or meet all these celebrities that I look up to... but sometimes in moments like these I wonder is it all really worth it. Does my privacy have such little value to everyone. Does my happiness not really matter at all. It sometimes makes me really wonder what am I willing to sacrifice in order to stay in this industry... 

This lie not only has affected my image but my friends as well, who did nothing wrong but come visit me. My friends all understand the situation that I am in and when they have time from their own busy schedule come visit me since I'm always unavailable but this lie from the media went too far. It's already hard enough to see any of my friends and now any of my friends that are girls have to be extra careful around me. This is why when my friends decided to visit me on my days off I thought everything would be okay if we hung out as a group and didn't really pay no mind to the people that were taking pictures of us. But all the media decided to do was focus on that I was with a girl. Am I not allowed to have friends that are girls? Automatically because we are seen together and have a couple of pictures together, she has to be my girlfriend and even if that were the case, is it really a crime to fall in love? 

I feel like a burden to my friends sometimes, we can't hang out like we use to and situations like these are unavoidable... it just changed everything for us. It's sometimes really not fun to hang out with me as we have to be really secretive or we have to stay inside. There always has to be an agenda in case we are spotted and situations like these arise. I sometimes try avoiding get-togethers with my friends because I know the hassle we all must go thorough just to spend a couple of hours together.

Then the other victim in this mess... Shen Yue... I love my fans but they can sometimes be really unfair, especially to her. She had nothing to do with this "scandal" but they just had to drag her name through it, like she was there with us. Imagine if we could really be friends that are seen hanging out, they would rip her apart... no wonder she keeps her distance from me. I really can't blame her especially after what just happened with my friend. Women really have it harder in this industry and it has been especially hard with Shen Yue but she has taken it great. I just feel ashamed that she once again had to deal with the scrutiny from my fans when she really did nothing wrong. 

I sometimes am really in awe of her and how she handles herself. She takes everything in stride, she is always upbeat and smiling... you could never really tell if there is anything wrong with her. She would also like to give me pointers and we just could tease each other without it being awkward. I think that is why it made it really easy to work with her, she made me comfortable to be myself without being judged especially since MG was my first production. I will admit as the production went on I developed a bit of a crush on her and I thought she might have liked me but nothing really came out of it. As time has gone by I have questioned my feelings and actions towards Yue as now I understand that at the time my feelings were not my own by my characters. I had to in some sense like her because my character was deeply in love with her character. 

When we worked on The Inn season 2 because we were already acquainted with one another it just made it less awkward to see each other, at least this is the conclusion I have come up with as to why we are so at ease with one another... I really can't give this too much thought, it's not like we're even friends now or can be friends, especially after this "scandal" but I will admit I do sometimes miss being able to hang out with her and tease her... I really did like to see her laugh.