The Obscure Downsides of Fame

72 // we don't need words

"How did you not freak out?"

There must've been tens of thousands of people here. Things were different for me. I was an actor, and all people could really judge was how well I was doing my job. If they complained, it was either about my character or my work, but they never got to judge me. For Oakley, whatever people thought of him was raw and real, and scariest of all, live.

"I did. Looking back, they shouldn't have let me play here. It was too much, too quickly." His smile was still there, a little faded, but still there. "I think it was a little triggering."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. It was my first tour, I didn't sleep very well, or eat very well, the tens of thousands of people were just cheering me on. On one hand I got a ton of shit for being rude or unprofessional or a bad performer. On the other they praised me like I was otherworldly." He chuckled, clearly seeing the humor in the situation after all. "I hate how much sense this all makes."

"Hey, no bad thoughts today, alright? It makes sense. That's good."

He held my hand, interlacing our fingers. I looked around the room, but there were still just the security guards, so I held his hand a little tighter.

"If I ever do anything stupid again, promise me you'll hold me accountable. You can never blame yourself, alright?"

I nodded. "I won't." We stared at each other for a few seconds before he talked again.

The biggest grin spread on his face, and I wrapped my arms around him and he hugged me back in a death grip.

"Let's sit down," he said, guiding me to a table at the far corner of the room. There was more than enough space, but he decided to sit right next to me. "The doors open in forty minutes so the audience can enter, and then they start playing roughly half an hour later."

"Why are we this early?"

"It's my last day with you. I don't wanna waste a second of it," he said. We looked at each other with bittersweet smiles. We both knew that me leaving was only temporary, but it somehow felt so permanent.

He leaned his head on my shoulder, sighing deeply as he rested his arm over my lap. I wrapped an arm around him and pushed a stray curl away from his face, but it fell down the moment I let go. So I kept sweeping it back gently, sometimes pulling at the curl to watch it bounce back up.

We sat in the comfort of each other's presence for a while, until we heard the sound of a giant crowd coming in. There was a screen above the window that showed us the parts of the venue we couldn't see. It was kinda cool how many people there were.

Oakley was so quiet that I thought he'd fallen asleep for a minute, but then he did speak. "I like this." He removed his head from my shoulder and closed his eyes. "Kiss me now, and it'll be the best kiss in my life."

"What about our future wedding?" I asked.

He opened his eyes. "Too many people watching."

"Okay, fair," I said, the most high-pitched giggle leaving my throat. My face grew hotter, but Oakley didn't seem to care about that. So I leaned in. Once our noses were touching, I kissed him, and maybe he was right. It was that going down the rollercoaster type of feeling. Not just butterflies and sweaty palms. It was the adrenaline of not being the two of us in our bedroom. It was weird to me. It wasn't quite so bad that I was anxious, but the feeling was definitely new. "Happy now?"