To be Frantastic

Chapter 13: Photographic memory

-"Come on Connor, you have to do it!"—I heard my mom say—"Or else we would have come all this way for nothing!"

I stared at my hands, and felt the emptiness behind me. I knew it would have all been for nothing if I didn't jump. It was being filmed, too. But the thing is, I am scared as hell.

-"I don't think I can do it..."—I said, barely audible.

-"I believe you can."—my mom replied.

And yeah, this may be embarrassing to admit, but my mother had actually already done the jump. The bungee jump, that is. For my two million subscribers.

You see, my mom was meaning to visit me in the O2L house in LA for a while now, and just as she let me know about that (you might remember it from last time we spoke), I hit two million subscribers on my main channel. Talking about pressure. So this time around I had to do something exciting of sorts about it, because when I hit a million I really didn't do much besides getting naked and jumping into a pool. I mean that's probably what everyone wanted the most, but I didn't feel it to be as amazing as it should have.

It was my YouTube network's idea to get me to do bungee jumping... with my mom. They paid all the expenses and she got flown over to LA before she was expecting to, in order to do this with me. Today we woke up around 5:30 in the morning, and we hiked a good couple of hours to get to this bridge, with the roaring river waters below us, so that we could do the jump. My mom volunteered to go first, because I was too scared to do so myself.

But the thing is I wasn't scared because of falling.

I got scared because I wanted to fall.

It looked so easy. The only thing that had to be done was for me to jump, pretending not to realize my harness wasn't well placed or something. Then I would surely hit the rocks at the bottom of the fall at full speed. It would be painless. The effort to die would be so minimal that I probably wouldn't even notice. It would look like an accident, too, sparing the whole trouble the network could get under other circumstances that could be interpreted more of a... different approach to death.

And it was then when I noticed that these thoughts were running through my head, freely. What the hell was I even thinking? I had no clue that I was getting this low on my mind, on my depression... that's why I'm afraid to jump. Because I feel like I want to. And that can't be normal.

-"Ok."—was all I said. I then proceeded to send a kiss to the camera, let go my grip on the cement bridge, and allow the fall.

I thought I would scream. I thought I would feel the rush. I expected to, at least, be amazed. Yet I found nothing. Not even adrenaline. And to say that I felt disappointed as I dangled at the bottom of the line, waiting to be taken back up, is an understatement.

This is nothing in comparison to what other people have to do in their lives. And I'm not even scared of the fall at all. But this isn't about me; it's about my viewers. They deserve a good show, they deserve to have the fun that I neglect myself. I guess that means that I'll have to give the show to them, then.

In total, I jumped five times; each time giving out more screams and more excitement than before. Because they don't know what I'm going through, and they are not meant to know. They may be going through the same or worse. Probably worse. Who am I, to ruin what little happy moments they have? They are expecting me to give them that, happy moments. So this is my responsibility to them. To the two million people that have chosen to be part of the life of a little broken boy, with no better to give than the next person to cross the street.

Gently, solemnly I walk, back into the dark places...

-"Connor you are getting so skinny."—my mom said, taking me away from my trance—"At least eat when you're with me, for crying out loud! I hardly ever see my baby boy and here you are all skin and bones..."