Honestly, I feel weird writing this, but I couldn't seem to work on anything else until I tried. Thank you so much to LittleRedOne who's insight on this piece helped immensely.
... On Heartbreak
Macy tried to decide which was worse—breaking down in tears in front of a stadium of people, all of whom record the moment on their digital cameras to be replayed, twittered and blogged about for days to come. Or the actual emotion that caused the breakdown to begin with.
Macy would never know. Not really. But the question haunted her all the same.
.
She'd always taken a certain pride in being a JONAS fan. It was innocent and fun.
But she'd come to realize recently that being a fan of something was just as much about yourself as the object(s) of your desire. It's about the feeling YOU get, when you hear them hit that high note. And the leap YOUR heart makes when the radio plays your favorite song. It's a self-pleasing arrangement. An imaginary relationship between artist and fan, designed entirely to satisfy your illusions of perfection. And it's a gratifying thing, for the fan anyway.
But what does it do to the person behind the performer? Does he drown in the background music—a sacrificial lamb on the altar of stardom?
She'd never wondered such things before. Not once.
But as she stood three rows from the front of the arena concert, watching Joe Lucas lose it during a song--it was like time froze solid. She registered everything: his eyes red and swollen, blinking in a moment of utter hurt. The tears, so unlike the healthy sweat from performing, streaming in a brief but very real line down one cheek. And the pain, from whatever memory that song brought to life, so evident on his face. And yet soon after, his expression replaced the hurt with shame at having shared it with everyone else. As though not even his personal pain could be kept private.
She watched the girls around her—to her left and right— screaming like there was no tomorrow because here Joe Lucas was crying on stage and they were there to witness it. Even while screaming and snapping photos they managed to text their friends, fans who weren't lucky enough to share in the masochism.
Macy felt ashamed—ashamed at how everyone was eating up his suffering like some spectacle. Like it was all part of the show. Because that's what famous people are—fodder for everyone else's appetite. To think that she might have a part in exploiting someone's emotions for her own gratification—it was too much to even imagine. It broke her heart.
.
When she got home, she didn't look up the incident on Perez or E! even though she knew it would be headline news ('Joe Lucas in Tears!' 'Lucas Brother Distraught!'). She didn't even call Stella to ask what had him so upset.
It wasn't her place to find out.
But she couldn't sleep either. Lying against her pillow, just staring at the glow stars on the ceiling. Wondering.
.
The next day Macy avoided him like the plague. It wasn't too hard. Other than sharing a best friend, they rarely crossed circles. She'd made it a point to steer clear of JONAS in general anyway, lest she injure them inadvertently. It was her curse to lose all faculties in their presence.
But not anymore. She would never go near them again—as a fan or otherwise—if it meant being a parasite in fan-clothing.
She turned the corner of the empty hall, ten minutes late for class. She'd stayed late in gym so that there was no risk of running into JONAS. And Joe especially.
But then there he was sitting on the hallway floor, his back slumped against the lockers.
She gasped, about to turn around and leave. But Joe caught her gaze and she could see how his eyes still filled with sadness.
Macy couldn't breathe. The hurt panged her chest; it was like watching those surgeries on TV—where the image of someone's exposed blood vessels and tendons made you feel like it's your flesh being ripped off and dissected.
She walked faster, knowing she was the last person Joe would want to see right now. As much as it hurt her to acknowledge it, as JONAS' self-labeled super fan she was a perfect representation of why he would never be granted the right to mourn privately.
Concentrating so hard on getting to the end of the hallway made her fall quite inevitable, really. Like how worrying so much about tripping in front of everyone only serves to make you nervous enough to do it. In one giant CRASH she was on the floor—tennis balls, books and lunchbag scattering every which way.
He was at her side in seconds. "Macy, Are you ok?"
"Oh, um. I'm fine. Thank you." She pulled herself up, trying to gather her things without meeting his gaze. "Oh wow. Look at the time, I better be going. Wouldn't want to miss that lecture on logrhythms."
.
Joe watched as she bent down in a rush, trying to pick up her math book. She had it in her grasp when her foot slipped and she landed in a less than graceful clump on the floor. Yet again.
"Ow."
"Maybe you should take a breather first," he suggested. "I think the logrhythms can wait."
She closed her eyes and took a breath. This was so not a good day. "I guess that would be ok."
He was a little surprised that it took any convincing at all. There was a time when Macy Misa would jump and squee at the thought of spending time with him. But maybe that had stopped long ago and he just hadn't noticed; he'd been kind of preoccupied lately. He took a seat next to her on the floor and they both stared off into space.
Earlier, he'd been counting the rows of lockers—one at a time. And then recounting them, just to make sure he got the tally right. He'd try anything to distract his mind from what it really wanted to focus on—her.
He was just on locker 157 when Macy came puttering down the hall. Which served as its own diversion.
He looked over. She was tapping her finger against the floor nervously --tap, tap, tap—careful to look everywhere but at him.
Odd.
She fidgeted a little, opening her lunch bag. Without meeting his eyes, she handed him a foil covered mound. "Here."
"What's this?"
"A cupcake. Second only to ice cream in the comfort food department."
"Uh, thanks."
Under the foil he found a tasty-looking chocolate cupcake with hot pink frosting. Smirking, he took a bite. Wow. Pretty good.
Macy got up to leave, but Joe stopped her.
"Why don't you stay."
She froze in place, her eyes wide.
It was a request he hadn't planned on making. Maybe he just didn't feel like being alone. Lately, without warning, a black cloud crept into his mind blocking his thoughts so that all he could see was her. Her dark eyes. Her laugh. The freckle on her left earlobe…
Joe finished off the cupcake, pushing away those memories.
Macy studied the footprint patterns on the linoleum floor.
Maybe it was the awkward silence but he found himself wanting to open up to her. He crumbled the leftover foil in his palm. "Have you ever thought you were in love?"
The question surprised her but she said "Yes" automatically, with a slight laugh and then cringed, realizing how insensitive that reaction must seem.
Joe raised an eyebrow.
"It's kind of a silly story."
"Let's hear it."
She twitched her nose. "Well, all through junior high I thought I was madly in love with the boy who lived next door to Stella—Billy Pepperidge. He was so cute—especially the way the sunlight bounced off his hair." She sighed at the memory. "Anyway, it didn't work out. We started going out and I joined the baseball team to be closer to him. He didn't like that—especially when I turned out to be a better player than him. He ended up dumping me for a cheerleader."
"Ouch."
"Yeah, I was pretty crushed. But now I'm grateful. I never would have discovered my love for sports if it wasn't for him. And I met Stella when I was plotting his revenge."
Joe would normally have a hard time picturing sweet-innocent Macy plotting anything particularly dangerous but the gleam of mischief in her eye made him think he might have underestimated her. Huh.
"So you think break-ups make you a better person?"
"No. I think they hurt! It's nice if you can learn something from them, but that doesn't usually happen for a long time. You spend all the meantime second guessing yourself—wondering why you aren't good enough, if you could have changed. If you're even worth loving. Blah, blah. It's miserable."
Joe swallowed, hard. "Yeah."
She wanted to say that it wasn't fair to compare her childhood break-up incident with his, which was broadcasted in fourteen languages across the globe. But that would mean acknowledging it, and she wasn't ready to. And neither was he.
"What helped you through it?"
She shook her head, "I don't know really. I felt lost for a long time... But then one day I woke up and things were better. I mean sure, there was a lot of emotional chaos in the middle, but maybe that's the one normal thing about heartbreak."
He nodded, liking the theory that everything—the dark cloud of thoughts, the difficulty breathing, the feeling that your heart's been ripped up and fed to dogs—was normal. Part of a cycle that no one was immune to. Not even rock stars.
She smiled at him as she got up and reached over hesitantly to squeeze his hand –exerting a brief but firm pressure before letting go. It was a comforting gesture. Sweeter than words that can only penetrate so far.
He listened to the light pitter-patter of her steps and called out. "Hey Macy."
She turned.
"Thanks. I really needed a friend today."
.
It had taken a single concert for Macy to realize the disturbing self-satisfaction you got from being a fan. And twenty minutes in an empty hallway to remember the pure, unadulterated, selfless joy that come from being a friend.
.