Showface
Warning(s): Thematic elements
Jesse St. James is quite possibly a perfect young man. He gets incredible grades, he's the best singer in his school, and he is incredibly charming-girls flock to him.
So, he supposes he is perfect, superficially at least. But in the end, he realizes that he isn't perfect at all, and neither is his life, not in the least.
People don't really like him, they simply put up with him and try to become his friends and make him popular because of his incredible singing ability and his good looks and the fact that, for all intents and purposes, a person like him should be popular, and who are they to test fate? He is a soulless bastard; an automaton, perhaps. He isn't really a good person, is he? He tries to be, tries his best, he volunteers at pet shelters (he likes the way the animals don't judge him or know him, or even care about him as long as he's nice to them), he is the son his parents always wanted (but they're never there to see it). But no good person does what he did to a girl he loved, loves still, even. He really adored Rachel, she seemed to understand him best. And he broke her heart, and at the same time broke his own. For what?
The Team. The Team has been his one saving grace, the one thing that makes him one of his peers. It is his chance to be a star, and he always wants to be a star. He is happiest with the spotlight on him and his showface on.
He always has his showface on.
Perhaps it isn't as obvious as the intense optimism of his Vocal Adrenaline showface, but it's still there, to keep him from ever breaking down when it counts: when people can see or suspect. He always wears it, carefully controlling the way he laughs or smiles in public, every word he says, because everything counts toward his reputation, his future, his very state of being. Perhaps he's a little bit obsessive, like all of the elementary school and junior high teachers used to say before he hit high school and show choir and being obsessive became an asset.
He knows he lives an empty life, but tries to ignore this fact.
But there's a tipping point, there's always a tipping point.
And after letting Rachel down, he realizes that his life has just been a huge mess of letting people down. He lets his parents down every time he doesn't bring home a perfect grade or get into Yale, and he lets Shelby down every time he doesn't hit a high note just right, and he lets down every friend he's ever made by being a total asshole to them, a backstabber.
But most of all he lets down himself, disappoints himself. And this is something that simply cannot be.
He knows now that he doesn't really like life anymore, even though he should, he truly should, because he has everything going for him. But he's not happy, he can't be, he is simply empty. In reality, he should be the happiest, luckiest young man in the world, but he isn't, and this is what has finally done him in. There is no use to living anymore. There is no longer anything to live for.
Singing? The love for it he used to possess so purely has finally faded as singing has merely become another mechanism to quell his obsessive need to be the best. Friendships? He doesn't think that many people will miss him, and they shouldn't anyway. His family? He is simply another burden on them, an unnecessary parasite to his high-rolling mother and father who leeches off of their money and always tries his best but isn't quite the son they always wanted. They'll be better off without him too.
Maybe it's the pressure that's finally killing him, the insatiable need to always be the best.
Jesse St. James is nearly perfect, but it's never good enough.
Jesse St. James simply can't take the pressure anymore, so he gives up.
Jesse St. James allows his showface to slip, finally, lets a tear travel down his face, before he shoots himself.