Young Writers Society

The most common thing everyone seems to ask a writer is how they get their ideas, and I know that is what you’re going to ask me. And for this story, it’s hard to pin down, really. That’s because there’s what actually happened, the moment of time it was private and personal, and then when I needed to tell someone or I’d never be able to let it go. It all started only six months ago, but it feels like another lifetime. I think about the person I was last spring, and in a way, I barely recognize her. Throughout my life I’ve tried to hold onto a positive, hopeful view of humanity and yet, it often seems as though my experiences have only made me more jaded. I’ve been thinking lately that I’m wrong to hope for the best, not just in people but in life.

Last spring, I had just turned twenty-five. I was at the point where I was thinking a lot about the future and wondering if there really is some magical future where everything gets better, or it was all hopeless. Wondering about such things often meant I didn’t sleep well. When I was about twenty-one I started waking up in the middle of the night and had trouble falling back to sleep. Lately, it’s been getting better, but last spring, around my birthday, it was an almost nightly occurrence.

I supposed when I was in my teens and counting down the days until I could graduate high school, I thought by my mid-twenties I’d have much more figured out.

One such night, the sky was still pitch black when I woke up in bed and realized that my window was open. First, I checked my phone and saw that it was just after three o’clock in the morning. And then I looked at the weather and saw it was forty-five degrees outside. I supposed it was still only mid-April, and we had at least two months to go before proper summer weather. I had been spoiled in the few days before by unseasonably warm weather, so much so that I’d forgotten that we were going to be hit with another cold snap. I sighed as I got up and closed the window. I could hardly wait until it was officially the season when everyone seemed so much happier and more free. And yet, there was a part of summer that always made me anxious, especially knowing how shortly it would last. As soon as it came, it would be winter again in the blink of an eye. I hated how, in this town, summer was more a respite than a natural state of being. While I liked the changing seasons, I’d tolerate winter a lot more if it wasn’t so long.

Maybe, when I’d made it as an actress I could spend my winters in Hawaii. My feet in a black sand beach somewhere. Steps away from a peaceful cottage that was all my own. In the arms of my one true love.

Sure, it’s corny, but I still believe in it. Love, I mean. Even if it’s something that I’ve barely known myself. Maybe not having that kind of relationship in my life was why I felt so empty. But maybe not. When I was still in high school I’d learned the hard way that it’s better to be happy and single than be with someone for the sake of not being alone. I learned then, when I had to break up with who is still the one and only boyfriend I’ve had, that you can be with someone and still feel lonely if you’re not with the right person. And I’d liked Caleb. He was nice and sweet and I knew he really liked me, and I felt bad about breaking his heart, but I realized a month into our relationship that I didn’t feel the same way. I know I’m not undesirable, but it’s hard not to feel that way. The disconnect between men stopping to stare as I walk down the street, the amount of times I get asked for my number when I’m just trying to run daily errands, and not finding someone I really, truly connect with —

It’s something I’m unsure about even now, and last spring, my anxiety about it had been off the charts. I’d felt something I could only guess was something like love a few times now. It had most recently transpired over a three week period this past January with Darren Gallagher. He had worked lighting for Richard III, when I played Edward V, one of the ill-fated princes in the tower. It was a great show and everyone loved my performance, but I was still mildly amused by the fact that the director thought the best person to portray a thirteen year old boy was a then twenty-four year old woman. It also didn’t help that half the cast thought I was still in high school.

But I met Darren because of it, and even now, I still haven’t decided whether it was a good or a bad thing. He had just moved from Ireland. Why anyone would come to live in this town from Ireland, I didn’t know, but he’d always wanted to move to the United States, and he had relatives in the area, so he wouldn’t be completely alone.

I fell for him almost instantly, and after the show ended, we spent a lot of time together. And then, he vanished. It had taken me a lot to accept that it was over. I hadn’t been sure what had happened, if it had been something I said or did or something else was going on in his life that I had no conception of. It had been one thing if he’d told me he didn’t want a relationship, or wasn’t ready for one. And then, about a week and before I woke up that morning in the middle of the night to close my window, I saw him at the mall with another girl. I saw them kissing.

Luckily, he hadn’t seen me, but when I checked his social media that night I saw that the girl he was with was apparently his girlfriend. That only made me more lost and confused. I had so many questions I’ll most likely never get the answers to. So many hopes and dreams I had for what could have been fell away in that moment. It’s hard to describe what that feeling is like for those of you reading this that got lucky in love. You found your person and that was that. It may seem like it, but I’m not bitter. Like I said earlier, I still believe in true love. If other people can find it, then I know I can too.

The crazy thing? That wasn’t even the first time something like that happened to me.

So many people in my life had constantly told me how beautiful I am, how deserving I am of true love. But it’s hard to not feel like there’s something wrong with me when every man I’ve ever really fallen for hasn’t wanted me for some reason or another, but usually because he fell in love with somebody else. You’ll tell me there isn’t, that it’s hard for a lot of people. But it seems like most everyone finds it, and I’m just at the point where I wish I could know whether hoping I’ll find it one day is futile, or if I need to accept the fact that I’m, for whatever reason, destined to wander the planet alone.

It isn’t my looks, I don’t think. In my life, I haven’t always felt pretty, and I’m certainly not going to be modeling on the covers of any magazines any time soon. But I try to dress well. I brush and floss twice a day and chew gum after meals. I keep my dirty blonde hair cut above my shoulders and manageable. I wear just enough makeup to bring out what my mother always calls my natural beauty. My nose is too big, my eyebrows bushy, sure. I walk with a little bit of a limp, the product of a birth defect. My bottom teeth are crooked and have a chipped front tooth from one time I accidentally knocked my teeth against a coffee mug. And yet, I’ve tried to embrace my imperfections, and still, it hasn’t been enough.

I was thinking about all of this as I was trying to fall back to sleep after closing my window. At a certain point, my eyes drifted to the copy of The Great Gatsby on my nightstand.

That afternoon, I’d go to a meeting of a book club that Laura thought I would enjoy. I hopped in with The Great Gatsby, a book I already knew and loved, and I was excited to discuss it. And, at the very least, have an excuse to be out of the house. I tried to think back to the book, think about what I’d say, not just about the story but how comforting the fashion and the music was. I thought if I ever had the chance to be in a stage show of Gatsby that Daisy Buchanan would be a really fun character to embody. Stories always had a way of doing that, for me. Helping me to not think about my own problems. Maybe that was why I fell into it to the extent that I did. And before long, I had drifted back off, lost in thoughts of the 1920s and how handsome Leonardo DiCaprio had been in the recent movie.

Before we go on, I suppose you’re wondering who I am, exactly, and why you should care about me, and why any of this is relevant.

My name is Charlotte Pink. I’m twenty-five years old, and I still live with my mother in a small town in the United States. I’m an actress and sometimes a writer, and from the time I was young I always dreamed about making an impact on the world through my art. From mid-April until the end of June, my best friend Laura and I were friends with a woman named Madison. We met her at the book club that Laura had recently started going to. At the end of May, Laura and I had made plans to go to a comic convention in our nearest city. We’d gotten the costumes together and everything, and I’d gone to sleep over at her house. After midnight, Madison had called us in tears and exclaimed how she was going to end her life.

I called for a wellness check on her. She was found with a knife in her hand and admitted to a psychiatric facility. She was discharged two weeks later, and things only nosedived in a way I never could have foreseen at even the beginning of this year. At the end of June she went back to her parents in Puerto Rico, and I haven’t spoken to or heard from her since.

Of course, there’s a lot more to the story but I’m telling you all of this now because maybe you’ll understand what I didn’t then. You’ll see, maybe, that I wanted to help Madison because I supposed I understood her. Maybe I still understand her. Maybe I can’t forget her because we have so much in common, and yet our lives have gone in two very different directions. If you haven’t already guessed, Madison fell in love. Or, something she understood to love.

Brady, the man she fell in love with, would tell me that I’m a better person than she is. But to me, this isn’t about that. For me, it’s about trying to understand why these kinds of things happen, because Madison isn’t alone. There are so many people like her, ones who’ve given up everything for the possibility of love.

But I suppose it starts at the first meeting of the book club. That’s where we first met, and how all of this began.