They’d lied.
I steeled myself, knowing the deceit had just begun. As each second of ‘my life’ ticked by, I could feel my identity slipping away—my talent being cast aside by the famous brother who commanded attention just by being himself. My entire experience on the show was unraveling. Instead of the Jake, jerk, and hater-free experience I’d been hoping for, this was lining up to be like all of my other disappointing finishes.
I should never have come on this show. Why couldn’t I just accept that there wasn’t enough room on stage for the two of us?
Jake would always be king.
The music shifted, delving into the deepest, darkest ‘beaten puppy’ chorus I’d ever heard, and even though I should have looked away, my eyes stayed glued to the screen. The camera zoomed in on a little boy’s face… my face. What the hell? Where did they get that video? In it, my arms were wrapped around my sister Emma’s leg, and I was staring into the lens with the most confused and frightened expression on my face.
My hand began to shake at my side and my breathing faltered as I processed the shock of seeing myself so pathetic and broken. That footage was taken out of context! The producers were making it seem like it wasmewho’d suffered irreparable harm. This was all wrong. It wasn’t me who’d been imprisoned by a monster. It wasn’t me who’d come home beaten and broken. It wasn’t me who’d screamed into the wee hours of the night. It wasn’t me.
I was not the damaged one.
I was not my brother.
But even as I reassured myself, bursts of memory came flooding back, clicking in my head like flares from a flashbulb—Grace and me left to fend for ourselves during Mom’s medicated sleep marathons, Emma and the bed tent, Jake’s emaciated shadow walking through the halls. All the things I’d actively worked to push out of my consciousness so that I could live in peace were now collectively banging on the windows of my brain. By coming on here and watching that video, I’d inadvertently uncorked the plug that had kept my past at bay. I wasn’t okay. I’d never been okay.
Looking out over the mesmerized audience, it suddenly all made sense. All these years I’d thought Jake and I were the same, that we shared a similar talent, that people weren’t giving me a fair shake because they couldn’t see past my brother’s splendor, but maybe they’d just been humoring me because I was Jake’s traumatized little brother—the first grader who’d grown up in the eye of the storm and who’d conveniently misplaced all the gory little pieces of the puzzle so he wouldn’t have to face them all in one place.
Anger bubbled up inside as I realized that these people felt sorry for me. I was the participation trophy in someone else’s victory lap—being cheered on like an out-of-shape runner at the end of a marathon.Good job, buddy! Keep on trying!No matter how I performed tonight, I would still move on to the next round… and the next… and the next. Not because I was the best singer in the competition, but because I had the sympathy of the masses.
The video clicked off as spotlights illuminated the stage. The band began to play. I counted the beats, knowing the exact moment I was expected to jump in and join them on my guitar. But my heart was no longer in it. I didn’t want to stand up here and play a song I didn’t feel, for people who didn’t care.
Trust in the process? That’s what they’d said. These people who’d promised not to exploit my family, while changing me into something I wasn’t.
I missed my cue.
As the music continued to play, I could already see panic setting in on the sidelines. I’d just shoved a wrench into their well-oiled machine. The band circled back around, trying to rescue me. But it was too late. I no longer wanted to be saved.
I held up my hand to stop the music. The band members glanced around, whispering amongst themselves as the crowd fell silent. They might as well get comfortable back there because I wouldn’t be needing them anymore. With some effort, I peeled my reflective jacket off and tossed it across the stage before stepping up to the microphone. A sea of confused faces stared back at me as I began strumming my guitar. If they wanted a show, I’d give them a show, and it wouldn’t be the shitty paint-by-numbers version being forced on me.
From the corner of my eye I could see the show’s producer, Andrew Hollis, jumping up and down on the side of the stage. Was he trying to get my attention or just throwing a tantrum? I imagined that Botoxed face of his turning bright red.Too damn bad, asshole. The liar had brought this on himself, pushing me past my boiling point until there was no stopping the fury ignited inside.
With defiant determination, I launched into an original called “Undercover,” a song that spoke to the tragedy the room had just witnessed on the screen—a song that was raw and angry and dipped in pain. The audience sat transfixed as I dumped years of frustration into their unsuspecting laps. After hitting its highest plateau, the song tumbled back down, spilling out over the edge of the stage. When I crooned my last introspective note, the audience rose to their feet, trampling me in a stampede of cheers.
This wasn’t my stage.
This wasn’t my crowd.
But for one magical moment, I’d made them mine.
And before the lights went back up on the house, I turned and walked off.
I was no one’s pity vote.
2
Jess: Angel Line Tours
“Hey! Keep it moving.”
The warning was issued by a security guard cruising up on his Segway. I sighed. Not another newbie. I swear they swapped these guys out quicker than I could fast-forward through a Progressive commercial. And the new guys were always so gung ho, believing their pseudo cop uniform and safety-first scooter helmet made them real-life law enforcement agents when in reality, their minimum wage salaries didn’t leave much room for heroics.
Some of these guys were cool with me, even looking the other way when I crept ever so slowly past the homes they were hired to guard. We all had jobs, after all, and I’d been doing mine for a long time. Surely they could cut me some slack. I mean, come on, they had to know I was coming into this neighborhood no matter what their objections. This was Goldfinch Road, after all, home to more celebrities per capita than any other residential area in the world. Don’t fact-check me on that, but it sounded true enough that I regularly spouted the narrative to my customers. And really, it was a logical conclusion to make given the number of heavy hitters who lived on the block.
Every day, sometimes multiple times a day, I guided a new group of sightseers through the streets and hills of the Los Angeles jungle. Born and raised in these parts, I liked to think of myself as a seasoned Angeleno. I knew where the hidden gems were in the Southland as well as where those famous gems were hidden… inside their luxury mansions well away from us normals.
Some might accuse me of being no better than the paparazzi, stalking the rich and famous for my own economic gain, and maybe to an extent that was true. Technically, it was my bus that blocked the entrances to their stately mansions as they tried to back their Bentleys out of the driveway. It was also my early-bird-catches-the-worm customers who got that makeup-free shot of a certain starlet walking her dog in the wee hours of the morning. And it was, no doubt, my faint voice projected forth by the bus’s speaker system that wafted out over their open-air verandas while they were bathing in the sun.
