The Next Suicide

I used to have it all. I was beautiful, I was rich, and I was famous. Women envied me, men wanted me. I married the man every woman wanted, and I was happy. We were happy.

Then it was over. All of it, all at once. There should have been a crash, an explosion. But there was nothing. The fame was still there, the money. But suddenly I was 40 and alone, and the man every woman wanted was with one of those other women. I wondered what I did wrong, what I did to push him away. I hated myself for not getting pregnant, for not being able to give him the child both of us desperately wanted. She already had two children, a boy and a girl, and she was ready for a bigger family. Her fame was only illuminated by her compassion for disadvantaged children. She was a sex pistol and a saint, and she had my husband. No one mentions that she's a homewrecker, a theif.

There have been other men. I've adored them, and they have pushed me aside. I stare in the mirror for hours, trying to figure out what is so wrong with me. There are so many men in the world who would worship me, but none of them are here. None of them have tried to make me happy.

Maybe happiness just isn't possible for me.

Soon, I will fade away. I will be forgotten, a lost star. People may wonder what happened to me, but no one will notice when I'm dying alone in a decrepit nursing home. There will be no visitors, no cameras. Someday my name in the credits will be unrecognizable, and soon afterwards the movies that defined me will cease to exist. Then what happens? There will be nothing left. There will be nothing to live for, no memories to carry me through my final days.

There is only one solution. I do not want to fade away; I want to be remembered. There will be cameras, and news stories. There will be hushed whispers and bizarre conspiracies, but only I will know the truth. Only I will know that the overdose was intentional, that the drugs I swallowed won't be found in the autopsy. My name will be in the headlines for weeks, and the tragedy of my shortened life will affect so many people. They won't forget me. As this day passes each and every year, my name will be mentioned again, my last moments relived through an anchorwoman with a fake look of empathy. She'll just be reading lines, the same way I used to read lines.

But now, it's all over. I don't want to be the lonely one, I don't want to be the starlet who's past her prime. This is the only way.