Second Lead Syndrome

In your dream, you are that “other guy” in the movie. The unfortunate second lead, face just cut out of the frame, who tries and tries but just can’t get the girl. The awkward outlier pitied by audiences who argue through mouthfuls of popcorn over the girl’s final choice. Every time, Hollywood fate pulls you up by the bootstrings, dusts you off. Tells you kindly that, per the script, you will never succeed.

So what do you do?

You spit in its smiling face.

He jolts awake in the muggy midday heat, clothes askew and memories dripping out of his ear. The motel room is decidedly seedier than it looked last night, but really, considering the emptiness of his bank account, he’s counting his blessings.

There’s a knock on his door and it’s the maid speaking at him, good morning, would you like your room cleaned? He shakes his head no, offsetting a deep, persistent throbbing in his temples. Somewhere in this sorry stupor, grating television static drowns out a soft whisper of regret.

SCENE I:

It’s a sticky sort of night, the bittersweet kind that lingers on your skin like spilled honey and tastes like hindsight. The streetlights are sharp and warm, and they trap themselves in the bits and pieces of your friends. High above, the moon rolls her hollow eyes, exasperated at the sight of you, silly-drunk on delirium and Cat’s perfume and the cheapest liquor Sydney has to offer. You don’t care.

He finds his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. The clock ticks past two in the afternoon, and he wonders briefly what drunken mishaps were born of last night’s debauchery.

The headlines on his phone are humdrum in their monotony. He sits on the scratched floorboards, a glass of water between his fingertips, nursing a dreary hangover. Watches a spider spin webs in a dying houseplant with glazed eyes.

SCENE II:

The club spits you out all piled on top of each other, trip-tripping on the rough cobblestones, and the street twists in time to your stumbling steps. Strangers and friends jostle around you in a messy tangle, and for now, the world narrows to arms and legs, amidst trashy clubbing outfits drenched in the stink of alcohol.

You tuck your jacket around Cat’s shivering frame, pretend not to notice when she spills her drink on it not three seconds later, and all you can think about is the stranger on her other side. Words, of caution and confession, spill out of your mouth and slip unnoticed into the cracks of the pavement.

His fingers pause their scrolling. The letters are matter-of-fact – Sydney Man Punched Into Coma Saturday Night; early investigations suspect head trauma and he looks away. He’s never liked blood.

SCENE III:

Cat has his arm slung around her neck and fingers twisting her hair, and you’d think it’s a touch too rough for comfort, but you remind yourself, again, to look away, because it’s not your business what she does behind closed doors. It doesn’t bother you, the way his hands grip her waist hard enough to bruise, the slight drag of her toes on the concrete.

And you’re drunk anyway, you won’t remember a thing. So you tip your bottle up and toast to the lonely, lovely moon.

He glances back at the screen, where the victim’s parents cling together in a puddle of grief. Their son beams below them, a clean-cut Australian bloke, someone he’d split a pint with at the bar. White teeth and kind eyes. A cold revulsion pools inside him, but he can’t explain why.

Yet there’s a whimper. Ever so quiet, and cut-off before it carries, but you hear it anyway. Through the crowd, you spot her struggling in his grasp, his leering, shadowed face poised greedily over hers. Like a butterfly in a flytrap, you think idly, but somehow your heart is pounding and your fists have clenched.

Her eyes meet yours, wide and desperate. Time stills.

They call it the “coward’s punch”. The article condemns the attacker, implores readers for further information. Donations for his medical bills can be made to the GoFundMe linked below. Anything helps.

And suddenly all you can see are whirling lights in your head and blind fury, the thud of your fist crunching on flesh and bone, adrenaline flooding your veins and lungs until you taste it on your tongue. His goddamned white teeth, stained red.

The liquor wipes clean away your inhibitions, whispers at you to do it again, and again, and again. It feels good to be the hero, doesn’t it?

But it doesn’t, and so you run, Cat’s hand in yours, farther and farther away until everything feels clear for once, here in this sad, safe little corner of the world, because she’s looking at you, smiling at you, and you know you did the right thing. You did.

His fingers twinge, and he scratches absently at the blood on his knuckles. She sleeps on in the next room, unaware.

Fin.