Celebrity Crush

There is a rectangle of light in the otherwise black room, the morning sun trying to invade the room. She rolls away from the window, pulls the duvet over her head, and breaths in the unmistakable smell of hotel laundry detergent. What hotel was she in? Safe in her cocoon of blankets she tries to remember where she was. She listens to the silence of the room, the hum of the air conditioner, and she remembered, L.A.

She sighs, throws the covers off, and rolls out of bed. She pads to the window, opens the curtains a crack, letting a sliver of sunlight invade spill into the darkness, and looks out at the valley below, shrouded in a purple blanket of fog. That’s when she notices him, a man with a telephoto lens the size of his head, skulking about the parking lot below her window. Fucking L.A. she mutters, pulling the curtains shut again.

She runs down the street, her high heels clacking as she tears down the sidewalk. She hopes the director is getting this, it’s fucking difficult to run in heels. She really hates these Hollywood tropes. She is wondering when in real life would anyone run full speed down the sidewalk in six-inch heels? That’s when the car hits her.

She is awake, but something is wrong. She is in a room, but it is too bright. Did she forget to turn off the lights last night? Did she forget to close the blinds? She tries to roll over, but something stops her, she can’t seem to move. She looks to her left and that is when she sees the machines she is hooked up to. She is in a hospital.

A man, who was sitting in the corner of the room, just outside her field of vision, rises and walks to her bedside.

“Morning,” he says, “How are you feeling? This is probably worse than you thought, huh?”

She finds she can’t respond due to a breathing tube that has been shoved down her throat.

“Well, it seems you are at a loss for words,” he pauses, chuckling at his uncouth joke, “I am Jack, and I am here to let you know that the operation was a success, you now look nothing like you. Also, we have your new home all set up and waiting for you. As soon as the doctors give the okay we will send the helicopter to whisk you away to your new life.

That’s when she remembers, Celebrity Crush – “We crush your celebrity status so you can be free to be you.”

Of course, the car that had hit her! When she signed up for this they told her they would fake her death when she least expected it. It was all part of the ruse to get her away from this life. Unfortunately she didn’t get to choose her new home, but it didn’t matter, because now, she was finally free.