What explanation is there except that she felt obligated to hide behind the plastic smile and not mess up the Sandra Dee costume she so proudly wore. In doing so, all of her failures were kept secret.
It wasn't anyone's business anyway.
Eventually those secrets and compromises became so comfortable to be around, she wore them like her favorite pair of blue jeans. If she drank too much, flirted or messed around, she was discreet and no one was the wiser.
She ignored the voice that constantly nudged her to stop. She wrestled with it a bit, and perhaps a bit too aggressively. She was enslaved to the thrill. However, the countdown to confession was just beginning. The hushed lifestyle was starting to get too heavy, too messy, and far too big to hide. She tried to push it back, but the deceit just bulged through somewhere else. It was only a matter of time before the swell would break.
Then the inevitable happened. The bubble burst and the sins, the scandal, the comfortable compromises that were protected and held onto so tightly for so long finally spilled out. All those secrets that were stashed away in the darkest corners of her deepest closets were suddenly laid bare, item by item, on the largest billboards of the busiest highways for the entire world to see.
What could she say? Everyone saw her plainly. Everyone could see she wasn't who they thought she was. Her family, her friends...
...her husband.
She wasn't who she had claimed to be.
. . .
Once upon a time there was a girl who was graceful and charming, playful and unique. She was someone everyone wanted to be or wanted to be with. Her reputation flourished and her pride grew with it, where sex and alcohol and glory were much more alluring, where she was convinced she was something she wasn't, where in her heart she felt empty and alone.
Yes, she was a star. Except, she played the leading role of an incredibly, insignificant and small life.
...written for this week's writing prompt : Swell and Unique at studio 30+
