An Autumn Breeze

The air was cold and crisp, the ends of my fingers starting to tingle from the nip in the air, the leaves were turning red and began to fall… it was autumn again.

I, like most people in the world, just walked through life with not a care in the world, all the way through school, college and university, life just seemed to be a breeze. I'm not saying it was easy; it wasn’t, I just mean, I never really felt here at all, always in a day dream.

It wasn't until I left university that life began to take back the breeze it had once given. I awoke to my alarm clock, 6 AM on the dot. Today was my first day at work. Even though many students at university got jobs to help better themselves when their student loans didn't quite stretch until the end of the term. Me, I just didn't bother, I never felt the need, I always managed with what I had, It helped that dad sent me money every now and then to get me through when I needed it, but I still never felt the need to get a job, so I just left it. It never once occurred to me that once I left university, and my dreams of becoming a famous Hollywood Actor, that would hit the big screens within a couple weeks of being fresh out of education, would fall through, and leave me breathless as to how I would actually get on in life.

Even though many people think that if you're an actor or train in the arts, you're full of confidence, they couldn't be more wrong. The reason it made it harder when I plummeted to the ground after leaving university and getting by on my student loan was because I never really left my dorm room unless I had classes. I had a private room so that I wasn't faced with someone who was a complete stranger. I know they are only a stranger until you actually get to know them but I just didn’t want to bother putting effort into a relationship, whether a boyfriend or friend, i just didn’t think the effort was worth putting into anything like that, i mean, it’s just a waste of time, no one i like ever likes me back so whats the point. I may as well just put all my efforts into my education or a job.

Anyways, back to the main part of the story. After leaving university, i headed back home and waited, and waited… I waited for the phone call that would change my life. I waited for the perfect agent (from the arts festival which we performed at, a couple weeks before we left, that would get us set for hundreds of amazing TV, theatre and film jobs, where we would have that many to choose from we would turn a couple hundred down) to call, but after weeks of waiting, the phone never rang and I soon came to realise I was never going to get that call form the perfect agent that would set me up in Hollywood or Broadway.

The time had come where my dad came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t always be able to live off his money and that I actually needed to start earning my own. This meant getting a job, a job doing something which I didn’t enjoy, with people I didn’t want to be with.

I dragged out my laptop and got to work finding jobs (how ironic), I scrolled through pages and pages of different jobs when I came across a job for a call centre agent… I know what your thinking, who in the actual hell would apply for a job in a call centre? Well, that would be me, the pay looked good and I need to start somewhere.

The day came of the interview for my new job, I hated every single minute of it as I had to interact with strangers who I just wasn’t interested in knowing whatsoever, but we had to make conversation to prove that we were able to conversate with customers over the phone.

I already knew I wouldn’t last two minutes in this hellhole, but I had to prove a point to my dad that I could earn my own money and that's what I was here to do.

I got the job.

Weeks passed, I hated my job more and more but it's just something I needed to stick at for a while. I decided that this Saturday night I wasn’t just going to stay in at home by myself watching some lame, low-budget movie on the crappy channels which we had available at home and instead I was going to go out on the town and have a good time.

Okay, so there is one good thing about this hell of a job and that is that I have actually made some friends by being there and the fact that I have HAD to make conversation with strangers five days of the week, eight and half hours a day, has actually made me open to talking to people (never saw that one coming right?).

I called up a few of my friends, Eirinn, Jess, and Gemma. These were the only three people that I could actually stand from where I worked, everyone else was just up their own arse and didn’t want to know you unless you wore 50 shades of makeup at the same time, had ratty hair extensions down to your knees and caked that much fake tan on it literally looked like you had jumped in some cow manure at your nearest farm.

The girls were all up for heading out for the night, so we all decided to meet at Gemma’s to get ready and have pre-drinks. We all got to Gemma’s at 7 PM. I did everyones makeup as I actually had a good hand for it with doing stage makeup for so long. We had a good gossip and a laugh, then finally got in the taxi which took us to our first location of the night.

We entered a pub called ‘The Peacock,’ it was a really beautiful. If you ever saw the film, The Holiday with Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black and Cameron Diaz in where Jude Law's character says to Cameron Diaz that if she changes her mind and decides not to go back to LA then she'd have an invite to the pub that night, well, then you know the pub that we had just entered that night, it was pretty much its twin (if its possible to have a twin pub, hmmm).

Straight to the bar I went and ordered two of my favourite drink to get me started. "Two Pornstar Martinis," I asked the very good looking guy behind the bar.

"Coming right up," he replied with a beaming grin.

"Lilly, are you going to stand there drooling over him all night or are you going to grab your drinks and come over to the table and sit with us?" (Lilly was my name, just incase I forgot to mention that) Gemma said bluntly with Jess and Eirinn giggling at the side of her. I realised what I was doing and quickly grabbed my drinks and headed on over to the table. I felt so good about myself tonight, I'm not sure what it was as all I was wearing was some strappy, black sandal heels, some skinny denim jeans and a glittery black top and my long blonde hair scraped into a high ponytail, but I just felt so good. After a couple more of my favourite drinks, me and the girls decided to hit what we had created to be our dance floor, the good old 90s jams were on and I was feeling tonight so much, it was one of the best nights id had in a long time.

The night was coming to an end, we were sat back around the table now just gossiping as you do about people at work. Then Jess just out of nowhere started poking me in the arm ever so slightly, at first I ignored it as i thought she was just playing around, then she dug her finger in a little more each time as though to get my attention, not realising what I was doing (you know, from having a few too many and also from being blonde) I shouted "what?" Jess suddenly looked quite startled. "You do realise you have quite the admirer, Jess said nodding towards the guy behind the bar from earlier. He had loose curled blonde hair and was so my type! The girls were looking at me with a look to say "Let me know what happens?" Then we went our own ways, I headed back to the bar and the girls headed for their taxis home.

The next morning I woke up feeling the most hungover I had felt in months, it was horrible. After kind of getting over the fact of feeling slightly nauseas, I looked around and realised I wasn't anywhere I recognised, I couldn't remember much of last night, the last thing I remember was speaking with the guy at the bar and... oh god no! Was this? Please don't tell me I was at his place!

I slowly turned around to see what was behind me. Long ginger hair, boobs... wait... WOAH! no way! I looked further around the room in a panic to find out more information, my eyes darted to the bedside table, and there it was a picture of Jess and her mum. phew! I have never felt so relieved, then it came back to me. I remember what happened when I went over to the bar, I had another drink with the guy behind the bar, he seemed so nice and I waited while he was closing up as he'd asked me to go to a few of the night clubs with him afterwards. When the last person left the pub that's when things started to go a little pear-shaped, he came and sat next to me, and at first seemed nice, then one thing led to another and then he started forcing me up against the bar. This was not what I wanted right now, not after what had happened with the last couple of guys I was with, I just wasn't ready. I tried pushing him off but compared to his strength, I was too weak. Suddenly someone walked through the door, it was Jess, she'd left her purse at the table and asked the taxi driver to come back and with any luck the pub would still be open, she took her chances. She looked me in the eye as she stood in the doorway shocked and could see this is not what I wanted. She marched straight over to us and dragged the guy off me, I don't quite know how she did it but all I know is I was thankful. She grabbed my hand and pulled me quickly out of the pub doors and into the taxi. I thought I'd be crying, as this type of thing usually affected me but I wasn't. I was just sat there in silence. We got back to Jess's, a place I'd never been before, we talked in the darkness of her bedroom for a while and then fell asleep.

The girl who thought reality would never hit…

There will be a sequel.