Not every celebrity wears the costume that they wear on stage.

“Wednesday morning and it’s about six o’clock right now. I have to get to school in about two hours,” Cindy Cauliflower said to the camera mounted on a tripod resting on her desk. She projected her voice loud enough for the camera’s microphone to pick up, but not too loud to the point that everyone in her house would wake up. Her bedroom had a thin wall separating her room from the room that belonged to Cathy, her younger sister. Any loud sounds that come from her usual filming of herself would typically anger Cathy if she was doing anything in her room that required precise concentration. Cindy learned to use the right amount of volume in her voice over six months for her online videos that she has been creating since then. She didn’t keep a high expectation for having an online audience for these videos, she initially only filmed for the fun of it. When her friends and classmates found out that she ran an online channel, they called her famous on the internet. But I’m really not, she had thought to herself at the time.

During the early times of filming these videos, Cindy only ever recorded the fun times that she’d had with her friends. They were initially just moments that she could look back to when she became older. But lately, she has been planning to film scenarios that other people would find strange while it felt somewhat normal to Cindy. Other online channels have their gimmicks, I should have one of my own. She had started to film videos while she was at school. Each day was a different video and each video was unique from the others. During her previous school year, she had approached the school’s football team and asked if some volunteers could kiss each other in honor of pride month. Luckily, two of the players willingly kissed in front of the camera that Cindy was filming with. The rest of the team had cheered and clapped for them from the back as they did the deed. Cindy was happier at the fact that she was bringing the school together rather than the fact that she had got that moment and similar ones on film. She uploaded the video on the next evening and when she checked back on how it was doing on her channel the morning after, it had gotten about two-thousand views. She was shocked at the time as that was a drastically high view count compared to her other videos that she had uploaded.

When Cindy had other video ideas, she would film them the next day. But she had just been recently coming up with topics for interviews for her fellow schoolmates. She barely asked about any political subjects and asked her peers about random debate questions, online trending topics, or anything that’s going on in school. Lately, she has been known as a reporter-type of figure of the school.

“The school had hired a new counselor for this school year. Many students have been talking quite a lot about him. I hear lots of rumors going around so today we’re going to be asking some of our schoolmates what they think of the new hire. I’m lucky that I’m a senior this year because I wouldn’t get the scoop of this otherwise. So, we’ll be asking around and hopefully we could get an interview with the man himself at the end of this,” Cindy said to the camera. She never writes scripts for herself for these videos unlike other people on their online channels. She likes to talk from saying things from the top of her head. Though, because of the lack of a written script, she refers to herself and her camera with plural pronouns such as we since she feels that her audience is with her through the camera.

Cindy reached for her camera and pressed the red button on it, ending the recording. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned off her device, placing it into her backpack that lied on the floor against her desk. She stretched her arms out to wake herself up and proceeded prepare herself for the day.

“Here we are at Celestial High,” Cindy said with excitement in her voice to the camera as she filmed herself walking up the stairs leading to the front doors of the school’s building. She pointed the camera to face the entrance, filming it as students walked through those doors. The people that have seen or heard of Cindy have already gotten used to her filming in school, even her teachers. If they have been on camera once before, it was as if they immediately became a part of Cindy’s cast of actors. Her audience somewhat knew who each face they saw on the video was, even if they were not directly in front of the camera.

Suddenly, Cindy felt someone grab both of her shoulders and heard a quick scream. Cindy jumped and let out a high-pitched squeal in fear and surprise, losing grip of her camera. She adjusted herself, holding the camera even tighter now. She turned around to see who had scared her and saw a feminine figure a little bit taller than Cindy standing there with a smile on her ivory face, her lips covered with a bright red lipstick. She seemed happy that she had the jump on her.

Cindy pointed her camera down, looking at the ground beneath her. “Ellie! Don’t do that while I’m filming,” Cindy said while giggling at the same time, trying to keep her composure.

“Bonjour, Cynical Flower. You’re as predictable as ever,” Ellie said while smirking with her hand on her waist. She did not even have a French accent nor background. Ellie is just a fanatic of romantic movies and the French language.

Cindy brought the camera up to give Ellie the spotlight that she always wanted whenever she was around it. “I told you to stop calling me that. We’re on our last year of high school and you’ve still been calling me that same name ever since middle school,” Cindy said with a little annoyance in her voice.

“But it suits you well.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Well, I think that it does.”

The two of them walked up the flight of stairs with Cindy still filming. They walked and talked together as if they were really close friends. Though she never exactly thought Ellie as one. They’ve talked to each other for several years, yet they don’t know too much about personal matters with one another. They never talked about their past or the things that they’ve done. Cindy and Ellie were friends only because they each enjoyed the personality that the other one had most of the time. The rest of the time, they would fight due to conflicting ideas whether it be small matters or hogging the guy that the other one liked. Cindy didn’t know what word to describe the relationship that the two of them shared.

Cindy started filming the student-filled hallway as she walked through it. “Are you coming to my party tonight, Flower?” Ellie asked her as the camera turned to face her. Why is she always in the shot? Cindy continued to film, giving more attention to the screen rather than the person walking next to her, asking a question. “Hello?” Ellie asked longingly to get Cindy’s ear. She waved her hand in front of the lens. Cindy looked up towards Ellie with her eyebrows raised. “Pay attention to me. Did you even hear what I said, Cynical?” Ellie asked her. Whenever Cindy was filming, it was hard to get her attention, unless someone interacted with her directly or ruined her video. She always wanted to get the best shots for the final cut.

“Something about the video?”

“No. Not even close by one bit,” Ellie rolled her eyes.

Cindy pressed the red button on her camera to stop the current recording. She softly sighed to let her inner stress out. “Then what is it?” She asked, irritated that she had to pause her filming.

“It’s about my Halloween party happening tonight at my house. Many people are going to be there, like the football team, the cheerleading squad, the debate team, the dance club, and basically every other person that knows me. Hell, even my ex-boyfriends are going to be there, I think. Just no freshmen or sophomores because we all know that they’re too immature,” Ellie explained to Cindy, whose eyes grew larger while listening to her, realizing that she completely forgot about it. How had she forgotten about Ellie’s party? I was too caught up with school and my channel, she thought. She lowered her camera and nodded her head, “Yeah, I’m going tonight. I mean, who wouldn’t?” Cindy attempted her best to pretend that she remembered about the party ever since.

“Yay, you’re coming!” Ellie said while clapping her hands with delight. A slight smile appeared on Cindy’s face. She was happy that Ellie was happy.

“You don’t need to worry about bringing food or anything because I’ve got it all covered. All you need to bring is yourself and your costume.”

“And you’re prepared to provide food and drinks for practically half of the school?”

“Who said that half of the school is coming? Only the people that know me are invited.”

“Even Matthew?” Cindy jokingly said as she released a giggle.

“Matthew? Matthew who?” Ellie asked with a raised brow. It did not feel strange to Cindy that Ellie did not know who Matthew was. The most popular and well-known girl in the school wasn’t knowledgeable of one of the quiet kids, if not all of them.

Cindy considered Matthew as one of her friends, although they rarely ever shared a few class periods with each other. She would always try to interact with Matthew in some shape or form whenever they were in class. Though, he would barely say anything to her. She noticed that Matthew seemed troubled somehow. During her sophomore year when she first met him, Cindy immediately saw that he was the loner-type and despised the idea of socializing with people in the school. But when she thought about it more and looked closer, she just saw Matthew as an individual that was screaming for help. Throughout the two years that she’s known him, she had tried time and time again to reach out and have him open up that mysterious personality he keeps to himself. And across that time period, Cindy had yet to have him be himself around her. Maybe Matthew’s inner personality was the same as the one that he portrayed on the outside? Maybe he was as self-loathing as people saw him? Though, she did not want to trust the part of her mind that thought of that. Cindy wanted to help him because she believed that hating one’s self was not a healthy state of mind.

The school bell rang loud in the corridor, prompting the students to get to their classes. Some of the students closed their lockers as they ran to their next class while others leisurely strolled through the hallway, talking to each other without a care in the world about their class attendance.

“Ugh! I wanted to film more,” Cindy said as she shut her camera off. She placed it in her backpack while she quickened her pace to her designated classroom.

“Don’t you think you film enough?” Ellie’s concern was prominent in her voice as she asked Cindy. She sounded as if she was worried about Cindy’s habit of recording her everyday routine, yet at the same time she seemed a bit annoyed at it.

Cindy swiftly turned her head to face Ellie and held an antagonizing, though somewhat adorable face. People that knew Cindy found it hard to see her as a physically angry person. Her short stature and large hazel eyes made her seem childish on the outside. Others found it difficult to think that she was a senior in high school.

Ellie grabbed one of Cindy’s cheeks, “You’re too cute. It’s a wonder why you don’t have a man.” She let go and Cindy puffed her face out to willingly appear adorably cute.

“I have to get to class. But I’ll see you tonight, yes?” Ellie said as she started walking to the stairs, still facing her.

“Yeah, I’ll see you tonight.”

“Just don’t bring that camera of yours. We’re partying to have fun, not to capture it.”

“But if I don’t film, how are we supposed to relive the moment?”

“Moments are precious because we experience them in that second. Reliving them over and over makes them lose that quality. If a moment ends, then that’s when I would value it.”

A brief moment of silence stood between the two of them. Cindy looked down at her camera and stared at it. You don’t get it, she thought. She felt distraught that Ellie had just said that to her. Should she walk away from her or say something back?

Cindy lifted her head up to face Ellie. She opened her mouth to let out what she had in her mind. Though, when she began to speak, she held her words back. She could not do that to the person that she considered a friend. Ellie was the only person that was unique to Cindy as they were close in a sense that they grew up together rather than personally knowing one another.

“Au revoir, Flower!” Ellie said as she lightly patted the same cheek that she grabbed earlier, then headed for the stairwell. Cindy watched her walk away to her next class until she was out of her vision.

Inside of herself, Cindy felt very conflicted. She didn’t know if it was either right or wrong for her to fight with her friend. Cindy never had thoughts like that. She believed that true friends shouldn’t bicker with each other because they accepted who they were. But how could a person accept every single detail about the person that they know? If a true friend didn’t express the thoughts that they held that the other was against, is that truly a real friend? Cindy suppressed these thoughts as she shook her head. She turned around and started for her next class, merging into the crowd of students.