My Celebrity Friend

"He's dead!" 

"Who's dead?!" Vanessa nearly spits out her coffee.

"Matthew Perry!" 

Vanessa looks at me blankly, her right eyebrow raised in confusion.

"Chandler from Friends!" I stomp my foot with my hands out to my side in frustration.

"Oh, isn't that the guy you were obsessed with?" 

"Yes! I was fully convinced I would marry him."

Vanessa laughs, "Oh geez, that sucks. Well, our break is up; we need to get back to the library."

We walk down the red brick path from the on-campus Starbucks back to the library, where we meet up with one of our good friends and study buddy, Felix. I met Vanessa and Felix two years ago during our freshman year of college here at the great University of Pittsburgh. Go Panthers! 

Vanessa, Felix, and I were in the majority of classes together since we were all going for the same degree in physical education and coaching. My decision to go to school for such a degree is ironic since I rarely participated in PE class back in middle school and high school.

***

"Why is ATP an important molecule?" Vanessa asks, holding a stack of colored index cards with questions that we presume will be on our final exams in just under a month.

Vanessa breathes in and lets out a big sigh. "Audrey!" she snaps her fingers in my face. "Why is ATP an important molecule?"

"I don't know!" I bang my hand on the wooden table.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"Are you good?" Felix wrinkles his forehead.

"Yeah.. sorry. Did you know Matthew Perry died?" I asked Felix.

"Yeah, I saw that! Definitely a sad one."

"It was her boyfriend," Vanessa chuckles.

I didn't know Vanessa and Felix when I went through my Matthew Perry obsession; they didn't know the days I canceled plans to stay home to watch Friends marathons or the fan pages I created on social media. 

Matthew Perry was better than any boy from school anyway, and one day I'd meet him. I'd get to tell him how much of a weirdo fangirl I was and that I watched the whole Lost series just because he said it was his favorite show. Tell him how sad I was when his TV show Go On was canceled, especially since I waited forever for the show to premiere.

***

"I'm going back to my apartment." I stand up, pushing my chair back.

"For what? We are in the middle of studying for exams right now,  Audrey.

"My stomach hurts; I'm just not feeling good. It was probably the coffee." I gather my books and slide them into my pink backpack.

"Feel better!" Felix frowns. 

"Yeah, feel better," Vanessa adds in disappointment. She knew something was up.

***

When I got back to my apartment, I opened the cabinet above my microwave; that's where I kept my wine. I haven't drank in three months. I had no plans to indulge in alcohol until after exams, but I had a sudden hankering to pull out that lovely bottle of Cooper Mountain Pinot Noir.

I turn on the TV; a special Friends marathon is on to honor the late actor. What a perfect evening—my pajamas, a good show, and my favorite wine.

One, two, three, four, I was going through glasses of wine as if they were Dixie cups filled with water.

By the sixth glass, I was officially zoning into the TV, fixated on "Chandler." He's dead. The thought kept taking over my mind; it gave me an eerie feeling.

Is this why I had a sudden urge to drink? Because of some celebrity death?

How ironic that I chose to kiss the bottle, although he was an advocate for alcohol addiction. This isn't how he would want me to react to his death. I am sure he would want me to put the bottle aside and focus on the task at hand—passing my exams. He would want me to succeed and overcome drinking to feed my anxiety. So why could I not focus on anything else besides the thought of him being gone? What was stopping me from putting the bottle away?

Something about this death hit me; it was almost as if I knew the man. I was not one to care or dig into celebrity deaths, but this feeling was different. Was it because, in my teenage years, I had focused on him so often to the point that it felt real? Was it because when I was filled with social anxiety and insecurities in school, I had this person pretend to be there for me in my head? I had some kind of strange certainty that I would meet him. Maybe we would star in a sitcom together.

Although I knew I probably would have never met him, there was that child inside of me who was upset that it was over.

What would fourteen-year-old Audrey think about this?

Could you imagine how devastated she would be?

I haven't focused on him in years. Yeah,  of course he would pop up in tabloids and articles once in a while, and I'd follow what he was up to, but I didn't go out of my way. The days of thinking I was going to be a celebrity alongside Matthew Perry were gone for a while now; all those childhood dreams have been dead. My reality was that I was going to be a physical education teacher, not a celebrity.

*** 

Six in the morning came along, and I was woken up by the sound of someone knocking at my front door. My head was pounding, as if I were hit by a brick. I had an empty bottle of wine tipped over on the stand next to my couch, a few pizza rolls laying on the floor, and the TV was still blasting.

I walk over to the door in my zombie state. I look through the peephole to see Vanessa standing outside. "Oh great," I huffed, opening the door slowly, knowing that she was about to give me a lecture.

Vanessa stepped foot into my apartment, closing the door behind her. She took one look at me and started to glance around, noticing the disaster I had left last night. She closed her eyes and took a huge breath in, her shoulders rising up and then down as she exhaled.

"What the hell is your problem?" Vanessa was frustrated and maybe even disappointed with me at this moment.

"I don't know; I just had a few glasses," I lied.

"Yeah, a few too many... You have pizza rolls on your floor, Audrey."

My eyes meet hers. "Oops," I chuckle.

"Do you even care that we have important exams in a few weeks? This is a big deal if you would like to actually pass."

She wasn't wrong; these exams were everything. At least at this stage in my life, this is what I had to aim for.

"I will meet you at the library in an hour. You better be there." She looks at me with her eyes wide and eyebrows raised.

*** 

 I was sitting alone in my kitchen, drinking my morning coffee, left with my thoughts once again.

Why did I suddenly want to drink and run away from reality?

Was it the death of the celebrity I admired?

Was it the sadness that had flooded me that another person, another piece of my childhood, was gone?

Maybe it was both.

One thing I did know was that it was time to get to the library.

...

I will always feel as if I have lost a friend.