When he was fifteen or sixteen and he started smoking, he didn’t give much thought to how it would affect his vocals, till he got the opportunity to join a boy band. They would practice and practice and work harder than they ever had before, pushed by their manager Jamie who was good at his job but harsh at times. He told Jason about the dangers of smoking on his vocal chords, and made him realise it wasn’t an option, so he quit. Jamie would have the boys practising from 6am until 6pm on a weekend letting them have breaks in between. Sometimes it was too much for the boys, and they would struggle once they got back to school. Jason’s mother had to have a word with Jamie time and time again about how hard he was pushing her son and his bandmates. The hard work did pay off, meaning by the time Jason turned 17, they had a number 3 hit. It was hard on him to not go to school regularly like everyone else his age, having to get home schooled on tour buses between shows and practice, but it was all worth it for living out his dream. Being in a boy band was never the ultimate dream; he always envisioned he would be a solo act, but that was the opportunity he was given and he wasn’t about to turn it down.
Before he knew it, Jason’s reminiscing had put him to sleep in the back of the car, and in his dream, he was thirteen again, with skinny legs and teenage acne. He was sitting outside in the school field near a tree, guitar in hand as he played ‘Beautiful Mind’, the song he had just written. The melody was beautiful, and the sun was shining bright, as his old school friends sat around him listening to the song. He sang the lyrics confidently, strumming his guitar and as he looked around at all the old faces he remembered so well, he saw a face from the present, watching him intently. Dee wasn’t a thirteen year old, she was her present self, and she looked so strange sat among all the young girls, listening quietly in the same way. While the other girls smiled joyfully, her face gave nothing away, and he couldn’t tell whether she was enjoying it or not. As the song came to an end, he watched her as she stood up, and started to move toward him. He watched her silky brown legs which were at his eye level, her stiletto heels rustling the grass beneath her feet. As she got closer toward him, she bent down in front of him, her deep brown eyes making contact with his.
“Jason!” Tom’s voice said in the distance, and he looked away from Dee, and into the distance to see where it was coming from. There it was again. Suddenly, he felt his arm being shaken, and then his eyes opened, and he was back in the car, Tom by his side waking him up from his dream.
“We’re here man.” Tom told him, and Jason sat up to see they were at the airport runway. His neck felt stiff from how his head was bent back during his sleep, and he rubbed it as he let his brain wake up properly.
“Good sleep?” Tom asked, before he opened his passenger side door.
Jason opened his own door, before getting out of the car and taking in the fresh air of outside.
“Weird sleep” he replied, as the memory of his dream started to drift away from him.
Chapter 11 – Bombshell
Jason
Jason thought something was off when Dee had contacted him to ask if they could meet. It was him doing the chasing in all of this, so he couldn’t really imagine what she wanted to talk about. Though he didn’t know, there was something inside him that felt uneasy. His stomach was practically doing back flips the whole way to meet her, and he couldn’t shake that feeling at all. He knew he was taking a risk trying to date somebody like her, she felt completely out of his league, not to mention how different they were. He knew they might look a little mismatched, but he wasn’t about to let what other people might think make his decisions for him. All he knew was that he had dated a few girls in his lifetime and there was something different about this one. Sure, she had grown up different to him, and maybe she had some baggage but didn’t everyone? He wasn’t the type of person to judge anyone for anything.
He hadn’t grown up around money despite what some people thought. His mother had slaved away working for him to have a good life as a child and when he wanted to pursue singing, she did everything in her power to make sure he did it, even if that meant sacrificing her own privileges for him. It was only by luck that he had made it as big as he did, he truly believed that. He knew of plenty of people who had amazing singing voices, and never got off the ground in this industry. It takes pure luck to find somebody that believes in you as if you are their own, and then it takes a lot of money and promotion to get yourself out there. If it wasn’t for his parents working their ass off to make it work for him, and the belief of his entire team, he wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Of course, from there, it’s all down to the fans, and he knew in that sense he was extremely blessed.
Jason knew that there were people in the world who weren’t fortunate enough to get off the ground they started on, and he knew people had a lot less than he had. People didn’t have the same money as he now had, they couldn’t afford the same items or homes. He knew people didn’t all have the same education he did. He knew sometimes things got in the way of people’s education, and they could get themselves into a downwards spiral. Drugs, alcohol, prison. He never judged anyone, because you never know what somebody has been through and how they chose to cope with it. He never judged Dee from the moment he laid eyes on her. Sure, he watched her just like all the other people in the club that night, but in the end, he was interested in getting to know this girl past all the makeup and the skimpy clothes. He wanted to know who she was, what her story was, what made her tick.
As he sat in the lobby of the hotel waiting for her, he picked up his coffee cup and poured the last sip down his throat. After a minute or two, he saw her walk in the glass doors. She had her hair tied up in a ponytail and gold hoop earrings. She was dressed down in jeans and a t shirt, and he realised this was the first time he’d seen her dressed down in everyday clothes. He thought she looked just as beautiful as before, if not more so. She had a natural beauty and he realised she really didn’t need makeup. As she spotted him sat in the lobby, she walked over to him and sat down on the chair opposite his. She didn’t smile, and she looked irritated, like she didn’t want to be there.
“You okay?” he asked, watching her intently.
“Can we go to your room?” she asked, hardly even looking at him.
He nodded and stood up, taking his room card out of his pocket. He got the feeling he shouldn’t try and make small talk on the way up. She followed him closely, but didn’t say a word in the elevator. She barely even looked at him; her eyes switching from the floor to the elevator doors.
When Jason swiped his room card and opened the door for her, Dee walked in and sat on the bed, her hands on her lap. He followed her into the room and sat on the chair opposite the bed, waiting for her to speak, until she didn’t.
“Dee, what’s up?” he asked. What came out of her mouth next he certainly wasn’t counting on.
“I’m pregnant”
As he sat perfectly still on the hotel room chair, he felt like someone just punched him in the gut. He didn’t move, nor say anything. Nothing at all. He just sat there. He didn’t know how long he sat there but Dee said his name, and then again. It sounded a little like it was coming from far away and yet, he still didn’t say anything. He didn’t know whether he’d moved or not, it was like an out of body experience. His mind was in overdrive but his body wouldn’t move at all.
“Did you hear what I said?” Dee asked. It was more an accusation than a question.
“I...don’t know what to say” was all that came out of his mouth.
“You can’t just fucking sit there and not say anything!” she yelled, as she sprung up from the bed and started moving her hands around wildly. Something about her movements broke him out of his slump.
He looked up at her and caught sight of her face, she was mad.
Still, all that came out of his mouth was, “I don’t know what to say.”
What he said was true; he really didn’t know what to say. This had never happened to him before and he never expect
ed it to happen like this. He was imagining what he would say to his mother, his grandmother. They were religious, what would they think about him getting a woman pregnant out of wedlock? A woman who earned her living as a stripper at that. Oh, and she already had a child with another man. That’s if she was keeping it. Was she telling him she was or she wasn’t? Was it even his?
“Is...is it mine?” He stuttered, not knowing if it was the smartest question.
“Did you really just ask me that?!” she roared, her face in disbelief. Before he could reply, she cut him off with her shouting.
“I’m so sorry that this doesn’t fit into your perfect little life, but you got decisions to make”
“You’re keeping it?” he found himself asking. He wasn’t sure if it sounded like a question or a statement, but he was asking to make sure they were both on the same wavelength. It sent Dee into a rage.
“You want me to fucking get rid of it?” She shouted. She’d been pacing up and down the room, while he sat motionless on the chair, but as she yelled she got closer to him. She hovered over him and her thick lips pursed together. He had never seen such an angry look from a woman.
“I never said that...I just...” he planned to finish his sentence by telling her he just wanted to make sure they were on the same page, but before he had chance to finish his sentence at all, she threw up her hands in protest.
“I’m rich and famous and it won’t look good for me getting a ghetto chick pregnant” she imitated, putting on a ridiculing voice.
He didn’t know why she was acting this way. Maybe she was scared herself. Maybe she misunderstood what he was trying to say. Maybe finding out he was famous had made her think he was a different person. He was still trying to process the fact she just said she was pregnant and he really couldn’t handle trying to analyse her too. What struck him was how angry she had become. Frankly, the pout she had going on was terrifying him. It was a look that just said ‘don’t fuck with me.’ He imagined she won a lot of arguments with that look.
More than anything, he couldn’t process the thought that the child was his. He wanted to ask and make sure, but he thought it was a sure fire way to get a smack in the mouth considering the expression on her face.
Almost like she was reading his mind, she spoke again.
“Before you ask again, the baby’s yours”
He sucked in his breath in shock. The word ‘baby’ hit him, it made it real. She was pregnant with his baby. It woke him up to the reality of the situation, and at that moment he stood up. The pair of them made eye contact, and he stared into her deep brown eyes. They filled up with tears but she never once blinked to allow them to fall. It made him think she had practiced it like an art.
Still looking into her eyes, he took a breath and spoke.
“I’m gonna be here for you. Both of you,” he said,and with that he held out his arms and brought her into an embrace. She stood significantly shorter than him, a good six inches shorter, and as he pressed his body against her, she started to fight the embrace. He wasn’t exactly sure why she did it but he continued to press closer into her, hoping she would surrender, and after a moment, she did. He felt her body sink into his, her head pressed into his chest. He expected her tears to grace his shirt so he would feel wetness but he felt nothing. She stood silent and still and not once did she cry or sob. She showed what he would consider zero emotion. After their embrace, she simply pulled away and nodded to him, like she was accepting his proposal of him being there. He wondered if the lack of emotion came from a place of not trusting his word, especially when he thought of her unreliable ex, so he said it again.
“I’m gonna be here for you both, Okay?”
She simply nodded once again, and took a breath.
“I need to go pick Tushaun up from school” she said, and this time, he nodded.
Dee
When Dee left Jason’s hotel, she walked to the next bus stop which stood around two blocks away. From there, she needed to catch the first bus to a second, and then it was around a half hour walk once she got off there. She never told Jason this was how she had got there or how that was her planned route back. If she had a car, the journey would have been a quick stop, but her license had been revoked for a while now. She was caught by the police while driving with a full car of people, and got charged with a DUI. She was young and stupid. She thought driving around a little tipsy and high would do her no harm and to be fair, it didn’t. It just meant she now had a suspended license and had to rely on a bus or others for a ride. She was never planning on telling Jason if she had to that she had a revoked driving license. She didn’t want to embarrass herself anymore than she had to. She didn’t feel like she could be herself around him right now, not completely. He probably already thought she was ghetto as hell. He was probably already regretting that one night considering her news. He was probably gonna get himself checked, considering she’s a stripper and all; maybe he thought it was a regular thing to go the ‘extra mile’ with a customer.
The morning after that first night, she’d had to find her own way home. She didn’t dare call a cab because she didn’t know how far away from home she was, and she didn’t know if she could afford the cab fare home. She certainly didn’t want to spend all her money on it; she still had bills to pay after all. She had walked until she had found a bus stop, and found the bus that went the furthest. From there, she’d walked to find another bus stop and done the same thing. When she finally recognised somewhere while on the bus, she’d got off and walked the rest of the way. She planned to do the same today. She would never tell him that.
As she waited at the bus stop, she checked the time of the next bus due to come and saw she had another ten minute wait. She sighed, and sat on the bench attached to the stand. She could have killed for a drink, or a blunt. Even a cigarette would have sufficed. She thought about the fact she had a baby inside of her and she shook off the thought, she couldn’t. As she sat slumped in the seat, a young kid passed by the stand, and stopped in front of her.
“You sell weed?” he asked.
“No” she automatically replied.
The kid must have been no more than sixteen, and she couldn’t be sure whether he was just pure stupid, or he was a snitch, but either way, she wasn’t going to admit to being a dope girl to some random kid outside of her district. As he continued walking, she sighed. She really could do with some weed. A smoke of anything. Since having Tushaun, she had got far too used to smoking weed every day. It wasn’t even once a day, it was multiple. She didn’t think she was addicted or anything like that. Pretty much everyone she knew smoked it; her mom, her brother and sister and her friends. Sometimes she’d just join in for social reasons because everyone else was, but sometimes she really felt like she needed it, in the same way she would crave a cigarette. If she was stressed, or upset, or even angry, she’d smoke weed to bring her mood down. It would help her to achieve that balance that everyone else seemed to have without.
Dee had always struggled with her anger for as long as she could remember. She remembered her brother teaching her how to fight when she was around 7 or 8. The next day when she went to school, she punched a boy in the stomach and then kneed him in the balls. She didn’t think she had done anything wrong. After all, her brother had told her that it was his brotherly duty to teach her to fight just in case anybody tried anything, and she had taken his word for it. He had told her it was good to practice, and so that’s exactly what she’d done. She’d asked a boy in her grade if he wanted to practice fighting, and being a boy, he’d agreed. He probably never thought he’d be fighting against a little girl who actually knew how to fight. A teacher saw them and suspended Dee for a few days, and had her mother in to speak to her. Her mom didn’t really care. She pretended she did to the school and apologised to the teachers, but once they were home, her mother patted her on the back and told her ‘not to take any shit.’
Dee thought about the conversation she’d just had with Jason
in his hotel room. She thought about the way she’d lost her cool, the way she’d shouted at him, how she wanted to punch him when he didn’t say anything. It was normal for her to lose it when people annoyed her; that was just her personality. She realised Jason didn’t really know her or her personality, and wondered what he was thinking right now, probably ‘crazy bitch.’ She couldn’t blame him. The news of her pregnancy was shocking to her too, and in a way, she still didn’t really believe it, almost like she was in a bit of denial.
She had been sick recently, the start of the morning sickness, and then she realised her period was late. She had always been regular; aside from the first time she became pregnant with her son, so she knew it didn’t sound good. She then had to make sure, so she went and bought three different pregnancy tests, from a store where she knew she didn’t know anybody, something that was harder than it sounded in her neighbourhood. She knew sometimes they could be wrong, but when all three showed positive, she knew she couldn’t pretend anymore. She knew it was her own stupid fault for getting wasted and not using a condom. Maybe if she had a better memory she would remember to take her pill more often, but she found herself forgetting more often than not.
Once she boarded the first bus, all she could think about the entire journey was how much she wanted to smoke. She tried to put herself off, but as she’d left her iPod at home, she didn’t really have anything to distract herself. The twenty minute bus journey went by slowly, and once time came for her to step off, she didn’t waste any time in opening her purse at the next bus stop and lighting up a cigarette. She figured it wasn’t as bad as lighting up a blunt and so she enjoyed her smoke as she waited for the second bus to arrive. She did feel guilty but she shook off any thoughts of that as she felt she couldn’t cope with anything else in her head right now. Though, as she smoked, she vowed in her head that it would be her last cigarette while she was pregnant. This child didn’t ask to be here and she wasn’t about to risk giving it problems it didn’t need. She was already bringing it into a world full of problems.
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