Synergy (13 page)

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 expected 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.