Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Sydney, seeming to catch on to what was coming, took over and led me away and back upstairs to my studio, leaving the others behind. And that is how, twice in the space of a month, I let my best friend talk me into leaving my comfort zone. It was the best decision of my life.
Chapter 7
*Elena*
“It’s here. It’s here. It’s here.” Sydney came rushing into the kitchen, where I sat eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I saw the magazine she waved around in her hand, and the food turned to sawdust in my mouth. I almost asked her to turn around and leave but knew that I couldn’t do that to my best friend, not after all that she’d gone through for me.
Wait a minute; she’s beaming, smiling from ear to ear. My heart started beating a wild tattoo in my chest and resounded in my ear. “It’s good news,” I said, it more like a statement than a question, and when she rushed forward to throw her arms around my neck hard enough to choke me, I felt myself relax.
“It’s great news, chicklet, you did it. It’s a hit, number one on all the streaming charts. Look!” I looked at the magazine cover but couldn’t make out the words through the tears in my eyes. It was real; I’d done it, I’d really done it.
After sharing the audio with my manager, who took it to the rest of my team, I’ve been holding my breath. Even when they expounded on how good it was, I still found it hard to let my guard down. It had been so long since I’d released anything that I found myself wondering from one day to the next if I’d let things wait too long.
But here was the proof that I hadn’t that my fans were still there, waiting to support me, just as they said they would. Without thinking, I grabbed my phone and, for the first time in three years, went onto my social media platforms to send out a thank you message to my dedicated fans. I even let Sydney talk me into making a video to post.
I rode that high for all of ten seconds before the reality of what I’d done hit home, but by then, it was too late. My phone kept going off with alerts, hundreds, thousands, but I was too scared to look. “Let me see.” Sydney took the phone and read them off, and most of them were of the same exclamation, “Our queen is back,” or some variation of the same theme.
There were a lot of ‘this is fire’ and ‘welcome back, queen’ comments, and for the first time since my life imploded, I felt a little bit like my old self again. Of course, in the midst of that joy, I had to think of him. As he’d been there for most of my adult accomplishments, it felt almost surreal that he wasn’t there this time.
I fought through it, though, if only for my friend’s sake. Sydney had worked hard for this, and I refused to let her down again. “We should celebrate.” I shocked myself as much as her with those words, and now she was the one who seemed to want to hold back.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure; let’s go do something.” Her scream was almost deafening, and before I knew it, I was being dragged off upstairs to rummage through my closet that hadn’t been updated in forever.
“This won’t do.” She stopped with a pensive look on her face.
“I have an idea; give me one second.” She walked away with her phone to her ear, leaving me standing there staring back at the closet full of nothing to wear. In my head, I kept repeating the words, ‘are you really doing this?’ But each time that sick feeling of dread threatened to take over, I pushed it back hard.
“Come on, take a shower. I’ll be in the guestroom taking one as well.”
“Yes, ma’am.” We both laughed and went our separate ways after the salute I gave her for being her usual bossy self. It was only as I stood under the warm spray that I realized she was no longer walking on eggshells around me.
The smile on my face was way out of proportion, but this was big. Everyone had been treating me with kid gloves for the longest and for her to go back to the way things were told me more than any shrink could.
I can’t say I was surprised by what happened next. Sydney being the star that she is with all the power someone of her stature entails, had somehow got a stylist, a makeup artist, and a hair and nail technician team to show up at my house in less than an hour.