Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96978 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96978 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“No, it’s shit, just like our lives.” I’m barely able to catch my breath because now that I let the hurt free, it’s rolling through me like hot, boiling lava. Like a fucking broken record that won’t stop skipping.
“Court, let it go.” Malcolm’s voice is unusually gentle as I feel his hand tighten on my wrist, removing the computer from my grip as I force my eyes to focus on him rather than my mind that is intent on torturing me with memories.
“Do something… This is your job…” My voice cracks. “Do you have any idea what a slap in the face this is to me? The guitarist of Broken Vixens is pregnant with my ex-boyfriend’s baby,” I state, because does Malcolm not get the fact that these two people have hurt me? Strike that…hurt is too tame. They’ve both gutted me?
“Court, sweetheart—” He sets down the device. “This will all pass, you’ll get through this. Look, you want to put out another solo album? Now is the time. I need you to throw yourself into work, let all this crap blow over, show them who the superstar is here—”
“Blow over? This will never blow over,” I scream in his face again as he takes a step back, looking at me like I might be losing it, and he’s not wrong, but whatever. I’m a survivor, I’ve had to be.
“Malcolm, you need to hear me out because I’ve never been more serious—Broken Vixens is done. Now you’re either with me or with her…what’s it gonna be?” My voice echoes around the room.
“You’re in shock. Which is understandable.” He runs a hand through his red curls that, at the moment, are standing straight up. “Broken Vixens is a billion-dollar franchise—”
“Done.” I shriek like the Diva the press says I am because I will not tolerate anyone who isn’t fully devoted to just me.
“I would rather die than be near Roxy or Johnny again. Now, I’ve made you a very rich man, and I pay you a fortune to handle everything, so what’s it going to be, Malcolm Mac? Because I’m going solo with or without you, effective immediately.”
His brown eyes narrow as he stares at me and nods.
“I’m with you. Always.”
I try and swallow down the lump that’s in my throat. I hadn’t planned on having this conversation, but thinking about it, it’s been long overdue.
I should have done this years ago, when I first found out that Roxy and Johnny were having an affair behind my back. Instead, I listened to everyone tell me to suck it up, and that I had too much to lose if I broke the band up, so I acted like it wasn’t a big deal.
For years, I smiled at the cameras, never letting anyone know that I was battling depression, a massive amount of anxiety, and immense feelings of self-doubt.
I took the stage and sang with that backstabbing bitch, finishing the tour, even when the stress and betrayal gave me a bleeding ulcer. I could barely eat, much less sing, but I powered through it because that’s who I am.
The show must go on, right?
Wrong.
To be honest, losing Johnny was not nearly as bad as the complete devastation of losing my best friend.
Roxy.
She was like a sister to me. We met on the set of Family Love.
Instantly bonding over our shit parents. Well, she had parents, I just had my mom. Both of us ten-year-old, sad little girls, emotionally stunted from lack of stability, or any normal childhood. I mean, Roxy’s father moved her entire family from Canada just so she could get a role on a sitcom.
While my mom was the cliché stage mother, she had me modeling and doing beauty pageants in Tampa, Florida, before I was even in kindergarten. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t wearing makeup and performing. While all the other kids in our apartment building went to real school, I was home-schooled, and by home-schooled that meant I would go to dance class and get vocal coaching by my mother’s boyfriend. That was all.
God, all I dreamt about was being allowed to be in a classroom with a real teacher and kids my own age. Having lunch in a cafeteria and going out to recess where I had friends to laugh and play with.
Not stuck in our overheating, beat-up Volvo, listening to my mom preach about how I missed a dance step or didn’t smile big enough. Nothing I did was ever good enough for her. Not until Josh Davis saw me in a beauty pageant, that is. He basically turned my life into a Disney movie. Literally.
From rags to riches, that was me.
Josh was a Hollywood manager out visiting his family. His niece just happened to be in the pageant with me, he said he got goosebumps hearing me sing “I Will Always Love You,” and flew my mom and me back to Los Angeles with him for auditions.