Chapter 11 #2
Demi kissed her big toe, and she beamed because this man, with his OCD and rigid rules of what could and couldn’t be touched, had no reservations about touching her anywhere. They had come a long way.
“You are a gentle giant, Demi Sky,” Charlie said, smiling.
“Fuck you talking about, Bird?” Demi asked, chuckling. Charlie stood from the water and wet the entire floor as she went to the vanity. She retrieved her vape and climbed back into the water.
“Now you got all the fucking shit that was on the bottom of your feet in the tub.” Demi grimaced.
“I swear I forget how fucking anal and weird you are,” Charlie said, tipping her head back and inhaling the THC. She blew it out toward the ceiling and then handed it to him. “Smoke, then fuck. That’s all you need to worry about tonight.”
It was shit like that. This wild shit. This vibe.
This young shit. Charlie made Demi feel like every breath he took was worth the moment.
Every minute they spent together ended up being a memory he reflected on.
Charlie’s smile. Charlie’s laughter. Her snore.
Her fucking farts. Literally, everything she did and said imprinted on his brain like she was pressing save to a hard drive.
If he died tomorrow, he could say he had lived well because of his time with her. She was an experience.
“I’ma fix this shit with the media, Bird. I’ma clear it up,” Demi said. “We’ll release a statement. Sit down, do an interview with Breakfast or some shit. I ain’t letting this shit burn your name.”
She nodded but she didn’t really want to talk about it because she knew that no statement would make the world unhear the pained words of Demi’s son.
“This interview is important,” Day said.
Charlie sat in the back of the Sprinter. She was worried. “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything. Is this a good idea? Like, maybe just letting it die down is the thing to do.”
“This ain’t gonna go away,” Day stated. “And the longer we say nothing, the more the public begins to form its own opinion. We got to get ahead of it.”
Demi sat silently in the captain’s chair beside her. He rubbed his fingers together as he looked out the window. Deep in thought, Charlie wished he would speak up. She didn’t trust her instincts with this problem.
“It just feels wrong to call DJ a liar. It feels like I’m going to just rile things up in our personal life. What about Lauren? Demi, what if she speaks out to defend DJ next? This just seems like it can get worse.”
“We not speaking out against DJ. Y’all are family. We just clearing up the side chick thing. Letting it be known that you respect women, relationships and that you are not Demi’s side chick.”
“I was, though,” Charlie whispered.
“You never were,” Demi interjected. “I’ll do the interview with you. It ain’t your place to explain.”
“Demi…”
“It’s a bad idea, bro,” Day said. “Social gon’ drag you.”
“Better me than her.” His decision was final, and Charlie felt relieved as Day climbed out. Demi followed, and then he turned to lift her from the Sprinter. “Everything will be fine.”
They walked into the popular radio station, and Charlie held Demi’s hand tightly. Her stomach was full of tumultuous angst, flipping, causing waves of sickness that made Charlie feel like she would throw up.
“Demi, I can’t do this. I’m…oh,” she groaned and stopped walking. “My legs feel…”
Charlie passed out before she could even finish her sentence. If it weren’t for Demi’s quick reaction, she would have hit the ground.
“Bird!” Demi shouted. “Bird, baby, wake up!”
“Yo, is she good?” Day asked. “Is she breathing, bro?”
Demi scooped her into his arms. “Get the door! Get us to the E.R. now!”
The driver sprang into action, and Demi lifted Charlie into the back, holding her close to his chest.
She came to slightly, eyes fluttering, and she squeezed Demi’s collar. She didn’t even realize where she was.
“Demi, what happened?” She asked weakly.
He could feel her heart beating, and he felt her shallow breaths. He was trying not to panic.
“You’re going to be good, Bird. Just relax, baby. We’re going to get help. Just relax.”
The driver was ordered to do a hundred down the highway. Demi bossed three nurses, a practitioner, a resident, and an attending physician around, and made an emergency call to Stassi, all to come up with the conclusion that Charlie was dehydrated and pregnant.
Charlie lay in the hospital bed with an IV running out of her arm.
“I’m what?” She asked.
“According to the bloodwork, you’re about nine weeks pregnant,” the doctor confirmed. “It seems your birth control was recalled. The hormones weren’t strong enough to stop a pregnancy.”
Charlie looked at Demi with tears in her eyes.
“Is the baby okay?” Stassi asked.
“We don’t know. We’ll set up an ultrasound, check the heartbeat and keep you here to test your hormone levels tomorrow.
Everything should be fine, we just need to go through the steps to confirm,” the doctor informed.
“A nurse will be in soon to take you up to radiology.” The doctor left the room and Charlie desperately wished everyone else would leave as well.
“You guys don’t need to stay. Day, please take my sister home. I’ll call if there’s anything wrong,” Charlie said.
“Are you sure? I can stay with you. Demi, you can go. I’ll stay with her.”
“I’m not going nowhere,” Demi answered.
“It’s okay, Stass,” Charlie said. “I’m feeling better now.”
Stassi was reluctant, but she gave in. “Okay, keep me updated. Do you want me to call your dad?”
“Please don’t,” Charlie whispered. The strained relationship with her father and Stassi’s mother was not something she wanted to put on top of the tension in this room.
“Okay. I love you,” Stassi said.
“Love you too,” Charlie replied.
“I’ma get with you, bruh. Congrats,” Day stated. They tapped elbows and Day led Stassi out the room.
The silence between Demi and Charlie was heartbreaking. They were two souls interwined so deeply that they normally knew what the other was thinking. As they stared at each other now, they felt like strangers.
“How long you been on birth control, Bird?” Demi asked.
“Six months.”
Demi scoffed and turned away from her, rubbing the top of his head with both hands before turning back to her.
“All this love we make. Every time I talk about making babies with you. Having a family with you and you on fucking birth control.” Demi turned again because he could barely look at her.
“In this nasty-ass hospital.” He was in his head, OCD kicking his ass, the haunting of her deceit jumping into the fight.
Demi couldn’t even defend himself from his own emotions. All he felt was betrayal.
“I can explain.” Charlie was overwhelmed. She was caught in a big lie that had started as a little lie. When she had first decided to visit her doctor, she hadn’t thought twice about it. Now it felt like she had maliciously hurt the man she loved.
“Can you?”
“I just didn’t want a baby, Demi. My album hasn’t even dropped. My career…”
“The career I gave you,” Demi scoffed.
“The career I earned!” She protested. She was defensive because how dare he.
He hadn’t sung one song. He hadn’t shed one pound to fit into the superstar mold Day told her she needed to fit in.
He hadn’t lost one night of sleep to the studio.
Damn it if she didn’t work for this. What she didn’t realize is his leverage of ownership in the company was what had walked her through the door.
His love for her allowed her introduction into the industry.
Without him, she would have still been singing in smoky bars where he had found her.
Both had valid points. Both perspectives were layered in truth and laced in passion, but like many couples before them, they couldn’t see the situation from one another’s vantage.
“So you let me think one thing when it was really something else?” Demi asked.
“I tried to tell you I didn’t want this!”
Demi was so thrown that he had to choose his words precisely.
“When you try to tell me that, Bird? When I left my wife and son for you? When I gave up my life to make a life and home with you? What did you think I was doing that for? To play boyfriend/girlfriend and go to the movies every now and again?”
His sarcasm ignited her rage.
“I didn’t ask you to do any of that! I didn’t even know that baggage existed when I fell in love with you! I’m young, Demi. You’re in your 30’s, but I’m in my 20’s! I still have a lot of shit I want to do before I become a mom!”
“It’s a fucking mute argument now, Bird.
You’re a mom. My baby’s growing in you right now,” Demi said.
“And as mad as I want to be with you, it don’t even matter,” Demi stated.
“You’re pregnant. Like, what we doing all this yelling for, Bird?
My baby is having my baby.” Demi sat on the edge of her bed and leaned over, cupping her face, caressing her cheeks while planting appreciative kisses on her lips.
“Do you know how well I’ma do my job with you now?
Like, I loved you before, but I’m indebted to you now, Bird.
You know how much I love you? How much I already love this baby? ”
Charlie felt like shit. Why was her feelings the exact opposite of his? She felt doom and fear in this moment. She felt regret, like she should have done a better job preventing this from happening. His excitement was suffocating.
“Demi, you’re not hearing me, baby.”
He pulled back.
“I want a baby with you but I don’t want this baby right now. We need to discuss all the options.”
He stood. His entire body tensed as he looked at her in disgust.
“I gave you a pass the first time because I was on my bullshit,” he said.
It was what they didn’t speak about. The baby she had chosen to abort after finding out about his wife and son.
A tear slid down her cheek because she knew he resented her for it.
He had never said it, but she had felt all along that he thought about the what-ifs of that decision. This was confirmation.
“Don’t do that. Don’t bring that up.” She was pleading, voice cracking.
“This the second baby of mine you tryna get rid of, Charlie.”
The seriousness of his tone was unsettling.
“You getting a little used to taking the selfish way out,” Demi said. “This ain’t just your decision. That’s my baby too.”
“It’s my body! It’s my career! My life! What happens when you decide you’re done with me and my time is up, the same way you did with Lauren?”
She knew she took it too far when she saw him recoil.
“I was with her for fifteen years,” he said solemnly.
“I didn’t cheat. I didn’t fucking disrespect her.
She ain’t deal with me chasing pussy in the industry.
Wasn’t no hood rats in the streets coming at her over me.
I honored my wife. I didn’t leave her on a whim.
I left her because when I met you, you made a nigga feel like he would miss his entire life if he stayed where he was at.
Like you were the last train out the station, and if I missed it, I would never get to go somewhere I knew I needed to be.
I been giving this shit my all, Bird. I’ve been touching you, letting you touch me in ways that she couldn’t earn in a lifetime.
I never even think of waking up to a day where you’re not in my world, but if you kill my kid.
.. If you get rid of one of my babies again!
And I been here, and I been on my shit, being a good nigga for you.
If that’s your decision, it ain’t shit else for us to do. ”
Charlie’s tears were free-falling without a parachute. She didn’t sob, she didn’t even make a sound, but she mourned…grieved because it felt like she was losing him.
“Why do we have to do this right now? Why can’t we just wait ‘til the time is right? You can be patient for me, Demi. You love me enough to be patient. I know you do.”
“Life don’t wait, Charlie, and timing ain’t never right, but we could do this. We can love this baby. Put it on me. All the work. Shitty-ass diapers and all. You can sing and have everything you want. You don’t got to choose. I ain’t a nigga that’s gon’ leave you to parent by ya’self.”
“I know you won’t,” Charlie said. “But my answer is still no.”
A nurse walked into the room, and Charlie sniffed away her tears, wiping her eyes.
“Can you bring the doctor back in? I don’t want the ultrasound. I need to know what the options are...”
“Options?” The nurse asked.
“For an abortion,” Demi finished. He turned around and walked out of the hospital room, leaving Charlie with a hole in her heart.