Chapter 19
Stassi smiled as she watched the comments go crazy as Charlie performed.
“You’re at a million viewers,” she said excitedly.
“Girl, you was about to let the devil steal your joy. This is your gift. Y’all tell Charlie this is hers already.
All she got to do is sing, and all the success is going to come to her,” Stassi said, flipping the camera toward her.
“I know, I know, I just have so much to think about now,” Charlie said.
“That’s another conversation for when we off live,” Stassi said. “Right now, I want y’all to tell Charlie what y’all want her to sing about on the upcoming deluxe version of her album.” Stassi scrolled through the comments, laughing. “Oh, your fans are wild.”
“What they saying, girl?” Charlie asked, curiously.
“Fuck niggas and city girl shit,” Stassi answered.
“That ain’t where I’m at with it, but we can probably throw together a track or two for the girls that’s outside,” Charlie said, laughing. Stassi’s forehead creased suddenly as the comments slowly crept in.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked as she noticed Stassi’s disposition change.
Novelista - I heard Demi Sky got shot in Flint.
Realmimigirl - Charlie, that married man you sleeping with got his karma. Heard he got wet up.
OhhheyyVee - Y’all heard it here first. RIP, Demi Sky.
Stassi’s expression changed as she scrolled through the comments frantically, suddenly panicked.
“Who said that? Where are y’all getting this from?” Stassi asked.
Charlie heard the concern in Stassi’s voice, and she set her guitar to the side. “Stassi, what the fuck is happening right now? Who said what?”
Stassi clicked out of the live and handed the phone to Charlie. “Call Demi! Right now. They’re saying he was shot, Charlie.”
Charlie’s world stopped spinning.
“What do you mean?” She snatched her phone from Stassi’s hand and immediately scrolled for evidence.
“Who said that? Where, Stass?” She was out of her mind.
Her heart galloped with the steam of thoroughbreds.
“These bitches are always trolling. I’ll just call him.
That’s why I didn’t want to do this shit.
I hate online shit. He’s fine. Demi’s fine.
” Stassi didn’t know what to say, and Charlie prayed silently as she dialed him up.
The sound of his voicemail connecting annihilated her.
“My sweet Bird. Sing a song for me. Everybody else, it’s textable.”
Normally, she would leave him a note or two before hanging up. This time, she pressed end and dialed him right back as if the second call would render a different result.
“He isn’t answering. Call Day, Stassi! See if he’s heard from him!” Charlie commanded.
Stassi did as she was told, but the unending ring in her ear made her feel nothing but dread.
“He isn’t answering either. We aren’t on the best of terms, though. He might not answer for me,” Stassi said.
Charlie dialed Day’s number next.
“This cannot be happening,” Charlie cried out. Stassi scrolled through social media, and sure enough, she found what she was looking for.
“Charlie, he’s on Shade Room. It’s saying he died.
” Stassi couldn’t hide her shock. She knew how Demi got down.
Had he taken his frustration out in the streets and gotten caught up?
He may be a gentle giant with Charlie, but he was menacing to everyone else.
She knew his background. Had she sent her man out into the world in a mind state that had cost him his life?
Charlie stood there, in shock as her stomach plummeted. “Stassi, tell me you’re lying!”
Stassi read comment after comment, but it was all speculation, and it got worse and worse as she kept scrolling. Repeating the gossip would only make things worse.
“We’ve just got to get down there, Charlie.
These people don’t know what they’re talking about,” Stassi reassured.
“Some people are saying he’s dead. Some people saying he killed somebody.
Some are saying he’s arrested. It’s all gossip.
None of this might be true. If he’s in jail, he’ll need his lawyer. You know who that is, right?”
“Ummm…yeah, some guy…umm, Einstein, I think. I don’t know.
He gave me his card and told me to put it up one day.
I can’t remember,” Charlie said. She rushed into her bedroom, and Stassi followed as Charlie went into her closet.
She frantically pulled handbags from the shelves, dumping all types of shit out of them as she rummaged through the junk.
Remnants of nights out covered her closet floor as she searched high and low for the attorney’s business card.
“It’s in one of these bags. It has to be. Where is it?!”
“Okay, calm down. Lauren has to know his lawyer, right? She’s his…”
Charlie’s eyes welled with tears, and she stopped all her efforts.
“His wife. You can say it. She’s his wife, and she’ll know how to help him.
” Charlie fisted a handful of locs as she shook her head in disbelief.
She sat down in the middle of her chaotic closet and reluctantly dialed Lauren’s number.
“Hello?” Lauren answered in confusion.
“I’m sorry to call you like this…”
“Are you crying, Charlie?” Lauren asked. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie replied. “The blogs are saying something happened to Demi. I don’t know if he’s in jail or if he’s hurt. Everybody is saying something different. I need his lawyer’s number. I don’t know where he is. I heard rumors that he’s been shot. I don’t know what to believe.”
There was no pause, no hesitation, no need to gameplan.
They were opposites. Charlie was the soft to Lauren’s hard, the weakness to Lauren’s strength, and it wasn’t that Demi needed one more than the other.
He needed them both for different things.
Circumstances like these shone a light on Charlie’s na?veté.
She was young. She had no connections. No power on her own.
Lauren, on the other hand, was armed with not only knowledge but resources to make shit shake.
It was insane the way one man could convince two women they weren’t enough, all the while they envied the qualities each other possessed.
Lauren admired Charlie’s softness, while Charlie envied Lauren’s strength.
Each attributing their lack of ‘something’ to the reason why Demi may choose differently.
The power of men was too hefty when it turned women into unnecessary enemies. Today, they were on the same page.
“First, I need you to calm down. Are you there by yourself?” Lauren asked.
“My sister is here,” Charlie said.
“Okay. Get yourself together. We don’t know anything yet. Let me make some calls and find out what the hell is going on, and I’ll call you back. Get dressed. I’ll let you know where to meet me.”
“Demi might be hurt,” Lauren said aloud as soon as she hung up the phone. She lifted her eyes to meet Nyair’s.
“I don’t expect you not to care, Lo. He’s your family. Y’all just lost something monumental. Where is he? I can take you where you need to go if you need some support, or I can fall back if you need to go alone to figure things out,” Nyair responded.
If a king needed a visual, she was staring at it.
“I’m not sure where he is, but I’d love some help figuring it out.” Her sigh of relief held so much. There would have to be a merging of her past with her present, and Nyair was proving to not be intimidated by that fact.
“Say less,” he said. “Where did this happen?”
“I think at a bar on the Northside of Flint, according to these comments,” she said as she scrolled through social media. “I’m not sure, though.”
“Let’s get to the bottom of it,” Nyair said.
He pulled out his phone, and with the press of one button, he was on the line with the chief of police in Flint. The one thing about Nyair was he was very well-connected in his city. There wasn’t a city official that he hadn’t collaborated with. Within minutes, he had a rundown of the situation.
Lauren sat anxiously as she watched him conduct the call. Her stomach was in knots. She was trying to follow Nyair’s conversation and piece together what had happened, but she could only hear one end of it. When he finally ended the call, she could tell from the look on his face that it was bad.
“Just tell me,” Lauren said.
“He’s been shot. He’s in surgery. The police have no idea who did this, but it’s not looking good, Lo.”
Lauren’s brain exploded.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “How is this happening? Where was he shot? How bad is it?” she asked.
Lauren’s brain was firing off a thousand questions, and only a few were sneaking from her mouth. She couldn’t process this, but she had to. “Where is he?”
“He’s at Genesys Hospital. We should get there now,” Nyair said.
“Yeah, yeah, let me just grab my purse and my keys,” she said as she moved around the room, retrieving the items. “Where is my phone?” she asked. “I just had it.”
Nyair stopped her. “Hey, hey. Your phone is in your hand,” he said, shaking her gently. “Take a beat. You’re in shock. You’re panicking. It’s going to be okay.”
“If he dies…”
“Let’s just get there,” Nyair said, kissing her forehead.
“I have to call Charlie back. She’s pregnant. How do I tell her this? We aren’t even friends. I shouldn’t be the one to tell her something like this.”
“I know it’s a thing there between y’all. I saw it at the funeral, and I get it. You don’t always get to choose who God places in your life, though, Lo. Who else does this girl have?”
Lauren nodded and sent Charlie a text message, asking her to meet her at the hospital, then Nyair took her hand and led her into another battle—one she wasn’t prepared to fight.
Charlie only had bad experiences walking into the hospital.
The last time she had been there with Lo, she had learned DJ had passed away.
The time before that, she had learned that Demi was married.
The way her body responded this time was palpable.
The anxiety of what she was about to walk into made her tremble in fear.
Her hands shook so badly that she had to ball her fists to control it.
“This way,” Stassi said as they rushed down the hallway.
When Charlie saw Lauren, pacing at the end of the corridor, she stopped walking. Lauren glanced up at her, and Charlie slowly pushed forward.
“Is he okay?” Charlie asked.
“He’s been shot, Charlie. In the back. He’s coded twice. They’re doing everything they can,” Lauren said, voice cracking under the weight of their reality.
Charlie’s legs lost strength, and she put her hand against the wall to stop herself from falling.
“Ohhh,” she moaned. Her grief was audible, and she bent over in agony as she heard Lauren tell the rest of the story to Stassi.
Looked like robbery.
Blood loss.
Shot twice.
If he makes it.
That’s all Charlie could absorb. She wasn’t sure if the sickness she felt was her baby or her devastation, but she rushed to the nearest trash can.
A nurse rounded the station desk and ushered Charlie to a chair.
“She’s pregnant,” Stassi informed.
“I’ll get you some ginger ale and crackers. Wait here.”
“He can’t die on me,” Charlie cried. “I should have never asked him to leave. This is all my fault. He was supposed to be with me.”
“Let’s just wait and see what the doctors say,” Nyair said gently, placing his hand on the small of Lauren’s back and turning her toward him.
“Where’s Day?” Stassi asked. No one had even thought to question it. Everyone was so focused on the tragedy that they didn’t notice that Demi’s right-hand man was missing.
Lauren pulled away from Nyair.
“Call him, Stassi,” she said. Her tone made Charlie look up in concern.
“He’s probably at the studio,” Stassi said. “It’s going to voicemail. He cuts his phone off when he’s producing. I’ll go get him and bring him here.”
Lauren shook her head. It was too odd to be a coincidence.
“Something’s wrong,” Lauren said. “No way something this big goes down, and Day isn’t here.”
“She’s right,” Charlie whispered.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. Y’all stay here, and I’ll be back,” Stassi said.
“You don’t have to stick around,” Lauren said to Nyair. “I can call you when I leave here. I’ll come straight to you.”
“I’m going to go downtown to see if I can find out who they think did this,” Ny said. “If anything changes, or if you need me for anything, don’t hesitate, okay?” Nyair instructed.
Lauren nodded, and he kissed her lips, shocking Charlie before he nodded her way, acknowledging her before he departed.
Lauren took a seat in the chair beside Charlie.
“I can’t lose him,” Charlie whispered.
“Neither can I,” Lauren added. Lauren held out her hand, and Charlie looked at it skeptically before sighing and grabbing onto her.
Charlie leaned into Lauren, resting her head on Lauren’s shoulder as they sat side by side, united under the worst circumstances.
Hours passed, and Stassi had searched everywhere.
Day wasn’t at his studio, the offices, or at his home.
Charlie sat, bouncing her leg anxiously as Lauren scrolled mindlessly through her phone, trying to pass the time as they awaited Demi’s surgeons.
“Oh my God,” Lauren whispered as she showed her phone to Charlie.
#TSRUPDATEZ
Industry Mogul, Dayton Night, Accused of Sexual Assault. Kiara Da’vi sues for $20M.
“This can’t be happening,” Lauren whispered. It was too convenient to be a coincidence, and her mind raced as she wondered if both events were tied to each other. Somebody was coming for their entire circle, and Lauren feared that Demi and Day may not come out of this unscathed.
To Be Continued...