Chapter 3
ME, REALLY?
A song I wrote after someone I’d only spoken to a few times told me they were in love with me.
Mauve told me that’s what made me destined to be a popstar, that people could fall in love with my ‘aura’, she called it.
I was confused. Obviously, I realise now it was probably lust, or maybe a joke.
I’m not someone that people fall in love with, clearly.
It’s not like anyone actually wants to be with me.
I stare at the ceiling in my bedroom, counting the paint strokes on the ceiling and praying that when I unlock my phone, everything has righted itself overnight.
I groan, a weight on my chest when I try to sit up against the resistance.
My head is pounding, my mouth dry. I need a huge glass of water with crushed ice, and two paracetamols.
And someone else to get them for me.
I catch sight of myself in the mirrored dressing room door and immediately curse myself for getting one.
Again. As I do every morning when I wake up.
After this tour is finished, I’ll have to get someone to come and build me a new door which doesn’t reflect all my mistakes every time I open my eyes.
It’s funny really that, despite my reputation, I haven’t slept with anyone since last year. It’s been a while since someone other than me or my team was in this house. All this ridicule for some stupid kisses.
I had a weird experience last year with Harley Joseph from Purely Spring, the boyband everyone was obsessed with back in 2015.
And my memory from that night is hazy at best but no matter how hard I try, I can never forget the way his head curled towards the mirrored door as he pounded into my body with all the force and speed he could muster.
Watching the way his biceps flexed while we were in missionary, the way his hips moved as he thrusted.
It told me that maybe I should stop sleeping with people I met at parties when my beer goggles are on, that maybe I should meet someone who will care about what I enjoy as well as what they want.
But I don’t see the point in meeting someone when I’m hardly ever around.
Harley had removed himself from me and, for just a second, I’d felt guilty for not realising he’d finished.
But he didn’t clean himself up. He walked through my house until I heard him clattering about in the kitchen.
He came back with the kettle, lid open. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ He still had the condom on.
I had to buy a new kettle – I could never look at it the same.
The news agenda seems to have moved on from me and Benji without a trace, but only because they have new photos of me kissing a Chelsea footballer at a party last night.
Jonny and I have history in the sense that we slept together once about seven years ago, and since then we’ve had a series of kisses in clubs and bars.
Most of them haven’t made public knowledge, but I’m under a microscope since Benji.
There are more important things happening in the world but society’s demand for celebrity gossip is completely insatiable.
I close the apps and get myself dressed, opening all my windows as the late morning sun starts to heat my house.
I take up camp on the sofa in the front living room with my songwriting notebook open in front of me.
The chorus of a song for an idea about someone who can never do anything right, no matter how hard she tries. I think I’ll call it Dark Daylight.
I cross my legs on the sofa with a cup of tea in one hand, fingernails drilling against the side of the pale pink Le Creuset mug, finding the rhythm I’m looking for.
A key in the lock and Jess appears in the doorway within seconds. I continue drilling the rhythm against my leg with my pen.
‘Hi!’ I stand up, keep my voice light, but I can’t look in her eyes. I know why she’s here. I know what she’s seen online.
She wraps me in her arms, but my brain doesn’t react quickly enough so my own hang limply at my sides. Jess takes the pen out of my hands, and I hadn’t realised I’d started to click it, another way of trying to find the melody which is desperately trying to burst out of my head.
I walk towards my kitchen at the end of the back of the house. ‘Can I get you a drink of anything? I have lemonade, pomegranate and orange sparkling, water, tea, coffee…’
‘Why are you being so formal?’ Jess removes her shoes by the front door, leaving them on the mat. ‘I’ll have a cup of camomile, please.’
I make the tea and we both go to the living room, where my own lukewarm cup is waiting for me on the coffee table.
‘Mimi is going to be coming over in just over an hour, and I know we’ve a lot to discuss…
’ Jess starts. ‘But I think for the next hour or so…’ She trails off and takes another sip of her tea.
‘Sienna, can we just hang out as friends?’ Her voice cracks. She must be exhausted.
I’m exhausting her.
‘Sounds good to me,’ I say. It’s been a while since Jess and I were able to hang out as friends.
That side of us is constantly overwhelmed by her duties as my publicist – especially with the new album release.
We knew our relationship would change when I hired her, but we did it anyway because I needed her near me all the time, even when I was on tour, but she couldn’t afford to leave her job – which she also hated, by the way.
I didn’t have a publicist at the time – Mimi was a one-woman band.
Mimi has worked with me since the beginning. I signed with her at an agency after we hit it off straight away. She had a somewhat similar upbringing to me in housing association housing, but she was in Manchester, and I was in Hemel Hempstead.
Mimi worked with me and a few other clients until Infinite Ghost skyrocketed my success. I hired her in-house and it was me and her against the world until Jess joined us. The three of us make so much sense.
I run my hands through my hair which is still full of hairspray and gel, so my fingers don’t make it very far.
‘Chorus?’ Jess points to the only words I have written on the page.
I nod.
‘God, has Xavier really hurt you?’
‘No, stop!’ I laugh, clutching my stomach.
I always cringe when someone is reading a first draft of something I’ve written. It’s not finished; it’s not ready for human consumption. Even Jess.
The only person I’ve ever been semi-comfortable reading an early draft is Luc Nicholls. He understands the creative process as a writer himself, that the first draft is just about getting something down on the page.
I’ve been staring at the Dark Daylight page for days – usually a sign the idea is not working for me – but the song feels more relevant than ever.
Maybe it’s too personal. I could do with some help.
The kind of help that Luc’s writer’s brain and fresh take once gave me.
Ten years ago when I let him in. When he helped with a few songs, mainly on Sweethearts Inside at Night, always writing under his pseudonym: Luke Lukeson.
When I struggled to end Give Us A Smile, Love, it was Luc who wrote the final line which has become iconic over the years.
So simple, but so beautiful. I’ll smile when I’m given a reason to.
It was exactly how I felt, but I didn’t know how to put it into words.
‘Tell me what’s going on with you,’ I prompt.
‘Oh, you know me.’ Jess flips her hand dismissively. ‘Things fizzle out very quickly.’
My shoulders slump and I place a hand on her arm. Watching Jess, who has always loved love, stop believing in it slowly, has broken my heart.
‘I think maybe I just need to accept that maybe this isn’t something that will happen for me,’ she smiles.
‘Someone’s out there for you, Jess.’
‘Why’s he hiding then?’
Jess’s phone buzzes in her lap and she clicks it a few times. ‘Oh, fuck sake.’ She gets up and grabs her laptop from the bag she dropped at the door when she came in. I hadn’t even noticed she’d brought a bag with her.
‘What’s up?’
It must be bad. When Jess is in crisis mode, she’s on her laptop, not responding to any outside noise. She hits the keys, clicks her mouse.
‘Jess, what’s going on?’ There’s a pleading in my voice that I don’t want to be there.
‘Behind The Scenes have pictures of you and Jonny, and they’re saying I’ve given them a comment… It’s the same comment I gave the Mail… They must have just copied it.’
‘Oh, that’s not as bad as I was thinking.’
Her head snaps up and there’s almost an anger in her eyes.
‘They also have pictures of Xavier leaving here on Thursday night.’ She runs her hands through her hair and pulls at the roots.
‘I swear to god, Sienna.’ She shakes her head, but it’s not a joke anymore.
‘I cannot help you if you don’t tell me everything. ’
‘He was here for all of like five minutes,’ I protest. ‘He showed up because I hadn’t answered his texts, but I sent him home as soon as he knocked on the door.’ I throw my hands up weakly. ‘He didn’t even come in.’
I swear Jess almost looks relieved.
‘The thing is they don’t know that, or they do and they’re still painting it that you’ve had two different men in less than twenty-four hours.’ She looks at me. Hard. ‘And it doesn’t look great, Sienna, I’ll be honest, not after Benji.’
‘I am well within my rights to do what I want.’ A lump forms in the base of my throat, sharp razor blades cutting into my skin when I try to swallow. I thought I’d finally recovered.
‘Society, Sienna. You have to think about how it looks.’ Jess’s voice is firm, frustrated. ‘You have to think about the consequences for once.’
Her words are hailstones, reminding me of the comment left on my Instagram photo after Benji which has lived under my skin like a worm since. Once again, Sienna Martin takes whatever she wants and doesn’t care what the consequences are for others.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that,’ Jess sighs, but her voice is still tense.