Chapter Forty-Six
Scarlett
Five Years Ago
“I think she’s the real deal,” Ryden said.
We were in the recording studio about to listen to the polished version of Drags and Smoke, the duet Yasmine and Ryden had been working on for the better half of a year.
I hated that trifling bitch.
“Doubt it,” I replied, sipping on a diet coke. “You barely know her.”
“Scar, come on. We’ve been together for ten months.” He leaned back, cross. “She’s talented, beautiful, bubbly, confident –”
“I’m confident.” I shut my mouth before realizing what I said. Before outing myself and the ever gnawing feeling of jealousy that worked its way into my bones. “I mean,” I corrected, “arrogance and confidence are very different things.”
Ryden put a featherlight hand on my knee. “I’ve always trusted your judgement, but she’s never been rude towards you, Dove.”
“She doesn’t have to be.”
“Then what’s with the aversion?”
“There’s something off with her, Ry, I don’t know. I can feel it. She’s too…” I shook my head, “eager.”
“Eager?”
“Come on,” I faced him. “You just hit platinum, the label brings in this up and coming popstar – single, by the way, both of you. Then practically dangles you like fresh bananas in front of the press? I don’t know, Ryden. It just seems fast.”
He sighed. “I know how it looks, but this is how things go in the industry. We hit it off, we wrote a kick ass song together and I… trust her. I really confided in her on this and I think it’s one of my best –” He hit play on the track. “Just listen. Please, Dove.”
So I did.
I listened because it was important to him, because he asked me to.
Because he had been there through it all. I pushed him in the deep end, and he allowed me to swim. Emory was the silent current that propelled us forward. I couldn’t forget that.
When I became his official manager, there was a base salary. Ryden demanded more, for the first time in his life, he took what he deserved.
He gave me everything.
So I listened.
I heard him out. Heard his pleas that this was the first girl he could actually see himself with.
One that saw him for him.
I laughed to myself, bitterly.
It’s easy to love someone when they’re on top of the world, harder to while they’re still climbing.
Look in front of you, Ryden.
Look in front of you.
***
I wanted to dunk my head in a vat of acid.
“You wrote about your mom and Corban?” I seethed, unable to look at him. “With… her?”
He swallowed, eyes trained on my face. I could fucking feel it – I could fucking feel everything. “You didn’t like it?”
“Like it?” I snapped. “Of course I fucking liked it, Ryden, I loved it.”
“Then why…” He shook his head.
I stood up. “BECAUSE YOU WROTE IT WITH HER!”
“Why the hell do you hate her so much, Scarlett?” He rose from his chair. “You’ve never accepted her!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, staring into the recording booth that held the two of them for months – singing, laughing, breath tangling like dancing lovers – and I cursed God for not blessing me with his talent –
So that I could sing alongside Ryden.
So that I would be the one – me, not Yasmine –
That he realized saw him for him.
Because I always have.
I always had. I always will.
“She’s a vulture, Ryden,” I forced tears away. “She’s no better than the paps who follow you around with cameras. I see it, I see it in her fucking eyes – I’ve been where she was” – my voice shook – “I know what desperate looks like. I’ve worn it for years.”
And with that, I walked out of the studio, unable to look at my reflection in the pane of glass that separated the fame from the freedom.
Because we weren’t really free, were we?
Avenue Records planted a seed in Ryden’s head.
Run. Distract. Escape.
We were good at that. We’ve been running for years.
But pockets of time existed between breaks, laughs flitted through the air like doves and eagles.
There weren’t many birds left anymore.
Only vultures.