Tangled Strings (sequel to Red Strings)

Chapter 38

I sigh, my head in the crook of his neck before suddenly we hear someone knocking on our door.  "Who is it?" Calum calls and Skyler yells back "It's me!"  Calum gets up and opens the door before Skyler bursts in and pushes Calum outside the door and slams it shut.  "What the fuck?" I say and Skyler's breathing heavily before saying "I needed to talk to you alone alright?  Let's just say drastic times called for drastic measures...." "Just lemme tell him we're havin' a heart to heart yeah?  Calum will just go down and get another room key anyways."  Skyler nods before I open the door and Calum whips around from his pacing in the hallway and says "What the hell was that?"

I sigh and say "Cal, can you just give me and Sky some time alone?  She kinda needs to rant to me."  Calum nods understanding.  "I was gonna have to go and check up on the boys anyways.  Text me if you neeed anything alright?" Calum says and I give him a small smile before he kisses me quickly and heads off.

I shut the door and Skyler's sitting on the chair of the room glancing out at the skyline while tapping her fingers nervously.  "Alright what is it?  You've been going insane." I say sitting on the edge of the bed and Skyler runs a hand through her hair before saying "God you have no idea what shit I've been waiting to tell you."

"Why what is it?" I ask confused.  "Last night....well technically at 4 this morning.....I had a bad dream and I couldn't get back to sleep but Michael suddenly texted me and told me to come to his room cause he was awake and he could hear me tossing and turning so I went and he was playing some video game with Nina and then cause it was so late or early whatever you wanna call it she had dance the next day anyways or something-" "Wait she's a dancer?" I interuppt and Skyler rolls her eyes and says "Can I finish please?" "Sorry my bad, go on." 

"Alright so they both stopped and me and Mikey chatted a bit but next thing I knew we just started kissing and I didn't know what I was doing I was exhausted and I don't even know if he was drunk or anything but then we realized what we were doing so I ran off and now I have no idea what to do cause although he considers Nina a friend I don't wanna get inbetween them and Luke and I just broke up and it's just fucking crazy Nat I don't know what to do!" Skyler says out of breath before she sobs a little.  

I put my arms around her as she cries into my shoulder and say "Listen you can't change what happened but you can fix it." "But how!?" Skyler asked and I shrugged and said "I don't even know." 

We're both quiet before she says "I'll just go clear it up, say we're friends, it was a mistake and just move on." "Yeah that'll probably be good." I say nodding.  Skyler bites her lip and suddenly she's smiling.  "What're you so happy about all of a sudden?" I ask confused.  She looks at me and says "I've been sorta meaning to tell you this for the past couple days but I didn't get the chance to.....considering you and Cal have basically been disappearing constantly to fuck...." "CONTINUE!" I cut her off and she then pulls out her phone before opening up YouTube.

"Remember how the video I made a couple weeks ago?  With you?  Not the baking one it was the Q&A?" Skyler said and I nodded.  "Well remember how someone asked you to sing cause we had mentioned how in high school we were in the musical?" Skyler said and I nod.  I remember it was such a random question out of the many that we did so that Skyler could have an array of choice for the editing process.  "Well...I may or may not have included that part in the video..." "WHAT?!" I scream.

"What?  It sounded good and it wasn't just from me....a bunch of people have been commenting Nat they think you're amazing." Skyler says and I shake my head and say "Yeah right." "No I'm serious!  Look!" Skyler says shoving her phone in my hands and suddenly theres hundreds, maybe even close to a thousand comments talking about my voice.  "Oh shit!" I say blushign.

"That's not all....Vic DMed me the other day cause he saw the video and he knew you had that collab way back when and....well....he actually posted it yesterday it's gotten over a hundred thousand views...." "JESUS WHY COULDN'T YOU TELL ME ANY OF THIS?!" I say, in absolute shock.  This wasn't happening.  It couldn't be happening.  It seemed almost like I was in some dream but I felt like I was gonna wake up all the way back in Australia way back when these things that were happening were simply dreams and ambitions.  But they were now turning into reality.

"This is....legit right?" I ask and Skyler nodded.  "As real as it's ever gonna be." she said and I sit down on the bed and say "Holy shit.  Holy motherfucking shit."  Skyler smiles and says "Nat maybe we should make a YouTube account for you.  That way you can actually start posting videos." "Yeah that would be a nice place to start." I say still shocked as I laid down on the bed.  

"Have you told any of the boys?" "Nope not yet.  But we probably should." Skyler says sitting down on the bed as I smile and say "Wonder what my mom would say....."  I then realize.  I sit back up immediately and whisper "Oh shit." "What is it?" Skyler says confused.  

"Shit!" I whisper again standing up and pacing, a typical habit of mine when I was nervous.  "Nat....stop pacing I know you do it when you're worried c'mon what's wrong?" Skyler said and I can't even hear her because my heart is thumping wildly in my chest and it feels like it's going to burst out of my rib cage soon.  "This can't be happening....oh shit what is she gonna say....oh god....." I whisper still pacing and I tug at my hair tears welling up in my eyes.

"NATALIE!" Skyler says before stopping me and shaking me a little.  "What is it?" she asks and I blink a bit and say "I-I can't....I can't.....I can't do this....." "You can't do WHAT?" "I can't be famous!  What the hell is my mom gonna say?!  She's gonna be pissed!  She's gonna fucking fly herself over here and drag me back to Australia and feed me to the sharks if she has to!" I say to her and Skyler's face suddenly has a confused expression.  

"WHY?" she asks before I start explaining "Cause she'll think I'm putting some bullshit dream before uni.....she'll wanna rip my vocal chords out-" "C'mon Nat your mom wouldn't do that-" "No Sky, she would.  You have no idea what my mom would do." I warn her.  Skyler bites her lip.  She knew that my mom had her occasions of blowing up, with verbal profanities usually coming out of her mouth and I was often the victim.  Especially if it was something about not going to school, getting a career and getting married to a good man.  ESPECIALLY when it was down to that.  I remember when I was 14 and I admitted that I wanted to be a famous singer and she immediately shot down the idea and it was from then on that I realized what I HAD to do compared to what I WANTED to do.

"C'mon it was sorta an accident-" "No Sky.  It can't happen.  Oh god I can't believe I got myself into this!" I said sinking into the ground.  "Nat you're 18 you can decide what the hell you wanna do for god's sake!" "I know!  But she'll do ANYTHING to make my life some carbon copy of hers." I say burying my face into my hands.  

"Listen I'll let you think about this for a while." "Yeah well go sort out that thing with Mikey.  At least do that for me....please?" I say and Skyler nods before taking a deep breath and walking towards the door.  "Are you sure you'll be ok?" Skyler asks and I nod and say "I'll see if I can do my work."  Skyler gives me a reassuring smile and I then say "Good luck though with Mikey." "Yeah, I'm gonna need it." she said before walking out the door.