Heather P.O.V
I put on the seatbelt and wait for the plane to take off. I try my best to avoid Blair's eyes scanning my face which sit's just across my seat. The lump in my throat forms again for the hundredth time since we left the hotel. The sickening feeling on the pit of my stomach feels so unsettling and my knees are weak.
I stare out of the window as the plane takes off and I wish I could just teleport myself at home and be alone. The city starts getting smaller and smaller as we go higher and higher. Just like my reasoning went while I got high on the attention he gave me. The fake attention, The fake I miss you's, the fake I love you's, the fake you golden my life's!
Quickly I blink the tears away and close my eyes. Sleep... Sleep... Just sleep it away. It's all going to be alright, just take a 5-hour nap, and soon enough you'll be home to scream the pain away, alone, Okay?
As we were now above the disgusting world we lived in I couldn't stop but think about what would have he said if I had stayed and confronted him? What would I have responded? Would he have an explanation? Would have I believed him again? Would have I been the weak stupid, dumb, idiot I've been all this time?
Did he hold his laugh when I asked him to make love to me? I bet he wanted to laugh in my face. His brain must have been like: "LOVE? LOVE?! We're just fucking, I'm just fucking you. I make love to my wife, with whom I have a beautiful kid. You are just my lil' bitch while I'm away from my family."
Does his wife know about me? Did she tell her kid about me? Did she say I'm the one trying to take daddy away from them? Am I the one cheated on, or is she? SLEEP! I don't even know why am I taken so much by surprise by all of this. His behavior the day before he left for his hometown should have convinced me but I decided to turn a blind eye. I decided that I'd better make love with him one last time instead of questioning. I shake my head in the seat's header and somehow find sleep.
A bounce!
My eyes flicker open and the first thing I see is Blair carefully watching me.
"Hi!" - She greets in a singing tone. I stretch into my seat and take a deep breath. Another bounce! As I lean forward to see out of the window my best friend adds:
"We are landing!"
"Great! Can't wait to go home!" - I mutter more to myself than to her.
We wait for the plane to stop to take off the seatbelts and get up from our seats. My legs feel numb from sitting down for so long.
Vlad is the first one to leave the plane with my luggage. A car already waiting for us, not far away from the stairs.
I turn my phone on as soon as I sit next to Blair on the backseat of the black Escalade. The same type of car he uses.
The car's front had just made it outside the airport's runway when a bunch of people rushes to it taking all of us by surprise. The flashes make it past the tinted windows confusing everyone on board.
"What's going on?" - I ask looking at men pushing each other's trying to take a shot.
"I... I don't know, maybe someone tipped them!" - Vlad shrugs in the front seat.
My phone starts going off immediately! Something I was actually expecting but it takes me by surprise when the missed phonecalls were mostly by Jason, Dylan, uncle Suge, and my father. Something definitely happened.
"What's going on? Have you talked to my dad?" - I ask my bodyguard because my brain searches for my worst fear. If something happened to my dad while I was too busy corrupting office workers to give me someone else's Marriage Certification I'd never forgive myself. What if his much younger, gold digger girlfriend put a pillow above his head and choked him on his sleep?
"No! Is there something wrong?"
"Oh my god! They are following us!" - Blair who's looking over her shoulder gasps.
Before I know exactly what I'm doing Jason is already on the line.
"Hey, Aitch!"
"Did something happen to my dad? Is he okay?" - When he takes too much time to respond my heart starts to beat faster and my panic mode is ready to take over. His sigh doesn't help at all. "Jason! Where is my dad?"
"We're at his house, you better get here as soon as possible!"
"What's going on? Pass the phone to my dad!" - I rush my words out.
"I don't think he can speak to you right now."
"He can't speak to me? Is he okay Jason? What's wrong?"
"I have to go Aitch! Get here as soon as possible! - and with that, the line goes flat.
"Please drive me to my father's house." - I ask the driver and pass a hand over my forehead. My father is a healthy man, he can't get sick. Maybe he fell and since he is a pretty big man he hurt himself. Or maybe he had a car accident, he likes to speed around. I knew those sport cars would get him in trouble one day. Or, maybe... what if somebody wanted to take Suge out and my father was with him, accidentally! I bite my trembling bottom lip and try my best to keep calm.
Sometimes bad things gather and decide to bomb all at once! Making you feel like you can't do anything to stop them from coming and attacking. Making you feel hopeless.
I don't think the car had fully stopped when I opened the door and rushed towards the entrance of the mansion. I scan the opened garage. My father's car is parked perfectly fine with the other cars.
Nikolay is at the door smoking with Suge's goons. Nikolay never smokes unless something really bad happened. The slight relief I had from seeing my dad's car unscrewed vanishes when I see a bunch of men smoking by the door.
"Aitch!" - He speaks when he sees me running.
"Nic, where's my dad?!" - I babble grabbing his arm as I trip on my own feet. He keeps me from falling and opens the door for me.
I sense Suge's goons stiff around me as I search for an answer on their faces. While I walk inside the house. The hallway is full of people. I recognize some as marketing agents from Interscope.
"Did he fall somewhere? Is he sick? Did you call a doctor?" - I return to Nikolay again. His eyebrows pull together in a confused expression.
"You have no idea, don't you?" - he softly takes a step back from me.
"CAN SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT'S GOING ON, ALREADY!"" - I shout as loud as my vocals can handle. Frustration taking place instead of panic. Why doesn't anyone tells me what's going on? What can be so bad they can't tell me?
Jason finally shows up on the staircase with a bunch of magazines in his hands. Why does everyone look worried and doesn't tell me anything?
"For God's sake tell me what's going on?" - I ask looking at him as my final chance.
"This is what's going on!" - He mutters turning the covers of the magazines to me.
In bold white font, my name is written next to Marshall's! A picture of us in New York takes all the space of the cover. His hand is on my neck, our eyes locked and I'm charmed by him. The headline: "AMERICA'S SWEETHEART LIKES THE BAD BOYS!" feels like a slap in my face. I grab Nikolay's arm when my body fails me. I chew on my bottom lip when the sight turns fuzzy and my body turns cold.
"I need to sit down!" - I whisper and lean forward to the steps in an attempt of finding somewhere to rest.
The first thing I distinguish is deep-voiced chatters. I can't make out how far the voices are or who they belong to at first as I force my eyes open. Noticing the surroundings belong to my room. Sitting next to me is Blair holding my chin up.
"How are you feeling?" - She asks as I run my eyes around the room watching Vlad and Nikolay standing in front of the room. Jason is sitting next to my piano while Dylan stands by him.
I sit up but the immediate movement doesn't help me to stand for long.
"I need to talk to my dad!" - I mutter terrified by what his reaction to the news might have been.
"He is in his office!" - Jason informs me and I get up from the bed. Blair tries to give me a hand but I shrug her off.
Making my way to his home office I prepare myself for the worst, wishing uncle Suge won't be there to add fuel to the fire. My knuckles don't touch the brown wooden door at first as I gather the strength to knock. I don't wait for an answer when I finally hit my fingers on the hard object.
His back is showing in my direction, a cloud of smoke is covering the room, a signal of how much this situation is stressing him. The desk is full of gossip magazines with my pictures or Marshall's on their cover.
My father slightly turns to check who entered his safe space. His features harden when he notices me. The look on his face is one that I'd like to forget immediately.
"Imma call you back!" - He speaks to the person on the phone. I don't think he waits for the other person to respond to that.
He pushes his chair to turn and face me as I sit in front of him as if I'm sitting in front of the principal for causing trouble in school.
"Take a look at these..." - my dad points at the massive pile of magazines. I reach for the first one and silently read the headline. "Read them out-loud!" - the commend sounds like a punishment.
"Aitch and Eminem! Secretly dating for months!" - I read.
"Heather Shields has been dating the troubled rapper Eminem despite his controversial statements about her and her family."
"Eminem is not only doing black music but he is doing black women as well." - I feel my cheeks heat in embarrassment and guilt at that. Headlines like this are good for nothing. Headlines like this are going to drag this situation for so long. Headlines like this will make my own people turn their backs at me. The anti-black agenda is not as slick as they think it is.
"Marshall Mathers just showed us again how SHADY he can get!"
"Heather Shields is not all brains unlike what she likes to pretend!"
"America's sweetheart is now a home-"
"A home-wrecker!" - my dad completes the sentence as I take a moment to process the word written in big bold letters. He has been muttering every headline with me, which shows me how many times he has been reading them, getting heated. I don't even wanna know what's inside those covers.
"Hide your men! Queen Shields might snatch him from you!"
I place the magazines down one after another. My father watching me while brushing his beard. Probably thinking what to say, or better yet, how to say it. How to say that I failed him!
Tangling my fingers on my lap, the waiting for his speech is agonizing. I wish he wouldn't just stare at me with that look on his face. The gap between his lips is an indication that he is going to speak soon. Suddenly he seems old and tired, and I'm the cause of it.
"You got me off guard with this one. You got me good, kid!" - he chuckles, the kind of chuckle people give when they get disappointed and my heart sinks. I don't say something back so he starts talking again.
"I expected you to pull something like this when you were 15. But you were so good during your teen age that I thought I did a pretty good job with raising you. I was the proudest dad out there, bragging about my good behaved daughter. Bragging about how I did that all by myself, without help. But then you go and do this kinda shit just to show me how I failed into parenting. You go and do this shit and now they can stomp on me and my authority..." - his words pierce my soul like needles and I just sit there and take it. He is right. He has all the right in the world because I failed him. I went and did what I had promised to never do.
"I'm so sorry..." - I start speaking but my father moves his hand in the air shutting me up with a sigh leaving his body.
"Naah... Nah, you aren't sorry. You are sorry for getting caught, that's what you are sorry for. You aren't sorry for doing what you did. You are sorry for this!" - before he turns his rotating chair to his right where a huge picture of us hangs by the wall, he shoves the magazine with "America's sweetheart is now a home-wrecker" headline on it, in my face.
"BUT I AM!" - my voice comes out of my throat shaking and loud unintentionally. He turns around almost not believing that I had the audacity to raise the voice.
"OH, you raising voices on your elders now? Disrespect the once who taught you to speak, in the first place.. That's what your lil' white lover has been teaching you?" - his voice shakes the walls and I sink to the chair. "I DIDN'T RAISE A DISRESPECTFUL FUCKING BRAT! DON'T TAKE ME FOR NO WHITE PARENT, HEATHER! I'M NOT HIS MOTHER!" - for the first time in my life I hear my dad curse at me or in my presence. "I DIDN'T RAISE YOU TO BECOME THIS!" - he points once again at the source of the heat laying on the table. "HUMBLE YOURSELF!"
I don't know what to say to defend myself neither do I think it's a good idea to defend his relationship with his mother. So I keep my mouth shut.
"I didn't raise my kid to become a grown woman and decide Eminem is her best choice! A WHITE MARRIED MAN! You woke up and decided a white man, who's been shady to you and your family is the best guy you could get in a relationship with, out of a million men out there."
"Out of a million men out there, Eminem was the only one who didn't care what Anthony Shields wants for his daughter."- I say all of a sudden. He can't be talking about a million choices when because of him they reduced to 3 or four.
"Don't mis-take disrespect for balls, kid! Someone who disrespects your father, your uncle, your PEOPLE, YOUR ROOTS, does not have respect for you, nor does he LOVE you!" - He shoves the truth that I already know, in my face. The tears I've been fighting since the day started finally make it out.
"I k-know that!" - my voice cracks. "I already know that! And I said I'm sorry. Not because I got caught, but because I got hurt! Because my heart was ripped a-wah-ay" - The sobs make it difficult to form coherent sentences. " I don't care what people and magazines say. Not anymore, not when I'm aching dad! Not when I thought I had found somebody who loves me the same way I love them! I thought he loved me!" - I point my chest as I cry.
His face doesn't show any emotion as I blink to focus my vision and swallow in an attempt to control my tears. His left eyebrow raises while his other features stay unbothered, untouched, which makes me cringe at the lack of strength I'm showing in front of him. Another dad would have left their pride aside and hug their child, make them stop crying, they'll them it's all gonna be okay, but not my dad, not today, not when I needed him to.
"If you care more what people say, and how my records are gonna do from now on because of this oh so big scandal, then..." - I stop myself before I could spit out hurtful thoughts that I'd regret later.
"THEN WHAT, HEATHER SHIELDS?! SAY IT!" - his voice booms in the small office.
"I want my momma back!" - I mutter wiping the tears off my cheeks and walk out of my father's office.
A/N: I hope you like this chapter. I really really would have uploaded way before but I've been so busy working. Tell me what you think!