Aisha's P.O.V.
When I open my eyes, there's pain everywhere.
My whole body is sore, from the top of my head to my toes.
And I have no idea why and how this happened to me.
Worse yet, I don't even know WHO I am...
There's this large older man with a bald head and a strong build, really wide broad shoulders, wearing a suit sitting slumped in a chair besides the bed I'm laying in.
I hear bleeping of machines or something.
I'm at a hospital.
I open my mouth, then close it, because nothing comes out.
All I know is that I'm in so much pain and so confused...
Everything blurs and I pass out once more.
When I wake up again, the large man is also awake.
He sits in the chair, studying my face intently. In his hands is an unlit cigar that he keeps playing with, passing it from one hand to another.
"Princess," he grumbles, his voice low and gruff. "You are finally awake, pumpkin. Are you okay, Aisha?"
He sounds so worried for me. And I don't even know who he is.
Or who this "Aisha" is he's referring to. But maybe it's like... my name?
"W...who is Aisha?" I force the words out. My throat is so dry that it's hard for me to speak. "And who are you?"
The man frowns slightly.
"You don't remember me, girl? I'm your father," he states calmly.
My father...
..........
A few hours later and after being looked at by various doctors, I'm being discharged from the hospital and released into the care of this man who calls himself my father.
I am not sure how to feel about that. Like at all. Then again, I'm not sure how to feel about anything.
I have no sense of self, only feelings and emotions. Most of which are confusion and feeling lost.
I have been told that the reason I can't remember anything is because I have suffered a forced blunt trauma to my head.
The details of how I had suffered that trauma exactly are being kept very vague. I get the sense that it's according to my father's wishes. He's very protective of me. I've learned this much in the past couple of hours.
Leaving the hospital, we walk to what appears to be a limo. We've got people surrounding us, all looking very uniformed and exactly the same. Like they are security guards or something. And all wearing bulletproof vests. My um... father and myself having those on as well.
Then there's an explosion, an avalanche of voices, as soon as we step out of the confines of the hospital.
There are tons of people outside, it seems like. Cameras flashing, and I get all these questions screamed at me about what was it exactly that's happened to me, and I feel even more confused now, not understanding why it's so important, and why there are literally like reporters there wanting to know all the details.
My father hugs me to his chest and leads me to the car, completely ignoring them.
"Um... Suge?" I ask him once we are inside and the door slams behind us.
Immediately noticing his displeasure of me calling him by his name instead of, I don't know, father, dad, or something along those lines, but I honestly don't feel comfortable enough around him to do that just yet. Like... I know that he is my father simply because he's told me that that's who he is to me, but I don't like... feel it yet. He feels like a stranger to me.
"Yes, Princess?" He finally grumbles.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes at him. He's been calling me by that nickname ever since I woke up at the hospital, and I'm not sure I like it. It just... irritates me for some reason, and I'm not sure if the old Aisha was okay with it or not, maybe it was like a normal father/daughter thing for them, him calling her that, but I just honestly hate it.
"Um..." I hesitate, struggling for words. "Why are all these... reporters outside? I mean, I understand I was attacked and all, but I'm just a regular person?"
"You are not though, Princess. And neither am I."
"What? I don't understand..."
"Aisha, you are a very big deal," my father explains patiently to me. "You are actually quite famous, so of course something crazy like that happening to you is going to be very interesting for the public to hear about."
"Famous for what, Suge? What do I do?" I ask curiously now. I had no idea...
He looks at me hard and frowns. I can tell that he is very unhappy about this.
"Well, you sing, pumpkin. And you have also started acting in movies lately," he finally proceeds.
Sing?! What, like, in front of people?!
I can't imagine doing that, an anxious feeling is eating me up alive just at the mere thought. I can't imagine possibly being in the spotlight like that.
"What do you do?" I then ask Suge Knight. A man that calls himself my father.
He smirks, lightning his cigar.
"I used to be a music producer," he states proudly.
"Who's Eminem?" I then ask him and his smile immediately evaporates from his face, and the whole temperature inside of the limo feels sudden freezing cold.
"How do you... know about him? Do you remember him?" My father then asks me back, sternly, the tone of his voice, his whole demeanor so different from how it was before.
"Um... I have no idea who that is, daddy?" I speak rapidly, not even realizing that I'm suddenly referring to him as my dad, even though I was just telling myself I wasn't comfortable with that, and I'm still not. I'm just... I don't even know, want to appease him right now, seeing that he's obviously angry with me for some reason. "Those um... reporters putsodr, they kept mentioning somebody called Eminem out there," I state in a shaky voice while he continues to stare at me, studying my face.
Eventually, he sighs and pulls away from me, releasing the tight grip he just had on my arm.
"Eminem is a bad man, baby girl," he grumbles. "And you shouldn't worry yourself with the likes of him."
And that's all the answers I'm going to get from him, apparently.
The limo then apparently arrives to it's destination, which is an airport. My father gets out and I follow him. We board a private jet and eventually land somewhere in LA.
My father lives in a huge mansion. None of it is familiar to me, but I'm told I used to live here with him before.
How'd I end up in New York on the night I was... attacked?
I can only guess it had something to do with that singing career I apparently used to have.
My father leads me inside of this pink room. Pink walls, pink comforter on the bed. Everything so girly and fluffy. He tells me this is where I used to sleep. It's my place. My room.
I still don't know how to feel.
None of this feels familiar to me, but then it kind of does. There are hints, this very vague scratchy feeling that tells me about certain things in my past, but I can't grasp at it at all, and it feels so frustrating.
I sit on what I'm told used to be my bed and pick up a TV remote, switching on the flat screen on the wall just to have something to look at rather than the pink walls.
I'm shocked when I see all these news coverages about the attack on Aisha Knight... me...
I sit in a daze, watching the earlier footage of me and my father, surrounded by bodyguards, making our way out of the hospital and into the limo. I look so lost, just how I feel.
Then the picture switches, to me and this somber looking white guy, with his arm around me, making our way to what appears to be a police station, surrounded by guards once again, just like me and my father have been.
The white guy looks so stern and unapproachable, yet he looks familiar to me. I listen to what is being said in the commentary in the background. Something about me, Aisha Knight, having to identify the dead body of her... mother??
The reporters all rush us and the white guy pushes them all away.
Here's that name again. Eminem.
The footage switches to me and him performing together on stage, but this time he's got bleached blonde hair as opposed to brown like in the other take.
I stare at him on the screen, the familiar feeling growing inside of me.
Until my father takes the TV remote gently but firmly out of my hands and switches it off.
"Suge, why?" I mumble, looking questioningly at him.
He just shakes his head.
"You don't need to concern yourself with that cracker, Aisha. He is fucking beneath you."
I feel so defensive all of a sudden.
"But... what's my relationship with him though, daddy?! It seems like..."
"Eminem is a bad man, Aisha. A violent man," my father states gruffly. "He manipulated you into having a relationship with him. And when you tried to leave him, he attacked you."
I blink a few times.
"So... I'm in the condition I'm currently am because of him?"
"Yes, Princess."
Somehow I'm having trouble to believe that. But this man is my father after all. And he knows best, and he wouldn't lie to me, would he? I mean, what reason would he have to lie...
..............
I wake up early in the morning, to some commotion going on at the front door.
I quickly get dressed and slip on whatever clothes I find in the closet by my bed.
I make my way down the stairs to angry voices.
One of them I recognize as this man that is supposed to be my father.
The other one...
I can't quite place it. But he sounds... no, FEELS so familiar to me...
I make my way further and catch a glimpse of my father's back. And some angry looking man standing in front of him.
It's the same white boy from the news footage I had watched yesterday.
"Suge, I fucking know she's here and I ain't leaving till I talk to her," he states arrogantly. Firmly.
I pause at the stairs and strain my ears to listen.
"As I have already told you, Aisha don't wanna see you, Shady. She's had enough of your shit," my father replies back to him just as angrily, his voice booming through the house.
"Yeah well, let HER tell me that!" Eminem exclaims, then sighs loudly down his nose, dragging one of his hands down his face. "Aight look," he states in a much softer voice now, he sounds almost defeated, and for some reason, it breaks my heart. "I know I fucked up, aight?! But just let me talk to her!" His voice takes on a desperate edge.
"That's exactly the thing though, cracker. You did FUCK UP," My father says to him, and he sounds almost smug for some reason. "And that'd exactly what I've told you before, haven't I? You've had only one time to screw up with my daughter. One fucking time, Shady. And now you've done it."
There's a short period of silence.
After which my father bellows, "GET THE FUCK OFF OF MY PROPERTY, CRACKER!!"
Eminem's response comes shortly and in just one word.
"Nah," he states.
Then adds:
"I ain't leaving until I see her. If not for nothing else but just to see she's aight."
"Oh, she's good, Shady. Not thanks to you though," my father says smugly.
"Aisha!!" The white boy yells.
I take a deep breath and say, "I'm right here."
Both my daddy and the white boy damn near jump out of their skins out of pure shock then.
My father turning around rapidly, and Eminem staring right at me.
His baby blue eyes are so intense that they give me chills. In a very familiar way too.
"Princess, go back upstairs," my father sighs. "This fucker here, he's brought you nothing but pain."
"Aisha, listen to me, I'm sorry. I know I wasn't there for you, and I'm a piece of shit for that for real, but I love you," Eminem says rapidly, speaking over my daddy and interrupting him.
I have no idea what he's talking about.
I do know though that the feeling squeezing my chest when I lay my eyes on him is way too intense, and it scares me.
And... did he just tell me he loves me??
I feel tears brim in my eyes and running down my cheeks.
"I'm sorry," I choke out. "But I have no idea who you even are," I state, watching those big blue eyes widen slightly in confusion.
Then I run back upstairs.
I just can't handle it. Whatever IT is...
There's more shouting coming from downstairs and I throw myself on my bed and bury my face in the pillow, forcing my fingers into my ears to muffle it.
A few minutes that feel like hours later, I feel my father's hand on my shoulder.
I lift my head from the pillow and put down my own hands.
"It's okay, Princess. That asshole is gone," my father states reassuringly. "I have called back up to get rid of him. That fucking cracker would never hurt you again," he kisses my forehead softly, indicating to me that I should be relieved right now, only for whatever reason I feel no relief at all.
I feel strangely empty instead. Like I've just lost a huge part of me...
.......
Days later, Eminem and his boys broke into my father's house so he could talk to me.
I know that I should be terrified of him, after all of the things my daddy has been telling me about him, but I'm not.
"Aisha, listen to me," he speaks urgently, grasping my hands in his.
"I know you don't remember me, but..."
And just like that, we have come full circle.
Certain memories rushed back into my head once he had left out of the door, after pressing a small necklace that has mine and his wedding picture, as well as a photo of our daughter, our miracle baby, Sienna in it. His gift to me for our anniversary. My wedding ring also attached to it.
I leave my father's house and catch a flight to Detroit to reunite with a man I don't even remember, but somehow still love so much deep down in my heart.
A man that feels so much guilt for what's happened to me, even though, let's be real. It wasn't really Marshall's fault. Yes, he was a jerk to me that night, all because of his irrational thinking and jealousy. He gets like that sometimes. That's just... well, typical Marshall for you.
But he had nothing to do with what's happened to me, and despite of what he might believe, he didn't cause this to happen.
And now that I do remember some of our life together, it is time for us to pick up the pieces...