"Audrey, I swear to God!"
Audrey sleepily opened her eyes to hear something being thrown into her room and crashing by her side.
"What!" She gasped and sat up.
"How many times have I f*cking told you to put your shoes at the right place!" Vanessa yelled from the living room.
Audrey's eyes landed on the shoes by the bedside.
"Did you just throw my shoes in here?" She yelled back.
"Didn't I tell you the last time that I would?"
"Are you f*cking stupid?" Audrey got up and walked out. "You could've ruined them!"
"Well, you clearly don't care about them or you'd put them properly in their place-"
"Why do you even care? Are they biting you?"
"Yes, they are! Would it kill you to just put them-"
"God, Vanessa. I am not doing this right now." Audrey slammed her door shut, muffling Vanessa's voice as she kept yelling.
Audrey sighed and checked her phone to find a lot of messages that she had to reply to.
All of them were work related.
"Spoiled my whole morning." She grumbled under her breath and started to get ready for another long day.
Within an hour, she was already at the practice studio.
"Alright, people," one of the staff heads gathered everyone and said, "it's our day back at the tour rehearsals after the weekend. I hope everyone is feeling rested because we have to burn up more fuel this week. Let's make our first tour memorable for not only ourselves, but for the fans as well."
Everyone cheered and clapped.
Vanessa felt the need to boost up the morale and was about to say something when Audrey hushed her down.
"We should start right away, Vanessa, I'm sure what you have to say can wait."
Vanessa narrowed her eyes as Audrey walked past her and the staff looked at each other.
"You can speak, V." Jeff smiled.
"It's fine." Vanessa dismissed with a laugh and went to take her position behind Audrey for the opening song.
The gruesomely long practice sessions ended late at night with Audrey and Vanessa still not talking to each other other than about professional stuff.
"Thank you." Vanessa waved at the dancers as everyone packed.
"See you tomorrow." Audrey smiled. "Have a good night."
"Get home safely, everyone." Jeff said.
"Bye, thanks." Audrey waved one last time as they moved out of the studio and headed for the car.
"Vanessa, I'm dropping you off at a hotel. Sebastian called and insisted for some time with you." Jeff said as they sat inside the car.
"Right now?"
Jeff nodded.
"But isn't everything already finalised?"
"He said he wanted to make a few changes to the song and would like your opinions on it."
Vanessa sighed. "I'm too tired."
"He won't take long." Jeff turned the car into a new lane.
Audrey stared out of her window silently.
****
Expecting to come back to an empty house, Audrey slowly climbed the stairs.
Her mind rewinded all the events of the day, all the worries she had about the future, and all the things that scared her could be harmful.
She missed having peace of mind in moments of solitude.
Her phone buzzed on the way from a call from Vanessa. Before she could pick up, it stopped.
She didn't think much of it and went back to her thoughts.
As she unlocked the door, she received a message from Vanessa.
V : Comr hrer hdk. Hejkbe
She raised her eyebrows questionably. Again dismissing the message as an accident, Audrey went straight to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine and loosen her muscles and mind.
Minutes passed in absolute silence.
She took a breath in, feeling at home.
Her hand reached for her phone and dialled a number off of her memory.
"Hello?" A sleepy voice whispered.
"You're late. Again."
"Huh?"
"Your class began five minutes ago, Mason. Wake up."
There was a pause on the other side before some shuffling sounds and then a string of curses.
Audrey laughed as Mason hurriedly tried to make himself presentable.
When he still hasn't gotten back to his phone and his voice could he heard from afar, Audrey suddenly turned silent.
She hung up, knowing he won't have the time to talk to her.
She wanted to talk to him, maybe to anyone but he was the first who came to mind. His words have comforted her and helped her to reexamine her own thoughts.
But he also had a life of his own.
The reality of her singularity became known to her.
Just as thoughts of loneliness started to build up, her phone rang. This time from Jeff.
She cleared her throat and picked up. "Yes, Jeff."
****
Audrey and Jeff reached the hotel they had dropped Vanessa at in a hurry.
Audrey saw the police cars outside but no media. "Thank God they're not here yet."
"Yet." Jeff emphasized as they got off the car and hurried towards the 23rd floor.
Vanessa was sitting amongst two female cops as they talked to her.
"Vanessa." Audrey rushed to her. "I'm sorry I didn't call you back."
Vanessa stood up and hugged her sister tight. "I was so scared." She mumbled.
"Are you alright?"
Vanessa shook her head.
"You will be." Audrey rubbed her back.
"What happened?" Jeff asked the cops.
"Miss Pierce called the police from the bathroom after Sebastian supposedly tried to sexually harrass her. We've taken him into custody and will look into the matter."
Audrey's heart sped up after hearing the words. "Did he.. di-"
"He groped me. I tried to call you but he took my phone away." Vanessa lowly explained.
"Then how did you call the cops?"
"I grabbed his phone when he wasn't looking and locked myself in the bathroom."
"Let's her take home. She's scared." Jeff patted Vanessa's shoulders.
"Is there any media-"
"No." The cop said. "We made sure it'll be a private matter."
"We should go home." Audrey said as she saw the hotel staff whispering to each other.
Jeff nodded and guided them through the way.
On the way, Vanessa explained the situation better.
"He was normal at first. I've met him before so even I didn't suspect him."
"Why did he call you?"
"He said that he met with our group of songwriters and they've removed all the lines that I've written in this one song that we were working on for Monica."
"Wasn't that song originally yours?"
"Exactly. He wanted to pitch me against our writers for some reason. He said they're doing this because they want to get paid more for songwriting."
"Money wars while songwriting, seriously?"
"This was my reaction, too. When I tried to close the conversation, saying that I'll talk to everyone myself, he said that I can't because those people want bad for me and I should stay away from them."
"And what does he want, good?"
"He thought I'm new in the industry so I'll like his professional guidance and do whatever he asks of me."
"What did you say then?"
"I sensed his intentions when he kept grabbing my hand and saying that he'll be good to me."
"I never thought Sebastian would turn out to be this stupid." Jeff sighed.
"I genuinely thought I'll die or something. I was so nervous, I couldn't even think straight. I have no idea how I managed to call the police, everything was so fast yet slow."
"What matters is that you're safe."
"I'm never working with him again."
"Of course not."
"Does Cedric know?"
"I don't know. I've not spoken to him." Audrey shrugged.
"I think the media not getting informed might be because of him."
"He would've shown up." Jeff said. "Maybe."
"He works from the inside." Vanessa looked down at her hands. "I miss Mom."
Audrey placed her arm around Vanessa.
Jeff saw them from the rearview mirror and thought to himself. They fought all day today. All it took was one weak cry of help from Vanessa for Audrey to rush by her side.
****
The next day went in rehearsals again.
Around 4PM, the girls left while the dancers practiced more.
The sisters took a half an hour nap in the van which would help them stay awake for the whole night for the appearance event they had signed to go on.
The media had advertised the event as the special guests called for a lot of attention.
As the preparations were going on full blast, the girls slept soundlessly on their way to the venue.
Once they reached, it went even wilder. They were groomed and polished and after that it was all ready to go, go, go. No time to think.
They made their entrance and photos were clicked from left and right.
When the interviews began, the expected happened.
"There's a rumour going around that last night police showed up at a hotel that you were in." A blonde interviewer asked. "Can you tell what that was about?"
Vanessa was made to memorize her answer hours before so she took it without trouble.
"I was the one in the hotel. Audrey was at home. I had gone to visit a friend and somehow, a man recognized me and started to follow me to see where I was going. I wanted some privacy so I thought I'll talk to him a little and then ask him to leave. But the person turned to be little more aggressive and wouldn't leave even when the hotel staff asked him to. They ended up calling the police to escort him out."
Audrey nodded.
"Oh my goodness." The interviewer responded. "How do you deal with such type of obsessive fan culture?"
"We focus on the good side." Audrey began to answer. "Not all fans are like that. Some are just passionate and respectful and that really motivates me.."
Vanessa's mind drifted to the conversation earlier that day when the meeting at their label concluded with the decision of accepting the offer from Sebastian of remaining silent and not defaming him publicly as he apologized.
"We have to be on the good side." William had said. "He has apologized. Reporting could make people reluctant to work with you thinking that you're too stubborn and uptight. For people, that wasn't even an abuse."
Though she didn't want to, she saw their perspective and had to agree.
*****
The sun rise and the sisters reached home.
Vanessa told Audrey that she hadn't talked to Cedric yet but was so tired that she'd sleep first.
"Yeah. You'll anyway need energy for a conversation like that." Audrey said.
"What day is it?"
"Um, Friday."
"It's Friday already? Wow. The week flew by."
"I know, right? I didn't even realize we're already two months in into this year."
"I've been dreading March since October last year. Too many things, important things are gonna happen."
"March is almost here."
Vanessa sighed. "I think I'll have to increase my medications."
************************************
The biggest stars have the most pressure inside them.
~ whether space objects or people.
Have a nice day! ❤️