Page 24 of Got to be You

“No, I’m quite happy here,” I declare, trying to convince myself as well as Sandra. “And I’m sure someone better will come along someday, won’t they? I’m only twenty-four years old. There is plenty of time to fall in love and have a happily ever after. Right now, I just want to focus on work.”

Sandra looks about as convinced as I feel, but thankfully, she doesn’t push me on it. She lets me act like everything is fine and I’m not all chewed up about this. Luckily, when Jax’s song comes to an end on the radio, I can go back to pretending that he doesn’t exist, which I always find a whole lot easier.

Well, until I see a newspaper or a magazine or I log onto the Internet. Then I’m reminded all over again. Honestly, it must be so much easier to get over someone when they just disappear from your life.

17

JAX

“So, guys,” the much too bubbly interviewer says while flipping her hair all over the place. She’s going to snap her own neck in the effort in a moment. “Album number three. How does it feel to have three albums in three years top all the charts? I mean, you guys are living the dream, right?”

“Oh, yeah!” I jump in enthusiastically. “It’s awesome. We couldn’t be more grateful to the fans who keep supporting us and loving our music. It feels great to keep putting it out there for them. And we really feel the love during our world tours when everyone comes out to see us. It’s incredible.”

“Speaking of world tours.” She waggles her eyebrows playfully. “Spike, we have been hearing rumors about you and a certain French actress. You’ve been getting closer over time, am I right?”

Spike sighs heavily and rolls his eyes. “I don’t like talking about it. It’s complicated.”

The interviewer says nothing. She sits back and waits for him to elaborate, but she’s wasting her time. Spike hates all the press stuff these days and does what he can to say as little as possible. Actually, that seems to be his life motto about everything now. To not say anything at all. He’s very closed off now.

“We have all had high-profile romances,” I declare, trying to ease the tension. “But when everyone is looking at you, just waiting for you to mess up, it puts a lot of pressure on things.”

I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, really. I’m just filling in the silence as much as I can so that things don’t get awkward. I’ve learned that the more we make the interviewer feel weird, the less likely they are to paint us in a positive light, and Will hates it when we get negative press. In the beginning, all news about us was good news, but these days, he wants us to be seen more favorably. Our being seen as decent human beings translates into more sales than however good our music is.

“But not so much you, Harry?” She turns away from me, trying to drag blood from the other two stones. “You’re more known for finding love with the fans, is that right? The current kiss and tells.”

Shit, this isn’t going to end well. I dart my eyes desperately over to Harry, but he isn’t looking back at me. It’s hard to get any kind of eye contact from him these days. He looks pretty glazed over, like he’s mentally somewhere else. God, he hates all of this press stuff as well. I need to reel him in.

“I don’t go anywhere near our fans,” he half growls. “I don’t know why these people keep coming out of the woodwork and saying these things about me. I don’t even know most of these women.”

“But they have photos with you,” the interviewer argues back, getting into the juicy stuff now. I would much rather just talk about the music which is what we’re here for, but it never quite works out like that. Even when we’re promoting new music, the conversation always seems to turn around to our private lives, which is very difficult. “You can’t deny that you have ever met these women because they have proof.”

“Met them and slept with them are two very different things.” Harry folds his arms protectively across his chest. He does this when he feels attacked. “I meet millions of people every single day. I take pictures with people all the time. I don’t know who half of them are. They just run up to me no matter what I’m doing and start snapping away. A lot of them don’t even want to talk to me. They just want an image of me to put on social media or whatever. It’s honestly hard to keep track. So, maybe I did, but that’s it.”

“Is it hard to keep track of whom you have sex with as well?” All of a sudden, she isn’t so bubbly. She has snapped into journalist mode. “Because if the rumors are to be believed, you’re bad boys.”

“That’s just an image,” I reply through gritted teeth before any of the other guys snap into action and rant some more. This has already been messy enough. “We aren’t really like that.”

“What about your wild parties? Three years of fame and you’re still known for it.”

The wild parties, urgh, now that is a topic we definitely don’t want to get into. I need to end this now.

“Oh, isn’t that the photographer?” I leap up quickly to put an end to the questioning. “We'd better do the photo shoot whilehe’s here, then answer any more questions if we have time at the end.”

This has gone on for too long now. This is already going to be another shit show that gets us into more trouble with Will, and probably the record label as well, but what can I do? I can’t control what the other guys say or don’t say, as much as it would make life a whole lot easier if I could, so all I can do is keep on going forward in the best way possible. I indicate for the guys to follow me, and they do, albeit reluctantly. I don’t think any of us are that keen on the photos, either, but it’s all a part of what we have to do. We don’t have any choice in the matter. When it get too hard, I just try to remember that every job has its negative sides and this is what we all wanted. We sacrificed to get here because this is our dream. There is no point in turning our noses up at all we ever wanted, now, is there? We have it. We should be very happy.

“What the fuck is the point?” I mutter to myself as I stare at my book of songs that I’ve written over the last three years… songs which I already know won’t go anywhere. The record label doesn’t want us to sing our own stuff these days. The music we do all comes from them, which is apparently a clause in our contract that none of us were aware of. Not at first, anyway. “What’s the point of any of it?”

I lean my head down into my pillow and try to ignore the sounds of the raging party going on outside, the pool being used to host a bunch of fucking strangers whom I don’t give a shit about. This house isn’t my own and it hasn’t been ever since I got here. Sure, I used to be out there too, enjoying the parties as well, but thenovelty quickly wore off and I learned that I need a lock on my door to be alone.

There isn’t anything that I can do about the sounds, but the privacy I can make my own.

“Where the fuck did this all go wrong?” I think to myself sadly, knowing that the other guys and I made a mistake by rushing ahead with our dreams to stardom. We should have listened to everyone else. “When did Spike stop being so overenthusiastic? When did Harry become so closed off and weird about things? When did too much alcohol and drugs become an issue? When didLionHeartbecome this?”

Not that I can talk too much about the problems our band faces these days. I mean, I’m downing a bottle of whiskey myself, just like I do most nights to block everything out and to help me sleep. I drink alone, which the guys assume is more of a problem than if I drank with them, but the way I see it is that people need so much from me. Sometimes, I just need to be alone.

The pressure got to us all quickly, if I’m honest with myself. The cracks started to show very early on. We began to drift apart almost as quickly as we came together, which apparently was my father’s issue all along. I always thought that he assumed college was the most important thing, that he didn’t care so much about my future or my dreams, but now I can see a bit clearer. What he wanted was for me to finish college to give me time to grow up and to get wiser. It was more about my becoming a more well-rounded, sensible person who eventually chased after my dreams in a more careful way instead of going for the quick fix. Now, more than ever, I wish that I had listened. I would have my qualification, I would have something to fall back on, and I would also have done things a lot differently.

I would probably still have my friends as well, myrealfriends rather than guys I’ve been thrown into a band with or LA people who don’t give a shit about who I really am. They just want something from me. I regret throwing myself wholeheartedly into this life and leaving everyone else behind. Now it’s too late for me to go crawling back. I can’t make things right now. I don’t think those people would even recognize me these days, anyway, much less like me. I mean, I don’t even like myself.

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