Just a quick note: Complex Creations isn't over. I've got another chapter to that, that I will post soon.
Age Fifteen: Won the Instant Star competition and thought she had it made.
Age Sixteen: Celebrated her very first album release and thought she'd found true love.
Age Seventeen: Got drunk, did something stupid, and thought she'd screwed herself over.
Age Eighteen: Received a second chance...
Jude swiveled round and round in the studio chair as she laughed and kept getting dizzier and dizzier. She'd been in that studio all day with Kwest and Tommy that she actually thought she felt a Fu Man Chu beginning to grow.
"Would ya stop?" Tommy snapped bitterly, messing with some knobs on the soundboard. "This has gotta be right..."
"Those Boyzattack! days shake all the fun out of you, Tommy?" Jude asked, completely ignoring what he'd asked her to do. Her voice was worn out, her fingers numb and soar, and she hadn't had anything to eat for four hours. She'd be dammed if she let him get an attitude with her.
Tommy laughed mockingly to himself. "No, but if you don't stop moving something's about to get shaken up. Can we do something about this sound?" he indicated the soundboard. "It's all a bunch of noise!"
Jude stopped spinning for a moment.
"Tom, man calm down" Kwest said, pushing Judes propped up feet off of his knee. She'd laugh every time because she was only doing it to annoy him. Kwest was extremely feet phobic. That's the one thing very few people knew about him. In a way it was ironic, seeing how Jude was someone who knew his secret and she used it for sick amusement. Occasionally she'd see Tommy smiling or trying to hide laughter when she'd put her feet near Kwest just to watch him squirm. Then again, lately Tommy had been a very stern, "Super Commando", jerk.
"You know what I think?" Jude asked. She stood and stretched, pulling her ratted hair into a ponytail.
"I bet you're going to tell us" Tom replied sarcastically. She sent the slightest hint of a scowl in his direction and stuck her tongue out at him from behind.
"I think..." she drummed her fingers on Tommy's sinister shoulder. "You need to loosen up. Have some fun!" she semi shrieked, her voice sounding hoarse and dry. Somewhere, a big Twenty Four ounce Dasani was calling her name.
He took her hand forcefully and carelessly threw it to the side. "You're going to have to re-record this one. I'm not feeling it. It needs to be better." His ears were focused solely on the sound coming out of the speakers. Not out of Judes mouth.
Her mouth slightly agape, she looked back at Kwest, who merely shrugged. She pursed her lips and began to nod. "I worked my ass off for you today!" she exclaimed.
Tommy turned to look at her. "Then this time, work every part of you off...UNTIL, you get it right." His voice was demanding and mean. She didn't like this 'new guy' G-Major had turned him into. When Georgia owned the studio, he'd sing along with Jude when "I Got You Babe" came on the radio. Now, he said it was immature. When Georgia owned the studio, they would crack jokes about how Joe Strummer really wasn't dead, he was just waitin it out at the Ramshackle Day Parade. Now, he wouldn't even try to start one of their weirdo joke fests. When Georgia owned the studio, he did things his way, and he was happy. Now, Lord Darius was the Pope of all things music and Tommy looked miserable.
Jude held her hands up, "Screw this." she said. "Screw this studio! Screw my music and my album! And, screw you!" She grabbed her beat up, brown, leather backpack and coat.
"Is that it?" he asked, his eyebrows arched.
She attempted to look confident, despite the slight self-conscience bounce in her stance. "No.." she replied stupidly. She then stomped off towards the door, looking like a angry child who didn't get the "Super Soaker" water gun they wanted. "Go to hell!" she yelled from the doorway, before slamming it shut and hurrying through the front doors of the studio to her car.
"Bastard..." she muttered to herself, fumbling with her keys. The nerve he had! Basically telling her her music sucked. Who did he think he was? Darius himself! Ohh-- how he'd picked the wrong person to pick a fight with. She grinded her teeth and shook her head. "Why won't you go in?" she yelled, throwing her keys into the passengers seat. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel, hoping to calm down and steady her breathing.
Just as she was beginning to get back on track, he knocked on her window. "What do you want?" she groaned. "Are you going to complain to me about how dirty by hubcaps are?" He could barely hear her from the small crack of the window.
Tommy opened the passenger car door, took her keys in his hand, and sat down. "That was pretty intense...back there.." he said slowly.
She snorted. "You were a real lunkhead...back there." she mocked. He turned his position to face her. "Look, I'm trying to apologize."
Jude lifted her head up slowly. "Try a little harder." she said, putting her head back down again.
The silence annoyed her even more than his presence and loud breathing did. There were so many things she wanted to tell him, confess to him. She knew how'd he'd react though, and the thought made her want to almost cry.
"What happened?" she finally asked, breaking the silence. Her head shot up and she turned towards him. "We used to have fun together, Tom. We used to make music for fun! We, we used to be friends."
Tommy cast a look down. "Honestly, Jude, I don't know. I really don't know." his response was unsatisfying.
Instead of replying immediately, she took the time to study him. The height of his cheekbones, the shape of his chin, the open pores along the bridge of his nose, the way his perfectly 'gelled' hair went up into an arched pattern, his glossy blue eyes, and the way those glossy baby blues were so entranced on her.
"What?" she asked, bringing a sweaty hand up to her face. "What is it?"
"I'm not the only one whose changed, Jude" he stated simply. As if it was as easy as saying "Happy Birthday".
"What does that mean?" she questioned hungrily, licking her lips.
He laughed silently to himself. "You used to be an injustice."
The second he said that, Jude understood completely why he acted the way he did; he was scared. Tom Quincy was actually, genuinely scared of something in his life for once. Or rather, scared of life. What was he telling her? An injustice? Did that mean she wasn't a wrong anymore? She was a right...Confusion swept through her thoughts. Where would they go from here? He finally told her what she'd always wanted to hear since he'd kissed her the night of her sixteenth birthday party. So, why didn't she feel more content?
"What does that make me now, Tommy?" she pleaded. "Huh?"
Fifteen year old Jude Harrison had left the day she'd met him. Sitting before him now, was a woman. A beautiful, talented, unique (sometimes insane) woman. She'd not only blossomed physically, but spiritually. This was a woman he'd pictured marrying and starting a family with one day. Jude was a determined individual. Someone so perfect, sitting right there in front of him. Someone he'd always taken for granted, because Jude wasn't going to sit around and wait for him, he knew that. Jude couldn't wait forever.