Disclaimer: I don't own anything except this story.
A/N: Thanks for reading and all the support. You'll never know how much it's appreciated. And I'm sorry for the huge delay. Life got in the way.
Pretty Burning.
Chapter 2:
You know how there are days when you wake up, wipe off your makeup from the previous day, and you slowly drag your limp body from your bed? You give a little yawn, and everything feels okay, a little like normal. And then you say today is probably going to be a good day?
Well today is definitely not going to be one of those days.
"Pretty boy, you better get those grubby, dirty little hands off of my pop tarts!" I yell, dramatically of course, and throw my hand on my hip, and glare just for good measure.
"Hello, Jude," he greets, not even looking like a little boy caught in a candy store. Except this time the candy is my pop tarts. No shame in the slightest. What a naughty boy! He knows better than to touch what's mine. "Aren't you looking just radiant, as always," he remarked in fashionable sarcasm.
He's also supposed to know that I'm the one supposed to respond with sarcasm. He's just supposed to stand there and look pretty, er I mean dumb, for lack of a better word.
I smiled sweetly. "Yeah, I know. A real Little-Miss-Mary-Sunshine, huh? Oops! Look at that. Silly me, I forgot to wear my pig tails and pink Mary Janes today," I retorted as I snatch the package out of his hands.
"Mine." Then I opened the package with my teeth.
"Damn, Jude. Wonder what else you can do with that mouth of yours?" he smirked at his own innuendo as he literally looked me over from head to toe.
I wanted to stab myself in the foot as I felt myself start to blush a little. I mean come on, I may not be an Eden wannabe, but I could appreciate a pretty piece of artwork.
Pretty.
I think that was what irked me about him. He was just so…pretty, nothing abstract. Though I would never admit that out loud to him, or a lot of people for that matter. Besides I was more attracted to the bad boy kind. Yeah he wanted to have a bad boy image, but he had the baby face for Christ's sake. Still, I wasn't entirely unattracted to him.
And who could deny that our love/hate banter kept me highly amused?
"What are you doing here anyways? Shouldn't you be off being an industry tool?" I asked monotone as I chewed a piece of my strawberry pop tart, and licked my lips, getting the frosting taste that had stuck too it. Mmmm. This was heaven.
"You know, Jude? I-" I jumped to stand dramatically in front of him and out a finger too his lips.
"Shhh. I didn't hear Darius say you could speak. You mustn't speak until King of Bling says so," I instructed him in my most royal voice my blue eyes gazing into his dark brown ones. His eyes danced with amusement, and I tried hard not to laugh.
I heard to door open behind me, and tried my best to move away before anyone could notice how close we were standing. But I was too slow, as he grabbed my hand and suddenly enveloped my finger in warmth. I felt his tongue graze my skin. A shiver went down my spine, as I was thrown into my thoughts of yesterday's "incident" with Tommy.
I felt as if he was watching me, hunting me down with those ice blue eyes of his. Damn, it wasn't enough that I couldn't sleep well thinking about him and yesterday. Now he had me day dreaming too.
I snapped out of my thoughts as he pulled his mouth away. I looked at him, my eyes dancing with questions, and he smiled.
"Yo, Little Tommy Q. Hungry?" he asked as he threw him the other pop tart in the box, and I froze. So he had been standing there and watching me. I wasn't just imaging things.
Tommy said nothing, and the foiled covered pastry fell to the floor. I said nothing either. He had played me. Asshole.
"Well, I have to get going. Got a video shoot with some fine ass girls. See you lata, shorty," he addressed me and he walked away before I could slap the shit out of him.
"Yes, go Shay, Shay! Go shoot your video, and don't forget to let the camera fall on your head. Because really, we don't need you whoring around and spreading all kinds of diseases to the Eden's of the world!" I yelled to his back, a disguised promise of revenge.
I looked at Tommy, and watched as he watched Shay walk away. His eyes had glazed over into something resembling a passionate anger, similar to last night but it was somehow so different. I didn't know much about the history of Shay and Tommy, just that they were once related. But his eyes told a much deeper, darker story.
Tommy's hands were clenched into white fists, and he stood tense, and staring long after Shay had left the room.
"Tommy?" my voice sounded so small, almost afraid too say anything.
He snapped out of his anger induced trance, and smiled almost shyly at me.
"Come on, girl. We have to go record," he said almost soothingly, his voice calming me and spilling through my veins like Lithium. I had forgotten about Shay, last night, and the cuts slowly healing on my arm. I had forgotten how bipolar he was, and how he always had me on edge, yet seemed to walk me away from it.
I just nodded, and vowed to figure out Thomas Quincy, or die trying.
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I chewed on my bottom lip, as I placed the headphones over my ears, and welcomed the familiar sensation. I know it sounds weird, but somehow being in this booth, a glass wall between them and me, it's the most pure thing I know. Me against them.
I close my eyes, and imagine things as I want them to be, or I take everything that stays pent up inside, and let it go through my music, through the lyrics, through my voice, through the glass. Because on the other side they can't touch me. Well, unless they tell me to do it all over again, or they hate it. But even then I don't care.
I've said what I've needed to say.
And the only other person I give a damn about on the other side of that glass's name is Tom Quincy. Besides as frustrating as it is too hear Darius say that it flat out sucks, it's highly amusing to watch him go all bug eyes. Not to mention, what he says doesn't really matter. Well, it does because he pays me, but he has no idea what real music is. He did have the common sense to hire me though. I guess the guy is okay.
"You ready, Jude?" Tommy asks through the intercom, and I nodded. I catch a glimpse of Darius standing with his hands folded across his arms with a man I've never seen before. Darius is wearing one of his "you-better-do-this-right" looks mixed with a "she's the next big thing" smile, assumingly for the suit standing next to him. I rolled my eyes, and this is when I see Shay sitting in the corner furthest from Tommy. I groaned, and motioned for Tommy to start.
"Long, lost words whisper slowly to me,"
Whispered words jumble together in my head, and the eerie, haunting music soothes me, and replays the other night like a movie on repeat. You know, like that favorite scene of your favorite romantic movie that you rewind and rewind, and you imagine in your head that you're the in girl in the movie, as the hero presses his lips to yours, taking your pain and life into his.
Jude, it whispers too me. He whispers too me, stirring the silence in the dark. His voice beckons me. Calls me like he needs me.
"Still can't find what keeps me here"
Love me. Break me. Fall into me. Never leave me. Never. So strong are the words in the wind, and all the color of the leaves and earth blend into a bright oblivion in the dark of the night. He shines of glory in all of his darkness, faults, and perfect imperfections. The coldness of his skin is so numbing, that the air feels like fire, and I'm gasping for breath.
"When all this time I've been so hallow inside, I know you're still there"
I'll never let go. You'll never leave. I'll never let you. His words float like a humming melody, chilling and saving me from falling. The words are not empty promises, so passionate and dark, enticing. Pounding like a drum into my ears, pulsing through my veins, rushing all over is the blood river. I can hear it, louder and louder, the beating of my own heart pumping the crimson life through me. Pumping and flowing, pumping and flowing. Breathe in and out, in and out.
I can't stop it, don't want to stop it as the river overflows to the surface, every ounce of pain I've ever felt never existed, and the dark passion is there, replacing it, reviving me. The little blue birds sing, and the roses bloom as the sun slowly rises, a red dawn. I can breathe again.
"Watching me, wanting me. I can feel you pull me down"
The visions behind my closed eyes tear away at me, clawing at my heart, and lungs, which are trying rapidly to expand and fill with oxygen. I've been here before, seen it all before, it's all too familiar. My own separated world; a world that felt too comfortable. So dark is the feeling, but I'm not afraid. Preternatural and safe this world of mine. Panic starts creeping up as I feel myself losing reality and my eyes fling open, the words I'm singing spilling out like words on a paper journal, but I have no idea what I'm saying.
"Fearing you, loving you"
The prettiest, brightest blue crystals are looking at me through the glass. I realized why I felt so safe, familiar, and consumed with my separated world.
"I won't let you pull me down…"
The weight of my body pulls, and the oxygen is no longer filling my lungs. It's only a short fall from grace. Fade to black, and the world complies without hesitation.
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"She's refusing to go to the hospital,"
"Did you expect anything less? This is Jude after all," Kwest pointed out turning in his chair to face the man before him.
"Is she okay?" he asks after a second, brotherly concern evident in his tone.
"Well, let's see. She nearly kicked Jamie in the mouth, yelled at Shay for 'staring at her rack like he was a ravenous carnivore and she was a piece of meat,' and now she's eating a pop tart as she lies on the couch with her combat boots still on," the reply comes with a hint of amusement and relief.
Kwest snorts, "That's our Jude. That girl is something else, I'll tell ya."
Tommy slips his hands to rest in his pockets, shifting uncomfortably already knowing where this conversation is headed.
"Yeah, she sure is," he whispers his reply.
"T, look man, I know-"
"Don't Kwest," Tommy snapped, his tone clipped with a warning. "I've already told you we're not going to have this conversation. Ever."
"I know, man,. Calm down. I was just going to say I know you care about her and wanted to ask if you know what happened in there?"
"Oh."
"Well, did she tell you what happened in there? Why did she pass out? Do you know anything?"
"No I don't know," Tommy answered without meeting his friends eyes and walked away without saying goodbye.
Liar, Liar he hummed to himself as he walked away from his best friend.
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Fingers folded together, elbows propped up on the dark cherry mahogany desk, and lips barely brushed the edges of his index fingers. The seconds ticked away on the clock, ticking away life one second at a time. Eyes danced behind shut eyelids, remembrance of the days earlier events lingered, and the night before. He swallowed hard at the notion of what was corresponding, the possibilities, and it's consequences.
And every time he tried to dream of something else, he dreamed of red hair, blue fire eyes, and an unspoiled innocence he had yet to taste, to touch, in a seeming eternity.
How?
What did it all mean?
He sighed heavily, and rubbed his temples, feeling how cool his own skin was, and how pale it seemed, even in the dark.
"You haven't eaten tonight," a statement, not a question, sounded through the air.
"No, I haven't," he muttered in reply with annoyance at the intrusion.
"You would have sensed me miles away if you had," his unwelcome companion pointed out.
"What do you want? What are you doing here?" he growled in frustration standing up out of his chair.
"You know why I'm here. You've been a naughty boy, invading the dreams of her" she clicked her tongue, and stalked towards him. "And naughty boys need punishment. Don't they, lover?" her voice permeated the air in tone that could have seduced the devil himself. She trailed her fingers up his arm, and brought them to rest on where a pulse should have been.
Tommy jerked away from her, and pushed her away. "Not tonight. Not tonight, Portia."
"Why?! Because I'm not your precious, virginal Jude?" She fired at him with distaste and anger, her eyes flashing and the darker side of her taking control. She found her spine connecting with the wall, the only source of support. Warm, strong hands laced around her neck, the whiteness of he anger shined brightly, and her danced with something between fear and anger.
"If you or any of them even think about touching or hurting her in any way, I promise you I will drain you dry, very slowly and it will be the most painful thing you've ever felt," Tommy threatened, a promise of pain and murder if he was disobeyed. "Do not disobey me, Portia," he spat her name with disgust before letting her go and turning his back on her, dismissing her.
End Chapter 2
Well, is it still worth continuing? Please let me know. Hope you liked it.