Breaking Down

Chapter 37:

Nate spent the rest of the morning pacing around the apartment angrily and making frantic phone calls. He was trying to line up the rest of the details for the tour. He managed to sweet-talk the old woman who owned the bus rental company into letting us pick it up early. We were now almost completely set to leave a whole week earlier than we had originally planned.

My brain was all over the place from the fear and excitement about going on my first tour. I wondered if people would actually come to see me. Everyone always told me I was a prodigy, but what if my good wasn't good enough? What if people didn't like my sound?

I hadn't played my guitar a lot lately and my setlist wasn't exactly robust anymore. I hadn't even practiced once with the band Nate had set up to play with me. I wondered if they were even any good. There was so much I didn't know about what was going to happen once we hit the road. Nathan didn't share with me which cities or venues I would be playing in, I was running into this tour blindfolded and he was leading me by the hand. I had placed all my faith in his abilities as my manager to do the right thing for my career.

I couldn't stop to listen to good Jessa in the back of my head. She was questioning things that didn't make sense to her; there wasn't enough time. We had to get moving. Nate said that if Cam found the right judge to listen to him, then they could get a warrant to pick me up in the next few hours. If I was taken in now, then I would be admitted again and I would lose this opportunity. My music career would be over before it ever really started. I couldn't let it be taken away from me like that.

Nate continued to bark out orders to me the rest of the day. He made me clean up the kitchen and pack all our bags. The kitchen was easy enough but packing our bags proved to be a different challenge altogether.

I had to settle on bringing some of Nathan's old clothes in my bag. I didn't have much more than an outfit or two to take with me. I was fortunate that I had left a few things behind the couple of times I had stayed here with him before. I might have more options at the studio loft since I usually lost a lot of my clothes there. There was no way I was going to go home to get more and I had no money of my own to buy anything. I was beyond frustrated. I definitely didn't have any stage clothes to perform in.

"Nate!" I called to him as I looked around for anything else I could find that could pass.

He popped his head around the corner with his phone still pressed to his ear with the corners of his mouth turned down. I held up the two pairs of panties and a bra I found on the floor under the bed. I was glad they were mine instead of some random girl he slept with.

"I'm on the phone, Jess." He hissed.

"I have nothing to bring with me." I whined back at him quietly as I shook my pathetic excuse for a wardrobe at him.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll pick you out some more clothes after we hit the road." He winked at me before leaving the room again. I heard him rattling off some information to one of the guys in the band about the plans to meet up. I found it really odd that he never included me in the conversations. It would have been nice to at least meet them before being stuck on a bus with them for the next few weeks.

I was finishing stuffing some t-shirts in the last bag when my phone started going off. Cam's name flashed across my screen and I hurried up to silence it before Nate came in asking questions. The phone went to voicemail and I went back to zipping the travel bag I was borrowing from Nate.

My phone started buzzing on the bed again. Cam's name was flashing across my screen for the second time in thirty seconds. I stood there, staring at it. I had thought about picking it up. I wanted to tell him all about my tour. He would have been so excited for me if things were different between us.

"Who's calling you?" Nate cast a disgusted look at me when he strolled into the room. He grabbed the phone to look at it. "What is with this guy?"

"He's just worried about me." I shrunk down.

"Seriously, Jess, if I catch you sneaking around to talk to him behind my back, it's your ass. I mean it. You haven't even come close to seeing what I can do to you." His dark eyes flashed with excitement. The twisted bastard was daring me to misbehave. Luckily for me, I was not in much of a challenging mood today. I was too busy bouncing off the walls to maintain that kind of sass level.

"I promise. I won't answer." I confirmed that I understood back to him as I shoved some mismatched socks in the top compartment of the bag.

"I don't even know why I put up with you sometimes." He stormed out of the room with my phone still in his hand. I almost called to him to ask for it back, but I figured it was better to just let it go. Nathan was already in a mood and feeding the fire wouldn't end well. It would only end up in a screaming match with each other. It would be better for both of us if we started this tour as a united front. We were stronger that way.

After packing for another hour, Nate reemerged and handed me my phone back. I unlocked it and was surprised to see the picture of Cam and me was replaced with a generic blue background. I opened up my photo album and saw he deleted every picture I had on my phone. I went to my back up and saw he deleted everything out of there as well. I scrolled through to see what else he had done. My mouth fell open in horror. Nathan had deleted every call, voicemail, text message, contact, and social media app I had saved. He even deleted the stupid little game I played when I was bored. He erased my whole life.

"Nate, you need to explain." I said, chasing back after him, waving my phone in my hand.

"Explain what?" He said, pulling open drawers like he was searching for something.

"Why did you delete all my stuff?" He knew damned well what I was talking about.

"You're distracted Jessa, go finish packing so we can go." He didn't' even bother to look up at me.

I grabbed for his arm. If he was going to do this to me, then he should at least have the balls to look at me and tell me to my face why he did it. Nate waved me off like I was making too big of a deal about it.

"You owe me an answer, Nathan." I grabbed his arm again.

"All those people are shaking your confidence in yourself. They are trying to hold you back because they are selfish and don't want to watch you succeed. You need to think about yourself for once, Jessa." He said softly.

"You should have asked me first." I said, trying to hold back my tears. I was getting ready to go on tour and I didn't even have one photo of my family to remember them by. They may have been better off without me, but I still loved them. I even cared about my stupid little brother and his weirdness.

"I'm sorry, Jess. It had to be done. You needed this. I did it for you, Sweetheart." Nate walked over and pulled me into a hug and bent down to kiss me on the cheek. I went to turn my mouth to his to kiss him back and he pulled away. His large hand squeezed my butt and he went back to the drawer he was searching through.

"What are you looking for?" I asked, running my hand along his back while leaning over his shoulders to get a peek inside.

"This." He smiled when he grabbed something white out of the drawer. He pulled out an unmarked envelope and opened it. Inside was a huge stash of cash.

"What is that?" I asked, surprised.

"The money the promoter gave me to get us going." Nate smiled at me. "Are you ready to hit the road, sweetheart?"

"Never been more ready for anything in my life." I smiled back at him.

My stomach was flipping upside down with my excitement. I was really going to do this. It was my time to shine.

I was ready to take on the world.