Back to Your Roots

Chapter One (Part Two)

        Yeah, I know. Sounded kind of ridiculous in my head, too, but I was doing it. I was going back to school in my home town. Well, technically it was a city, but a cornfield and, like, three water towers don't count for much in the grand scheme of things. For the majority of my time in L.A. I'd been home schooled by various tutors, but I always felt most comfortable around Martin and Clark, the former more so than the latter. As hard as they tried to educate me to the minimum extent of the law, it didn't catch my attention all that much and I would've much rather tutored myself or studied in an actual classroom than on a filthy, crowded tour bus filled with yelling, partying, and doing rather inappropriate things in the tiny bathroom nearby.

        Clark was pissed about me wanting to go back to a real school. When I first mentioned it, he said it was "no place for a rising star" and "I shouldn't waste my time on such nonsense." That and I was eighteen now and I technically didn't have to go back anymore, so he saw no logic in it. He thought I was potentially throwing my future and my career away by thinking about giving up the life of a rock star. I knew that in reality he was scared that I would lose him money by taking a break. But, eh, who could blame him? It was his career that he was thinking about, not mine. But Clark had a way of manipulating the situation to make it seem like he was actually caring about me. I'll admit I bought it when I first started working with him, but over time I began to see the wolf-like features hiding under grandma's clothes.

        Though a life of nothing but music and fun sounded very enticing, I felt myself kind of wanting to go back to high school. I mean, it'd been three years. There were people from home that I hadn't seen in what felt like forever. Given, there weren't very many, but they were still people who I considered family, even if I didn't tell them I was leaving home to become famous. After all this time, I thought it would be cool to see if any of my friends recognized me or tried to find me or maybe even realized that I left. Not to sound cocky, but I kind of felt like a bad ass coming back. Not everybody gets the chance of a lifetime to seek fame and renown and rub elbows with entertainment's elite. And not to mention become smoking hot during the process.

        Shame on me, but that wasn't my primary reason for wanting to come home. Truth be told, there was an ulterior motive. My eyes had found their way to my backpack and I found myself rummaging through it. I picked up a small, carefully folded letter that had been delivered to me as fan mail around four months earlier. The paper was torn a bit at the edges and had a few beer stains on it, but it was still intact. I thought back to the first time I'd read that letter and all the nervous feelings I felt earlier that morning came flooding back to me.

***

        It was back in L.A. on a hot August morning when I woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door of the two bedroom apartment my record company paid for. I rolled over and looked at my target shooting alarm clock, which I could now actually disable with my eyes closed, and groaned when I saw the time. 9:00 AM was just a little too early for my liking, especially considering that it was my first day off in months. I quickly forced myself out of my comfy, black, rhinestone-and-chiffon-decorated four post bed to the front door, hoping that my bed-head, oversized Batman T-shirt and Aperture logo pajama pants were acceptable enough for company.

        I put my iPhone in my Einstein photon ball docking station and put my morning play list on shuffle as I walked passed it. "Feel Good Inc." blared through the small speakers, the purple and blue electric sparks pulsing to the beat. At the moment, the Gorillaz track was one of my favorite morning pick-me-ups, for the haunting laugh at the beginning usually scared the little kiddies away.

        The knocking became louder and more persistent, spoiling my already lousy mood. I grumbled as I made my way to the door, then swore as my shin connected to the base of my R2-D2 interactive trash can. I kept forgetting just how blind I was without my glasses, but there was not a snowball's chance in Hell that I was going to wear those horrendous plastic buggers. He chirped and whistled in response to my expletives, pissing me off even further. "Sodding piece of junk." I kicked the trashcan to the other side of the room and continued toward the door.