Fireworks 1 and 2

Jungle: Chapter Eighty-Five

    "Are you okay, baby? I just want to make sure you're okay."

    "You don't belong with Drake. You belong with me. And I'm never going to stop coming after you. You belong with me. Not him. Me. Not him. Me..."

    Mia tossed and turned in her sleep. Images of Trevor's face plagued her. The stench of his hot breath made her nostrils flare. She bolted upright in bed, her eyes wide with fright. Her racing heartbeat slowed once she came to the slow realization that she was in a hotel room and not back in that theater bathroom with Trevor's hands pawing at her.

    Drake slept soundlessly beside her.

    Careful not to disturb him, she slid out of bed. Her phone lit up on the nightstand, splaying a wide band of bright light on the ceiling. As quietly as possible, she removed her phone from the nightstand and tiptoed out of the bedroom. She walked down the hall and curled up on the couch, setting her phone beside her and drawing her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared down at her phone.

    Drake wanted to ignore what the press was saying for tonight. He was so in tune with the angles that the press used, he already had a good idea of what was being said about him. "If what the paps were saying outside of the cinema were any indication, then there is a lot being said that isn't good," he'd said while she was sitting on his lap. "When it comes to situations like this, it's easy to get lost in what the press says about you, easy to start believing that what they're saying is right. It's easy to start looking at yourself through the press's eyes instead of maintaining your own self-image. So whenever something bad goes down, I tend to just...withdraw. Pull back from the cameras, pull back from the public. Keep to my Calabasas hide-out if I can. The timing of this, though, couldn't be worse. I'm in the middle of a tour, and when I'm in the middle of a tour, it's impossible to hide. Impossible to pull back from the cameras. And because I'm...out there, doing press for the tour, I hear everything being said about me. See everything. Which is why for tonight, I want to ignore the phone calls, the texts. The TV, the radio. I just want to kick it with you, without all of that. Instead of seeing myself through the press's eyes, I'd like to see myself through yours. Even if I can only do that for tonight."

    She wasn't quite as used to ignoring her phone as he was. In general, her personality seemed to be significantly more confrontational than Drake's. Whereas he sometimes liked to stick his head in the stand and weather out the storm, she preferred to deal with dilemmas head-on.

    Her phone lit up again. She read the name on the screen and picked up the phone. "Bri."

    "Mia!" Desirae called out from the background.

    "Oh my God, hi Desi," Mia said, gripping her phone extra hard. 

    "I know I've been crazy busy, but just know you've been on my mind," Desirae told her. "All of the success you're getting and all of the things you're doing...you're making us proud, girl."

    The positive words made Mia's eyes well up with tears. "Thank you, Desi."    

    "What's up, killa'?" Bri greeted, sounding a lot closer than Desirae did. "Do you know how long I've been trying to get a hold of you?"

    "Today has been...crazy, guys."

    "It sure has been," Bri remarked. "What the hell is going on over there? I'm hearing all sorts of crazy shit. Are you all right? And...I'm sorry about the killa' comment, it's probably too soon to be joking like that."

    "I'm not the one who would take that comment personally right now," Mia said, turning her head and glancing over her shoulder.

    Bri gasped. "Oh right, because you weren't even the one that...gotcha."

    "What have you heard, exactly?" Mia questioned, picking a piece of lint off of the shoulder of her t-shirt.

    "So many stories. You and Trevor were hooking up and Drake finding you, then getting into a fight with Trevor. Drake hearing that Trevor was trying to hit on you and getting into a fight with him. There's even a rumor that Drake was fighting over Trevor for Vanessa. Now, I know that shit is as inaccurate as someone saying the sky is green. I dismissed that story immediately. I also didn't want to believe that you'd hook up with Trevor after...after everything."

    "Never," Mia muttered, shuddering in disgust.

    "So what really happened?" Desirae asked. 

    Mia didn't want to recount it. Thinking about it as much as she was, was bad enough. But she missed Bri, and felt distance growing between them. The one way to prevent more distance from pushing them even further apart was to keep her in the loop. She pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Aubrey and I went to a premiere with Bey and Jay, and -"

    "Pause. How casually you just said that is blowing my mind right now," Bri interjected. "Side note: I'm jelly. But proceed."

    Mia laughed dryly. "They're as amazing as we thought they were," she said. "Aubrey and I went to the premiere with them. I had to go to the bathroom. Aubrey insisted on walking me there, which I'm thankful now. But I got into the bathroom and Trevor was waiting in the next stall for me."

    "Wait - what?"

    "He was waiting for me in the bathroom. I guess he assumed I'd have to go. I don't know. But he was there. Almost as soon as I sat down to use the bathroom, he came barging in my stall and..." Pictures flashed behind her eyes, and her voice started shaking as she continued. "He touched - he tried - he was going to...he would have...but Aubrey came in. They started fighting, and Trevor said that no matter what Aubrey did to him, he would keep coming after me. He threatened to kill Aubrey, and Aubrey just..."

    "Oh my God." A baby wailed in the background. "I didn't know that anything like that was the reason..." Bri stopped herself. "I mean, I should have known. I know that Trevor is crazy. This isn't the first time he was about that psycho stalker life. But if I'd known, I wouldn't called you opening up with a joke. God, I'm sorry Mia."

    "It's fine," Mia said.

    "Oh my God, how gross that guy was," Desirae muttered in the background.

    Was. Past tense, because he's dead now. She could almost smell the scent of blood that had filled the bathroom after Trevor's body had hit the floor. Mia reached up and rubbed the back of her neck. "Extremely."

    "You said he was going to, or would have...so that means he didn't?" Bri asked, her tone cautious as if she knew she was close to overstepping with her line of questioning.

    "He didn't," Mia said. "But he might as well have."

    "No, yeah, of course," Bri rushed to say. "Maybe we should come up there."

    Mia wanted nothing more than her best friend here at her side. "We're moving around a lot," she warned. "We leave out in two days."

    "You say that as if you're going to keep touring," Bri said.

    "We are," Mia said, standing from the couch.