Credentials of Fame (Tyga/Roc Royal Story) *Sequel*

Chapter Three: I'll Just Do What You Say.

Janelle’s POV

“Boy, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that you ain’t too old for me to beat your behind! I brought you into this world, and I can take you right back out!”

I was a whole floor above the living room where my mother and Junior was, but I could still hear her voice too clearly as she screamed on and on. I imagined her with her finger waving around in his face, telling him things that she always does when he gets into trouble. I wished I could go down there and watch, but I had specific orders to stay up here in my room.

And when Mama is pissed off at Junior, you do not disobey her orders.

“Mama it’s not like they’re murderers! They’re just my friends.” Junior defended himself.

So when I went outside and caught myself in the middle of a Mindless Behavior concert, I spent a long time trying to find my brother. When I found him, he was with four other guys. No, not taking drugs, but kissing on random girls.

Fortunately, none of those girls were Bianca. So I didn’t really mind.

“Boy, shut up. Just SHUT UP!” Mama screamed. I snickered a bit. I had my head pressed against the floors of my room so I could hear well. Yeah, one might say that I’m going overboard. But you just don’t want to miss when your mother is barking on your twin brother for something you constantly tell him not to do.

After that, there was silence for a while. I was worried that somehow, Mama figured out that I was trying to listen. But I heard the door open downstairs, and then footsteps coming up the staircase. They weren’t draggy and quick like Mama’s footsteps, so I knew it was Junior.

I leaped out of my room and watched him walk down the hall.

“Hey,” I called after him. He turned to look at me glumly.

“Yeah?” He asked in a monotone.

“I told you so.” I said, and began giggling. He started to walk after me, but I jumped back into my room.

That was actually the first time I’d seen Junior in a while. He was always out—which was kind of a bummer, because you’re supposed to always be with your twin when you have one, right? Well if that was right, someone needed to let Junior know.

We were identical, too. Anyone could tell. Our complexion was the same—a few tones darker than caramel. My hair was originally brown, but it’s now caramel with lighter highlights. But Junior’s hair is the same color as mine is naturally. And we both have our Daddy’s lips and eyes, but our Mama’s nose and ears. And we were both shorter than our friends, which we got from both our parents.

Maybe that’s why Junior didn’t spend too much time with me—it was too obvious that we were twins.

“Janelle? Where you at, baby?” Someone called.

No. No, no, no. Not today. Not now.

It’s too soon.

“Janelle?” He called again. I gulped. I felt like curling up and hiding under my bed like I used to when I was little. But if I did it this time, it wouldn’t be for fun. It would be because I honestly did not want to deal with this right now.

But he knocked on the door. What was I supposed to do?

I opened it.

There my Daddy was, standing right in front of me with this big welcoming grin on his face. He was wearing what I called his uniform, because it was all he really wore—a varsity jacket, a T-shirt, slim jeans, sneakers, and a Last Kings necklace and snapback.

Please don’t do it, I chanted in my head with high hopes that whoever kept track of the thoughts I had would help me in this very moment.

But, no luck. He did it.

He opened his arms.

I forced a smile onto my face, which felt hot at the moment, and accepted my father’s embrace. I hated to admit it, but this was when I felt most safe. It was warm and full of love. When he let go, I snapped myself out of that deadly trance of forgetting about everything my father did to our family and just loving him because of his charisma.

“Sit down on your bed.” He said to me. I walked toward my bed and sat down on it, and he joined me after closing the door. Daddy put arm around me, and I got a whiff of his cologne from that brief movement.

“So, you miss your Daddy?” He asked laughing, squeezing my side. I pushed the most believable laugh I could manage out of my system. My father was probably so wallowed in his act of trying to be all cheery and smiley to cover up for the fact that he had neglected us that he didn’t notice I was faking.

“Of course.” I replied.

“I missed you too, baby. I was thinking about you and Junior while I was on tour, and I decided to cut the tour short so I could do some things with you and your brother.” He explained. “Did you know there was a concert around here earlier?”

“Yeah, I knew.” I said. I wanted to say: Despite the fact that the freaking concert was directly outside of my house and that their speakers were louder than anything I’d ever heard in my life, I was totally unaware that there was a concert here today.

But I kept my mouth shut, as I always do.

“Were you there?” He asked, leaning back comfortably on my bed. I moved over a little bit and lied down in the opposite direction.

“I was in the area, but not for the concert.” I dryly replied.

“Why not?”

“I had to look for Junior. He left the house again. You should really talk to him.” I added that last part to let him know that I was paying attention to the fact that he never took the role of a father and spoke to Junior seriously about his running away habits.

But then again, it was his fault that Junior is running away in the first place.

“Yeah, I’ll get a word into him.” Daddy mumbled. Of course he mumbled. He was lying.

“But anyway, that ain’t what I came in here to talk to you about. I wanted to talk to you about a specific word,” He continued, “which is ambition. Like, what do you want to do when you get older?”

I want to be somebody of my own. I want to write poems. I want to walk around with a million dollar smile on my face that I didn’t have to force. I want to be independent, and I want to no longer be stuck in your shadow. I want to be Janelle Stevenson, the girl that is a role model. Not Janelle Stevenson, Tyga’s pretty daughter. I want to stop following the credentials of fame.

“I don’t know.” I said quietly.

“Well, I just want you to know that you have an opportunity that a lot of girls your age don’t have. You’re my daughter, which makes it easy for you to do whatever you want. Don’t you think it would be cool if you, um, made a song or something? Like sometimes when you’re sitting at the dinner table and you just start humming, and then humming turns into singing….You have a nice voice Janelle. I can tell. I’m going to leave you here to think about that. If you decide to write a song, just call me. I’ll be here.”

With that, my daddy came over to me and kissed my forehead lightly, and my whole body shivered. That’s something I don’t feel often.

Then I thought about what he’d said. I visualized it. Me, Tyga’s daughter, would suddenly become a singer. But that’s not exactly what I was visualizing. I was visualizing the last part, about me at the dinner table. It would be Junior sitting across from me, and Mama and Daddy sitting next to each other at the table. We would all be eating and laughing and just loving each other.

That would never happen again.

So while I had this sacred moment to myself, and I could do anything in the world within these few seconds and minutes, I did the only thing I really could do.

In my self-pity, I cried.