The Consequence of a Dream

Ch. 11

Phoenix's pov

The sound of an alarm wakes me up and I holy awake to see Demi getting out of bed. I sit up baffled. When did she get here? How long has she been here? What tine is it? What day is it? Why is it dark? It wasn't dark when I went to sleep.

"Good morning Phoenix." Demi says softly as she turns on a lamp in the room.

Good morning?

"Did you sleep ok last night?" She asks.

There's no way I slept the whole night. I remember sleeping when she left. I took a shower, ate, then went to sleep. But I know I would've heard her come in last night. I always do. There's no way I slept through her coming into the hotel room. There's absolutely no way.

I sit up in the bed and check the time on my phone to see its 5 in the morning. When I check the day, I see it's the next day.

My heart stops beating. I slept the whole night. Oh my god what if I can't hear when people walk in or out anymore? I cant sleep. No, I can't do that anymore. I can't afford the risk of being killed or abused in my sleep. I made a huge mistake last night and it won't happen again. It can't happen again.

I watch Demi walk to the cabinet in the hotel room and grab a cup of cereal and walk to me and put it on my nightstand, "Just eat it once you get hungry. It doesn't have to be right now." She says.

"Yes ma'am."

"We will get a bit of a later morning today. We only have rehearsals today. So we should be done pretty quick." She says.

Well I don't take long due to the fact I only have seven songs, but Nick and Demi both have a full setlist. So there's really no way of making that quick. Sure we might get done earlier today, but it won't be quick like she's insinuating.

"Ok." I say.

I see her grab clothes from her suitcase before walking to the bathroom and closing the door behind her. It's not until I hear the water run when I tear the plastic seal off the cereal cup.

Not sure where the spoons are, and to afraid to ask for one, I just pour the Cheerios into my palm and eat them as quick as I can. When I finish the cup of cereal I throw it away and get back to my bed.

I grab my phone from the nightstand and open Twitter to see Demi's tweet at the top of my notifications. Curious, I read the tweet.

I stare at it confused. Is this because she's seen my comment section? Or is it coincidental? I know she's spoken up about bullying so many times, but it seems a bit random to tweet it now. Doesn't she usually speak up about it when it happens to her or she has an event she's supposed to speak up about it at? My comment section got flooded with mean comments after I posted a photo yesterday. So it seems a bit like she's seen my hate and decided to throw some side shade in a single tweet.

But then again she hasn't asked me about it so maybe she hasn't seen the comments? Because she'd ask me how I feel about them before she tweeted something like that right?

Whatever it doesn't matter. It's her twitter anyways. It's not for me to know why she tweets what she does. It's her social media, not mine.

I walk to my suitcase and grab my make up and set it all on my bed. My outfit just being black jeans and a black sweatshirt. I'll probably just wear the black vans I have with them too. It's the only pair of shoes I have which shoes with how dirty and worn out they are. I'm near putting a hole in the bottom of them.

Which isn't a shock. Everything I own is hand me downs from a cousin I've never even met. The shoes I have were in ok condition but now that I've had them for two years they have definitely seen better days. Plus with them not being the right size to begin with they are painful to wear. I have to shove my foot into them and my feet just hurt the entire day due to them being so small. But it's better than not having anything at all.

When Demi walks out of the bathroom, I know the routine of going in next. So that's what I do. I lock the door behind me and get dressed before re applying my make up and hiding the still very bad bruising on my face. It's gone down a little bit, but not by much.

I take a step back and examine myself in the mirror and when I see that the make up has hidden all the bruising in my face, I roll my sleeves up. Do do the best I can to hide the cuts in my arms and then put all the make up away and wash my hands before walking out of the bathroom.

I set my old clothes in my suitcase along with my make up and grab a pair of socks and put them on. But not my shoes yet. No need to hurt my feet right this second.

"Your last Instagram photo is really cute." Demi says.

"Oh, thanks." I say.

The internet didn't like it, but it's fine I guess. I've heard worse comments than my comment section. My dad kinda prepared me for this moment I guess. Because he definitely had said things a million times worse to me.

"Where did you take the photo at?" She asks curiously.

"I never did, it's photoshopped. I like editing, it's fun. So sometimes I just photoshop things and like it and post it. I think it's fine as long as you don't say that you went there and lie to people." I say.

She looks surprised, "It's photoshopped?"

I give a small nod, "That one was easy to do." I say.

"You can photoshop better than my editing team." She says.

She must not have a good editing team. But with her manager, I wouldn't be surprised. From my perspective he doesn't even seem like a good manager. If your boss isn't good, how can anyone he hires be good? They can't.

"Oh, um, thank you?" I say almost unsure.

I don't really know how to reply to that. Is it a compliment or not? It sounds like one but what if her editing people are bad and she only means I'm slightly better than them but I'm still bad?

"You're really good, is this something you do a lot?" She asks.

"Not a whole lot. Mostly just for YouTube thumbnails or sometimes for fun. I don't spent a lot of time doing it." I say.

Lies. I photoshop a lot of my photos. I almost all of them are photoshopped. Sometimes I have to hide the bruising better in the photos and just a lot. It's something I do often. A lot of my time is spent just photoshopping things. And according to my comments, it wouldn't be a bad idea to use it to make me look at a healthier weight. That's for sure.

"You're so good, that's crazy." She says.

Lots of practice, that's for sure.

I sit on my bed and watch Demi eat her breakfast and it's not long after that before Phil texts her to tell her plans have changed.

"Ok, so we need to get going now. They want to move rehearsals up." She says.

I walk to my suitcase and grab my shoes off them and painfully shove my feet into them. I stand up with my phone and watch Demi open the hotel room door. I walk out with her and see Max in the hallway.

I let out a quiet sigh, this is gonna be a long day ahead. It really will. I really am not looking forward to it.