Sugar, Baby?

Competent

     She ends up being gone for hours.

I can't help the way my mind races as I run through everything.

Competent. Competent! She called me competent. While that's not exactly a sleight, it is a strangely neutral term for someone to use to describe the talent of the love of their life. I would've called Jesy incredible, amazing, awe-inspiring, and a whole host of other things if anyone had asked me what I thought of her talent. Given, she is the best in the world at what she does, but I still think I deserve better than just competent.

More worrisome than the word competent, however, is the phrase regardless of her talent. Jesy promised me that she was doing this because I was good enough. What if she's lying? What if this is just some ploy to try and make me happy so I'll stay with her? Does she not think I'm good enough to hack it on my own?

Then again, even I'm not sure I'm good enough to hack it on my own. Does that mean I shouldn't try? That I should just give up this music nonsense- this stupid, frivolous lifestyle- and go back to working midlevel management at a communications firm?

You weren't good enough to do that either, the voice in my head reminds.

"Honestly, Brenda, fuck off," I say aloud, freezing in place for a moment once I realize what I've done. Am I actually going mad?

I was trying to wait to eat until Jesy got back, but she's been gone too long and I need something to do besides think.

I'm halfway through my third platter of room service french toast when Jesy arrives back, slamming the door behind her.

I look up at her, shocked.

Any anger I was feeling towards her dissipates when I see her red, swollen eyes and the way she's clenching her fists.

"Baba, what's the matter?" I ask, walking over to embrace her immediately.

"I hate my label," she says, tone full of malice. "They- gosh, I have one thing I want, one thing and they can't even manage to let me have that! After all the fucking money I've made them, all the things I've done that I didn't wanna do-" she cuts off, tears pouring steadily down her face. "I'm sorry, Pez."

"You've nothing to be sorry for, babe," I say confusedly. Well, there might be one thing, but there's no way she knows I overheard her call in the bathroom earlier. "Tears are no problem. I know how to handle them."

She buries her head in my neck, holding me to her as tightly as she can manage. It's getting a bit hard to breathe, but she clearly needs this, so I don't say anything.

Eventually, she loosens her hold a bit, leaning her head against my shoulder instead of keeping it buried in my neck.

I rub my hands along her back, her waist, anything I can reach, really, hoping my touch is enough to ground her and bring her back to this present moment.

"I do have something else to be sorry for," she tells me, her throat tight, and I feel my stomach drop.

"Okay," I say, as calmly as I can muster.

Jesy says nothing for the longest time, just plays with the baby hairs on the back of my neck as we breathe together.

"Jes, the anticipation is killing me," I say with forced levity.

"I'm sorry," she says, her arms going tight around me again before she pulls away from me and takes a step back.

I look at her questioningly, and she smiles sadly.