Chapter 12

I packed my bag, ready to leave. I was pretty excited to meet Matt again and I was nervous for the new people Matt would introduce me to. I didn’t know how long I would stay away, so Lea would guard my house. I made my way out; Matt’s car was already outside waiting for me, so I quickly hopped in. ‘’Good morning.’’ he said as I sat down in the back. ‘’Morning.’’ I fastened my seatbelt. Matt told the driver we were ready to leave, so we left the parking spot.

I stared out the window. We drove past lots of places I didn’t recognize. We finally stopped in front f a dark purple building, much larger than the State Of Shock, and we stepped out of the car. ‘’This is it.’’ Matt said, guiding me to the entrance. We walked in.

‘’Wait here.’’ he said and walked to the front desk, where a woman was polishing her nails. I looked around. Records, golden and platinum, were pinned against the wall. I took a closer look at them. Most of the artists I didn’t recognize, until I saw a couple of Bruno. Duh. Matt stood behind me. ‘’One day, you’ll become as big as them.’’ I smiled. ‘’Ready to go?’’ I nodded and followed him down the hallway.

We entered the elevator, stopped at the fourth floor and walked through another long hallway. We finally stopped in front of a black door. Matt knocked and opened the door.

‘’Matt, you’re here.’’ A man, I would say in the late twenty’s, shook his hand. His eyes went to me. ‘’And you must be the amazing Bre Lake.’’ He shook my hand with an enthusiastic smile.

I grinned a little and nodded. ‘’I’m Steve. You’ll be working with me. Have a seat.’’ he offered. Matt and I said down on one of the chairs that were against the wall.

‘’I heard you have experience with writing songs and you can sing well, so this won’t be much of a problem. We can start right away.’’ He explained me how everything worked. ‘’I heard you already wrote a song, so I would like to hear it.’’ he said.

I over thought for a thousand times again if this really was a good thing to do and finally searched for the piece of paper in my bag and took it out. I unfolded it.

Steve guided me to the recording booth and adjusted the microphone for me. He handed me the headphone and left the booth. He and Matt took place behind the glass. ‘’First we’re going to listen to you and after we will search for the right beat and record the original. Lets go.’’ Steve said, clearly.

I nodded in understanding and looked at the paper. The ink was faded, because of the tears of last night were mixed with it, but I could still read it easily.

‘’I don’t recognize my reflection. All I see is a product of your deception. Gave you all of me without question. But you had to take advantage of a blessing. I warned you, I told you it would end this way. But you just kept playing all these childish games. And just like every other men you are the same. Revenge is sweet. I love the taste it’s giving me. I’m a killa on the run. You broke my heart and now you’re staring down my gun. Click, Clack, now watch me pull this trigger just for fun. Once was a good girl, now a killa on the run, kk killa, killa killa.’’

‘’That’s all I got from now. I just need to finish it.’’ I said.

‘’That’s deep. I like it. Real life experience?’’ Steve asked me.

‘’Kind of.’’ I said. ‘’You really should finish this. Come on out, I think I already have a beat for this one.’’ I removed the headphones and left the booth.

I took place next to Matt and watched Steve messing with the buttons. He finally pressed play and turned up the volume. A pretty dangerous sound came on and I tapped my feet on the floor. ‘’We can use this and invite a guitarist to give it a little rock sound.’’ Steve said. Matt liked the idea too. I agreed.

The next days we spent on finishing the song and recording. Steve said he could smell a hit and all we had to do was: pass the song to the head producer and pray that he would say the same. I was excited about if the head producer would like it. I’ve listened to my song thousands of times and if he wouldn’t like it I was doomed. This was it. The day we would play the song for him.

Steve, Matt and I were in the same studio, waiting for the head producer. I was playing with the pearls of my necklace. My hands were shaking.

A soft knock interrupted my thoughts and the adrenaline raced trough my body. A young guy entered the room. His his hair was braid and he was wearing a cap. ‘’Matt. Steve.’’ With a smile he shook their hands.

‘’Vince. This is Bre. The girl I told you about, the one who wrote the song.’’ Steve introduced me. I shyly shook his hand, shaking nervously. He flashed me a smile. ‘’So you’re the pretty lady.’’ I blushed. ‘’Now, let me hear the song you told is going to be a hit.’’ he said to Steve.

We took place and Steve put on the stereo. The song started to play. My stomach twisted. I kept looking at Vince’s face, trying to translate his face expressions in to words. It was hard, cause his face stayed the same the whole time. The song ended. We all waited for his reaction, but he kept silent.

Oh my God. He doesn’t like it.

I felt like crying right now.

‘’And? Do you like it?’’ Matt asked carefully. ‘’I don’t like it,’’ Vince said. My heart dropped.

‘’I love it!’’ he said, laughing. ‘’What?!’’ I yelled.

‘’It has a lot emotions in it. It sounds like it’s real. That’s what I’m searching for.’’ He couldn’t stop smiling. ‘’Congrats’’ He patted my shoulder. Steve gave him a copy of the song and he left, saying that he would release it as soon as possible.

We spent the last minutes talking about what would happen when the song released and after that I was brought home again.

I found Lea home and told her the big news. Out of excitement she almost dropped the plates of food she was carrying and I had to take them out of her hands. ‘’We’re celebrating this.’’ She opened a bottle of wine, poured two glasses full and handed me one. We held the glasses up. ‘’To Bre and her career. May you become the greatest star in America.’’ She giggled. ‘’And to Lea, the best friend in the world.’’ I said and we drank the whole glass in one sip.

*************

‘’I know right. Why call it that way, when it doesn’t even conclude…’’ Bruno and Phil walked out of the elevator. They were on their way to their recording room, when they bumped into someone.

‘’Oh hey, Vince. What’s up?’’ Phil said. ‘’Smooth, smooth. Just got another track I have to release. Another hit.’’ he said, smiling. Bruno looked at the CD in his hand. ‘’From who is it?’’ he asked curious. ‘’Bre Lake. A new upcoming artist.’’ Vince answered. Bruno and Phil looked at each other.

‘’This lady must be very lucky. Can we listen to it?’’ Phil said, crossing his arms. ‘’I don’t know, guys. It always has to stay in private, in case…’’ Vince hesitated. ‘’Come on. It’s just us.’’ Phil said. ‘’Al..alright.’’ Vince finally said and they followed him in to a room.

‘’What are we doing?’’ Bruno whispered to Phil. ‘’She’s still one of us. Whether you like it or not, we’re going to listen to it.’’ Phil hissed.

They sat down, while Vince uploaded the CD on his laptop and pressed play.

‘’I don’t recognize my reflection. All I see is a product of your deception…’’ Bruno listened carefully at the words she sang. It all seemed so familiar. Like she was singing about him.

‘’You brought this up on yourself. I loved you more than anyone else. Karma’s a b*tch, so shut up and take it. Look at the monster you created.’’

This was definitely about him. It had to be. He looked up at Phil and then at Vince. ‘’Wow. It sounds like she really went trough something like this.’’ Bruno said.

‘’I know right. That was the first thing I thought too. Steve told me that she had a sort of real life experience of this one, on the last person she really dated. That someone broke her heart so bad that she decided to write this song. What bastard would break this beautiful lady’s heart?’’ Vince answered. He probably didn’t know that she and Bruno had dated.

Bruno thought about it.

The song ended and they left to their recording room.

Phil was playing with the beats and Bruno sat in the corner, pretending to work on his songs. He decided to share his thoughts with Phil. ‘’What did you think of that new song?’’ Phil turned around. ‘’You think the song is about you, don’t you?’’ ‘’Maybe. How’d you know?’’ Bruno asked surprised. ‘’Cause I thought about it after what Vince said over her relationship and you were the last person she dated.’’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘’Look at the lyrics.’’ Bruno didn’t know what he had to think about it. He remembered what happened that time in the club. When he saw her with that other man. Then he thought about what he did to her on the dance floor.

‘She asked for it.’ He was still mad about it, but now even more because of that song she wrote.

‘’Phil, I think I have an idea for a new song.’’ he said excited, took a new page of his block note and began to write the lyrics.

‘If she wants it that way, she can have it that way.’