Page 10 of Soul Food

Did I want to die? No.

I wanted to live, but this was the only way I wanted to breathe.

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“You were great out there,” my makeup artist, Angela, said, patting my back as she scooped up my cosmetics off the table and walked out of the room.

Once I stripped out of the curve-hugging leather and dressed in my favorite black T-shirt and jogging pants, I let my bodyguards, Max and Rupert, walk me to my tour bus.

“Are you excited that by tomorrow night, you’ll finally be sleeping in your bed again instead of on the bus?” Rupert asked me.

I would do it again and again until the demon came for me if I could.

My lips curled upward even though I wasn’t excited and redirected the question, “What about you guys?”

“Makes no difference to me,” Max shrugged.

“My wife will be happy to see me… I hope.” We laughed at Rupert’s words.

We were quiet until we reached the frosty night air, reminding me I left my jacket on the bus. “Did you hear about Liz’s supposed comeback?” Max asked.

“I thought she was in rehab?” Rupert responded, scratching his chin.

“I thought that was a fake article. No one actually saw her, did they?” Max said quickly.

“If I had money, I could make things disappear too.” Rupert muttered.

“What do you think?” Max turned to me, his blue eyes widening for an honest answer.

“I couldn’t care less if she makes a comeback or not. If she does, more power to her.”

And I meant that.

Still bitter and angry when I first started out, I let my first impression in the music world be abouther, and as great as “Sun” did me, and as many times as I still sang it even now at every tour because fans loved it, I regretted it.

I was making my music about her,us,when I shouldn’t have. Liz discarded me. I should have done the same. Liz all but fizzled out over the years on her own. I only had to sit back and watch her self-destructive path. I knew Liz was a user—she was already halfway there in our high school days—but I had been there to stop her. I had been her voice of reason.

Even now, I don’t understand why she did what she did. In the end, it got her nowhere. The worst part was her stealing “Here Lies” from me. I had written that a week after we had lost one of our friends during junior year. She attempted suicide after being raped by her stepfather repeatedly since a child. When she had come out about it, her stepfather called her a liar. Even her mother believed him over her. And I don’t even think it was the fact that she stole it from me that really got me, but the way she sung it. The only thing that let you know the song was meant to be painful, raw, and angry were the lyrics, definitely not the way she had sung it.

It was still considered an emotional song… Yet I knew it had the potential to sound so much more.

But maybe I was giving myself too much credit.

Rupert opened the bus door for me while Max sputtered quickly, “Liz is hot, but she doesn’t compare to the Dark Goddess.” I rolled my eyes, and I heard Rupert smack him as I climbed the three small steps to get into my home away from home.

Dark Goddess…

The very demon that gave me ten years of this life nearly took it away from me every time he killed someone around me.

I had earned that name. He had earned me that name.

I was cursed, deadly, thanks to the demon that extended my death date by ten years.

There was a bark, followed by a jump. I grinned and caught my eighty-pound beast before he knocked me back out the bus. “Hiya, Moose,” I cooed at my traveling companion as well as the only one that’s had the pleasure of living with me throughout my career. “You ready to go home?” He barked his response, wagging his tail. “Do you have to pee?”

I studied my blue pit bull. Hmm, seemed today was one of his good days. I was convinced he had a split personality. Some days he growled and wanted nothing to do with me, then there were times, like right now, he was all over me.

I loved my personal assistant, Jayne, who also happened to be my best friend after years of working together, but I had a hard time convincing her to let Moose join me during tours. It didn’t make sense, she said. Why would you bring a dog on tour with you? But what she didn’t understand was Moose was the only male companion that was allowed around me. Every male that had hit on me—correction, every guy I had shown interest in—had paid for it with their life.

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