“I fucked this up,” he mumbled to himself as he read the comments on the blog post about Stassi. Speculation was running rampant regarding their relationship. He had already done too much damage to retract his statement, so instead, he let silence and time handle the problem. Another scandal about another celebrity or influencer would roll onto the scene, and his interview would be forgotten soon. He was sure of it. The one person who wouldn’t forget was Stassi. The sting of that embarrassment would make her remember every time she saw him. He had a show to prepare for, and he couldn’t even get his mind right. The weed only pulled him deeper into thoughts of her. He was in his feelings, and it was a foreign city to Day because he was allergic to emotions.
“Ayo, boss, you sent the tracklist over to the venue, right?” Roman popped his head into the studio and waited for a response.
“Yeah, they got it,” Day answered.
Roman’s phone went off, and Day frowned. “You know my rule. Ringers off in the studio.”
“Wait a minute, bossman, this is Demi texting. He says he’s trying to call you. His son is in the hospital.”
“Say what, now?” Day was a DO-NOT-DISTURB type of nigga when he was creating and when he flipped his phone face up, he saw that he had missed hella calls. Lauren, Charlie, and Demi had hit him multiple times.
“Tell him I’m on the way. Contact the venue. Lauren’s supposed to be running the show tonight. Tell them to call Anastassia. Do not let her know the job is for Dynasty, but you get her there, Ro. Yo’ job is on the line behind this one,” Day said.
“Damn, boss. You like this one?” Roman asked.
“I think it’s something more than like. Get her there for me, my man. Tell her the pay is a quarter milli, and add another artist to the opener to give me more time to get there.” Day had always intended on giving Stassi the money back. He just knew her pride was too strong to accept it. This was the perfect circumstance to make her feel like she had earned the money. “Have the money wired to her immediately, fuck the paperwork.”
“I got you covered, man. Tell Demi we putting prayers up over the kid.”
Day rushed out. He had no context, and all his calls to Demi, Charlie, and Lauren were now going straight to voicemail. He wondered if this had anything to do with the letters coming to the offices about Charlie. She had been receiving obsessive fan mail for months, and he had kept it under wraps because niggas were weirdos these days. It was to be expected after she had blown up overnight and the leaked sex tape had put her on niggas’ radars, but he hadn’t seen any real threat to the letters.He didn’t even tell Demi because it was a part of the game, and Demi would overreact and create more street problems than they needed. But now that DJ was in the hospital, and without explanation of why, those letters were playing back in his head. He made a mental note to have the letters looked into whether this was the issue or not.
When he arrived, the waiting room was solemn.
“I was at the stu, dawg, my fault. I came as soon as Ro told me,” Day said as he slapped hands with Demi.
“What the fuck happened? You know we got an army waiting if necessary,” Day said.
“It’s bad, man,” Demi stated. “My li’l man-”
Demi couldn’t even say the words. He shook his head. “He slit his wrist, man. Doctors say he been cutting himself for weeks.”
Day didn’t know how to process the news. He had heard of cutting. He mostly thought little privileged-ass white kids did it for attention. The fact that Godson was now fighting for his life behind the act told him that he had underestimated the trauma of Black children. He had seen DJ in the past few weeks, and he had missed the hurt in his eyes. He had indulged in shallow and meaningless conversation with him and had thrown money at the young boy instead of truly checking on his well-being. Day was sick. Every person in this room felt the same. They all had missed something if it had gotten this bad.
“What the doctors saying, man?” Day asked.
“He’s in surgery. He cut his shit straight through the artery,” Demi explained. “I’m fucking losing it, bro. I want to ring Lo’s neck. She said he found her and his fucking football coach together, and then he did this. She right there with him. Every single fucking day. She too busy fucking on that nigga, Nyair, to pay attention to the shit that matters.”
“Whoa, bruh, back that shit up,” Day said. “Back that shit way up. She there with him by herself while you and Charliesafe and sound and without the responsibility of parenting every day. She ain’t no bum-ass bitch out here. You know how involved she is. She run her business. She damn near still helping run ours with the events. She take him to school, to practice. She cooking for your kid every day. A little dick on the side ain’t the distraction, my nigga, she’s fucking tired. You left her. She blinded by her own pain. She the one with the biggest excuse to miss this shit. Better tuck your fucking shirt in, my nigga, before you speak that shit to sis, cuz that shit bound to start World War III in this bitch.”
Day’s words were an invisible mirror that revealed the full picture to Demi. What he saw was ugly. What he saw was selfish. Being a weekend dad wasn’t enough. His son needed him. Lauren needed him, and they had every right to call on him despite the divorce. Demi had made a messy bed. Lying in it, that mu’fucka was uncomfortable.
“You right, man. You right. I’m tripping. Searching for somebody to blame,” Demi said. His chin quaked. “I’m to blame for this shit, bro. My son mutilating his fucking body because I left.”
Day and Demi weren’t emotional men. They didn’t cry. They didn’t speak openly about their problems. They got money, built business, and reigned over the corporate and street worlds they had curated for themselves. Today, they embraced.
“We got to give DJ more of this. More visuals of this,” Demi said. “He has to have somebody to go to. Has to see that he can tell me he hurting, man. I’ve been raising him to be hard when I should have been raising him to be soft. To trust me with his pain, bro.”
“I got you, man. I got him too. He gon’ be alright and we gon’ make it right.”
The door to the waiting room opened again and Demi turned to see Nyair step into the room.
Lauren was a wreck. She didn’t even see him enter.
It took everything in Demi to restrain himself, and Day’s hand to his shoulder was the reminder to keep his cool.
“Lauren, you’ve got company,” Charlie said softly.
Lauren looked up at Nyair, and she shook her head in dismay, tears starting over. She couldn’t even stand. She buried her face in her hands, doubling over in agony as Charlie moved to her side to rub her back.
