Page 279 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

as long as she got her chance,

her way out.

“And now we’re distancing ourselves?” A humorless laugh slips out of me. “Using her story when it sells then dumping her when it costs us. “Yeah. That’s a great look.”

“It’s called business,” Raymond states.

“It’s called bullshit,” I shoot back. “Using her up, then walking away. “We’re no better than the abusive ex fuckin’ her over.”

I’m trying to keep the heat contained.

I’m trying to be professional.

Really, I am. But I can’t.

They’re all looking at me⁠—

Allison brought her in.

Allison owns this.

Allison’s fault.

Allison can’t get a solid grip on her job,

her artist, her Boys, her addiction.

Allison has no control of anything.

Raymond’s voice slides through the silence, calm and resigned. “No one’s forgetting this. It’s an image that sticks. A curse that follows an entire career, and anything it’s attached to.” His chair creaks as he leans back, and he looks around the room, ending at me. “We’re already underwater. We can’t save everyone.”

My nails dig into my thigh under the table‘cause I know what this will do to her. Loyalty only lasts for as long as the perception holds. The second an artist falls out of the image a fan has of them, they’re gone. Backs turned. Ship abandoned.

If we don’t stand by her, no one will.

And now I’m struggling to breathe.

Because I feel the internal scream,

as if she were me.

I know how it feels to be an object.

To be touched, looked at, used like one.

To be chewed up

and spit out

and stepped on.

But here, it’s an entire world that ignored her consent. A million eyes raping her, again

and again

and again.

“This is a human being we’re talking about,” I scrape out. “Not just some asset to the damn label. A person. Who’s literally being fucked in front of the whole world by her abuser.”