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The circumstances realigned themselves regardless of how much I tried to stay away from the music industry. I was working in a coffee shop and got to know Sadie, who came in almost every day. Through our casual discussions, she found out about my music industry experience and guessed that it wasn't a dead dream for me. When the position opened up at Blue Guitar, she called and offered me the job. She knew I had a daughter to support.
Some might not believe in fate or destiny, and I would probably consider myself one of those people. But how do you explain how I ended up in Damian Apollo's tour bus with him right in front of me, asking the most pivotal question in his life?
“Is Luna our child?”
His voice came out in almost a whisper, like he had been contemplating that possibility ever since he met Luna in the grocery store a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t blame him, of course, because everything lined up perfectly. I disappeared five years ago without a reason, and now I had a four-year-old daughter.
The most pivotal question in his life could only be answered by me. It was kind of funny. Hilarious even. I couldn’t even remember all the steps I had to take to get myself into this situation. But…
“Yes, Damian,” I answered.
I finally told him the truth after all this time. It came on to me so quickly and heavily; the emotions that I kept bottled up all this time just burst out when the truth was finally out in the air and there was no taking it back. I couldn’t stop the tears that were falling down my cheeks, and at that point, I couldn’t bother to care. “Luna is your daughter.”
Damian stepped back a bit, leaning his frame against the closed door behind him. His breathing was starting to quicken, but I knew this was the biggest news of his life. It was different for him, of course. I knew all this time, and I got to watch Luna grow up for the past four years. How would it feel if something this big was kept from him for so long? I couldn’t even imagine the feeling. But I had my reasons. I wasn’t a complete monster.
“Wh—Why didn’t you tell me? All this time?” Damian started to put a hand against his chest, and I instinctively got up and placed a hand on his cheek, trying to calm him down. Immediately, his hand cupped mine as I soothingly rubbed my thumb against his face. It was at that moment that the tough and no-nonsense Damian Apollo was ultimately shed.
It was the first time in a long time that I saw him as none other than the Damian I knew five years ago. His eyes shifted to his emotions, clearly not blocking them off with an indifferent facade anymore. He was… confused. He was scared. He was maybe a little bit angry. And all of these emotions were completely valid.
“I… I lived my life just for myself. Because back then, I was living it for you,” he said, voice tight and hushed.
“And that’s what I wanted you to do, Damian,” I explained, and suddenly, his ragged and rushed breathing calmed down. “I remember every waking day back then. All you did was for me. You always made sure that I was the one upfront, even if it meant that your dreams would take a backseat.”
I suddenly remembered countless instances of Damian stepping in and making sure that I was the one being blessed with the opportunity. When we were trying to make it big together, we both knew it was unrealistic that we would both be offered the same deals and gigs. It was simply inevitable that one person was going to get better things than the other. It was just how life was, and I accepted that.
Five years ago, however, he didn't. Or in a way, he did, but he didn’t want to accept it for my sake. Whenever the record label, the one before it became Blue Guitar Records, got Damian a gig, he would always insist that something was in it for me, too.
“I didn’t want you to give everything to me,” I confessed. “I wanted to be my own person, and I wanted to make it on my own terms. You were really sweet for doing what you did, but… that wasn’t how I wanted to do it.” There was a silence between us, but our hands remained touching. The skin where we connected burned like a fire and it felt so familiar and comforting, despite the underlying tension of the moment. Damian’s touch was the touch I’d needed all this time. His breathing had returned to normal by then, but my heartbeat was incessantly pounding against my chest. Who knew telling the truth could be so… overwhelming?
“What do you mean?” Damian asked. “I thought we had the same dream?”
I took a breath as our hands slowly separated from each other, my skin mourning the loss of contact.
“Remember when Kurt called us both up and said that he had good news and bad news?” I asked, and I could see his thoughts suddenly racing.
I remembered that day like it was yesterday…
It was a late summer night. I had just gotten back to the record label from a small gig in a dive bar in Silver Lake. It wasn’t the biggest crowd, and they only really knew one of my songs that was performing moderately well on the radio. But I always reminded myself that I had to start somewhere. Taylor Swift started in parking lots in her hometown, and Beyoncé started performing in her mother’s salon. I was particularly optimistic five years ago, and sometimes I wished I had that same perspective today.
Anyway, it was sudden, but Kurt sent us an email saying to come to his office for something urgent. In those days, Kurt Harvey was the head of the record label after his father died in a skiing accident. He inherited the company at a young age and was cunning and vicious to his artists with his reasoning of wanting to make us better. Foster the talent within us. And, with his methods, he was considered a prodigy in the music industry.
But his methods really only created a toxic environment, negatively impacting the artists he didn’t like. Favoritism always played its course during his reign. But I was young, and of course, I wanted to please the higher-ups, so I was bolting to his office. The building wasn’t the same as it was today. It was a lot smaller, but it was still one of the larger music companies of its day. When I arrived at Kurt's office, I spotted Damian already sitting in one of Kurt’s office chairs as he was already in the building doing some recording.
“Ah, finally,” Kurt bit out pointedly, seemingly displeased. I wasn’t sure back then if it was because of what he was going to say or because he didn’t want to see me because he was always animated whenever he talked to Damian. I couldn’t see back then that Damian was one of his favorites – even though it was so glaringly obvious now. “You’re one to make a late entrance, that’s for sure,” he said to me without skipping a beat. I was so freaking naïve back in the day. It was almost pitiful, and the worse part was yet to come.
“Sorry, Mr. Harvey,” I apologized as I walked carefully and sat down on the chair opposite Damian. Could you believe that? I actually apologized to him even though he literally sent an email ten minutes ago. It was impossible for anyone to be on time with those crazy timeframes.
“So, what’s up, Kurt?” Damian tried to get him to the point. Kurt’s favorites could call him by his first name with no issue, but if I did it, I’d get an earful. “What’s with the sudden meeting?”
Kurt then let out a melodramatic sigh as he looked at both of us back and forth. “Well, if it wasn’t an emergency, I wouldn’t be so hasty about it, but I’m afraid I have some good news and some bad news.” Kurt stood up from his office chair and walked around his desk before leaning against it. “The good news is that we managed to book you a stage at one of the biggest music festivals in the world.”
Immediately, my eyes lit up. I had never felt so invigorated in my life. “C-Coachella? You got a booking for Coachella?Theking of all music festivals?” I wanted to burst out into joy right then and there.
“But the bad news is…” Kurt somehow always found a way to curb my enthusiasm. Whether or not he did it deliberately in that instance, I would never actually know. After all, he did preface the talk that there was also bad news.
“What is it?” Damian urged him to stop dragging out the torture and just tell us already.
“Coachella could only make room for one artist,” Kurt revealed, and that was when my joy completely burst like a bubble. He looked a little smug as my face deflated.
