Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Now, with a few albums and years of touring experience under my belt and with a fanbase I’d worked tirelessly to nurture, I was starting to have a change of heart.
I didn’t want to be the girl who smiled and said it was all just fine.
I wanted to be the lion that roared back and bit anyone who came too close.
“It’s just… God, it’s so frustrating,” I said. “I’ve won album of the year twice. I’ve sold out stadiums across the world. I am consistently one of the highest streaming artists on every music platform. I write my own music, my own lyrics, and orchestrate my own tours. I sing and dance live for hours on end without using auto-tune.” I shook my head, staring at my phone like it was a friend who’d betrayed me. “And yet, all they want to talk about is fucking nonsense —me still being hung up on Austin.”
“It appeals to the masses.”
“The male masses,” I filled in for her.
“Female, too, sadly. Women love to hate other women — especially those who are successful. The internalized misogyny is wild in these streets.”
“So, I just have to take it,” I said flatly, not even really as a question. “I just have to hold my head high and ignore all the people sharing this article in victory like this proves that anyone who listens to my music has bad taste. I have to be okay with the fact that, no matter what I achieve, all they’re going to talk about is who I’m dating or who broke my heart or what stupid fucking swimsuit I wore and how my body looked in it.”
Isabella didn’t answer, just leaned over enough to squeeze my knee and give me a moment.
And truly, that was all I needed. She was right. I’d been in this for seven years — and that was only after being discovered. Music had been my life since I was three. I knew how this all worked.
In the end, I’d get over this stupid article.
I’d laugh it off — not because I had to, but because when the frustration wore off, I really would find it funny that this waste of oxygen was so obsessed with me. Then, I’d move on and be happy despite what that little prick wrote about me and what all the little trolls said online, because I loved what I did.
I loved my music.
I especially loved this album, which felt more mature than any I’d released before. It was like stepping into a new chapter of my life, one I knew my fans would jump into with me because they could relate to everything I was singing about.
Maybe that was what hurt the most.
I could take it when I was younger, when I read through those harsh reviews and saw a little truth in them. I could agree that some of my songwriting was trite, that I played into what sold and did what I had to do to gain popularity — mostly at the insistence of the adults driving the decisions of my career at the time.
But this?
This album felt personal, like a love letter to my fans. It was me sitting at my piano and bleeding out for months as I sat alone with my biggest feelings. It was my label trusting me to create whatever I wanted to, knowing my name alone would sell it. It was me belting out at the top of my lungs about the truth of love and heartbreak and friendships and growing up and losing innocence. It was me plucking at my guitar with my heart not just on my sleeve, but in the palm of all of their hands.
It was me breaking free from the industry know-it-alls around me trying to pull my strings and realizing that I was in the driver’s seat, that I could take the wheel and choose the destination and the route to get there.
So, to have it diminished so quickly, before the first single even dropped…
It killed me.
“Ready to play my favorite game?” Isabella asked.
“Hit me,” I said with a sigh.
Her favorite game was to pitch me two possibilities and then fantasize down each path. When she wasn’t slaying dragons as my publicist, she was writing telenovela-style fan fiction — which meant the woman loved to dream up a story.
“Okay, so, we can ignore Garrett completely, not comment on the article at all, and continue with our normal press schedule, hoping it doesn’t come up. I’ll do my best to steer interviews away from it and make it clear that if they ask a baiting question that stems from his bullshit, we will have you walk right off set. We’ll release the songs as planned, with ‘Heartbreak Habit’ being the first single, and let your fans catapulting you to number one on every streaming platform speak for us.”