Jahleel

by S. Ann Cole

  As I got another step up, he called, “Saskia?”

  “Yeah?” I turned around.

  “Whoever he was,” he said, staring me in the eyes, “he didn’t deserve you. And he doesn’t deserve those songs you keep singing for him. He doesn’t even deserve your curses.”

  He does.

  Breaking eye contact, I lied, “I know.”

  Mikael looked down at his scuffed black boots and stuffed his hands in his front pockets, then looked back at me. “You were amazing tonight.”

  “Thanks.”

  We stood without a word for another awkward minute until he cleared his throat again. “You go get some sleep. I’ve gotta help Thomas and John prepare to get outta here.”

  I continued on into the bus and he closed the door behind me. Loud snoring came from Amanda, Jamie and Amy’s sections as I moved down the aisles and went straight to my room at the back, diving into bed, clothes and all.

  Feeling inexplicably content.

  Going on tour immediately after you’ve had your heart broken was probably the most curative prescription there was. God bless those who’s got the luxury to do so.

  See, after watching the man you love choose another woman, leaving you feeling worthless, pointless, without value, with a bruised ego and shattered confidence, nothing could be more therapeutic than getting up on a stage where people, masses, strangers, admirers, are all chanting your name, screaming and hollering their love and devotion for you. Reminding you of your worth, your value, inflating your ego and boosting your confidence. Feeling fucking loved. Idolized.

  So what if one undeserving asshole didn’t?

  Forget him. He was nothing. Something small, minuscule in a life that was great, awesome, grand and extraordinary. Damn straight I didn’t need him for my happiness.

  About a month after I left for tour, I received an email from him, titled, ‘You Were My Sheba.’ In the body of the email was a link to the film ‘Solomon’, which he abridged to focus on just the love story between Solomon and Sheba.

  Apparently King Solomon, a man of great wealth, had 700 wives and 300 concubines, but only one woman whom he truly loved: Sheba, Queen from another land. Solomon gave her everything she desired, except the one thing beyond his control: making their son heir to the throne. So Sheba left him and went back to her land.

  Highlighted below the link in the mail, was a line Solomon spoke to Sheba, “You are the Queen to my King. I sought you ever since I was a youth. Without knowing what it is I was seeking.”

  What did he mean by that email? I had no idea. Or maybe I didn’t care. He chose Krissy over me. With nothing but an apologetic glance. The email held no tone of apology, nor intimated he wanted me back. Therefore, I didn’t see its purpose. My days of trying to figure him out were over.

  Everyone had a breaking point, and that was mine. There would be no reconciling.

  Even as I came to this resolution, I fumbled under my pillow for the iPod I kept there, one song on repeat for the last three months. Sticking the earplugs in, the sweet melody of A Great Big World’s ‘Say Something’ lulled me to sleep.

  A month later, we were all lounging and idle-chatting about nothing of relevance during our long drive to Tucson.

  Amanda was cross-legged on a sofa, and I laid with my head in her lap. Amy and Jamie were sitting across from us—Jamie staring unabashedly at Mikael, where he sat working at a table at the front of the bus.

  Jamie had a serious crush on him, but he hadn’t so much as smiled at her. Poor girl. I knew all too well what it was like to be ignored.

  Somehow the conversation landed on whose name? Yep. Jahleel Bloody Kingston. Thanks to frigging Amy.

  With a groan, I turned on Amanda’s lap and pressed my face to her stomach.

  Please, no. I did not want to hear his name. But Jamie and Amy kept babbling, because, of course, they had no clue what happened between us, and telling them was out of the question. So I kept quiet while they babbled on about the show he judged on.

  “…and TMZ wrote, JK owns that show like Michael Jackson owns the moonwalk.”

  Tired of people giving undue credit to that arseshit, I flipped over and glared at them. “He can’t own a show that’s not about him. It’s about the goddamn contestants! He just sits behind a bloody desk giving opinions nobody gives a crap about, because he’s no one.”

  Jamie and Amy blinked at me, looked at each other, then back at me. “You haven’t been watching the show, have you?”

  “Ah, I thought about it once, twice max,” I said in sarcasm, “but then I just carried on living my fabulous life.”

  For the sake of my sanity, I avoided watching that show at all costs.

  “That explains it,” Amy said, rolling her eyes. “You know how everyone watches The Voice just to see Adam Levine?”

  “Hoping he’ll take his shirt off?” Jamie added.

  Amanda snorted and I stared, far from amused.

  But the chatty wenches continued, “Well, since that audition in Denver, the show ratings skyrocketed. Everyone’s watching—

  “Hoping he’ll dance…or take his shirt off,” Jamie filled in.

  “Oh yes!” Amanda joined in. “That audition was a talk about.”

  Groaning, I slapped my hands to my face. “Uh Jesus. Not you, too.”

  “No, Kia,” Amanda said, “you should see it. Seriously. He was amazing.”

  “That’s exactly why I don’t wanna see it,” I hissed at her.

  She shrugged and backed off, but before I knew it, Amy flipped open her laptop and shoved it in my face.

  YouTube video. 42million views. Nice.

  Amy hit play, and there was the a-hole. In all his steamilicious glory. A stab of pain impacted my heart, but gratefully, it was fleeting.

  His hair had grown much longer, caught in a messy pile on top of his head, as if he didn’t give a damn, but it loaned him a pretty boy vibe. Maybe the stylists on the show decided to go with his usual don’t-give-a-shit vibe or he insisted on it. Knowing Jahleel, I’d bet the latter.

  With him being behind the table, I could only see his upper half, clothed in a red hoodie. Another stab of pain.

  Red Hoodie Guy.

  Sitting next to him was Siria Les, a fierce Native American who could dance her socks off. Her right hand was unnecessarily close to Jahleel’s on the table, their pinky fingers touching. Hmnh.

  On the other side of her was Grey Tomlin. He was a veteran, but up in age, his fifties, and probably should be done with this life by now.

  Lots of chattering from the host who called the next person up for audition, Jared. Young, fit, good-looking and quite good, in my opinion. Had I been a judge, I would’ve no doubt given him a pass.

  Grey and Siria gave their opinions, which were good, of course. But when it was Jahleel’s turn, he was, well, Jahleel, and stated, “You’re not ready for this competition.”

  That, of course, caused an outburst from the crowd.

  Grey, who’d being wearing a sullen expression from the get go, was incensed. He leaned forward and looked past Siria to Jahleel. “Are you serious? What on earth is your problem?”

  Quite clear that Grey was no fan of Jahleel. Huh.

  Instead of acknowledging Grey, Jahleel looked at the guy on stage, who looked as if he was about blow. “One, two, three of us have travelled from state to state searching for talented contestants. And one, two, three of us have said ‘yes’ to all the contestants chosen. So one, two, three of us know that the talent we already have in this competition will eat you alive. I’m only saving you from embarrassment and disappointment, Jared. You’re not ready.”

  Grey looked as if he wanted to flip the table over and punch Jahleel to a pulp, Siria kept her eyes downcast, while the guy onstage went off the grid.

  “Man, what the hell do you know?! I’ve never even heard of you until now. You’re just some talentless pastor’s boy!”

  Grey tittered, while Jahleel remained impassive. Two securities ma
terialized to escort the pissed-off guy from the stage, but Jahleel stopped them.

  To the guy, he said, “Alright. Let’s make a deal.”

  As Grey started to object, Jahleel talked over him. “I’ll come onstage and show you the level of dancing from the weakest contestant we’ve got, and if you still believe you can beat that—remember, this will be the level of the weakest dancer in the competition—then I’ll give you your third yes and let you hang yourself.”

  The guy beckoned with his hands for Jahleel to ‘bring it’.

  Jahleel stood up from the table, shrugged out of his hoodie and tossed it on the back of his chair, which Siria wasted no time in fixing properly so it didn’t fall off.

  Now he was left wearing a white wife beater, white sneakers and close fitting faded jeans with a wide ripped out hole at the right knee.

  At the stage, instead of taking the stairs, he made one large leap and back-flipped right on top of the stage. The very high stage.

  The crowd gasped, as if they expected him to fall and break his neck. When they saw he survived, a great cheer erupted.

  Impressive.

  “Play anything,” Jahleel said.

  Almost immediately, fast paced club music blared and Jahleel moved at the utter first beat. Like he was a marionette and the music pulled his strings. Together, he and the music were one.

  Effortlessly, he moved in time with every beat, twisting his limbs in ways I didn’t think were possible. The music bled into break dance music and that’s when the crowd’s noise brought the roof down.

  Mouth open, dumbfounded, I watched as he danced like a Cheetah chasing its own tail. The man was nothing but a blur of white and denim.

  “Bees knees,” I whispered to no one in particular. “Is he even touching the ground?”

  “Dope, right?” Jamie said across from us, though she was still staring at Mikael.

  The music abruptly stopped, and marionette to the music, Jahleel abruptly suspended his movement in the middle of a break dance position, his whole body balanced slant up in the air on one hand, his muscles rippling with sweat.

  The crowd went ballistic.

  Righting himself back to his feet with a quick frog-flip, he turned to Jared who gaped at him, awed. Through laboured breathing, he said, “That is the weakest level. Say the word, and that yes is all yours.”

  Running to edge of the stage, he back-flipped off and went back to his seat. Siria magically produced a red hand-towel and handed it to him with a massive grin on her face. When he took it from her and sat back down, she leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Jahleel gave her sidelong glance, looked at her face a little too long before nodding.

  He redirected his attention back to the stage, then leaned in to the mike. “You have your yes if you want it, Jared.”

  But the guy stared agape at the crowd, who were still screaming their heads off, with shrills of ‘JK!!!’ ‘Ohmigod, you’re so hot, JK!’, ‘Dance for us again, JK!’, while Grey’s face was as sour as unripe grapes.

  Finally, Jared pointed his finger out to the crowd’s frenzy and dazedly said, “No. I want that.”

  Jahleel nodded, pleased. “Go home, then. Train harder. Surround yourself with dancers who’re ten times better than you and strive to be better than them. Challenge yourself, try new things. Don’t try to control the music, let the music control you. Be the music’s bitch, be submissive to it. Move at its command. Come back next year, and maybe then you’ll get…” He trailed off, turned, and looked out at the audience.

  Just when I thought they couldn’t have gotten any louder, they did. Jahleel turned back around, leaned into the mike, and with his signature crooked grin, he said, “that.”

  “Thanks, man. Thanks. I’ll work harder. Come back and rip it, man,” Jared babbled. “Maybe you could train me, you know. I’d be so much better with your help. We could do—”

  “That’ll be all, Jared,” Siria cut in.

  Jared rattled around a dozen more thank you’s before he finally backed off the stage. The video ended and I wanted to scream.

  No. I wanted to see more. Oh my God. Why hadn’t I been watching this before? Jahleel…

  Snapping a lid on my thoughts, I stopped myself before I relapsed into obsessing about him again. He was what I couldn’t have. He broke my heart. I had to remember that. Had to remember that I hated him.

  “It came out later on a talk show that Jared is Grey’s nephew,” Amy informed me. “Apparently there was some agreement that Jared would get an automatic pass into the competition. Seems JK didn’t get the memo, or he just disregarded it. That’s why Grey and Jared were so furious, and why Siria kept quiet.”

  Jamie piped in, “Grey denied all of it of course, even with proof they’re related. So now people only look forward to JK’s opinion on the show—”

  “Because he didn’t just talk the talk. He walked the walk. Credibility,” Amy said, taking back the reigns. “Last week, one girl broke into tears when he walked out. Like he’s fucking Michael Jackson or somet—”

  “Saskia,” Mikael’s deep and deadly voice broke through, traveling in thick waves down the bus. “Can I borrow you for a minute?”

  Handing Amy her laptop, I rolled off the couch and trundled up to where Mikael was, sipping a cup of coffee and entering data in a spread sheet. I plopped down across from him at the table.

  He was wearing his focused face, with those slim reading glasses he used whenever he worked on his computer. That face always made me smile, because he looked so different and business-like in them, his blue eyes piercing, a mile from the tough man in black.

  Without even looking at me, he warned, “You laugh at my glasses again, Saskia, I’ll pinch you where it hurts. I only called you up here to save you from being drowned in details of the man you curse each time you sing.”

  How did he know JK was the ex? Not once have I mentioned Jahleel’s name, to anyone, ever since that night. Unless Lion told him—

  “You say his name in your sleep. All the time,” Mikael said in a quiet voice, answering my unasked question, his eyes still on his computer screen, fingers typing. “Only took me a second to piece it together just now.”

  Tears pricked at my eyes, and I dipped my head, studying my fingers. I wouldn’t let the tears flow, though. Nuh uh. I didn’t love him. I hated him. He didn’t choose me. For three months I’d managed not to think of him, and I would successfully continue in that vein, staying focused on going home to Chad—the better suitor.

  Putting all poignancy and irrelevancies aside, I slapped on a smile and stretched across the table to playfully tap Mikael’s glasses in the middle where it met his nose.

  He chuckled lightly and swatted my hand, avoiding direct eye contact with me. “Saskia…behave.”

  But I kept teasing him, until I glanced over his shoulder and caught Jamie staring at us, her expression forlorn.

  Pulling back, I eased down in my seat and lowered my voice, “She likes you, you know.”

  “Good for her, whoever she is,” he said dully, still typing.

  “Jamie,” I whispered.

  Mikael said nothing in return.

  Jamie and Amy were two girls who cared about naught, not even relationships. They were materialistic, shallow and self-absorbed, albeit loyal. So I knew, by the way Jamie stared at Mikael from a distance, day after day, that she liked him on a different level. Like a serious level.

  Shallow Jamie would’ve been shoving her tits in Mikael’s face ages ago, relentless until he had sex with her. But this lust, it was different. She might have even made an immense error in letting herself fall in love with him. A man who may never notice her, who will ignore her, never returning her feelings. Ever.

  Even if she changed her hair colour and became a superstar, the world in her hands, chanting her name. Even if she stalked him around the world and eventually got close to him, got him in her bed. Still, he’d use her and discard her. He’d never want her. He’d never requite her l
ove. And she would never, ever be whole.

  She’d try to move on and wrest her happiness, but it wouldn’t be real. None of it would fulfil her. So she’d forever walk around life half-empty, with half of a heart, her other half in someone else’s grasp.

  “You know,” I whispered, mildly melancholic, convincing myself that the sadness was on Jamie’s behalf, “nothing hurts more than being ignored. When the one person you want more than anything in this world, doesn’t want you.”

  For the first time since I came to sit across from him, Mikael looked up from his computer screen, his blue gaze meeting mine. “That’s a hurt I can identify with.” He stared at me a moment longer, before lowering his gaze from mine and whispered, “Even now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I was Chad’s.

  At the tour’s end, I went straight to him, as directed by his mandate.

  That was four months ago.

  We dated under the radar because Chad didn’t care for the media, plus he was private to the utmost, even with me. We spent a lot of time together, and I got to know him… but at times it felt as if I didn’t know him at all.

  There was the Chad I knew—smooth, suave, with undeniable sex appeal. Other times, it was Chad, the authoritarian—in command with a different posture, different aura. I wasn’t sure which Chad was the real one.

  High instincts told me he lived a double life, but I was too caught up with my own demanding life to pay attention to small details. A girlfriend who cared would’ve dug into it, right? Well, I didn’t care enough to dig or ask questions. In addition, the man had a certain air of intimidation that deterred people from confrontation.

  Did I love him? Maybe.

  He was amazing. Attentive, most of all, and serious. Probably too serious sometimes. But we were great together. No drama, no complications. He loved having me at his place and I loved being there, not just because of him, but Alina, too.

  For my birthday two months ago in May, he took me to Bora Bora. Stole me from the world for an entire week. Work and technology left behind. Just us. It was heaven.