✧

Brenda and I had known each for a total of ten years before things began to pile up in the way of our successful path to friendship.

She initially lived in Canada along with me, that is until her family moved out to Minneapolis for work purposes. I missed her for months but thankfully we kept in contact all these years and remained very close friends. But one assumption, one claim and suddenly it's all tarnished.

   In this situation, I didn't know who to exactly direct my anger to. Logically, it should be Prince considering I had given specific instructions for him not to conatact her and he did it on his own anyway. But then again in that regard I could only blame myself because I had given him the number two weeks prior to the current incident.

   So all in all, I decided to pinpoint my anger onto myself other than blaming others for what I had initiated.

    Breaking the lingering silence between the both of us was the hardest thing to do and I never realized it would've been that way until now. It's been weeks since our last conversation and coming up with something to say seems harder than usual.

But I try, "What're you doing here?" I ask, excusing Jill and attempt to do the same to Chick but he shakes his head. I roll my eyes but don't argue because it's his job to guard us all.

"Prince called, he said that he needed to talk to me." I suck my teeth as Brenda's tone gives off her obvious attitude.

I fold my arms across my chest, and inch closer towards her. "Well, he's on stage." I inform her with a blank expression. "But I'm here." I give a counterfeit smile to which Brenda exhales sharply through her nose.

"That's not what I'm here for, Denise." Brenda begins, purse pressed snugly against her stomach as she continues her expression of stoic. "But if you'd like to discuss this privately without your bodyguard than I would love to."

Chick intervenes, "That ain't gonna happen lady. I don't know who you are and god knows Prince will kill me if something happens to her." Brenda eyes Chick with a sudden amused expression.

   "Wow. So the rumors are true, ya'll fucking?" At her blatant question I scoff at her tone.

   But I don't hide it, "We're together, yes." It feels nice to say that but I don't have time to enjoy it before Brenda's voice breaks my train of thought.

   "Damn, by his suggestive tone on the phone I couldn't tell. Might want to discuss that with him." Brenda suggests, motioning with her hand for me to do so.

    I lift a brow at her actions, not in the least bit amused."What's the point of you being here, I really don't get it."

    "Why don't we wait to ask the man of the hour." Brenda offers, referring to Prince I assume.

But I'm not having it. "No, you don't need to speak with him."

Brenda's eyebrows shoot up at my hard tone. "You can either talk to me like the woman that I think you are or you can leave." My crankiness is kicking in and Brenda's presence isn't making it any better.

"I'll show myself out." I eye her underneath my lashes as she begins to walk out of the door but the guilt within me begins to arise.

"Brenda come back inside." I demand tiredly, while rubbing my face. I don't want to deal with this right but I know that if I don't do it know, it will never get resolved. Surprisingly Brenda follows my orders and does as instructed.

     I run my fingers through my slightly damp hair. "Look whatever this is that's going on between us, we need to resolve it because I'm not about to fight with you." Brenda directs her eyes towards Chick who stands over me as what I assume to be telling me that she doesn't want him there.

   I can respect that enough to say something, "Chick can we please have some privacy?"

   "Vanity, now you know—"

   "Yeah I know what you said. But you need to be protecting Prince because I'm this close," I shrink the space in between my thumb and index finger. "To walking out on the stage and kicking him down until he's two inches shorter for this stunt he pulled."

    Chick eyes me as if I'm bluffing causing me to raise a brow and my body soon follows. Quickly, Chick lifts up his hands in surrender before stalking off. Once I sit back in my seat Brenda's bottom lip pokes out in impressiveness.

   "Look at you, ordering people around." I roll my eyes at her words before blinking away my tiredness. I mentally remind myself to apologize to Chick later on.

I lick my lips, "I'm having a real hard time understand what you're so upset about." I finally say when I decide not to ignore the elephant in the room. "Prince was one who told me you guys slept together and I believed it. He lied. But it's strange because if you truly didn't sleep with Darren, why are you so pissed off at me?"

Brenda sighs, "It's not about the accusations. Lets go back in time for little bit." She suggest. "You hadn't spoken to me in weeks, no call or nothing. And then when I come to your apartment with the intention of seeing if you were better, only for you to say that about Darren and I."

With open ears, I continue listening. "Ever since you adapted to this, you distance yourself from the people you knew before."

   Brenda pauses in her rant to make sure that I am listening but my expression doesn't confirm nor deny that I am. It just remains in a stoic form. "Hell, even your own mother had to call me because she didn't know her own daughter's number. Don't you see the problem with that?"

"I can't help that I've been busy. I don't have time to talk to every single person who isn't around me currently because if you haven't noticed, I'm on the road." I defend.

"And speaking of my mother, I have been talking her in between shows so don't even think to drift off into that subject, got it?" Brenda clenches her jaw at me and I can't help but to grow angered.

She's blaming me because I no longer have time to do regular things with her. I can't help it that my new career requires so much of my time. But I do see where her hurt is coming from regarding my lack of quality time with her and then to throw allegations in her face was blatantly wrong.

That, is what I am able to admit my faults to.

    "Regarding what I assumed, I apologize for that. I hope you accept it but if you don't then I guess we'll both just have to move on with our lives."

    I refuse to drag this out or have this hanging over my head that Brenda is upset with me. Either she can let bygones be bygones or still hold on to the past.

       "I'm sorry too." Brenda softly says, making me release a sigh of relief.

    She looks down at her nails, "You know after you said that towards me I became defensive because I—" she cuts herself off with sigh. "I actually did have feelings for him, ones that I didn't want to admit to myself nor you."

I scoff with my mouth closed before shaking my head, "So did you sleep with him or not?"

     Pause.

"Despite the situations where I had a liable alibi," I could feel my throat tightening at where this is was heading. "I did, once. That's one of the reasons why I couldn't see you after we had our blowout."

I laughed.

Which she obviously was surprised by, but I had no other reaction. I continued to laugh until I shook my head in disbelief.

"Alright," I say with enthusiasm. "That's...very interesting."

       Brenda stays mute on her end until I assume my uncomfortable stare wills her to say something, "I should leave—"

"Oh, no no no." I disapprove, forcing her to sit back down on the speaker equipment. "You can't just say that and then up and leave." She crosses her legs and looks down to avoid my eyes.

     "So you led me to believe not only two minutes ago that I was wrong and that I was the shit friend when in reality, you were the one actually having sex with him?" I question, head tilted. She had been so defensive on the day she tossed those receipts in my face before storming out, but now she mimicked the mannerisms of a quiet mouse.

    Brenda rubs her face, "This has gone on for too long—"

    "So you lied, blamed me for it and want to walk in here like you're the victim?" I'm in disbelief. "You're right..you should leave." I get up before she can say anything and begin to take my leave.

Boiling with rage, I storm outside and towards the tour buses. It is only then that I remember Brenda and Susan wanted me to go out with them tonight, but I only feel like sneaking under the covers and staying there for a while.

   Knowing that me being alone with my own thoughts will only cause my anger to rise more is what influences me to jump in the shower and slip an outfit on. It was sensitive and revealing to match the way I wanted to feel.

   I don't have energy to change, so as I walk out of the tour bus soon after only to see Prince and his bandmates making their way out.

I watch as he throws his head back in amusement to release a laugh and my frustration towards him almost dissipates. His cheeks raising and his teeth finally being revealed is so contagious but I shake my head out of it and storm towards him.

"There goes your girl." Dez mumbles loud enough for me to hear causing Prince to turn his head in my direction.

"Hey," I block out his talking by holding a finger up and taking his hand.

"He'll be back." I say to his band, but am not a hundred percent positive that it will be the case.

Lisa stifles a laugh, "Take your time." Pulling Prince by the sleeve of his jacket, I search for a secluded area and settle with the bushes behind the stadium.

"What the hell is your problem?" Prince says, irritated as I finally let go of his wrist and whip around to face him. "Don't think I ain't pissed about what you pulled up there."

I push a thick lock of hair behind my ear, "I can't believe you actually called her."

Prince expression grows more irritated as he furrows his eyebrows deeper and parts his lips, "Call who?"

"Brenda, she came backstage expecting to talk to you because you called her."

"I did it so you could both sort your differences out. Why does it matter anyway, isn't that you wanted? Her to talk to you?" Prince appears confused.

I shake my head, "On her own, not to be persuaded by you . God knows what you told her to get her here."

Prince rolls his eyes, and sighs. "I didn't say what you think I said." He tries to sneak a hand around my waist but I pull away. He tilts his head and holds a come on, now expression.

"How do I know that?"

Prince laughs, "What. You still don't trust me?"

The silence between us answers him until I break it.

"Who would I be fucking around with Denise? Most of the time I'm with you or recording."

"Did something happen between you and Jill?" I blurt out, turning the conversation in a complete 180. I can tell it takes Prince a minute to switch quickly because he blinks in confusion before pressing his finger slightly against his lips in thought.

He looks at the ground, trying to think. "Not that I can remember, why?"

"She's just been acting . . careful around me. Like, she's expecting me to go off on her about something."

   Prince has both hands settled on his hips before looking off towards the sky, "I'm not sure." He trails off, growing quiet at the end.

   Then suddenly, something seems to click.

   "Oh, it must've been what happened when we were in Atlanta." I furrow my brows, because I seemed to have missed out on information.

   "Even though you're the one who said we should limit our PDA, you kissed me backstage that night. In front of everyone," he pauses to reminisce with a sneaky smile.

    "Continue." I snap my fingers.

    He breaks out of it, "Anyway, she just was a little heated when I told her we were together, she tried to start something but I shut it down. Ecedra, ecedra." Prince shrugs as it isn't a big deal.

As my mind begins to drift, Prince seemingly notices and hums in disapproval. "Uh, uh — I know what you're thinking, don't talk to her about this."

I gape my mouth, "I wasn't going to—"

"I handled it, me and her are fine and we," he motioned between the two of us. "—are fine, so don't start anything."

Even though I roll my eyes at his demands, I decide to obey them nonetheless.

   I'm relieved that he cleared things up with Jill on that front, but it still nagged at me like a constant that she was bold enough to try something in the first place.

    Enough lies had been thrown at me over the duration of a month, and all I could rely on was that Prince was finally telling the truth for once.