"Open the damn door!" Ron shouted at her.
She couldn't respond. She swallowed the lump in her throat and turned on the shower. I'm tired... I'm so tired. She leaned her head against the wall and began to softly sing to herself.
They can say
Anything they want to say
Try to bring me down
But I will not allow
Anyone to succeed
Hanging clouds over me
And they can try
Hard to make me feel that I
Don't matter at all
But I refuse to falter
In what I believe
Or lose faith in my dreams
'Cause there
There's a light in me
That shines brightly
They can try
But they can't take that away from me
From me...
After awhile, the yelling subsided. Still shook up, Ashlyn stayed in the bathroom, practically swimming in her thoughts. Finally, she got up, turned the shower and the fan off, and walked down the hall to her room. She closed the door, and sighed heavily as she dropped to her bed. She was unfortunately quite used to the episode that had just occurred. Ron wanted to borrow some of her money, and she refused to give it to him. He got mad and preceded to calling her every derogatory term in the book before attempting to hit her. Out of fear, she fled for the bathroom, the only room in the house that had a lock. Once in there, the door was locked, and she sat on the floor, waiting for her brother's evil mood to subside.
No one would have guessed that Ashlyn's life was like this at home. Her life seemed somewhat picture perfect. Her parents had been married for nearly thirty years; she got good grades, never got into trouble, and did whatever she was asked.
If they only knew... Ashlyn thought bitterly, as she got off the floor and sat herself in front of her keyboard. She had asked for it the Christmas she had turned thirteen, and taught herself how to read the notes and play. She studied the keys and looked over at the desk that sat beside the keyboard and its stand, and fished a pencil out of the various amounts of debris that littered the hardwood desk.
She pushed herself backwards and toward the opened closet door. She rolled herself in, almost as if she was in a wheelchair. After sifting behind a bunch of clothes, she fished out a metal document box. She kicked the chair out of her way, and reached into a jewelry box to pull out the key.
After getting what she had been looking for, Ashlyn pulled the chair back to the keyboard. She unlocked the box, and pulled out a few sheets of blue paper. She cleared a space off the desk and, after a few moments of silent speculation, began to write.
Ashlyn studied her friend's face. "Okay, you know something I don't. That's definitely your 'secret' smile."
"How can you tell it's not my 'shit eating' smile?" Julia retorted playfully.
"The 'shit eating' smile is more faked. This one is genuine. What is it?"
"We-ell..." Julia said, reaching into the pockets of her jeans, "Something came up."
"Oh great, Jules. You got a ticket to the *NSYNC show." Ashlyn was a bit upset, but also quite glad that Julia had a ticket. "Get me a cap, alright?"
Julia shook her head. "Look in here, Lyn. You're gonna love it."
Ashlyn rolled her eyes. "Whatever." Julia handed her a long white envelope, she opened the flap, and nearly screamed when she pulled out not one, but two *NSYNC tickets. "Ohmigod!" she said. "I'm going too?!"
"Hmm, you are my best friend, you don't have a ticket, and you've never been to an *NSYNC show before… I guess so."
"Oh God, Jules! This is too sweet!" She quickly flung her arms around her friend.
"Hey, hey! Back down, girl." Julia sat down. "I 'preciate your thankfulness, but you're going overboard."
"I can't believe I'm going!" Ashlyn exclaimed. "This rocks so friggin' hard."
Julia smiled. "Of course it does. It will be a perfect night--and I know I can make Joey want me."
Ashlyn rolled her eyes. "Don't go all teeny on me, Jules. Joey's 23."
"And I'm legal now, Ash. It's perfectly legitimate." A playful smile crossed her face.
"Whatever. I'm just going for the music, possibly even for the fine guys."
"And for Lansten!" Julia teased.
"Jules!" Ashlyn whined. "You know that I don't like to play favorites! I don't like him like that. And he's out of my league. I may be delusional, but I'm not that out of it."
"Please. Out of all those individual photos of the guys on your walls, whose face is on there the most?"
"Okay, okay, so maybe I like to look at him. He's not that bad on your eyes," Ashlyn confessed.
"And what about that 'Shut up! Bassmiester's gonna sing!' incident at Kennedy's party?" Julia asked teasingly.
"Good Lord, I'm in love with the man's voice! It's sexy!"
"And..."
Ashlyn sighed and rolled her eyes again.
"What about you hyperventilating when you saw that one clip of him practically shirtless on the Teen People 25 Under 25 special? Hmm?" Julia raised an eyebrow.
"Have mercy! Did you see his body? And I wasn't hyperventilating... I was panting."
"Same difference! You like him. Admit it."
Ashlyn sighed again. "Okay, so I think he's good-looking, talented, and he has a nice body. Big frickin' deal."
"I would think so," Julia said. "When they're on TV, you're solely focused on him alone. It's like none of the other ones are there! And you demand silence so you can hear the bass parts. 'Fess up already--you two would make a gorgeous couple if you met."
Ashlyn clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "Come on, Jules--you actually think that Lance would like me? That's like saying that Jay-Z would like... Madonna."
Julia's hazel eyes met with Ashlyn's deep brown ones. "Ash, really, he would like you. He's not the type who'd be totally unwilling to look past race. Besides, there's those pictures of him with all those girls surrounding him that floats around on the 'Net."
"Those girls could've rushed him. Sure, he might not be full-on racist, but maybe he'd just rather stick with someone not like me. Why I spend my time even obsessing over white guys who don't care to give me a second glance is beyond me."
"Hey, hey. Don't say that."
"You know it's true, Jules. They don't want a tall, black girl who still has braces, even though she's seventeen. They want the Britney Spearses and Christina Aguileras of the world. And if they do want a black girl, she's gotta look like Tyra Banks or Beyonce from Destiny's Child." Ashlyn paused for a moment, and allowed her eyes to scan around the room. "I'm just raising these too-high standards for myself. Me finding a white guy who will find me attractive is a complete delusion. Just like becoming a singer. It's just not going to happen to me."
Julia wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulder. "Listen, if you keep on putting yourself down like that, you won't be able to do anything that you want. You have talent. You're gorgeous. You will get a great guy someday, and with your voice and songwriting skills, you're gonna make it. I know it."
"I love getting pep talks from you," Ashlyn replied, smiling.
"I'm your personal cheerleader," Julia added. "Come on. Be happy. We're gonna see *NSYNC in a few nights; you have all the reason in the world to be psyched, not depressed."
"Okay, for your sake, I'll be happy." Ashlyn laughed, and stroked the ticket. Lance, here I come.
As she walked into her bedroom that night, Ashlyn absentmindedly sang to the tune of "I Thought She Knew", changing all of the female pronouns in the song to male pronouns. "He was my once in a lifetime, happy ending come true…" Her voice was a soft, yet clear soprano, and each note flowed softly as it was sung. Ever since she was a little girl, she'd loved singing, and had been told that she had a great voice. She prided her parents by singing in her church choir and on Talent Night at school.
Around the time she was ten, Ashlyn felt that the stage was where she wanted to make a career. She began to tell everyone that she wanted to become a singer, including her family members and teachers. This completely appalled her conservative parents. Her father was an accountant, and her mother was a dentist; so naturally Ashlyn's desire to become a performer was instantaneously deemed horribly wrong. From then on, they tried anything and everything to make her not want to become a singer. They took her out of the choir, tried to ban her from all arts classes, and put her in all sorts of other activities to keep her mind off of singing. But, at the end of the day, Ashlyn would come back singing a song.
Now that Ashlyn was in high school, and getting closer and closer to college, her parents grew more and more desperate to keep her from pursuing her dreams of stardom. They insisted that she study psychology and major in it--"After all, you are a people person, and psychologists deal with people," her mother had said. "And you make good money." Sure, the human mind fascinated her; it was intriguing and complex, yet so petty and trivial. But the thrill of being onstage, singing her heart out to the legions of fans was far more interesting to her than studying for six to eight years to become a psychologist was.
Sometimes, when no one was home, or it was the dead of night, Ashlyn would go into the basement and set up a roughly made "home studio". There was a boom box that had a vocal cancellor plugged into it, along with three cassette recorders with fresh tapes placed in them. She'd put a CD or a tape with a song she liked into the boom box, and would sing into the microphone in the place of the lead singer, recording herself onto the tapes. When she would play her keyboard in impromptu jam sessions in her room, she would record the music onto a cassette, put it into another tape player, and record herself singing. It reminded her of what former '80s pop singer Debbie (Deborah) Gibson had done. She was making rough, homemade demo tapes, dreaming-hoping, wishing, praying-about the day when she would slip a tape into the hands of a worthy producer or executive, and she would get discovered.
But there would be no way that would happen. Her parents had her "on lockdown", as her cousin Kendra would say. They were extremely overprotective, and if anything wasn't done their way, the consequences were quite severe. Ashlyn discovered early on that lying was punishable by no phone or Internet privileges. Having an unconventional career would probably result in being completely disowned.
Once in her room, Ashlyn clicked on her bedside lamp, and beheld her oasis. Her walls were covered with pictures of various pop culture icons, but one wall was solely dedicated to *NSYNC. Ever since she'd seen the video for "I Want You Back" in the spring of 1998, she'd been engrossed in them. She collected magazine articles, videos, official books, and had even kept a calendar with all of their summer of 1999 tour dates written on it. Yet, in the end, she wasn't what she seemed to be on the surface: a color blind teenybopper, but an admirer of the beautiful music they created.
Honestly... that's what I really love about them, she thought. Their music manages to strike a chord; it's amazing. It really is the music of my heart. As she walked around her room, lighting a few candles, her gaze fell upon "The Wall", as she, Kennedy, and Julia called it. She had tried to put up an equal amount of pictures up for all of the guys, yet the Lance pictures managed to outnumber the other ones. She smiled crookedly at the wall, and studied one in particular--Lance in front of a sky blue background wearing a jean jacket and leather pants. That one was her favorite.
Lance, Lance, in leather pants... Ashlyn thought teasingly as she examined the photograph. She had an odd fetish for pictures of him in leather. He looked so good in it. But then again, with his gorgeous green eyes, spiked blonde hair, easy smile, beautiful body, and (swoon) nice round ass, he always looked good. If that wasn't a teeny thought, I don't know what was.
Yeah, I'll admit, I'm all over him like a horny teenage boy would want to be all over Britney Spears. But there's something else besides what I know about him. He's got what I want; he's doing what I want to be doing. She sighed wistfully, and sat on her bed, looking over the pictures on her wall. Whenever she listened to *NSYNC's CDs, watched them perform on TV, or read an article about them in a magazine, she would feel more and more determined to push for her dreams of stardom, whether her parents liked it or not. They were her inspiration.
And I'm finally going to be able to see them.