Disharmony

Big Girls Don't Cry

It was nearly midnight when his head finally hit the pillow. Concert days were always the longest and most tiring.

They were in some coastal town that he can’t remember the name of and they’d just finished playing to a crowd of thirty thousand people and he was starting to forget how many hours it had been since he slept last.

It was partially his own fault.

Over the past few weeks, he’d been getting up early to go for morning jogs with Kari. He didn’t particularly enjoy running – neither did she, he’d found out – but they both understood that there were certain necessary steps needed to be taken in order to maintain their stamina on stage.

Actually, that was bullshit.

Xavier’s set involved very little movement on his part. He could eat five burgers a day and still be able to perform his show perfectly. Kari was the one with the elaborate choreography.

Honestly, he just wanted to spend time with her – that’s why he would hang out in her room so often.

He wondered if it was starting to seem pathetic, if maybe she could see right through his weak façade. But then again, Kari was not exactly highly observant.

Or maybe, like him, she was just lonely.

It was quite a sad thought. Two people with their names up in lights, singing to crowds of thousands of people a night, yet they still felt all alone in the world.

Sighing, he shut his eyes and prayed he’d be able to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, just as he felt himself drifting off, loud knocking on the door caused his eyes to shoot open once more. Groaning, he pushed off the covers and stumbled towards the door, pulling it open to find Kari standing on the other side.

If he didn’t know any better, he would think she looked slightly nervous.

“What are you doing here?” he grumbled, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she whispered. “Do you wanna come out with me?”

“Out where?” he asked, his interest piqued.

She shrugged, running her hands up and down her hoodie covered arms. “Anywhere. I just need some air.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” he groaned, despite the fact that he was pretty much already sold on the idea. Besides, they had a few days off before their next show, so needing sleep wasn’t a valid excuse.

“Come on,” she smirked, reaching out a finger to poke his bare chest, her eyes challenging him. “Live a little, Spiers.”

What she probably didn’t know was that she didn’t even have to ask: he would have followed her anywhere on his own accord.

Holding out a finger, he hurried back to the bedroom to grab a hoodie and pulled it on before slipping into some nearby athletic shorts and sneakers and grabbing his wallet as he walked out the door.

They strolled silently down the halls of the hotel, taking the stairs two at a time until they reached the lobby. Checking for lingering paparazzi, they slipped out the back door and wandered off into the night.

There was a light breeze, the air smelling of the salty sea as they made their way to the boardwalk.

It’s quite surreal, he thought. A year ago, he never thought he would be able to tolerate the presence of Kari Stevens. Although he tried his best not to believe everything written in the tabloids, when he constantly heard stories about her outrageous antics, it was hard not to let them shape his opinion.

The day her manager had showed up to one of his gigs and asked if he wanted to tour with her, he’d been shell shocked. They were drastically different in both temperament and style, so he was wary of how exactly their fanbases would mesh.

But it seemed that had been Henry’s plan all along. He’d wanted to mix up the audience and Kari’s shows. And having her opening act as someone who had no scandals on his record didn’t hurt either.

Xavier would have been a fool to turn down the offer. After all, despite her reputation in the papers, Kari was one of the most successful performers in the business. Having his name associated with hers would no doubt lead to great opportunities.

So he had agreed. He’d soon discovered that Kari was the most frustratingly multi-faceted person he’d ever encountered.

Sometimes, she was this mega star performer who knew how to charm crowds of thousands. Other days, she was down to earth and almost childish. She went from having the emotional range of a lawn chair to being overly dramatic in the span of sixty seconds.

It was exhausting to keep up with, yet he was addicted. She was like his personal drug: he knew she was destructive, but he couldn’t get enough.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, watching her thoughtfully. She was oddly silent, her eyes glazed over as she walked, her arms outstretched and her fingers floating in the wind.

“Good show tonight,” he said lamely.

Silences between them were uncommon. Even while they ran, they were usually able to make casual conversation. However, Kari seemed extremely contemplative this evening.

She hummed, not bothering to respond with words. Pulling his hand from his pocket, he ran it through his hair in frustration, pulling the strands straight up before combing them backwards.

“Kar…what are we doing out here?”

She startled at the nickname. True, it felt strange rolling off his tongue, but he assumed it was a natural shortening.

Eyes wide, she looked at him although noticing him for the first time, but didn’t respond to his question once again. Instead, she nodded towards the lone eatery still open at that hour: a twenty-four-hour pancake shop.

“I’m starving,” she muttered, making a beeline for the lit building.

Sighing heavily, he followed her, sliding into a booth near the back and smiling as a waitress came to take their order.

“I’ll have a stack, please,” he smiled politely. “With extra syrup.”

Kari ordered the same, handing back the menu as the waitress turned away and he laced his fingers atop the table as he stared at her intently.

“Are you alright?” he asked, tilting his head to the side in concern. “You’re scarily quiet.”

“Yeah,” she smiled tiredly. “I was just thinking that I’ve been to a place like this before. When I was younger, I think we came for vacation.”

“With your family?” he asked, sighing a little in relief that she was finally speaking.

She rarely talked about her past. If she did it was either vague or to recount some story of a drunken night that ended badly.

Nodding, she tapped her nails on the top of the table as though she was playing piano. “I think I was like eight. We went to the beach and I collected shells and it was one of the best days of my life.”

“You never came back?” he said, smiling gratefully as the waitress lowered their platefuls of pancakes and he proceeded to drown his stack in syrup.

She shook her head almost imperceptibly, suddenly concentrating very hard on cutting her pancakes. “We didn’t go on many vacations.”

He could sense she no longer wanted to continue this line of questioning, so he switched topics.

“Hey, did you see that dad on the right side? He was jamming along to your entire set.”

Her features brightened slightly as she nodded. “Yeah, I saw him. He knew all the words as well. Did you see that mom near the front? She was really getting into it.”

He laughed because she smiled and it hurt his heart to see her looking sad. Kari was many things: mysterious and boisterous, but forlorn was never one of them and he was starting to think there was genuinely something wrong.

Still, they exchanged anecdotes about memorable audience members until their plates were clean and Xavier’s stomach hurt from laughing. Catching his breath, he stared at her, wishing he could freeze the moment because he’d never seen her look so genuinely…well, free.

Parting his lips, he meant to make a comment about how he wished they had more conversations like this, but was distracted when he heard her name coming from the television in the corner. He looked up to find some late night entertainment show doing a segment on her.

“Look,” he smiled wryly, “It’s you.”

She turned in her seat, resting her head on her arm as she watched the show begin. He wondered how often she watched herself on the news. Kari had never seemed like the sort of person who particularly cared what others thought, but seeing the gossip when she herself knew the truth had to be interesting.

“Now that Kari Stevens has started her world tour, we figure it’s the perfect time to air the Kari Stevens highlight reel,” the reporter stated, smiling widely.

Xavier assumed it would be a montage of her greatest live performances or something of that sort, but as soon as the first video of Kari flashing her underwear to the world as she exited a taxi, he realized he’s made a grave mistake.

“Come on,” he said quietly, digging his wallet from his pocket and dropping a few bills on the table. “We should go.”

He honestly expected her to resist, but instead she nodded once and lifted herself from the table, walking briskly towards the door.

They walked in silence towards the beach, the tension in the air now much more palpable as he wondered what she was thinking. She slipped off her flip-flops when they finally reached their destination, sinking her bares toes into the sand.

Inhaling deeply, she shot him a bitter smile. “Did you enjoy that?”

Her tone was so cynical that he almost felt his blood chill and he pulled his brows into a deep furrow as he watched her drop to the ground, bending her knees and wrapping her arms around them as she pulled them close to her chest.

Sighing, he settled in the sand beside her, assuming a similar position as he breathed in the salty night air.

“You know I don’t think of you that way, right?” he said quietly.

She nodded, resting her chin on top of her arms. “I know. But you’re probably the only one.”

“Who cares?” he replied. “I never thought you gave a s**t what the public thought of you.”

“That is the image I try to convey.”

Of course her response would be vague and confusing. Kari was nothing if not consistently exasperating.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, tapping his foot in frustration.

The waves crashed lightly on the shore, filling the uncomfortable silence until she spoke again.

“Did you know that when I first started out, I was considered America’s sweetheart?”

That news was actually extremely surprising. To be fair, he hadn’t paid much attention to her until her second album, the one that had rocketed her to superstardom all over the world. Perhaps by the time he had made his way to America to see if he could make it big, she’d adopted a new image as well.

He didn’t respond because he didn’t think she wanted him to. And he was right, because she soon continued.

“I guess it probably worked for a little while. I didn’t have a tour for my first album because it didn’t sell enough records to warrant one, but I played small gigs here and there and did a host of interviews. Everyone saw me as this sweet, innocent little girl. But when the second album was a hit, everything changed. All of a sudden, I was being followed by paparazzi and being asked to do interviews for major shows. I remember, a week before I was supposed to leave for tour, I broke down crying because I didn’t think I would be able to handle it.”

She paused, inhaling softly as she stared out at the black sea as though searching for something on the horizon. Her eyes were shining with tears.

“My mother…”

Another pause and he raised an eyebrow. He’d never heard her speak of any members of her family and he often wondered if she had any at all.

“My mother, she laughed at me. She told me to grow up because the real world was harsh and I wasn’t going to survive if I cried about everything. Because big girls didn’t cry.”

The words stirred a memory and his eyes widened in recognition as he recalled their concert from a few nights before.

The crowd was particularly excited, but they quieted as Kari took a seat on a stool, adjusting the microphone before her before playing a few, slow chords on her acoustic guitar. If Xavier had to pick, this was his favorite part of her show. For each city, she would pick a song off an old album and perform it acoustically.

There was no doubt that she was a fantastic performer, but this was the section which really showcased her vocal talent. It was just her, a guitar, and a few thousand people. And she held them entirely captivated.

Smiling softly, she looked out at the sea of people.

“This next song is one I wrote for my first boyfriend. I liked him. I liked him a lot. But I was about to go on my first world tour and I didn’t want to be tied down, so I broke things off. He came to see me one night on tour, asking if maybe we could make it work and I told him it wasn’t going to happen. Looking back, I may have been a bit harsh, so I wrote this song as an explanation.”

There were a few cheers, which silenced as she strummed the first few chords. It was a slow song, sweet and melodic and filled with the nostalgia of young love. It was an apology; a declaration from Kari to her first boyfriend that she never wanted to hurt him, but at the end of the day, she needed to do what was best for her and she hoped that he knew that it wasn’t his fault. By the time the song ended, Xavier was swimming in melancholy at the songs final lyrics, in which she stated that it was time for her to grow up and move on without shedding a tear, because she was an adult now, and adults didn’t cry. 

As he replayed the memory in his mind, he realized that Kari told more stories through her music than she let on. The days of being sweet and innocent were long gone. She’d hardened herself to the world, afraid that showing an ounce of weakness would make her an easy target.

And although the tabloids often ripped her to shreds, she seemed to think that it was better to knock herself down than have someone do it for her.

Sucking in his bottom lip, he extended an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his side as his palm ran up and down her arm. She seemed surprised by the action, her lips turning downwards in a confused frown, so he smiled softly to ease her concern.

Her skeptical gaze lingered for a moment longer and for a split second, he thought she might be softening. That was until she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

If he was being completely honest with himself, he’d admit that he’d spent an embarrassing amount of time wondering how it would feel to kiss Kari. How her lips would taste, what it would be like to tangle his fingers in her hair and pull her closer. He’d wanted to kiss her almost from the moment he first met her.

But not like this.

Not while she was sorrow filled and vulnerable. Not while she was craving human compassion and was acting on natural instinct to attach herself to someone who showed kindness.

So as much as it pained him, he used his free hand to push her away, his heart sinking when he saw her eyes flash with anger.

Before he could explain his reasoning, she jumped to her feet, picked up her shoes and ran from the beach. Sighing as he stood and brushed off his shorts, he watched her rapidly retreating figure.

One day, he would gain Kari’s trust, but apparently today was not that day. Shaking his head, he made his way back to the hotel, ready for another sleepless night.