Miss Americana and The Hearbreak Princess

Chapter Eight - Never Grow Up

"We didn't see each other again until after I moved into my new apartment in National City."

The thought of how long ago that was, nearly nine years now, made Becca feel a twinge of nostalgia.

While she'd been starting to garner a reputation for herself at that point, with each man she was pictured with being her new boyfriend, each song she wrote a guessing game as to who it was about, the sweet girl who was always left heartbroken, her reputation was far from the notoriety that it had eventually became.

Back then, she was tentatively stepping out on her own, on the cusp of falling in love for the first time, even if she didn't know it, and she had no idea about the success and fame that was yet to come.

The level of fame she'd had then was enough. It offered her a certain sense of anonymity if she was careful enough, with the means to do what she loved.

Becca didn't know back then that just the simple act of telling stories through her music would wear her down so much, that it would give people a reason to start a witch hunt, that she'd come to resent everything she'd built, after a fashion.

There was only so much that one person could take.

Only so many rumours and lies, power-hungry nobodies clawing at her skirts so that she'd drag them along with her.

It all got to a point where it had become too much for her, but back then, she was still naive to the nastiness lingering behind the scenes in Hollywood.

She was still living in the fairytale dreams her mind conjured up, and her life had seemed to be perfect at that point in time.

It all went downhill quite rapidly, a sharp descent into a strained relationship with her family, finding herself essentially trapped in her contract with Chen Records, and most parts of her private life crumbling apart before she could even scramble to fit the pieces back together.

And all of that seemed to pivot around the fact that Becca had decided to move out. It was a matter of convenience, more than anything, but in the end, it was a decision that she deeply came to regret.

Even at the time, it was hard for her, and it took her a while to warm to National City and living alone.

"How was that?" Mei asked, a note of curiosity in her voice as she leant closer to Becca. "I mean, moving out of home is always a big step, and you got to do it in the best way, with a successful career and a nice, expensive apartment, right?"

"Oh, I hated it," Becca laughed, "I missed out on the whole university thing. I think it's a common thing in America for most kids to move away for college, and it's kind of similar in the UK, but I didn't do either of those. I was twenty and working on my third album when I moved out of home."

"Well, that's no small achievement."

"I know, I know," Becca said with a small smile, "but in the years that most people were at college, I was crammed onto a bus or a plane, touring or going to award shows with my mum, and my band, and sometimes my brother and my dad. And then... I wasn't. I was in a completely different state to all of my band, I was half a world away from my family, and I was in a city that I didn't really like. National City is like Los Angeles in the way that everyone's looking to release the next big thing, except that all of the friends I'd made in the industry were in LA, and I was working in a smaller music scene up north with all the actors working on serious roles."

Cocking her head to the side, Mei gave her a curious look, "you made the change to pop music a few years back. Do you regret not jumping straight into that genre? I mean, as you say, National City's known for its more indie music and film tastes. If you'd started out as a pop star instead of traditional Celtic and country music, you would've been able to make more of headway in Hollywood."