Fly Girl | [Novel] (Wattpad Version)

41| A Fresh Start And Opportunities For Torii

May 1998 :

Torii -

For the first time since the middle of February, the girls and I were back on stage as a complete group. Ava stood to my right, in good health and back to her old self, somewhat. She still had her moments, mostly thinking of her baby, but she kept herself together and focused until she was alone.

Since she hated for anyone to know she cried, I chose to leave her be unless she stepped to me personally to talk. For some reason, again, Leann had stepped to her wrong and they'd gotten into it. Ava just let it go, as we learned that Leann had been doing drugs, and that specific day, she was completely out of it.

And Leann, she stood to my left; clean and sober after a month long stay in this place called Heaven's Gate. She resisted at first, but, at Troy's intense insistence, she gave in and went. Brandy being the one to threaten to kick her out this time helped as well.

To our surprise, after learning the truth, Valen chose not to out her or make the situation worse. Instead, she moved to Atlantic Records, and chose to continue keeping her and Leann's relationship on the low, though there was heavy speculation from tabloids and some media mavens and reporters.

My sister, who'd just had her own month long struggle with hospital stays and weight fluctuation that was out of control, stood next to Leann with a tiny smile on her now chubby face. Though she hated to take it while we performed, she was medicated and probably praying like hell that she could make it through without saying something crazy when she had the microphone up to her mouth and turned up loud.

And me, I was just happy to have all of the focus off of me and my weight. What always irritated me was the fact that I had always been the largest member of the group, not that I was fat or overweight in any fashion. I had curves, hips, breasts, and ass. It was natural, something that could not be avoided no matter how much I worked out, how little I ate, or how hard I danced on stage. I was in shape; I just wasn't a stick figure like they wanted me to be.

When I'd gone on this Teen Summit type of program to speak on the importance of safe sex and ending body shaming, among other issues for women and girls of this decade, I did a PSA and commercial speaking on how to continue taking care of ourselves, for ourselves, and how to keep a peace of mind when dealing with the expectations and ideals of how we should look placed on us by those who wish to dictate the way young women should look. It was definitely one of my proudest moments, one that led to me meeting some of the greatest women to ever do anything major for the advancement of, not only people of color, but women of color.

As the announcer hyped up our mini-return, we all smiled and waved to the audience as they called out the group name, as well as our individual names. If I had to be honest; this was the moment that made a lot of the stuff going on around us worth it. For me anyway. We had something to come back to, something positive to look forward to.

Though it was said that we were giving the gift of music; our fans and supporters gave us the greatest gift of all. Their continuous love, with absolutely no judgement of what we did or what was happening around us. I lived for it most times.

I blew kisses here and there, silently thanking everyone until he finished. "Heeeey Miami!" The crowd went off and I laughed, putting my microphone down for a moment as I waved some more. "Alright, now, we're not going to bore you with a long talk. We know you all read those stupid tabloids, and we thank you immensely for sticking by us. We love you, and because we love you... we've got a taste of what's coming soon from album three. You ready?"