Limelight

Chapter Four

~~New York~~

Aaliyah was put on a plane out to New York the next morning.

She supposed Danica and Quincy were in such a rush to get her out of the house as soon as possible because they couldn't stand to see her face again. She wondered if their reasons for why that was, were different. Aaliyah could guess that Danica was just disgusted by her at this point. She was always disgusted by her, but she felt like Quincy was different. She wasn't sure how, but since she came to them there was a strange look on his face every time she caught him staring at her. She felt slightly discomforted by him, and if it wasn't for her losing her nerve, she would have yelled at him to stop.

Though Aaliyah knew she could have paid for her plane ticket, she didn't want her parents to know that she had a prepaid card, so she obliged when Quincy offered to pay for her ticket and cab ride out to New York, clearly under the assumption that she didn't have any money, but Aaliyah was an exceptional saver and between the thousand dollars she got from Malcolm and the money she earned from the music store she had just over two thousand dollars saved, which she decided would have to be enough to tide her over whilst she stayed in New York on a temporary basis. She'd have to get a job whilst she was there. Quincy and Danica had made it clear that whilst they would pay to get her out of here, she was on her own once she touched ground in New York. Not that she minded, she didn't like the idea of being funded by the two people she hated most in this world. She'd rather do it alone.

She had to stop at the music store though, to say goodbye to Mr. Gonzalez, which she found to be a lot harder than she expected. She didn't cry, she refused to let herself, but Mr. Gonzalez shed a few tears. He told her that he was proud of her, and he knew that her parents would be proud of her too. That had made her smile. When she was doing her deep dive search through her parent's files, she found out that her mother was a lounge singer in San Diego, also being an immigrant from Cuba, and her father, Aaron, was her manager. In that way, she supposed that maybe they were proud of her. She wondered if they would be proud of how she managed to escape Danica and Quincy, she hadn't been able to forget Quincy's words you have become just like us. She blackmailed them, used tactics she was sure Quincy felt he wasn't above using in the past, didn't that make her like him?

She couldn't let herself think that way. Quincy did what he did because he was entitled and a spiteful person. All Aaliyah wanted to do was to escape. To go out on her own against all odds, and pursue her dream, doing whatever it took to get there. They wouldn't ever be the same.

She told Mr. Gonzalez to take care of himself, and he told her the same before they parted ways and she got back into the cab to go to the airport. She wondered if she should go see Lauryn before she left, but she decided against it. She loved Lauryn, but like her, she was closed off about her life, and Aaliyah didn't even know where she lived, there was no point. Maybe she would try and get into contact with her when she got to New York.

"Where you heading?" Said a surprisingly thick accented New York voice. She lifted her head up in surprise, once she fell into the backseat of the first cab she managed to grab, at the sound to look at a pudgy-looking bearded man with a gruff look on his face through a partition in a cab.

"I— uh," She glanced down at the contract papers in her hands, her heart throbbing in her chest, "Can you take me to West on 84th Street?" She asked in the most polite tone she could muster reciting the address she found on the top left of the contract, and with that, the cab driver took off from the parking bay outside the JKF airport.

Most of the ride was silent. Since the cab driver chose not to turn on the radio, much to Aaliyah's dismay, but she was much too nervous to ask for him to turn it on. Something about the permanent scowl on his face, made her want to avoid even making eye contact. Were all people here scary to look at?