Golden Child
SS by Epic Rain

Rated PG

Hello. My name is Starr. I am the infamous baby that sent the world into a frenzy. I am the golden child.

This is my story.

My mother was only twenty when she got the news, my father was only twenty-one.

It was a bleak, nasty, stormy (can you tell I’ve heard this story many times?) day in February. My mother’s tour had just ended, and my father’s was about to begin. It was one of those rare times when they saw each other for a few weeks strait. My mother had moved in with my father in upstate New York, where my father’s singing group had rehearsals for their new tour.

My mother had been sick to her stomach for a week or so. At first she thought she was just sick with the flu or some other bug. But after another day or two of being sick, she put two and two together and got drastic results. A little stick, bought by her friend Abby (girlfriend to Lance, a member of my father’s singing group), only wrote her destiny in stone.

She was pregnant.

It was hard to tell their managers, the other members of my father’s singing group, and their friends. It was tough to put up with the constant pressure of the press, breathing down their backs and following my mother to all her doctor’s appointments. It was terrible to put up with the backlash and hate from the fans.

But the worst thing was telling their parents.

The first family member they told was my Uncle Bryan. Then they told my father’s father Randy and stepmother Lisa, and my two other uncles, Uncle Jon and Uncle Steve. They took it rough, but they were probably the most understanding of the parents. My Grandmom Harless, my father’s mother, was the next they told. She was upset, a bit crushed, but after some ranting and crying at my father and mother, she was ok. She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t going to desert them.

My Grandma and Granddad, my mother’s parents, were the hardest to tell and the ones that took it the worst. Grandmom Harless and Uncle Bryan came with my parents to tell my Grandma and Granddad. My Granddad stormed off when he heard. He wouldn’t talk to my mother for a week or so. My Grandma just cried. She didn’t speak, she didn’t scream, she just cried. My Aunt Jamie Lynn, however was thrilled, as I am told.

But after going through the hardship of actually telling my Grandparents, my parents were better off. They had support from their family, and friends, which they direly needed to brave the press and fans.

After eight long months of being hounded by the press with personal questions, and being hated by the fans, I was born. I was born a month early, and a bit underweight, but still I was a healthy little baby. My parents tell me I was the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen, and that I was completely worth the hatred from fans and the hounding press.

My parents got married a few months later, in February, around the one year anniversary from when I had been conceived. It was a large, extravagant wedding, which made all the papers, magazines, tabloids and news shoes.

Their wedding was actually my first appearance to the press. My parents dressed me up in some frilly white dress, and my mother’s Maid of Honor (her cousin Laura Lynn) carried me down the aisle and held me the whole service. 

I was in the picture of the bridal party, which was released to the press.

I grew up on tour buses and in hotels. My first crawl was across my father’s bunk on his tour bus. My first step was down the aisle of my father’s tour bus. I said my first word (“Brit”) on an elevator in a Ritz hotel. My first performance was on a bed in the penthouse suit (I was three, and JC, or as I called him at the time “C”, taught me how to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. I was so thrilled because it had my name in it).

But around the time I turned four, things got a bit rocky. My mother was extremely restless. She wanted to go back to her love, the music. She wanted to dance, she wanted to sing, she wanted to perform. But my father didn’t want her to. He wanted her to stay on tour with him, so they could raise me together. That caused my mother to become bitter at my father, since he was performing and she wasn’t. It was the beginning of the end.

They got divorced a few months later. Miraculously quick, I know, but anything can happen when you have the fame (and money) to get it done. I didn’t exactly understand what was going on at the time. It didn’t all really click for a few months. I was used to not seeing my father for a couple weeks at a time, but now it was a couple months at a time. After they official got separated, I lived with my mother, and only my mother, for four months. I didn’t hear from my father at all. But when my fifth birthday rolled around, my mother told me that my father was demanding to see me. So Grandmom Harless came to pick me up and take me to my father’s house. I was so glad to see him, and I even got to see Joey, Lance, JC, and Chris then too.

I stayed with my father for a month, but his schedule was too hectic to watch me the whole time. So Grandmom Harless picked me up and took me home to my mother. When I got home I was happy to see my mother again.

I wasn’t so happy to meet Aaron.

My mother explained to me that she and Aaron were a couple now. She told me that ever since I had left, she and Aaron had seen each other every night.

Aaron introduced himself to me, and he seemed nice at the beginning. But after the first day, his charm wore off on me. That, or he just stopped trying to charm me. I got skeptical of him when the three of us watched a movie together. My mother was holding his hand, and lying across his lap the way she used to with my father. I later asked my mother what my father would think of her acting like this with Aaron. She explained to me once again about how she and my father were not together anymore. This time, it actually started to sink in.

My feelings for Aaron grew smaller and smaller by the day. Many nights I was left home with a baby sitter, and I wouldn’t see my mother again until the morning. I didn’t like it. After a couple months, Aaron showed up at our hose with a bunch of huge boxes. He was moving in. 

I did not like that at all.

I told my mother that I didn’t like Aaron, and that I didn’t want him living with us. But my attempts were just brushed off as being an annoying little five year old, begging for all of her mothers attention.

Aaron began to dislike me more and more. I remember one night I had a bad dream, so I went to my mother’s room, to find her wrapped up in Aaron’s arms. I was crying, and I wanted her to come rock and sing me to sleep, like she did before Aaron moved in. She was about to get up and take me to bed when Aaron said “Starr, just go back to bed. Don’t bother your mother.” My mother protested but he didn’t budge “No Britney, we can’t baby her forever.”

My mother gave me a sympathetic look and kissed my forehead. “It’s just a bad dream baby, don’t worry about it. Ok? Please, just go back to sleep.”

She whispered. I returned to my room and cried myself to sleep.

That’s when I really started to hate Aaron. He was taking my mother away from me, and that made me mad. The next day, however, my mom came and explained to me that Aaron’s just not used to children. She told me she had talked to him and that he needed to be gentler with me. Then she said I was going to go live with my father for a while.

This time my Grandma picked me up and took me to my father’s house. I only stayed there for a week, but it was great. It was like a vacation for me.

Trips to his house were wonderful.

But the vacations changed when Michelle came into the picture. Michelle was my father’s new girlfriend. I actually liked her, at least more than Aaron.

Michelle babied me. She’d take me out and buy new clothes, or we’d get ice cream sundaes. She was a lot of fun.

After a couple “vacation” trips to my father’s, Michelle introduced me to her daughters. She had two little twin girls, who were six (they were one year older than me), Amanda and Ashley. Amanda and Ashley seemed nice to me, I figured they had to be great because their mother was so wonderful. But they turned out to be very girly. While I would be outside chasing our dogs, they’d sit inside and paint their nails or braid their hair.

After the visit where I met Ashley and Amanda, my mother told me that she and Aaron were getting married. I was shocked and angry. I threw the ultimate temper tantrum. I screamed about how I wanted my mother and father to get back together, and that I hated Aaron. That sure got me in trouble.

They got married the next summer, before I started first grade.

But first grade brought quite possible one of the best things in my life.

Because of school, my father moved a block away from my mother. So I saw him and Michelle more often. I did have to go to school with Amanda and Ashley, but overall it was a good thing. My mother and father even began to talk more, which was the beginning of a new friendship that they both missed.

Right after Aaron and my mother got married, they told me I was going to have a little brother or sister. With only a month of first grade left, Kristen was born. Kristen shifted the majority of Aaron and my mother’s attention to herself. I moved in with my father, Michelle, and the twins for the summer.

I loved living with my father and Michelle. I was my father’s little princess. Even though I was only six, I knew he missed my mother. I was the object of their love, I was the little child they had created together. So my father loved me more than life itself. He definitely loved me more than Amanda and Ashley, which is what got me in trouble with them. Michelle loved me a lot too, mainly because I was well behaved and playful, unlike her two twins.

The twins tried to get me in trouble all the time. They would make messes, then blame me. But I rarely ever got in trouble. My father and Michelle never believed them.

It was a different story with my mother and Aaron. My mother still tried to baby me, but Aaron always got in the way. I truly believe that Aaron has hated me ever since Kristen was born. More or less it was because I was the golden child, created by the golden boy and golden girl. He held a grudge against me just for being me. He didn’t like the way I always got the attention from people that visited, even though Kristen was the new born.

Kristin was his child, and he felt that she should be better than me. He hated looking at the pictures of me as a baby, because I was so much prettier than Kristen. Then as the two of us got older, he envied my talent.

I could sing. I still can (Well duh, look who my parents are). He envied the way my mother put me in the talent contests and I won. He always protested when my mother wanted to sign me up for dance classes, or vocal classes, or a talent show.

But my mother would just call my father, and he would sign me up for the classes or shows. Aaron always got annoyed with that, but there was nothing he could do.

Aaron especially hated the way my mother loved me.

When I eight, Michelle and my father got married. I was happy about that marriage, well as happy as a child with divorced parents can be about a wedding. I loved Michelle a lot, and Michelle loved me.

The next year, Aaron and my mother had John. My father and Michelle had James.

My life has had lots of ups and downs. Aaron has taught Kristen and John to hate me. But my mother still loves me as much as she can. And that’s all I care about. She just gave birth to Katie six month ago. I am determined for Katie not to hate me the way Kristen and John do. I hold Katie as often as I can, and I take care of her a lot. Kristen and John often go crying to Aaron that I’m holding Katie. They tell me that I shouldn’t touch her, that I’ll just break her.

Imagine having a ten year old tell you that your mother and stepfather hate you because you’re not their real daughter, only a half child. Personally, I don’t care, because my mother loves me more than her three children with Aaron, because I’m the golden child. I’m the baby she created with her one true love, and ever since Katie was born she has begun to realize that more and more. She and I have gotten much closer. She fights with Aaron more and more. She asked me last week if I would be upset if she and Aaron got separated. I told her that I’ve never wanted them to be together in the first place, so of course not.

My mother has gotten very close with my father. Well, as close as two adults of the opposite sex can, without dating. I know they regret their mistake of ever getting divorced.

Michelle and my father have been drifting. Not fighting, they're just having less and less in common. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a separation there too. Then I wouldn’t have to put up with those annoying brats known as Amanda and Ashley.

My wish for the future is that my mother and father would get back together.

I wish Aaron and Michelle would leave, and take Kristen, John, Amanda and Ashley with them. I like James and Katie, so they can stay. But I just wish my parents would get back together. I want us to be a golden family.

I’m sixteen now, and I know it’s silly to wish for things so out of reach.

But as I sit here, writing this by my bedroom window, I can see two people on the street. My mother is one and my father is the other. My mother and Aaron had a fight tonight, so they stand there in the street, my father comforting my mother.

I watch as he takes a daring chance, and takes her hands in his. She doesn’t pull away from him. I watch as he leans down and lightly kisses her. She doesn’t pull away. I watch as she stands on her tiptoes, and kisses him back.

Seeing this action in the street, my wish doesn’t seem that out of reach.