The Mixtape by Brittainy C. Cherry
OLIVER
Six Months Ago
I came from a family built of extroverts. Me? Not so much. It didn’t bother me any. I was one of those lucky bastards who knew who he was at a very young age, and my family loved me for exactly who I’d always been. I thrived in my introverted ways. If I had a book, a jam-packed playlist, and a dog companion, I was a happy guy.
My brother, Alex, was the complete opposite of me—more like my parents. He flourished at social gatherings. If there was a party, Alex was there on center stage. When it came to having a twin, self-discovery almost seemed impossible because everyone compared you with your literal other half. Yet I never really struggled with that when Alex was involved. Even though we were best friends, we were extremely different in a million ways. While he was the extrovert at gatherings, I was the observer.
Alex preferred to engage in groups, while I loved to study them from afar. I knew I was a people person, but I worked best with them on a one-to-one basis. Crowds overwhelmed me, because the energy of the space always felt chaotic. Even though my brother and I never fell victim to thinking we were less than one another, the world had its own opinions of us both.
Alex and I were a musician duo, Alex & Oliver, who’d found more success than we probably deserved. With every pair of siblings in the spotlight, there was one who people preferred over the other. It was even worse with twins. People loved to compare us all the time in the media. From our looks and our personalities, to the way we dressed and handled interviews. Alex was extremely charismatic through and through. He could meet a stranger in the subway station, and after five minutes, they were seemingly the best of friends.
Me, on the other hand? I took my time getting to know a person. I didn’t open up right away, which sometimes made me appear cold. It was truly the opposite, though. I wanted to know what made a person tick. I wanted to not only see them in the sunlight, but I wanted to see their rain clouds too.
I didn’t care who their favorite football team was or how they celebrated New Year’s Eve with friends. Who were they on their worst days? How did they treat animals when no one was looking? When they were dealing with depression, how dark were their overcast skies? Unfortunately, we lived in a world where going deep wasn’t very common anymore. People lived on the surface level, showcasing the happy highlights of themselves. It sometimes took years to discover someone’s shadows, and most people didn’t stick around me long enough to go that deep.
Therefore, even in the duo, Alex and I had different fanbases. The Alexholics were the life of the party. They were the ones in our crowds who brought the energetic energy that my brother had. The Olives—their fan-name choice, not mine—were much more subdued. They were the ones who wrote handwritten letters and sent me long messages on social media, describing to me how our songs affected them.
Both the Alexholics and Olives were the best. Without equal parts of each, Alex & Oliver wouldn’t have been celebrating our third album release with our record label.
That evening, the nightclub was packed with the music industry’s finest to celebrate the release of our new album, Heart Cracks. The room was crawling with talent, egos, and implausible wealth. Everyone who was anyone was there—at least that was what was being alleged across the internet.
All I wanted to do was go home. Don’t get me wrong: I was thankful for everything that had come my way. I had more than enough gratitude for my record label and my team, but after a few hours of me being “on,” my energy craved solitude. I wasn’t very much into parties of any sort. I was much more interested in going home, putting on sweats, and binge-watching documentaries on Netflix. I had an odd obsession with documentaries. Did I ever plan to be a minimalist? No. Would I watch a documentary on it? Hell fucking yes.
There were so many people at the party that night. So many people who smiled in my face but probably didn’t truly know me. People who laughed and made plans to meet up again, even though they were certain they never would commit to those future plans. People who were shoulder to shoulder in conversation, chitchatting about drama within the industry.
Alex was to my left, socializing like no other. He was being the Prince Charming he’d always been, and there I was, grazing the table filled with food, stuffing my face with too many crab bites.
The only things Alex and I had in common were our taste in music and our looks. From our curly, dark-brown hair to our caramel eyes, which we didn’t get from our parents. Dad often joked that Mom must’ve run off during their relationship. For the most part, though, we looked identical to our father, a well-built Black man with welcoming eyes, a rounded nose, and a wide, impressive smile. If our parents weren’t smiling, they were laughing; if they weren’t laughing, they were dancing. Most of the time, they did all three actions at the same time. We were raised by two of the happiest, most supportive people in the world.
While I cruised the appetizers table, I tensed up when I felt someone place their hand on my shoulder and thought I had to put my socializing cap back on. Turning around quickly, I breathed out a sigh of relief as I saw Alex standing behind me. He was wearing all black, with a Hermès gold buckled belt, which I was almost certain he took from my closet. His shirt collar was pressed and smooth, and the sleeves of his button-down shirt were rolled up to his elbows.
“You need to slow down on your socializing, brother. People are afraid you’re going to hop on a table and start dancing,” Alex joked, grabbing my fiftieth crab bite from my hand and popping it into his mouth.
“I said hi to Tyler,” I offered.
“Saying hi to your manager isn’t really being social.” He glanced around the space and rubbed his hand against the back of his neck as his necklace swayed back and forth from him hitting the chain. It was half of a heart necklace—I had the other half. Mom gave it to us years ago, when we went on our first tour. She said she was leaving her heartbeats with us.
Corny as hell, but then again, that was our mother, corny as hell. Sweetest woman you’d ever meet, and a big crybaby. The woman still couldn’t watch Bambi without tears flooding her eyes.
There wasn’t a day when we took off those necklaces. I was thankful for the reminder of home.
“I’ll go talk to Cam. How’s that?” I offered up. Alex tried his best to hide his grimace, but he suffered from a lack of poker face. “You can’t hold a grudge against her forever.”
“I know. I just don’t appreciate how she did that interview and threw you under the bus in an attempt to get exposure. That’s not how your girl should be acting.”
When my brother and I formed our duo, we performed in a lot of small venues. It was then that we crossed paths with small-town Georgia peach Cam—the up-and-coming country star.
Even though we were both different kinds of performers—I was the soul/R&B musician and she the country singer—we found common ground. It wasn’t every day you came across two Black people who found success in an industry where we were the minority.
Even though we were both successful, Cam’s rise to fame had happened within the past year. She was finally getting the credit she deserved for her talents, and I loved to see it. The only problem was, with success came ego. She glowed in the spotlight, but the same glow seemed to become addictive to her. Over time, it was clear we were growing in different directions, which I knew for a fact when we went out for lunch one afternoon and she reached out to the paparazzi to have us photographed together.
The fame became all she craved. More, more, more. It was never enough for her, and her need to be at the center of the spotlight damaged her common sense. She made rushed decisions without thinking of the consequences of her actions. She trusted the wrong people. She acted out of character from the sweet woman I’d met years before.
Still, I knew she wasn’t all bad. I’d been in the limelight for the past few years; I knew how that could mess with someone’s head. When we first met, we connected in the deep ways that I loved. She was a young girl with a dream, and I was a boy with the same. I knew that goodness had to still live inside of Cam. Success had come so fast for her over the past year, so I was certain she just had to find her footing. Sometimes when I looked in her eyes, I still saw innocence. Other times I saw her fear. So what kind of asshole would I have been to turn on her when she was just figuring it all out?
When she went to do an interview a few weeks ago and spoke about our personal relationship—something I never wanted the public to be involved in—Alex got pissed. Cam knew that I didn’t want our relationship in the public’s grips, because we’d watched time and time again how the media ripped apart people for entertainment. Cam told me she meant no harm and the interviewer had tricked her into answering the questions about our relationship. I believed her. Why wouldn’t I?
“She didn’t mean any harm,” I muttered, looking at my highly annoyed brother.
He shrugged. “Of course not. But she did mean to use it as a way to get clout. I know you both have been together for a long time, and I don’t want to say that she’s using you—”
“Then don’t,” I said through gritted teeth.
He frowned. “All right. Dropping it.”
“Appreciate that.” I knew he meant well. He was an overprotective brother, and when it involved who he was dating in the past, I was the same way. We just wanted the best for one another. I pushed out a smile and patted him on the back. “My introvert senses are tingling, so I think I’m gonna head out.”
“Leaving your own celebration early? I wish I could say I was surprised, but . . .” He smirked. “Cam going with you?”
“Yeah, we came together. So I’m going to go grab her.”
Alex patted me on the back before grabbing a meatball on a stick from the table. “Sounds good. Text when you make it home, all right? Let me know if you need anything. Love you.”
“You too.”
“Oh, and brother?”
“Yeah?”
“Congrats on yet another album. Here’s to fifty million more!” Alex exclaimed, his eyes glassing over like Mom’s. Emotional ass.
“It’s only the beginning,” I agreed, pulling him into a hug and patting his back. I blinked a few times to keep my eyes from glassing over too. Emotional ass.
I guessed being emotional ran in the family. But hell, we’d worked hard over the past fifteen-plus years to build our career. Some people tagged us as an overnight sensation when our track “Heart Stamps” hit the Billboard charts, but what the media seemed to miss was the countless years of struggle that had come before.
I grabbed one more crab bite before moving in Cam’s direction, and my thoughts began racing to acknowledge that I’d have to greet the people she was interacting with. My socializing tank was nearing empty. The nerves began to work up my throat as I grew closer and closer, but I tried my best to push them down.
If there was one known fact about Cam, it was that she was stunning. Everyone in their right mind could agree on that concept. She looked like a goddess with her light-brown eyes, long, straight jet-black hair, and curvaceous body. She moved like music, and her smile could make any grown man crave her attention. It was that wide grin that captured my attention all those years ago.
That night she wore a tight-fitted black velvet gown that looked as if it’d been sewn directly on her body. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and her lips were painted crimson as she stood tall in her red-bottom heels.
Tonight, I placed my hand on Cam’s lower back, and she melted into me a bit before looking over her shoulder. “Oh, Oliver! Hi. I thought you were someone else.”
Who else would be touching her on the back like that? Who else’s hand would she be melting into?
“Naw, just me.” The two men she was engaging with nodded and smiled my way, and I gave them the same basic greeting before turning back to Cam. “I was going to head out. I figured you’d want to come, too, since we rode together.”
“What? No. The night is just getting started. Don’t be a buzzkill,” she seemingly joked before turning to the two men. “Oliver’s always a buzzkill at these things.”
They all laughed as if I was the comic relief of the night. My chest tightened, and I dropped my hold before I moved in to whisper against her earlobe. “You don’t have to do that, you know.”
“Do what?”
“Perform all the time.” She was putting on an act in front of those people to appear light and playful, but in turn, she was throwing me under the bus, just like Alex said.
Cam’s eyes locked with mine and a flash of disgust flew across her face before she recovered and gave me a fake smile and softly spoke back. “I’m not performing. I’m networking, Oliver.”
There she is.
The woman I no longer knew. The side of Cam that I didn’t like very much. Each day I longed a little more for the Cam she used to be.
Come back to me.
I didn’t say another word, because I knew getting through to her while she was in character wasn’t going to work. The men had smirks on their faces as I turned to walk away from the three of them. I didn’t bother saying goodbye. Fuck them and their smart-ass smirks. All I knew was, when Cam came home that night, she was coming home to me.
Walking through the crowd of sardines, I kept my head lowered, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone in hopes of avoiding any kind of social interaction. My brain had reached its limit of engaging, and I simply needed my driver to meet me outside to take me home.
I shot my way to coat check and muttered a thank-you as the guy handed me my jacket. Then I headed to the front of the building, where paparazzi had been waiting all night on the left, behind barriers, for a chance to get a shot of any and every celebrity leaving the club.
“Oliver! Oliver! Over here! You came with Cam! Is there trouble in paradise?”
“Why isn’t Cam leaving with you?”
“Is it true you two have been secretly dating for years?”
“Why lie about your relationship? Were you ashamed of her?”
And that was exactly why I didn’t want those assholes in my business.
Instead of engaging with them, I turned to my right, where another barricade was set up. Behind the barricade were the people I truly cared about. The fans.
Even though I was exhausted and had mentally checked out, I headed over to them and smiled. I’d spend as much time as I could taking pictures with the fans, because without them, Alex and I wouldn’t even have an album-release party to be celebrating.
“Hey there, how’s it going?” I asked, smirking toward a young girl. She couldn’t have been over eighteen, and she held a sign up that said OLIVE4LIFE.
“Oh my gosh,” she muttered, her colorful braces spreading into a wide-toothed grin. Her eyes flooded with tears as her body trembled. I placed my hand against her shaky hand.
If it weren’t for her friends holding her up, I was sure she was going to collapse to the ground.
“Y-you’re my h-h-h-ero,” she spat out, making me smile.
“You’re mine too. What’s your name?”
“Adya.” The tears began flowing down her cheeks, and I wiped them away for her. “You d-don’t understand,” she stuttered, shaking her head. “Your music helped me through my depression. I w-was bullied a lot and wanted to e-end my life, but your music was there for me. You saved me.”
Fucking A.
Don’t cry, Oliver. Don’t you dare fucking cry.
I squeezed her hand and leaned in close. “If only you knew how much you’ve saved me, too, Adya.”
She was why I did it. Her along with all the others who showed up and showed out for Alex & Oliver. Fuck the paparazzi. I showed up for the fans, because they always showed up for me.
“Taking photos without me?” Alex chimed in, patting me on the back. He had his jacket in his hand, as if he was leaving too.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“I got tired.” Alex glanced down at his watch.
“That’s a lie.” Alex was always one of the last ones to leave a party.
He smirked. “Kelly texted me saying she was hungry. I figured I’d bring her some chicken noodle soup, since she wasn’t feeling good.”
Now, that made sense. Kelly was my assistant, and Alex was like a lovesick puppy about her. She was currently staying in my coach house while her loft was being renovated. Therefore, it seemed that Alex was around my place a lot more than normal—and he definitely wasn’t visiting me. “Figured I could catch a ride with you,” he said, nudging me. “After a few more pics with these guys.”
I always had a feeling that the two of them had a connection, and it wasn’t shocking that they’d begun talking. Honestly, they were a perfect match. For a while, Kelly suffered from an eating disorder, trying to keep up with Hollywood’s beauty standards. Alex was the main one who helped her through her hardships. He would sit with her and eat meals every single day without fail, making sure she knew she wasn’t alone in her struggles. What started as friendship slowly began to transform into something with more meaning.
We took a few more photographs with the fans while ignoring the vultures on the other side asking us insane questions, then climbed into the back of the black Audi that was waiting for us.
“Hey, Ralph, you all right with me smoking in here?” Alex asked as he leaned forward toward the driver.
“Whatever you want to do is fine by me, Mr. Smith,” Ralph replied, being the laid-back driver he’d always been. Alex always found the need to ask him about the smoking thing, even though Ralph always said it was fine.
Alex sat back as he lit up a joint. He wasn’t a big smoker or anything, but he always had a joint after some kind of event. Maybe that was his way of unwinding from social gatherings. I would’ve taken up the habit if I thought it would’ve helped with my social anxiety. Instead, pot made me more paranoid of what people were thinking of me.
Hard pass for me.
“You hear this song?” Alex asked, pulling out his phone and hitting play. “‘Godspeed,’ by James Blake. Shit. His voice is so fucking dope, man. Smooth as whiskey. Reminds me of our old stuff, before the record deal.” He plopped back in his seat and closed his eyes. “Whenever I hear music like this, I feel like a sellout. This is the music we wanted to make, you know? Music that fucked with your soul in a good way. That made you feel alive.”
The song was powerful in such a chill way, which wasn’t shocking for James Blake. He made me feel to the depths of my being. Alex wasn’t wrong—our music used to feel like that too. Like it mattered. When we signed with our record label, they changed our direction a lot, which brought us fame and millions of fans along with millions of dollars. Sometimes we wondered at what expense, though. How much money and fame was enough to sell one’s soul?
Many days I wished I could go back to the days of small venues and tiny crowds.
Felt more authentic back then.
I reached for my phone and opened my current playlist routine to share my current favorite track from James Blake. There wasn’t a day that Alex and I didn’t send each other music. We used music to express how we were feeling day in and day out. Sometimes we were too exhausted for true conversations, so songs were our way to communicate.
Had a great day? “It Was a Good Day,” by Ice Cube. Felt down? “This City,” by Sam Fischer. The world getting on your last nerve? “Fuck You,” by CeeLo Green. No matter what the feeling was, there was a song that could express it.
“You heard this one?” I asked, turning on “Retrograde,” by James Blake. First time I heard it, I knew it was important.
Alex opened his eyes and leaned forward. His brows knitted as his head began to slowly nod to the beat of the song. “Shit,” he said, smirking as the lyrics laid their seed in his head. His eyes glassed over as the joint sat between his lips, the end of it lit with reddish-orange heat. “We need to get back to this kind of stuff.” He rubbed a thumb against his watery eyes, and I smirked.
My sensitive brother always got more in his feelings when he was getting high.
“For real, Oliver. We need to get back to—”
His words were cut short as the car came to a sudden halt, jerking Alex and me forward in the back seat. “What the hell was that?” I asked.
“Sorry, you guys. Some assholes came rushing down the road like idiots,” Ralph said before pushing his foot against the gas to start again.
Just as we were sitting back in our seat and beginning to relax again, the world began to shatter around us, along with the windows that busted from the impact of a car slamming against the left side of the car. There wasn’t any time to react or comprehend exactly what was going on. All I knew was everything ached. My phone flew from my hand. My chest burned as my vision blurred.
The sound of horns blasting surrounded us. The sound of people shouting echoed in my eardrums.
I couldn’t move no matter how hard I tried. I felt . . . upside down? Was I upside down? Was the car upside down? Was Alex . . . ?
Fuck.
Alex?
I looked to my left, my neck aching from the slight movement. There he was, his eyes closed, his face covered in blood, his body not moving in the slightest.
“Alex,” I choked out, the word burning my throat as tears flooded my eyes. “Alex,” I repeated, over and over again until my head began to ache in an unimaginable fashion.
I had to close my eyes.
I didn’t want to close my eyes.
I wanted to check on Alex.
I wanted to make sure he was okay.
I wanted to . . .
Fuck.
I couldn’t breathe. Why did my throat burn? Was Alex all right?
My eyes began to fade as “Retrograde” echoed in my eardrums.
A Star Is Gone
By Jessica Peppers
It looks like the music world has to say goodbye to another musician. Lead guitarist Alex Smith of Alex & Oliver is dead at 27. After a deadly car crash, he was raced to Memorial Hospital, where he was announced dead on arrival.
Insiders are saying that Alex was leaving the party due to his brother. Is it too early to put this fault on the shoulders of Oliver? Oliver was left with a few injuries but nothing too serious. Still, with such a big loss, who knows what that will do to the artist.
Stay tuned for more updates as they roll in, and remember, you read it first here on W News.
BREAKING NEWS
The Curse of the 27 Club
Alex Smith, Dead at 27
By Eric Hunter
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse.
What do all these musicians have in common—other than being legendary masterpieces? They all left the world at the early age of 27. Sadly, they have another joining the club at the same tender age. Alex Smith was announced dead last night after a tragic car accident took place. Rumor has it that there were drugs in Alex’s system. We reached out to Oliver’s team for a statement but have heard nothing back from them as of yet.
Questions are arising in the wake of such a tragedy. What does this mean for Alex & Oliver? Will Oliver continue on without his brother by his side? How will Oliver ever be able to come to grips with such a personal loss?
Only time will tell.
Keep a close eye on our site for all incoming updates on this tragic event.
Tragedy Strikes Alex & Oliver
By Aaron Bank
Alex Smith, of Alex & Oliver, was pronounced dead late this evening after a car crash. One of the music industry’s brightest stars is gone too soon.
With the loss of Alex, the world didn’t simply lose a talented musician. It lost a great advocate for human rights. From his voice in the Black community, to being on the front line of marches for equality, Alex Smith did a lot of good for this world. He is definitely gone too soon.
Twitter Trending Hashtag
#RIPAlexSmith
ShannonE: That awkward moment when the wrong Smith brother is killed. #RIPAlexSmith
HeavyLifter: Oliver is nothing but a fucking loser. If he didn’t have Alex leave early, he’d still be alive. His death is on Oliver’s hands. RIP to the best guitarist this world has ever seen. #RIPAlexSmith #FuckYouOliverSmith
BlackJazz4235: Who the fuck is Alex & Oliver? Sounds like an emo band who cries in their mother’s basement #RIPAlexSmith #BullshitMusic
UptownGirlz: How is it only January 6th and one of my idols is already dead? Fuck you, new year. I want a restart. #RIPAlexSmith
UntitledSoul: And this is why you say no to drugs, kids. Fucking addicts. #RIPAlexSmith
The Fate of Oliver Smith Is at Risk
By Eric Hunter
It has been six months since the passing of Alex Smith, one half of the powerful duo Alex & Oliver, and time has not been kind to Oliver Smith. We saw how his stay at a mental health clinic was tainted by the paparazzi and jaded employees who exposed Oliver’s treatments, which led to him leaving the facility before getting the help he probably needed. Since then, he has been a recluse, hardly ever leaving his home. An insider says he’s on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Many fans were hoping to see Oliver come around and bounce back from the tragic loss, yet as time passes, we might as well pack up our hopes, kids.
It seems that Oliver is hanging up his guitar strap for good. Besides, let’s be honest. Who wants an Oliver without an Alex?