Virgin Dot Com Novel

[Jasmine's POV] The email appears at two PM, sandwiched between spam and a reminder about Chloe's dental appointment. Subject line: "Speaking Invitation - Women in Music Production Panel." My finger hovers over delete-another marketing scam, probably. But something makes me open it. Nashville Music Industry Conference. Three days. They want me on a panel about women breaking barriers in production. All expenses paid. Flight, hotel, per diem. A speaker's fee that makes my throat tight because it's more than I've made from music in six months. I read it three times.

Each pass makes my chest constrict differently-excitement, then terror, then something closer to grief. Three days. Seventy-two hours away from the girls, away from school pickups and bedtime routines and the relentless machinery of maternal obligation. I haven't traveled without them since they were born. Haven't been just Jasmine instead of Mommy in five years. The thought should feel liberating. Instead, it tastes like abandonment. I forward the email to the group chat. All four of them respond within minutes-unprecedented synchronicity that would be funny if my hands weren't shaking.

Liam: This is incredible. You should absolutely go. Asher: When's the last time you did something just for yourself? Finn: Book the flight. We'll handle everything here. Asher: You deserve this, Jazz. Don't even think about saying no. Their encouragement should settle something inside me. Should make the decision easy. But there's a voice in my head-small, vicious-asking what kind of mother abandons her children for a conference. What kind of woman chooses career over family when she's supposedly built her entire life around unconventional devotion. I tell the girls over dinner.

Try to keep my voice light, excited, like this is an adventure instead of a betrayal. Chloe's face crumples immediately, and Zoe's bottom lip starts trembling in that way that precedes full meltdown. "Don't go, Mommy!" Chloe's voice rises, shrill with panic. "You can't leave us!" "It's only three days, baby-" "Three days is forever!" Zoe's crying now, full body sobs that shake her small frame. "What if something happens? What if you don't come back?" The guilt crashes over me with physical force. My chest constricts, ribs suddenly too tight around lungs that can't quite inflate.

They're five years old and already terrified of abandonment, and I'm the one teaching them that mothers leave. That career matters more than presence. That they're not enough to keep me here. But there's another voice beneath the guilt-quieter, more dangerous. Asking when I stopped being Jasmine and became only Mommy. When my identity got subsumed by maternal duty until there was nothing left of the woman who used to dream in melodies and build songs from silence.

When I traded ambition for afternoon pickups and lost myself so completely that even thinking about three days of autonomy feels like treason. I get them to bed eventually. Promises and reassurances and the kind of desperate bargaining that makes me hate myself. They fall asleep clutching their stuffed animals, tear-stained and anxious, and I stand in their doorway wondering what damage I'm doing. What invisible wounds I'm carving into their psyches by choosing myself, even for seventy-two hours. I'm packing when Finn finds me.

Not aggressively-just laying clothes on the bed, trying to remember who I was before yoga pants and spit-up became my uniform. He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching with that particular intensity that makes my skin prickle with awareness. "You're overthinking this." His voice is low, certain. "They were hysterical." I don't look at him, can't. "Zoe asked what if I don't come back.

What kind of abandonment issues are we creating here?" "The kind that come from having a mother who forgot she's allowed to exist outside motherhood." He crosses the space, sits on the bed among my half-packed clothes. "You're allowed to be more than their mother, you know. You're allowed to be Jasmine who makes fucking incredible music." The words land with unexpected force. I sink onto the bed beside him, and something in my chest is cracking open. He takes my hands-both of them, thumb tracing circles on my wrists where my pulse is racing.

"What if they need me?" The question comes out small, broken. "They'll survive three days." His eyes hold mine, dark and serious. "And maybe you need this. To remember who you are beyond this house. Beyond carpools and parent-teacher conferences and being the glue that holds everyone else together." My throat is tight. "I don't know if I remember who that person is." "Then go find her." He leans closer, and the air between us charges with something that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with being seen. Really seen, in ways I haven't been in years. "Come back to us.

But go find yourself first." His mouth finds mine-soft, thorough, deliberate. Not demanding, just present. Grounding me in this moment while simultaneously giving me permission to leave. His hand cups my jaw, thumb tracing my cheekbone, and the tenderness nearly destroys me. I kiss him back with something that feels like gratitude and grief tangled together, like goodbye and hello spoken in the same breath. When we part, my eyes are wet. He wipes away a tear with his thumb, and his smile is gentle. "Three days, Jazz. That's all.

And when you come back, maybe you'll remember why you fell in love with music in the first place." I open my laptop. Click reply on the conference email. My fingers shake as I type: "I would be honored to participate on the panel. Please send details regarding travel arrangements." Send. The whoosh of the outgoing email sounds like a door closing. Or opening. I can't decide which. I book the flight that night after everyone's asleep. Three weeks away. Nashville to JFK, departing Thursday morning, returning Sunday evening.

The confirmation appears in my inbox with clinical efficiency, and I stare at my name on the itinerary-Jasmine Harlow-Blackwood, not Mommy, not partner, just my name standing alone. The feeling that floods through me is complex, layered. Excitement, yes-the kind I haven't felt since before the girls were born, when career was possibility instead of memory. The studio calls to me. I slip downstairs, close the door, and let my fingers find the piano keys. The melody comes unbidden-something raw and aching about identity beyond motherhood.

About the woman who exists underneath maternal obligation. About wanting to be seen as more than the person who remembers lunch and permission slips and bedtime routines. The lyrics write themselves, brutal and honest: Five years of somebody's mother Forgot I used to be somebody else Three days to find the girl I used to know Before I gave her away to everyone else I record it in one take, voice cracking on the bridge, and don't bother with production polish. This isn't for anyone else.

This is for me-evidence that Jasmine still exists somewhere beneath the accumulated weight of maternal duty and relationship maintenance. My phone buzzes. Text from Liam: Proud of you for saying yes. You're going to be amazing. Then Asher: Three weeks until Nashville. We should plan something special when you get back. Real date night, just the five of us. Then Finn: Listened to you playing downstairs. Whatever you're working on sounds fucking beautiful. I stare at the messages. Three men who love me, who support my going, who promise to hold everything together while I'm gone.

Who can't see that the problem isn't whether they can manage three days without me-it's whether I can still be whole without them. The calendar on my phone glows with the dates circled in red. Twenty-one days until I get on a plane alone. Until I walk into a conference room full of people who see me as Jasmine the producer, not Mommy who's perpetually covered in finger paint. Until I have to answer the question I've been avoiding for five years: who am I when I'm not holding everyone else together? The piano sits silent beneath my hands.

Upstairs, my daughters sleep peacefully, unaware that their mother is planning an escape she's not sure she deserves. In their rooms, three men work through the night, assuming I'll come back unchanged. But I can feel it already-the shift beginning inside me. The dangerous question taking root: what if going to Nashville isn't about finding myself? Virgin Dot Com