Founded on Goodbye: A Rockstar Romance

by Kat Singleton

  “I’ve been calling and texting you,” she states, her eyes roaming over me. “You look good, Nash.”

  I ignore the second part of her answer, focusing instead on the first. “And I’ve been ignoring you. Funny how that works, isn’t it?”

  “I have some information I think you’d want to know.” She shifts her weight on the pair of heels she’s wearing.

  “Not interested,” I bark, moving to side-step around her. Her hand juts out, landing on my chest and pinning me to my spot. Looking down, I swat her hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  “You’re going to want to know about this, baby. It involves your shiny new plaything.” She pauses. “Nora, is it?”

  This comment catches my attention, although I play it off like it doesn’t. “There’s nothing you could tell me that’ll make me change my mind about her. Which is why you’re really here, isn’t it? You want me to pine after you forever. Been there, done that, now I’m fucking over it. Deal with it.”

  Her lips widen in the most sinister smile. It catches me off guard, because clearly Taylor thinks she knows something that’ll change things. “Spit it out,” I finally say. “Tell me whatever the hell you think you know so we can get this show on the road.”

  I’m actually shocked that we’ve made it this long without someone coming to find us. Taylor’s eyes light up like a damn kid in a candy store when she spots Nora heading toward the stage.

  “Perfect!” Taylor yells clapping, getting Nora’s attention.

  I can’t help but feel uneasy when I see Nora’s eyes widen in horror when she spots Taylor. She looks from me to Taylor, and back; her gaze glued on Taylor’s.

  “Just the girl we were talking about,” Taylor taunts. “Nora, nice to meet you, hon.”

  Hon. As if Nora and Taylor aren’t the exact same age.

  “What’s going on?” Nora asks hesitantly.

  The crowd outside begins to go wild. My guess is that they’ve dimmed the lights, preparing for my arrival on stage.

  “I’m so happy you asked,” Taylor says, clapping her hands together. “I was just telling Nash here the real reason why you’re on this tour.”

  The color drains from Nora’s face. “No,” she breathes, looking at me with a stricken look on her face. “Nash…” she begins, but Taylor begins to speak over her.

  “Nora here, isn’t as sweet as the tabloids make her out to be. Turns out she isn’t just a dancer on your tour…”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask, my head beginning to spin with questions.

  “You were played, Nash. Your team wanted a better album out of you. Your writing has been shitty recently. The last album you wrote, the one about me, was phenomenal. Because you were broken. They wanted that again.”

  “Your point?” I ask, cutting her off. My eyes find Nora, but she looks like she’s seen a ghost.

  “My point being they wanted you to get hurt again. They asked me to do the job, but things got murky when they realized they couldn’t come up with a valid excuse for me to be on the tour with you. Insert Nora here.”

  “Nash, I can explain.” Nora’s eyes are pleading when she looks at me, stepping in front of Taylor.

  “Explain what?” I demand.

  Taylor laughs sarcastically. “She needs to explain that she isn’t just a dancer on your tour. Your team found her, hired her to weasel her way in. The real reason she’s here is to break your heart, Nash. Your broken heart means better songs, which means more money for everyone in on it.”

  The world around me starts to go blurry. All I can see is the devilish smile on Taylor’s face and the devastation on Nora’s. My chest suddenly feels heavy, and I can’t help but take a few steps back from Taylor’s words. Memories flood my head, every single one of them involving Nora.

  It can’t be true.

  Taylor is spewing bullshit.

  I’m about to tell her to go fuck herself, but the look on Nora’s face makes me pause. She hasn’t denied anything. Surely, she should be denying it…right? This can’t be fucking real.

  Fake.

  It wasn’t fake.

  Nora isn’t like that. She wouldn’t hurt me like that.

  But why does she look guilty?

  “Tell me it isn’t true, Rose.”

  Shaking her head, she obliterates my recently mended heart.

  Taking a few steps back, his eyes bounce from Taylor to me. Ultimately, they land on me. The devastation in them is enough to steal my breath.

  Betrayal is written in every facet of his face. He looks like he’s been punched in the gut. “Tell me it isn’t true, Rose,” he pleads, his voice catching in his throat.

  Trying to hold back tears, I shake my head, wishing it wasn’t true. The urge to fall to my knees and beg for his forgiveness is overwhelming. The world around me fades away until it’s just him—the look of devastation on his face something I’ll never be able to forget.

  His eyes widen. It’s in this moment I learn how quickly a person can go from the highest highs to the lowest lows. With my own eyes I’m watching him fall apart. I have a front row seat to the breaking of his heart—and it’s all my fault.

  “This is a sick fucking joke, right? Tell her you would never. That isn’t you, Rose. You wouldn’t be so cruel. Fucking tell her!” His voice raises in denial, causing Taylor to smile.

  The tone of his voice does nothing to faze her; she’s got such a look of accomplishment on her face. I want to slap it right off her. She’s taken my truth and shared it with Nash before I got the chance.

  “Nora?” His voice breaks, and it feels like a sledgehammer to my heart. But I made my bed, and unfortunately now I have to lie in it.

  It hurts to even look at him, to see the damage I’ve done to him. No matter how hard it pains me to see this, to see him slowly fall apart, I make sure I look him in the eye. It’s the least I can do. My lip quivers. “I’m sorry.” The words come out scratchy, emotion sitting like a frog in my throat.

  The crowd on the other side of the wall starts to chant his name. They’re so loud, rattling the whole earth below our feet.

  Pulling at his hair, he turns away from us, beginning to pace back and forth manically. I’m wondering if soon he’ll end up ripping out the strands of his hair with how hard he’s pulling at it. When he turns around, it’s another shot to the heart to see his red-rimmed eyes.

  “You’re just like her,” he mutters, shooting Taylor a dirty look. “You weren’t supposed to fucking be like her!” My eyes dart to his fist, watching him clench and unclench it in anger.

  “Nash,” Taylor begins, not getting the chance to finish her sentence.

  “Get lost!” he yells, pointing toward the exit.

  She opens her mouth as if she wants to argue with him, but the look on his face makes her change her mind. Without looking back at either of us, she leaves, leaving me alone with a raging Nash.

  He doesn’t look at me, choosing instead to turn around to face a wall. The muscles underneath his shirt bunch together with tension. I watch him take a deep breath in. Still facing the wall, he says, “Everything in my life is a damn lie.”

  A stage manager makes their way toward us, but after seeing the look on Nash’s face, they scurry away, mumbling something into their headset.

  Looking toward the ceiling, I try and stop the tears from falling. “It wasn’t a lie, Nash.”

  He laughs, facing me once again. I almost preferred him staring at the wall; at least then I didn’t have to see the pain all over his face. His eyes are red, a vein in the middle of his forehead protruding in anger. “It was all a fucking lie! You slithered your way into my heart just to fucking break it. If that isn’t a lie, I’m not sure what is.”

  He looks so heartbroken. It’s in the way he stands, his shoulders slumping over and curving inward. In the tight grip of his hands. In the manic look of devastation in his eyes.

  “It became real to me, too. I fell for you. I wanted to tell you last
night, but you stopped me.” My words come out jumbled as I try to get out as much as possible before he stops listening.

  His arm shoots up. “Don’t blame your deception on me, Nora. I’ve done a lot of things I regret in my life. But I’ve never set out to hurt someone…especially for the sake of money. You understand that’s what you did, right? You broke me because they wanted more money.” He sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “What a fucking sick joke my life is.”

  The tears fall from my eyes then, sliding down my cheeks until I taste the salt on my lips. “I didn’t think I stood a chance,” I confess. “I thought I would never even have a conversation with you. I thought I’d just be able to be a dancer on your tour, without anything else happening. I didn’t expect you to be—”

  “Be what?” he interrupts, his arms folding over his chest defensively.

  “I didn’t expect you to be you! I thought you’d be the guy the tabloids talk about. I thought you’d continue to fuck your way through top models. I didn’t think I had a chance. I didn’t—”

  His eyes follow the line of tears down my cheek. “You spin such beautiful lies, Rose. I wish I believed you. You really did fool me. I didn’t expect you to be so calculating.”

  My eyes rake over him. The sight of him breaks every part of me. Watching him break is in return shattering my own heart. I sigh, my mind racing with any kind of excuse that could ease the pain, knowing deep down there aren’t any. Finally, I shrug, not knowing what else I can do to prove to him my feelings are genuine. “If I thought the feelings would’ve been real, I would’ve said no.”

  Laughing, he shakes his head at me dismissively. “Would you have, though? I’m not so sure, Rose. I’m not sure of a damn thing anymore.”

  Taking a step closer, I reach out to touch him. As soon as my hand hits the sleeve of his jacket, he pulls away as if I burned him straight through the leather. “The feelings were real. It was all real. The only thing that wasn’t is that I didn’t get picked for this tour because of my talent.”

  “Yeah, you got it because of your capability to break my fucking heart. Jesus,” he breathes, rubbing the back of his neck, “my team really got me. They chose well. That innocent look of yours, that sweet demeanor…I fell for it. Fucking hard. But it was all a fucking lie. A scheme for money,” he says in angered disbelief.

  “I’m sorry.” My eyes beg him to forgive me, to understand that I fell just as hard as he did.

  “Well, it worked. I fell in love with you.” His voice shakes, ripping my heart in two. “This betrayal is sure to get some good lyrics out of it. Consider me fucking inspired. I’ll make sure to have my people send you royalties from the songs you worked so hard for.” Taking a deep breath, he regains composure. Straightening his shoulders and rolling them back, he becomes a whole new Nash. This is the Nash I was expecting before I knew him—the look of indifference, the cocky tilt to his lips. His mask is falling back in place.

  I’ve lost him.

  Walking up to me, he gently moves the hair from my face. We’re supposed to be on stage, but my feet stay planted, waiting to see what he’ll do next.

  Grasping onto both sides of my face, he pulls my head forward, burying it against his chest. His lips skim my forehead as he speaks the words that destroy me. “I wish it was real, Rose. I love you, with every part of me, with parts of me I didn’t know existed. But I wish I never had to see your fucking face again.”

  Pulling away, he stares at me for a few moments longer before backing up. My body feels cold, already missing the warmth of his touch, knowing things will never be the same. We might have to put on a show for the crowd of screaming fans, but I’ll never have his touch the way I used to. He’ll never be mine again.

  His steps are angry as he makes his way to the stage. Before he can go under, he starts barking orders. Grabbing the shirt of the nearest assistant, he pulls them in close. “Get me a fucking drink. Now.”

  “Nash!” Monica yells, beelining toward us in her stilettos. “You’re late. We need to start the show. Now.”

  Nash laughs, greedily taking a bottle of vodka from the assistant. I don’t know how the assistant found liquor that fast, but I find myself wishing it wasn’t something so hard. The lips that have caressed every inch of my body now wrap around the top of that bottle. His throat bobs up and down as he takes significant gulps from it.

  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he smirks at Monica. “Sorry I’m late. I was too busy figuring out that the people closest to me are all fucking backstabbers.” His eyebrows furrow. “You know, Monica. I always thought you were cold and calculating. But I didn’t expect you to be fucking heartless. I trusted you despite knowing how cold you can be. My mistake.”

  Monica sighs, throwing me a dirty look as if this is my fault. I don’t even have it in me to argue and let her know it was Taylor that broke the news to him in the most brutal way.

  Nash takes another long sip of vodka, his grip tight around the neck of the bottle. Making his way to her, he hands over the bottle. She takes it without complaint, surely thinking the same thing I am—that this is about to be a disaster. There’s a good amount of liquor running through his veins right now, which means the show we’re about to perform could go up in flames.

  “We’ve been through a lot together, Monica, and I know you’ve been ruthless in making sure I have a solid career. But I never thought you’d plan to destroy me to make money.”

  She opens her mouth to respond, but he doesn’t give her the time of day. Instead, he struts to the door that leads below the stage.

  Knowing I need to make my way to my mark, I give Monica an apologetic shrug. “Taylor came here and told him. Apparently, you guys sought her out first.”

  I leave Monica standing there, smoke almost billowing from her ears in anger. I’m sure she’s running through different scenarios on how to fix this, but I already know it’s too late.

  We all got what we wanted. We broke Nash with our plotting. The only question is, what will be the consequences of our betrayal? He may have a broken heart, but the look on his face tells me it’s way deeper than that. It seems like we didn’t just break his heart, we crushed his soul. And I’m fearful of what’ll happen next.

  It turns out I don’t have to wait long to see the fallout from our betrayal.

  Nash spirals before all our eyes.

  He’s losing it in front of a crowd of people, and there’s nothing any of us can do but to keep performing. As soon as Nash came up on stage on the lift, a cup in hand, I worried his drinking wouldn’t stop, even to perform. I have to hand it to him, he was still able to perform with the alcohol coursing through his body. But by Preach, he’s consumed enough for it to be obvious that he’s toasted.

  I’m standing behind him, waiting for him to start the song when he begins to speak into his mic.

  “This song was one I wrote when I had my heart broken by both my girlfriend and someone I thought was my best friend. I wrote the whole album while nursing heartache.” He stops to take a sip from his drink. He wobbles a bit before regaining his balance. “Turns out, I had no fucking clue what heartbreak was then. No fucking clue.”

  Sadly, he looks over his shoulder at me. The look on his face, destroys me. It’s defeated, angry, sad, all wrapped in a heart piercing look from those blue-green eyes. “Now I do. And it fucking sucks.”

  Looking back to the crowd, he adjusts the strap of his guitar, checking to make sure it’s tuned correctly. “Want to know the worst part of all this? I thought for once, people were loving me for me, for who I wanted to be. In a twisted, heart wrenching turn of events, it was made clear they only want me when I’m broken.”

  “Nora Mason, everybody.” The crowd cheers, somehow missing how fucked up this whole situation is right now. He extends a hand my way, an introduction to the crowd I don’t want after the speech he just gave. He doesn’t give me time to react. He starts the song, and for three minutes and forty-six agonizing seconds, the two of u
s pretend that both our hearts aren’t broken and beaten.

  At the end of the show, we’re taking our final bow when my skin begins to crawl. Looking out at the crowd, they’re going nuts for Nash. It’s one of the loudest shows we’ve had, and it blows my mind. It’s clear to anyone with a set of eyes to see how completely wasted he is, his ramblings throughout the show not making a lot of sense. But the crowd…loves it. The realization makes me want to throw up.

  I know tomorrow there’ll be countless articles rehashing Nash’s demise, thriving off the fact that he’s so broken. Society is sick, being more entertained by a broken celebrity than a healthy one.

  The stage lights go black when Nash’s words come back to haunt me. He’s right, everyone likes him more when he’s broken. It’s the saddest realization.

  Having to be near her is fucking torture. Night after night, we have to pretend that there isn’t an ocean of lies and deceit between us. I thought I knew heartbreak when I saw Taylor in bed with my best friend—someone I considered my brother. But that feeling pales in comparison to the hole I feel in my heart now. It doesn’t help that we still have to be in each other’s worlds.

  After giving Monica the verbal lashing of her life, incredibly hurt by her part in the whole ordeal, she made a point that there would be too much bad press if Nora wasn’t suddenly on tour with us, especially after I made a drunken fool of myself when I learned of the betrayal.

  Not wanting to be around Nora any longer than I had to, I made a deal with Monica. Nora could stay and finish up the North American leg of the tour, but I wanted her replaced for the second half of it when we were overseas. I didn’t care who they got, but I didn’t want her traveling with us. I didn’t want to look at her night after night and face the fact that, despite her betrayal, I still love her.

  A makeup artist is stuffing tissues in the collar of my shirt, fussing with brushing something over my forehead as I dread the interview that’s about to take place. I’m biting back a complaint, trying hard to not to be a dick. I got a lot of backlash from the way I acted at my hometown show. I was piss drunk, ranting and raving about things they still don’t understand. All the people calling me out would’ve probably acted the same way I did if they found out the first person they let in for years had bad intentions from the first time they met.