Echoes of the Heart

by Casey, L. A.

  “Long time no see, London,” Risk shouted. “You’re looking . . . good.”

  He needed to stop if he wanted me to stay side stage. He was using that low sexy tone of voice that melted me in seconds . . . the man was seducing the audience with nothing more than words, and he bloody well knew it.

  “Good enough to eat,” May continued. “I hope you’re extra excited because you heard about our new album dropping next month and the accompanying world tour kicking off next year?”

  Screams on top of screams.

  “Nah, I don’t think they heard you right, man,” Hayes mused. “They don’t sound hyped enough.”

  “Not even a little bit,” Angel agreed. “I thought we had Sinners filling this place to the brim?”

  He twirled his drumsticks expertly in his fingers as the screaming managed to get louder and it drew a musical laugh from Risk.

  “Oh, our Sinners did hear about our new album and tour. Isn’t that . . . fun?”

  I was going to dry hump his leg if he wasn’t careful.

  May strummed his guitar, Risk followed suit, then Hayes and Angel joined in. I knew which song it was right away. ‘Black Space’, the song I whooped May on when we were playing Guitar God. I laughed and jumped around, which earned me a smile and head shake from Tobias, who was hovering close by. I was dancing and having fun but I slowed down to bobbing my head so I could focus on the lyrics of the song. It was an upbeat song about living life in the fast lane but needing the promise of a lover to always hold a person’s hand so they couldn’t get lost along the way.

  The lyrics . . . they were beautiful.

  A lump formed in my throat when I realised it was a song about the promise Risk and I made when we were kids, to always do everything together and have each other’s back. It could have been depicted a million different ways, the lyrics weren’t straight forward, but that was my take and I just knew it was the right one. I could hear what he was saying . . . I could hear him.

  A tap on my shoulder startled me as the song drew to a close. I turned to my right and found Chris right there.

  “He’s looking at you!”

  I turned my head to where Chris was pointing and I realised Risk was speaking to the audience, but looking right at me. I missed what he said, but when he held his hand out, I fully understood what he meant. He wanted me to go out on stage to him. Me. On stage. I reached into my bag and fisted both of my inhalers.

  “Go to him!” Chris bellowed in my ear. “Get fucking out there!”

  He pushed me from behind and I stumbled onto the stage, just barely catching my balance to avoid falling flat on my face. I wasn’t completely on the centre stage, but I wasn’t hidden by the side stage any longer. I glanced up at one of the huge screens next to the stage and my wide-eyed face was plastered up there for the thousands of fans to see. Screaming erupted when I forced myself to walk towards Risk. I knew the hardcore Sinners who followed the band in the media knew who I was instantly.

  I closed the distance between myself and Risk, his hand came up to cradle my face instantly. I latched onto him like a spider monkey would its mama.

  “Breathe,” Risk lowered his face to mine. “You’re okay, everything is okay.”

  I nodded, inhaling and exhaling.

  “That’s my girl.”

  “You’re amazing, Risk.”

  He squinted and I realised he was reading my lips, his in-ears made it impossible to hear my voice. I smiled, letting him know I was okay and he relaxed. He lifted the microphone to his mouth and said, “Sinners, I would like to introduce you all to the original Sinner, the very woman who discovered I could sing and pushed me into making music. Miss Frankie Fulton.”

  I lifted my hands to my ears and laughed when the crowd screamed and cheered for me. A pair of black, lace underwear was thrown my way and it landed on my shoe. I kicked it off with a yelp which Risk, and the others, laughed over.

  “I wanna sing my Cherry a little song.”

  I put my inhalers back into my bag and placed my hands on my cheeks, feeling my face burn through my make-up. Music to another song began, I recognised it from the instrumental of ‘Think Up Love’. I didn’t look away from Risk as he began to sing, I tried to focus on what he was singing, but I was too overwhelmed with him to keep up. He came to a stop in front of me and held the microphone out to me. My heart dropped. I stared from the mic up to Risk and suddenly felt sick.

  Risk’s smile slowly faded and the urge to run away was climbing up my spine. He reached out and took hold of my wrist, I knew he could feel how fast my heart was beating when he touched me.

  “Risk, please. I can’t.”

  His hold on my wrist tightened, he lowered his mouth to my ear.

  “What’s wrong? Just say the words if you don’t want to sing them.”

  I couldn’t move. I could only shake my head. Confusion filled Risk’s ice-blue eyes, he didn’t understand what was going on.

  “Please, Frankie,” his voice filled the stadium. “Please. Sing your song.”

  I couldn’t move.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “One word, Cherry.” He suddenly glared down at me. “Just sing one fucking word of the song. Of any fucking song.”

  The mixture of anger and confusion in his eyes was overthrown by a wave of hurt that filled his gaze. He knew . . . he knew I didn’t know his songs. In that moment, we weren’t on a stage in front of thousands of people, it was just the two of us. I knew Risk forgot about his surroundings, I was his entire focus. He processed me not knowing any of his songs.

  I saw his heart break.

  A body came up behind Risk, it was May. I saw his blood red hair out of the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t look away from Risk’s eyes . . . they had glazed over with tears. I blinked and my own tears fell.

  “You don’t know any of the words . . . d’you?”

  The crowd nearly lost their fucking minds when I shook my head. Their screaming and booing was almost unbearable, but the sounds blended together the longer they carried on. I knew exactly what they were thinking. Risk had announced me as the original Sinner and I just threw that special honour back in his face, and the lads’ faces too.

  “You don’t know them . . . you don’t hear me.”

  As long as I lived, I knew I’d never forget the raw pain in his voice. It was as if his very centre, his reason for being, was snatched away from him.

  I couldn’t take the way he was staring at me, like I had just upended his entire world. I looked from him and out to the sea of faces who looked angry as they stuck their fingers up at me, angrily shook their fists and shouted words that blended to nothing but rage-filled noise. I looked back at Risk, whimpered when I saw how broken he looked, then I turned and ran off the stage and right by a red-faced Chris and a wide-eyed Tobias.

  I ran and ran until I burst into a random bathroom and slammed the door behind me, locking it.

  I fumbled for my inhaler, grabbed my blue one and inhaled some medicine to open up my airways. My chest was tightening so I focused only on breathing until I could draw in a deep breath without struggling. I inhaled a few puffs of my brown inhaler, then I capped them both and put them back into my bag. The music from the band was still playing and I could hear Risk singing. I didn’t realise I was crying until banging sounded on the door behind me.

  “Frankie?”

  “P-Please,” I sobbed. “Just leave me a-alone.”

  Tobias’s sigh was loud and clear.

  “I’ll be right outside,” he told me. “Take as long as you need. Do you have your inhalers.”

  “Yes,” I choked. “I have them, I’m fine.”

  I was far from fucking fine.

  I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Risk brought me on stage and I humiliated him and the band. The look in his beautiful eyes when he pleaded with me to sing one word of his song, any song, haunted me. I cut him like a blade. He wasn’t simply disappointed in me, he was deeply h
urt. I saw how his face dropped when I couldn’t sing a single word. He looked defeated. I cried harder knowing I had hurt him in the one place where I knew he felt free . . . on stage.

  I wasn’t sure how much time had passed by, but eventually there was no music coming from the stage. Tobias had banged on the door to check on me several times, each time I told him to leave me alone. He didn’t leave though. Risk made me his responsibility and he took that seriously. My hands were shaking and my tears had dried onto my cheeks. I stood up and looked in the mirror. I looked disgusting. My eye make-up was ruined, twin trails of mascara ran down my cheeks and down onto my neck. I reached into my bag, grabbed the face wipes I brought with me and wiped away the make-up until the face I was used to seeing stared back at me.

  My eyes were swollen and red, my cheeks were blotchy and my yellowing, fading bruise was on display for all to see too. Overall I looked like a train wreck.

  I threw the used wipes into the bin, walked over to the door, unlocked then stepped out into the hall. Tobias was leaning against the wall facing the bathroom. His straightened up the second I opened the door. He shoved his phone into his pocket. His brown eyes stared at me with concern.

  “I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  I sniffled. “You’re right, I’m not, but I need to see Risk.”

  I had to explain myself, I had to make him understand why I didn’t know his songs. I had to. I didn’t wait for Tobias to respond, I turned and began walking. He cursed and jogged to reach my side. He directed me where I needed to go when I didn’t know which turn to take. I looked up when I heard a voice shouting.

  “You!”

  I braced myself against the venom I knew was coming my way.

  “You’re fucking lucky you didn’t ruin the entire show.”

  I swallowed. “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen, Chris.”

  “Bullshit,” he snapped, making me flinch. “You humiliated Risk and the band. Original Sinner my ass. You’ve been fucking Risk this past week and you’re telling me you don’t know one Blood Oath song? One?”

  “My relationship with Risk is none of your business.” I lifted my chin. “It’s no one’s but mine and his.”

  “His life belongs to the public, you stupid fucking bitch,” Chris snapped, his face getting redder by the second. “I’ve worked overtime this past week calming the fans because you wanted to dry hump Risk on some shitty pier and just when that’s blown over, you fuck up his first sober show. Are you shitting me?”

  Each shouted word made me flinch.

  “Ease up, Chris,” Tobias practically growled. “Risk is a big boy, he made his decision. You get paid to do your job, not dictate his life.”

  “And you get paid to babysit so shut the fuck up or you’re fired.”

  I didn’t have to look at Tobias to know he was glaring at Chris.

  “You don’t know me,” I said to him. “You didn’t like me from the second you met me—”

  “Because I knew something like this would fucking happen, you dumb bitch! You’re no different than any other slut who wants the bragging rights of saying she fucked Risk Keller.”

  I didn’t care for this man. I wasn’t giving him another minute of my time because he had no clue about mine and Risk’s history. Not a single one. I brushed by him but gasped when his hand grabbed my arm and he shoved me into the wall. For a second, I had no idea what was happening but then Chris’s hold on me disappeared. My arm throbbed. I turned and saw Chris on the ground, moaning as he held his face. His bloody face. Tobias stood over him, his hand fisted.

  “Oh my god!”

  Tobias had punched him to help me.

  “You’re fired!” Chris spat. “Motherfucker.”

  “I work for Blood Oath, not you,” Tobias snapped. “If I’m sacked, they will tell me.”

  Tobias turned, gently took my arm and led me away.

  “It’s your fault, bitch!” Chris bellowed as he stumbled to his feet. “His relapse is your fucking fault!”

  If Tobias hadn’t been holding me, I think I would have fallen to my knees with shock. Chris’s words hit me with the impact of a train.

  “No!” I clung to Tobias. “No, no! Please, don’t tell me he’s using.”

  Tobias couldn’t look me in the eye.

  “They got off stage thirty minutes ago . . . he’s been drinking since then. He won’t leave the building because he knows you’re here somewhere, he’s in the dressing room.”

  No.

  I whimpered. “Take me to him now!”

  I needed to stop him. I needed to explain. I needed to fix this.

  “Dios me!” Angel straightened up, away from the wall outside the dressing room, when he saw me run down the hallway with Tobias right by my side. “Frankie, this is not a good time.”

  He tried to stop me, but I pushed by him and kicked the door open. The first sight that greeted me was Risk snorting a white substance off a woman’s naked breasts. My stomach lurched as I stepped into the room. May was in the middle, shouting at one of the women, while Hayes was grabbing the piles of alcohol bottles on the table in front of Risk and was in the process of dumping them into a sink.

  “Frankie,” May looked shocked to see me. “This is not what it looks like. These girls just got here two minutes ago, he hasn’t kissed them or anything. I swear.”

  The fact that May had to reassure me of this hurt my chest. Four women were all but sitting on Risk, kissing on his neck, face and anywhere else they could. He was fully clothed still but it looked like things wouldn’t stay that way for long. My stomach churned with the sight. The four women looked my way. Risk looked like he was barely aware of their presence next to him.

  “Leave,” I said to the four. “Now.”

  There must have been a fierce look in my eyes or it was the finality of my tone, but the women didn’t argue with me or try to make me change my mind. They simply stood up and left the room even while Risk was lazily calling for them to come back.

  “Spoiling m-my fun, Cherry.”

  Risk sniffed repeatedly and rubbed the leftover white powder on his fingers over his gums. May smacked his hands away while Hayes, who had finished emptying all of the bottles, grabbed the open bag of drugs, poured it into the same sink and ran water over it. As they did this, Angel barred the door from the women who were pleading for re-entry, they were promising all of the members a good time. It shocked me to see just how much of a system the guys seemed to have, like they had done this very routine a million times before. Risk shouted insults at his friends but they didn’t pay him any mind as they cleared away every bit of substance he wanted to consume.

  “Who got you this shit?” May snapped at Risk, getting right in his face. “Who?”

  “The tooth fairy.”

  “Motherfucker!”

  Risk laughed at May, the magnitude of what he was doing was not registering with him. I knew what he was doing though. He was trying to escape the pain he felt. He was hurting deeply, he was looking to numb himself with drink and drugs, he was looking for the blackness to take him away from what he was feeling.

  “Look at the state of you.” I stared at him, my body shaking. “You’re a fucking wreck.”

  He pushed himself clumsily off the sofa and onto his feet. If it hadn’t been for May and Hayes reaching out and catching him, Risk would have slammed, face first, into the glass coffee table in front of him. Summer was on the far side of the room, out of any possible harm’s way, with her hand over her mouth as she watched the scene unfold before her.

  “You fucking liar!” I suddenly shouted. “You promised you wouldn’t take that stuff anymore. You promised!”

  “I’m a liar?!” Risk screamed in anger as he ripped his sobriety coin from his neck and threw it at my feet. “Me?”

  “Yes, you! You said you wouldn’t use anymore.”

  “And you said you had heard my songs.”

  I wiped away falling tears.

 
“I have a reason for that!”

  Risk humourlessly laughed as he struggled against his friends but couldn’t break their hold on him.

  “I thought you had changed,” I whimpered. “But you haven’t.”

  Risk twitched left, right and centre.

  “I thought everything had changed for the better for us. I hoped and prayed and d’you want to know why? Because you’re the only one who fills the empty space inside of me.”

  He said nothing as he tried to focus on me, sweat beading on his forehead.

  “Why did you do that to me out there? Why would you hurt me like that, Risk?”

  Risk couldn’t stand up straight, the drugs he had taken mixed with the alcohol were working their way quickly into his system. May was on his left and Hayes on his right, all three of them were staring at me. Risk was the only one who looked furious.

  “Did you bring me here just to humiliate me in front of your fans?” I demanded. “D’you hate me that much that you wanted to hurt me like this?”

  “I never want to hurt you, but you always hurt me,” Risk slurred. “You don’t know your own so-songs. You d-don’t know th-them.”

  I had no idea what he was saying.

  “My songs?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

  “Your songs!” he snapped. “They’re all y-your songs and you don’t know any of th-them because you’ve erased me! You’re su-supposed to hear me and you don’t.”

  I felt as if he’d slapped me.

  “Those songs . . . they’re about me?”

  Risk laughed like a mad man.

  “It’s why I call you muse, Frankie,” Angel said quietly from behind me. “You’re Risk’s muse.”

  “Every song I’ve ever wr-written is about you because I’m fucking stupid and c-couldn’t let you go even after nine years, but guess what, you heartless fucking bitch? Tonight you made it cl-clear. We’re over. Forever.”

  His insult stung more than it should have because he had never called me a name like that before.

  “You’ve got it wrong, Risk.”

  “Oh, do I, te-temptress?” He tried, and failed, to break out of his friends’ hold once again. “Stupid Risk is wrong a-again, am I?”