by Emjay Soren
But I can’t be him with her.
“I don’t know…”
I nod and step back further from her before I look at her, my heart on the floor at her feet. “I can’t pick for you Carrie girl.”
“Chad!” She yells to me, but I ignore her as I get in my truck. She follows me, screaming my name and it kills me to walk away from her, but I do. She is hysteric, tears streaming down her eyes as she begs for me to stop.
I can’t do this. I tell myself this every day, but it turns out that this is what I can’t do. And with that thought I drive away.
We are finally done. She tried to get in my head with who I always was, not who I am and took me down to nothing but a fuck. I may never be who I want to be and right now I don’t care. I just know I can’t be that for her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chad
Cassa was released the following day and I was headed back to California in the morning. I look at my phone as it alerts me to another text message and three missed calls. All from Carrie and I hit delete without reading them.
I can’t talk to her right now. She may want to fight or fuck and I'm not up for either. I can’t fall into the traps anymore. Carrie knows how to come to me if she wants me, genuinely wants me. She can get to me faster than even Gramps by simply asking Noah to bring her to me.
I hear a knock at the door and hope it’s her and pray it’s not.
Neurotic much?
I open the door to see Noah. “What’s up?” I hold the door for him as he enters and head back to packing.
“Just left Mike and Roni. They are taking Cass until her feet are under her and then she will move in with the girls.”
“Probably for the best. Mike will smother her, but she will be safe, and the girls will give her enough space to breathe but she won’t be alone.” I zip my suitcase and set it beside my overnight bag that I’ll pack in the morning.
“Got a call from Carrie too.” He says it all nonchalantly, but I know them both to well to fall for it.
“So, I'm on the shit list again?” I don’t even bother looking at him as I say it. What’s the point?
“I found it hard to paint you as the bad guy for not fucking her.” I look at him when he says it.
“Well you never wanted me near her. Guess you would be happy about it.”
“I actually think you did exactly what needed to be done.” He stands and walks to the small table in the room and grabs at the peanuts, ripping the bag open and pouring them in his mouth.
“Those’ll cost me twenty bucks.”
He laughs and pours more in his mouth. “You can afford it these days Starboy.”
I roll my eyes but laugh. “What makes you think I did the right thing?”
“Because.” He says through a mouth full of expensive ass peanuts. “I get the drunk dials when you don’t answer. I also get the details of your raunchy texts.”
I laugh at that. “Now you know how we all feel with you and Candy.”
“Don’t faze me none.” He shrugs and empties the bag, tossing it in the garbage. “Honestly though. She needs a wake-up call. You’ve been put through it with her. Make her sweat.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and open a beer after tossing him one. “It’s not even about that. I can’t stomach the letdown anymore. I get myself worked up and crash every time. I know she loves me, but it comes at a cost now and I can’t afford it.”
“Well, I came to tell ya not to sweat it. Figured you would know she would tell me; I didn’t want shit getting weird between us.”
I understood and appreciated the check in. We have come a long way since the fight, and we needed peace in the band now more than ever.
“You get that I have to move on, right? I can’t hang on a thread anymore Noah. It’s killing me.”
He looks at me for a few minutes before he speaks. “I get it. Carrie will need to understand that too. I've stayed out of it since the fight, but I think you’ve done all you can. In truth it isn’t fair, doesn’t mean I like seeing her hurt and crying but she needed to do what was best for Carrie. Right or wrong, just like Sass and Shame the decision was hers.”
I nod and we drink in silence while I think about those decisions.
“Hey, let me ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“If you and Candy were done, like Cassa and Shamus. Would you want to know? If something bad happened, would you want to know?”
“Duh, dumbass. Of course, I would, you would too.”
I nod. “Yeah, but say we all banded together because she didn’t want you to know? What then?”
He seems to think on it for a few minutes before answering. “Yeah. I’d want to know that you guys did all you could to protect her. Id probably never forgive you guys just as I don’t think Shame will forgive us when he finds out. I respect Cass enough to see her side, that how she wants it handled is her business and not mine. She doesn’t want him to know and we need to respect that. It’s her story to tell.”
“I feel like total shit.”
“Me too, so does Cal who is completely fucked up over all of this. We can tell him one day, show him we protected her. He left her. I don’t care who he blames, he needs to own that shit and suck it up. She married a stranger to curb the heartache and she needs to own that shit. All we do is support them both and protect them both.”
We hang out and drink a few more beers before he heads back to Candy and Carries. He won’t be back in California until day after tomorrow. I had planned the same, but after last night I just need to get out of here and away from it all.
Maybe what he said was right, I had given all my tries and now it was time to move on. Maybe one day she would regret letting me go, God knew I would always regret that night on the bus. It may be bad now, but as we have all learned that to every bad there is a worse and I just don’t care to see it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Carrie two long months later…
Cassa was refusing to go to the show. She spent all of her free time with Jerry James, Shamus’s dad. He was a successful crabber but an even more successful alcoholic. Some drunks were mean and nasty, but Jerry, was sweet as pie and had taken an extreme interest in Cassa once she married Corey. Jerry always knew he was off.
Cassa was home for now though and I was in the middle of pep talk(more like an intervention) from my besties. “You need to walk in with your head held high and smile that perfect smile and tell him point blank that you miss his fine sweet ass.” This was Candy who was making her point clear all while fucking with my hair scaring the piss out of me.
“I say he cracks immediately.” This was Cassa who was sorting my closet for the eighth time in the last hour. Ten minutes before she had settled on three choices for me to wear but had since then scratched the choices and is now starting from fresh.
“I am so nervous I think I’ll be lucky if I don’t puke in the meet and greet room once again.”
Candy and Cassa both laugh even though the memory brings Trisha to the forefront of my mind. “Just be you Carrie. That’s who he has loved all along.” This was said by Cassa who continues to shock me with her positive outlook and hope for a better future.
“Well considering I need to leave in”- I look dramatically at my cell phone to check the time, “- forty-three minutes I suggest you bitches move it along or I am taking over.”
Cassa laughs rolling her eyes but Candy looks personally affronted. “You are not dressing yourself. Chad has seen enough of you and jeans and t shirts. Mix it up a little for shock value.
I didn’t care what I was wearing, but for one stipulation. “Not that shirt Cass, I don’t want him seeing my tat until after we talk.”
She nods knowing what the tattoo represents and how long I have had it waiting to show it to Chad when the time was right.
With seven minutes to spare I was dressed, curled, make-upped and perfumed, ready to go and bear my soul. I had let go of all my demons, trusted myself t
o do it and now I was finishing my story. Good or bad this was it.
I looked in the mirror and took in my outfit. Candy left my hair down but used curlers to give me ‘volume and definition’ she said. That meant my hair was down, somewhat volumized and big full curls making it look thicker and better than I ever had.
My make-up was flawless as she promised. A dark smoky eye with specks of glitter, my long black lashes curled and defined with the help of her expert skills. A light blush and my usual Peaches and Cream gloss. There was no way I was going into this with-out my trusty gloss.
I wore jeans, skinny jeans that were so skinny I was lucky I could breathe. Wear lines below the pockets and a cluster of white jewels lined the back pockets with white stitching along the seams. My top was white with long sleeves, the material somewhat sees through so beneath I wore a lace camisole in black that was visible, and my witch toe pointed stilettos I had saved for tonight.
On my wrist was my bracelet with the guitar charm, in my ear my graduation diamonds from Seth and Lilly.
I was ready.
“Wish me luck?” I ask Cassa who is getting ready to go see Jerry before Shame swings by his house tomorrow. Cassa gets sad when Shame is in town because she limits her time with Jerry who has been there the most for her since Shame left.
“You don’t need it baby, your flawless.” She kissed me on the cheek and left and now like always I was waiting on Candy.
By the time we made it to Quest Field I was ready to puke, meet and greet room or not. But it was walking inside the VIP entrance that stopped me in my tracks.
*
Chad
The air in the room shifted, that or I was psychic, I knew before I turned around who just walked in.
It took me a second to recognize her. Gone was the low key, not one to stand out beauty I had always loved. She looked the part of every woman in the green room, but I knew she was nothing like them.
And then I got pissed.
I knew the chances of seeing her tonight were high. We are at Qwest Field in Seattle and her brothers in the band. As lame as that excuse is, it’s the truth. And here she is, in the flesh turning my world on its axis.
She stopped calling and texting after a few weeks of my dodging her. I didn’t fight, no matter how angry her messages were. I just deleted them and got on with life. Which meant a whole lot of booze and women. If all I am is a good time, then it’s what I offered. It wasn’t like before though.
I was worse.
I gave up when she wanted that guy over me. There was no point in fighting it anymore. If she wanted me to be a fucking pig so it was easier to go on, so be it. I couldn’t move on, but props to her for the attempt.
“Why are you here?” I ask when she stands beside me, a look I can’t explain on her perfect face.
“I’m here to see you guys play?” Her voice fuck that voice haunts me and now here she is and I can’t even fathom the kindness to say hello.
“You’re here for me?” I laugh and step back so she can get a full-length view of everything she doesn’t want. “Well here I am, you can go now.” And for the second time, I left Carrie alone and went to find anything, anyone that would hurt her enough to run away for good.
Carrie
I followed him backstage and out the door towards the bus and gasped in sight of the reality check Chad Blake just bitch slapped me with. Two women, tall like Chad, thin and stacked like playboy models clung to his sides. I immediately named them Right and Left. They didn’t deserve anything more than that. These women, dressed in just barely enough cloth to be considered covered, and I say that loosely, were so wasted they could barely stand on their own. There wasn’t a groupie in this nation that didn’t know who the fuck Carrie Becket looked like. Hell, I was once the lead singer’s girl and I am Noah Beckett’s sister. Noah Beckett who currently had his tongue down Candy’s throat. I didn’t have time to figure them out, or the patience but I admired their rate of resilience and rebound.
The thought brought tears to my eyes immediately wishing I was kissing Chad. I immediately watched him with Right and Left, that pain ironically was less than watching Candy and Noah kiss-fuck each other without a word.
Scratch that, they were being held up by the love of my life, a hand on each of their asses and the giggles he was inciting had me realizing quickly that these women were not wasted, but simply stupid and cheap and I decided Noah and Candy would be my better bet. Chad was done, it was clear.
I was neither stupid nor cheap, but that didn’t mean it would work in my favor. Chad was pissed at me. Not only was he was hurt, I was obviously the one that made him so angry as well as the cause of his pain. I had nothing in my corner. I gave myself a quick ‘buck-up-little-trooper’ chat and straitened my spine and followed back to the band’s ‘VIP’ room for lack of a better term.
Cal immediately stepped in front of me, halting my approach. “Jesus Carrie what are you doing here?” He looked over his shoulder, I assume, to check and see if I had already witnessed the sight of Right and Left all over my man. He confirmed my assumption when he winced looking back at me guiltily. “I’m sorry Care…” His words trailed off when he didn’t know what to say and looked beyond my shoulder at the wall behind me.
“It’s okay Cal. It isn’t your dick on the line.” I snapped furiously.
“It ain’t his either though. You dumped him remember?” Cal asked pointedly…making his stupid….point! I wasn’t in the mood to chat it out with Cal and tried to step past him. He wasn’t having it. “Sorry Care but it’s like that saying. ‘Bro’s before Ho-“ Cal’s comment was interrupted by Noah’s ark slamming into Cal’s chest immediately shutting him up. Shamus had stepped in now too and both were looking at Cal as if he was the dumbest man on the planet.
I stepped back and gasped waiting for the fight to start but Cal and Noah just stared at one another in a silent but heated eye fight. After what felt like hours, but in reality, was only perhaps a minute Cal’s face shifted from annoyed to fury before directing that anger at me.
“You’re gonna fuck this whole thing up Carrie!” He shouted and made a move to come at me when Shamus stepped in front of him, blocking me from his outburst. I do not think Cal would have hurt me physically, regardless how angry he was; but that didn’t stop him from screaming out his anger at me. “Every fucking time he gets any room to breathe here comes your toxic as hell bent on fucking with his head some more! He has written some of the best stuff ever because of your latest and greatest excuse for your breakup- and though it benefits us, I can’t help but hate you for making him into that guy!” Cal pointed over his shoulder at the drunk as ever groper: Chad Blake who was blessedly oblivious to his guitarist’s outburst.”
“How much more do you think he can take before you turn him into a drunk or even worse a junkie?” Cal, I know had no idea how fucking close those words hit home. Noah and I had danced that route time and time again. Thinking for even a second, I could send Chad there, to that dark place made me want to run and stay gone forever.
“How many more fangirls will he need to bang to get you out of his head? Stop fucking with him Carrie…” Cal lost his fire when Shamus placed an arm in front of him and Noah came from behind, looking at me knowingly before pulling Cal away from me. Noah was telling me with no words to drop it and walk away, enjoy the show and party with him after. “You can’t keep hurting him Carrie it’s not fair. Enough is enough.”
I didn’t listen to Noah and his eye lecture.
Terrified that Cal was right, certain that he was I wanted desperately to make him see, to make him understand. “Because I love him Cal, I will pretend you didn’t just call me toxic. Because I love him, I will pretend that you didn’t accuse me of possibly turning Chad into some drunken gigolo or worse, my brother.” I looked to Noah who winced at my comment but took it in stride knowing I was right. “Because I love him, I will explain to you why I find it so hard to stay away from Chad fucking Blake!” I screamed th
rough the room and stood in Cal’s face, toe to toe. He may be right, may be wrong. Either way it didn’t matter. I was there for a reason.
“I know Chad and I know his dick, on a very personal level. I know what he thinks, how he feels I know his lucky socks have more holes than fabric anymore and that his favorite guitar is the one he bought second hand off you after mowing your parents lawn for three years in a row. I know Chad, Cal, and I know that had I forgiven him and come along on this tour as he would have wanted; watching nightly as he fought off women, his concern would never be on the next show or writing a new song. It would be on me, and if he was doing the right thing by following his dream after the slip up on his last tour. He would worry non-stop that he would fail and that I would resent him. Oh yes, Cal, I know Chad Blake. I know how deeply he loves me. I know that I center his universe and I know that you know how bad so many people want to be me. I do not relish Chad in pain. I hate it.” My voice hitched and my tears started to fall. I hated crying in front of Cal, but I had to defend my actions before everyone thought I was a heartless bitch hell bent on destroying the only thing I loved most in this world.
“And because of how bad I need him; I came to see him tonight. I needed to be a little selfish because I am miserable every minute of every day without him. I can’t breathe…” I choked on a sob remembering Chad telling me the same thing all those months ago. I was so deep in the anger I didn’t understand him and where he was coming from. Now I just missed him so much it ate through every other thought and emotion I had and none of the bad stuff mattered. I loved him and missed him beyond reason or doubt. Days and nights combined into one miserable experience because it lacked my source of light and that source was Chad.
