by Nikki Wild
I nodded quietly.
“Like I said, pack your shit. I’ll have you on a bus in the hour. Where do you need to go? Back to Riverton, or wherever it was called?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I can’t go back there… Not after the way I left…”
“Smart thinking,” Steven agreed. “Maybe you’re more intelligent than I would have figured. So, where are you going instead? Pick a spot, honey. I can have you on a bus to Miami, or Philadelphia, or wherever the fuck you wanna go.”
I sighed heavily. There was only one other place in the world for me… one other place where I knew I really deserved to be. It’s where I should have been all along.
A place so terrible I shut it out.
A place so awful I never thought about it.
I took a deep breath. “It’s time I went back home.”
Sixty-Five
Trent
Two Days Later
I knew something was wrong the second that I stepped foot into my house. Compounding, rising dread twisted its way up in the back of my head, like smoke in the darkness.
I’d felt it from a mile away.
And I didn’t like it.
“Angel?” I called out.
No answer.
Maybe she’s asleep, I wondered. I couldn’t bring myself to believe it, though. No…something was definitely wrong.
I dropped my things at the door, scouring for any signs of a break-in. The front door was unharmed, and I didn’t spot any broken windows on my way to the stairs.
Hopping two at a time, I ascended up to my bedroom. Our bedroom. Flicking on the light, I peered around the room like a hunter sniffing for prey.
There was nothing out of place.
No signs of a struggle.
Except…
My heart sank as soon as I spotted the letter on the bed. Scrawled in girlish handwriting, I first spotted her signature at the bottom as I snatched it up under the light.
Trent,
I’ve enjoyed our time together. I really have. But it’s time for me to let you be who you need to be. We both know this wasn’t going to last… Please don’t hate me. And don’t look for me. You won’t find me.
Angel
My hand clenched, but I restrained myself from shredding the letter apart in the instant.
And there, on the pillow?
The tablet I had bought her while we had been on the bus. It was just sitting there, as if it weren’t hers. She’d left it because she’d honestly thought it didn’t really belong to her.
Fury built up inside.
Boiling, pulsating anger.
No, I snarled to myself.
You don’t get to do this to me.
Irrationally, my mind boiling with pain and regret, I felt like I had just been stabbed – right in the fucking heart. The knife twisted again and again as the letter fell to the bed from my lifeless fingers, and I fought the whipping storm of emotion that was threatening to tear me apart.
No, I repeated to myself with rising hostility.
This isn’t happening.
This CAN’T be happening.
But something didn’t add up.
Through the hatred and the anger, a small spark of rationality spoke through. Like a calming knife through the bubbling, snarling flesh of my fury, it cut through the bullshit and whispered something into my ear.
She wouldn’t do this.
I paused, letting the thought continue on. It was calming, soothing, but most of all…it sounded like it was making sense.
This isn’t Angel.
Not without interference.
Not without the right push.
Something had happened…and I was going to find out exactly what. But I didn’t have to think long or hard before a single name popped into my head.
Steven.
He’d hated her from the start.
What was the word he’d used?
Liability.
I picked up the phone, forcing a friendly smile across my face. It was one of the hardest things I’d had to do.
“Steven! Are you around?”
“I’m kinda in the middle of something. Where are you?”
“I’m just picking up my car,” I lied. “I should be home in about forty-five minutes. Think you can meet me there?”
“Now’s not a good time, man.”
He sounded apprehensive.
Which told me I was right.
“It’s important. I think you’re right about Angel – she’s a liability. Time I cut her loose. But you, being my PR guy and all…mind backing me up?”
“What? R-really? But she’s…I mean, uh…”
“Steven, stop fucking babbling. She put herself up in a hotel and she’s on her way to my place. Can you come straight over?”
“I’m not so sure this is a good time…”
“C’mon, Steven. You and I, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Help me out here and I’ll make it worth your while.”
“…Alright. Half an hour?”
“Sounds good to me.”
About thirty minutes later, there was a knock at my door. Through the peephole, I could see the lanky, condescending fucker.
“Door’s open!” I called out, muffling my voice and taking a step out of the way.
The door popped open.
A moment later, Steven walked in.
“H-hello? Angel? Trent?”
I stepped forward from behind the door, slamming it shut. He barely had time to turn before I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and slammed him up into the wall, knocking a large photo frame down and shattering the glass.
“Trent – buddy – what the fuck are you–?”
Roaring with anger, I threw him across the room. He hit the ground hard, trying to scramble to his feet as I rushed towards him.
“Back the fuck off–” he started.
I landed a solid punch against his cheek, sending him sprawling into my sectional couch. As he struggled to climb back up, I jumped on him, landing a knee in his chest and knocking the breath from his lungs.
“Oof!” he cried painfully.
As I started to hit him repeatedly, Steven tried to dislodge me – first by force, then by throwing weak punches, and finally by attempting to scratch me.
I finally climbed off of him, and he lunged forwards. But instead of reaching me, he slipped, hitting his head on my coffee table.
With my anger barely controlled, I pulled his sniffling, shaken form up from the ground. Half-expecting him to be whimpering, he was instead snarling – broken but angry.
“You fucking piece of shit,” he growled.
I held him by the shoulders, my enraged eyes matching his gaze with enough strength to apparently surprise him.
“What. The. Fuck. Did. You. Do.”
“What?” He snarled back.
“Don’t make me ask again, you spineless, backstabbing, limp-dicked son of a bitch.”
Steven’s furious sniffling began to settle, and he looked at me with a mixture of fear and absolute irritation.
I have to give it to him.
At least he doesn’t back down.
Maybe he’s less spineless than I thought.
“Angel, right?”
I nodded angrily.
His face curled into a shit-eating grin.
“You had me worried with your little phone call. Sorry Trent. Your lovebird is long gone by now.”
Because I couldn’t afford for him to lose consciousness on me, I delivered a strong punch to his gut. He crumpled to the ground, moaning and clutching his abs while I stood up and popped my neck.
“That’s for not answering my question,” I told Steven coldly.
I pulled him back up from the ground, half-supporting him on his knees in front of me.
“Let’s try again. What. The fuck. Did you. Do?”
Steven’s painful, defiant glance flipped up towards me. I could already see bruising and swelling starting to settle in.
He w
as going to look rough tomorrow.
“You know what I did,” he mumbled. “She’s a distraction. A ticking time bomb. That bitch is your motherfucking Courtney Love. You have other people depending on you. The rest of your band, the roadies, the label. Ever since you snuck her onto that bus, your performances have been shit. Critic opinions, not just mine. And then there’s the paparazzi thing.”
“What paparazzi thing?”
Steven laughed painfully.
“Have you not been on the Internet at all in the last couple of days? It’s been all over the gossip sites.”
I pulled him closer.
“Tell me. Now.”
“I’ll do you one better,” he chuckled before wincing with pain. “I’ll show you. Let me down.”
Reluctantly, I relinquished my grip.
Once he’d pulled himself up off of the floor and fished his phone out of his pocket, he did just that. He showed me what had happened.
The article.
The pictures.
The interview.
I read carefully, twice over, before handing him the phone back.
“This is nothing. It’s fixable.”
“It’s a little harder than that,” he told me.
“No. No, it’s not. This is your job. You run public relations for us. You manage us. Well, you’re supposed to, but you’re so fucking terrible at it that I can’t believe we got stuck with you…”
Steven opened his mouth to retort but, after one glance at my eyes, he closed it again quickly.
“So you showed her this, then.”
Steven nodded.
“And you made up some bullshit to make her go away?”
“It wasn’t bullshit, Trent. What makes this girl different? You left her here the first chance you got. No money, no friends, and a backpack full of clothes. Leaving was her choice. All I did was lay out the facts.”
“The facts?”
“Everything I told her was true. You can believe that I filled her head with complete shit, but my job is to keep this train moving.”
“My girlfriend isn’t some piece of dead weight to be cut loose,” I growled menacingly, advancing upon him.
I was so furious that I hadn’t even realized the Freudian slip.
“Well, you have your professional opinions, and I have mine,” Steven snarled with a slight hiss of pain. “All I know is, I did my job. You know, you’ve been a hock of shit since day fucking one. Always making shit difficult. You’re a real piece of work, Trent Masters. This is the worst fucking gig I’ve had in years! And I represented The Spitting Pigs, drug-fueled orgies and all!”
I grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him close, one last time.
“Steven…where is she.”
“I don’t know.”
“Wrong answer,” I replied, wheeling my fist back.
“No! No! Wait!”
He feared for his life now.
“What?”
“Seriously! I don’t know! She wouldn’t tell me! She wouldn’t even let me see the ticket! I just gave her some cash. I have no idea where she is!”
“Think,” I commanded.
Steven held up his hands.
“I don’t know! She never said!”
My fist trembled. It was ready to strike.
He called out in fear: “It’s not just me!”
I paused, letting that sink in.
“…What.”
“I mean. It wasn’t my idea!”
I hesitated furiously.
“You’d better start talking, and now.”
“Waylon and Dylan, it was their idea. Waylon’s been pissed every since you brought the bitch into the bus. They’re already talking about replacing you. I’m doing you a fucking favor, Trent.”
He looked so absolutely fearful that I couldn’t help but believe him…and that only made me angrier. He saw the venom in my eyes and recoiled in terror, his hands up.
“Wh-wh-what are you doing?”
“Taking out the trash,” I smiled evilly.
After roughing him up across my living room and knocking him out, I carried him outside over my shoulder. I strolled over towards the line of trash bins outside, contemplating throwing him into them as one last fuck you.
Nah.
No reason to piss off the garbage crew.
Instead, I tossed him to the curb and told him to get the fuck out of here. Brushing my hands, I pulled out my phone.
There were some calls to make.
I needed a plane and a car.
There was only one lead to follow.
I hoped with all my heart that it would be enough to track her down.
Sixty-Six
Angel
At least half a day before Trent would be back home, I was already back out of the bus and quietly, miserably waiting at my destination.
And that life, as I knew it, was long gone.
I only had to wait at the bus station for about two hours before Mom showed up, pulling up in her battered, ancient sedan. It wasn’t surprising to me to see that it was still marked with dings, dents, and a crumpled backseat door.
“Angel! Good lord, girl, I thought I’d never see you again!”
Proudly boasting ratty, unkempt hair and loud makeup choices, Mom gave me an awkward car hug as I climbed into the passenger seat.
“Where have you been all this time?” She suddenly demanded to know.
“I think I was staying…with a friend, or something,” I told her reluctantly. “Nowhere near here. The last little while, I’ve been living with…well, I guess it’s not really important.”
“I see,” she nodded, kicking us into reverse and peeling out from the bus station. “All that really matters is that you’re back now. God, Angel, I was so worried about you these last years, I had no idea if you were dead or alive…”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”
“Then maybe you should have considered not running off in the middle of the night,” she sternly lectured me. “What the hell were you thinking, disappearing into the dark? I searched for you for days! Weeks! Months! We put out a report and everything!”
I found that odd, especially since I’d only really been a few hours away. Granted, it was the middle of nowhere, so maybe the report didn’t make it out there?
Mom briefly turned to me, a sympathetic look on her face. “Why did you leave, honey?”
I shook my head.
“Now’s not the time,” I whispered, trying to change the subject.
“Well…just stay with me for now, and we’ll get you taken care of…won’t we, dear?”
“Okay, Mom,” I nodded. “So… What happened to Roger?”
Panic seized my chest as I uttered his name, as if he’d jump out of the shadows at any second.
“Like I said on the phone, we got separated a few years back,” Mom smiled at me with freshly whitened teeth. “It hit him pretty hard when you ran away… Especially after all the time he spent helping you in the hospital. The man was in a panic.”
I bet he was… I thought to myself.
“He…he isn’t still in town?”
“No, sweetheart,” Mom said. “I’m sorry. We fell out of touch. Haven’t heard from him all year.”
My panic began to settle down.
“Okay…” I said quietly, trying not to alert her to my fear. Mother would blame herself if she ever knew the truth…
“Mhmm,” she nodded, steering us onto the highway. The sun was setting, and there weren’t too many cars on the road.
“Listen…I’m sorry to call you up, out of nowhere,” I tried to tell her. I felt compelled to apologize. “I know that it’s a lot, asking for help out of the blue…”
“No, no, not at all,” Mom reassured me. “I’m just so happy to have you back. You have no idea. A mother should never be separated from her daughter when they need each other.”
I thought on this, and a silence developed between us. Mom took the
time to turn on the radio, flicking through a few stations.
I caught a brief snippet of Wicked Wilds as she flipped from signal to signal, and it made my heart sink.
Oh, Trent, I despaired to myself.
If only we could have been together.
I miss you so fucking much.
“Ah, here we go,” Mom chuckled, settling on a contemporary country station. Immediately, the twang of a wailing, energetic acoustic guitar sang out, accompanied by the rich but depressed voice of a rugged cowboy singer.
“Down by the bayou, I saw you last / Beer in my hand, the past in the past / On one fine hell of a winnin’ streak / We made love by the river’s creek…”
Turning away from Mom to gaze out the window at the dark, sailing trees, I let myself finally experience the weight of the choice I’d made.
I did this for you, Trent, I thought to myself.
But it didn’t stop the tears from falling.
It was a couple of hours later before we arrived back home in our tiny little stain on the wooded Alabama wilderness. The familiarity of the small bridge over the tiny river – the single decent landmark here – awoke the faintest wisps of childhood memories…
I could almost see it. I experienced a small barrage of scattered visions in the shattered glass of my life before the accident.
Skipping and playing through the trees.
A solitary school bus, pulling up by the bridge every morning – bringing the kids a town over for elementary school.
A time before I knew of mountains and oceans.
Before I knew of great castles and bustling metropolises.
I swallowed the tension that appeared in my throat. This was a place that I never liked to dwell on, and it was the place to which I had resigned myself.
I was going to live here again.
No friends.
No job.
No nothing.
As if reading my gloomy mind, Mom chirped up. “Oh! My disability check should be in the mail again any day now. Until then, I’ve got some food in the fridge you can have. I picked up your favorites when I knew you were coming…got you some of those juice popsicles you used to like so much, some cherry Pop-Tarts, some Lunchables…”
