by Lisa Suzanne
Beating on my drums for the last ninety minutes took a lot out of me, including the buzz I felt before I took the stool. And now, the feeling that I need to talk to that chick is stronger than ever. I have time now, something I lacked earlier during our interaction. The time is still limited. We kick off our three-month tour tomorrow night here in Phoenix, and then it’s thirty-six more gigs before we land back home in Los Angeles.
But I have the rest of tonight. I have part of tomorrow.
We filter through the crowd after the show, and my ass is grabbed more than once. Some are brave enough to go for my cock. Usually those are the winners because they’re making it clear they’ve got only one thing in mind, but tonight...I need to find the girl. I need to know if my gut is right or if it’s failing me.
I’m not being a good band member. I’m not entertaining our fans. I’m not stopping to sign autographs or take selfies. Tonight’s not the night for that shit, not after what I just heard.
I’ll catch shit for that from the guys, but fuck, they’ll understand.
I search every inch of this place, but she’s gone.
Eventually I run into Karl. “Get me back to the bus,” I say, mostly because I can’t think in here and I want privacy to figure out my next move.
I take a car solo back to the bus lot without bothering to tell the three other members of Capital Kingsmen that I’m leaving. More moves I’ll catch shit for.
I stare at the number I typed into a random note on my phone earlier before I copy it. I open my contacts and figure out how to add a new one, and then I paste in the number. I stare at the spot where I’m supposed to put her name.
What the fuck am I supposed to put for her name?
Mousy Girl?
Brianna’s Sister?
My Son’s Aunt?
What the hell am I doing right now?
It can’t be true.
Can it? Should I be arranging a ride to some hospital here in the greater Phoenix area to say goodbye to someone I only met once but who I clearly left a big impact upon since I allegedly put a baby in her?
None of this computes.
I simply put Mousy Chick into the name field. I’ll come up with something else later.
And then I open up a blank message addressed to Mousy Chick. What the fuck do I say?
I settle on simple.
Me: It’s Brett.
I stare at the screen as I will it to do something. Did she get my message? Is she replying?
Nothing comes through.
I light up another blunt.
I smoke the whole thing, and I still don’t have a reply. Did she fake number me? Why the fuck would she do that when she came all this way just to see me?
It’s not adding up.
Tommy bursts onto the bus a short while after that. Each wall of the bus is lined with a couch, and I’m lying across the one I claimed as mine when we left LA.
“Where the fuck did you go?” he demands.
I look around myself at the bus and hold up my hands. “To these luxurious accommodations.”
He laughs, and I think he’s a little drunk, which is cool since I’m a little high.
“What the hell happened back there?” he asks.
I blow out a breath. “I don’t really know. This girl came up to me and told me her sister’s in the hospital dying and oh by the way she had my kid nine months ago.”
His brows dip as he collapses on the couch across from mine. “Do you remember her?”
“When she first said the name, no.” I stare up at the ceiling of the bus. “I didn’t remember her. But then she gave a few details, and I could tell this chick was like a younger version of someone who vaguely rang a bell.”
“So you have a kid?” he asks.
“Fuck. I don’t know.”
“If you do, that’s three out of four, and fuck if I’m next. That’s not happening.”
I glance over at him. He’s sideways, and looking at him this way makes me a little dizzy. “Don’t jinx yourself.” I shake my head. “I think some people are meant not to have kids. You and me? We fall into that camp.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs in agreement. At least I think it’s agreement. He’s focused on the band. On success. He doesn’t have room in his life for the needs of somebody else. Neither do I. “You get in touch with her?”
“I texted her, but she hasn’t responded.”
“Do you want to get in touch with her?” he asks.
“I want to know what the fuck is going on. She was just...” I trail off and stare up at the ceiling again. “She was different. That’s all.”
“Different how?”
I lift a shoulder but keep my gaze trained up. “I don’t know. I believed her.”
“Then you know what you need to do.”
My brows dip as I turn to look at him again. “I do?”
“Call her.”
I shake my head. “She didn’t answer a text. You think she’s gonna answer the phone?”
“Did you catch her name?” he asks.
“Nope. But she mentioned the sister’s name. Brianna...shit. Brianna something.” I try to rack my brain for the last name, but I’m coming up short. If it comes back to me, I guess I could call around to some local hospitals to try to track her down, but Mousy Chick never said what hospital her sister is located in.
“Then stop worrying about it. Have a drink, have a smoke, and get laid.” He stretches his feet out in front of him. “Did wonders for me.” He gives me that same grin he always gives when he’s talking about sex.
Usually that’s my response, too.
But something’s different this time, and I don’t know if I can just stop worrying about it like Tommy’s telling me to. I think I need some answers first.
CHAPTER 3: BRETT
I try to go to bed, but I’m too wired. Tommy would say it’s because I didn’t release my sex endorphins or some shit, but I know it’s because I haven’t heard back from the girl.
I scroll my social media accounts to see who tagged me in Poland when we were on our European tour a year and a half ago, but I come up empty.
I’d try calling around to some hospitals, but I can’t think of her last name. I know the girl said it earlier, but it’s gone now.
Traditional tour buses are divided into three sections: the front lounge, which is like the family room and kitchen of a normal house, the middle bunk section, and the back lounge, which is usually a bedroom or an office. Since it’s just Tommy and me, we had ours custom outfitted with another bedroom instead of a bunk section. A small workstation with a desk and chair separates his room from mine. I have to walk through Tommy’s bedroom to get to mine in the back of the bus, but it’s a pretty sweet deal back here in my own private little area.
So when I get a weird feeling in my chest, I sit up in my queen bed with a start. If I was in a bunk like usual on a bus, I would’ve just smacked my head on the ceiling.
But that feeling in my chest...it’s like my heart is breaking for something I know nothing about. It’s unnatural, and it’s not something I’ve felt before.
And that’s when it hits me.
Heart. My heart is aching.
Heart...like Hart. Hartman.
Brianna Hartman.
That’s her name.
I grab my phone and find the nearest hospital to my current location. I dial the number. I don’t really care that it’s after three in the morning. I need answers and I need them now.
I get some recording. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial nine-one-one. Yada yada yada. I click zero impatiently as I try to get through to an operator.
“Phoenix Medical Center, this is Brenda,” a voice answers. “How may I direct your call?”
“Can you tell me if Brianna Hartman is a patient there?” I ask.
“I’m sorry sir, but by law we aren’t allowed to give out patient information.”
Fuck.
I hang up, and I try the next hospital on
the list.
A similar recording answers, but this time, Donna picks up the line.
“Hi Donna, can you please connect me to Brianna Hartman’s room?”
Donna pauses, and then she replies, “I’m sorry, we don’t have a patient here by that name.”
I mumble a thanks and move on down the list.
I come up blank.
I think about trying the girl’s number again. I think about calling like Tommy suggested. But it’s after three in the morning. I can wait at least until the light of day to try to get in touch with her again.
She’s the one who hunted me down, so I can’t really figure out why she’d just disappear into thin air after that.
Unless something happened.
Did Brianna make it through the night? Is that why she isn’t a patient at any of the hospitals? That girl seemed so desperate last night, so it’s out of left field that she still hasn’t responded to my text.
I don’t get my answer at three in the morning...that’s for damn sure.
I stare up at the ceiling as I wonder why this girl this time is plaguing my mind the way it is. I’ve had things like this happen before. I could fill a football team with the number of kids that are supposedly mine, but none ever have been.
At least not that I know of.
But this time...something’s different.
I vaguely remember a broken condom, but I also vaguely remember being a little baked, so what really happened that night is filtered by my own terrible memory, the marijuana clouding the night, and the simple concept of passing time.
I don’t get my answer until a little after eight, when a reply finally comes through. My phone is plugged into the charger on my nightstand, and while I’m usually asleep another two or three hours, this morning I’m not. I grab up my phone the second I hear the familiar ding.
Mousy Chick: Thanks for getting in touch. Sorry I didn’t write sooner. Brie didn’t make it through the night.
How am I supposed to respond to that? Even if this kid turns out to be fathered by someone else, Mousy Chick just lost her sister. The kid just lost his mother.
I’m not your common neighborly Samaritan. I’m more likely to kick the bottle further down the road than pick it up, yet something here tugs on my heart.
My first instinct is to try to find some way to help. The only way I know how to help someone I don’t even know is monetarily. Maybe that’s all she’s after anyway, and maybe once I kick a few bucks in her direction, she’ll fade away with the bogus baby story.
Something tells me that’s not going to happen.
Me: I’m so sorry. Can I help with any expenses?
She doesn’t reply right away, and that’s when I decide to take matters into my own hands. I click the call button on her contact.
She answers after a few rings—longer than it should take considering she just texted me and her phone can’t be far. “Hello?” Sniffle.
“Hey, uh...” I want to say her name here. I wait for her to fill in the blank, but she doesn’t. “It’s Brett,” I finish lamely.
“Yeah, I know.” Sniffle. And then in the background, a cry. It starts out quietly but gains in volume pretty quickly. “Sorry, now’s just not a good time.” Sniffle. “Shh. It’s okay.” I’m pretty sure those words aren’t for me.
“I’m sorry about your sister.” Something prevents me from actually using her name.
“Yeah, me too,” she says quietly. Sniffle, and then a sigh. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come last night, but I didn’t know what else to do.” Her voice shakes like she’s bouncing the kid while she tries to calm him down. “The baby doesn’t have anybody...” She trails off, and he’s still crying.
“He has you,” I point out, trying to be logical in this very strange situation.
She blows out a breath. “Yeah. I’m all he has now.” A low sob falls out of her mouth as she grieves the loss of her sister that has clearly caused a gained responsibility.
“What happened with your sister?”
She clears her throat and sniffles again. “Like I said, now’s not a good time.”
“Well then when is?” I press.
“I have to leave for school in a few minutes,” she says. “I get back at two, and then I have a shift tonight starting at four.”
“You just lost your sister,” I murmur. “It’s okay to take a day.”
“No, it’s not. I can’t afford to just take a day.” The way she says it implies that it must be nice that I can...but I can’t, either. Not really. When we’re on tour, when we’ve got a gig, that’s all that matters. Everything else is pushed aside, just like it had to be last night so I could get on that stage and fuck up on my drums.
“Who’s watching the baby?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“My neighbor said she’d help me out while I’m in class. I guess she feels bad or whatever. But tonight...I don’t know. I might just have to bring him to work with me.”
She hasn’t said where she works, but she has a shift at night and she’s currently in school so she probably doesn’t have a degree yet. That tells me she’s probably in the service industry and there likely aren’t a lot of bars, restaurants, gas stations, strip clubs, or grocery stores that offer childcare.
“Let me help,” I say.
“How?”
I don’t really know. I have a gig tonight. A big one. We’re playing a sold-out arena with nearly twenty thousand fans who will be in attendance, so I can’t really volunteer myself.
But we have two brand new mothers on tour with us. I’m sure one of them could help out. Right?
“I’ll figure something out,” I say.
“That’s not good enough. I can’t just hand over my nephew to a total stranger.”
Beggars can’t be choosers. It’s the first cruel thought that springs to mind, but luckily my buzz has long worn off so I keep those words in my head. “Let me come meet him between your class and your shift. Then I won’t be a stranger. And if you tell me your name, we’ll be on the road to friendship.”
She blows out a breath. “My name is Hannah. But don’t hold your breath on the friendship thing.”
CHAPTER 4: HANNAH
I stare down at the little spot of liquid as it distorts the word I just wrote in my notebook. Ethics in Social Services has traditionally been a class I’ve looked forward to, but I’m just a smidge overwhelmed today. Another tear drips, and another word is distorted.
What the hell am I going to do?
I didn’t just lose my best friend and my sister. I lost my roommate. The only blood relative I have. The person who pays the bills and makes sure we have food on the table and somehow finds a way to make ends meet when it doesn’t seem like they’re going to.
And now I’m the only person the baby has. He’s the one link I have left to my sister. I can’t just hand him over to his father who doesn’t want him and doesn’t know him, but I don’t know what else to do. I’m not financially capable of caring for him, while Brett Pitzer has enough money to buy an entire island if he wanted to.
If only that driver had been paying attention. If only he’d have looked away from his phone long enough to notice that he was drifting into the other lane. If only he wouldn’t have crashed into my sister.
Another tear splashes down. As another follows it and another that I realize I shouldn’t have come to class today. My perfect attendance record for every course I’ve taken here will be marred, but obviously there’s a more important matter at hand than perfect attendance. At the same time, I’m terrified I’ll lose my financial aid if I don’t keep up my grades, and so I forced myself to find someone to care for the baby so I could be here.
But he needs me, and it appears that I need him, too. I need to hug him and hold him in my arms every single second I can before Brett takes him away from me.
I’m not the girl who just gets up and walks out in the middle of class. My preference is to blend into the background, to sit and learn and then go ho
me. I’m not here to socialize and party and make friends. I’m here—in the summer, mind you—to get an education so I can become a social worker that will work hard to find loving homes for children who need them...something Brie and I never had, at least not after our parents died.
I gather up my books and dart out of the room as quickly and quietly as I can, careful not to draw attention to myself. Once I’m in the hallway and the door clicks quietly shut behind me, I lean on the wall and finally let the emotions crash into me. I allow myself a moment to feel this pain. My sister is gone. It seems like some sick joke, like the doctors were wrong and she’s just fine and awake and recovering from the accident in the hospital.
Thank God the baby wasn’t in the car with her. It was a rare night where I wasn’t working. The baby was asleep and she needed to pop out for a few things at the grocery store, so I stayed home with him.
She never came back.
I walk out the doors and walk the mile and a half from campus to our apartment. My apartment now, I guess. A fresh wave of emotion hits me as I think about that.
I need to plan a funeral. I need to say goodbye, and I need to figure out what I’m supposed to do with the baby. Legally, he belongs to his father now. She listed Brett on the birth certificate when she gave birth. She hadn’t been with anybody else, and I still can’t believe she was with him.
I hate him.
I hate his music.
I hate his face.
I hate what he did to my sister.
And in a few hours, he’s coming to my apartment.
It wasn’t like her to have a one-night stand with a rock star, but Capital Kingsmen was her favorite band, and when she called into the radio and won a three-day trip to Poland including flight, hotel, tickets to the show, and spending cash, she thought it was the stars aligning. She believed in fate, and she believed in living life to the fullest. She had this way about her where everything always just fell into place, and her favorite thing to say to me time and again when we hit a speedbump was life goes on.
She did everything she could to find her way backstage and to her favorite drummer, and apparently whatever she did worked. She didn’t give me too many details, but a little over a month later, she started feeling sick all the time, and nine months later, a baby boy with blue eyes and a shock of dark hair to match his dad’s was born.
