Roxy (Pandemic Sorrow #3)

by Stevie J. Cole

  I was about to hit his number, but instead, chucked my phone into the floorboard and stared at my troll doll.

  I’d let Sean down.

  I’d fallen back into the same cycle I’d tried to escape, albeit instead of a poverty-stricken crackhead, I’d tied myself to a rich cokehead, a liar, and a man I knew I’d never be enough for.

  Drugs were Jag’s love story, and he was mine, and that fucking broke me into a million tiny irreparable pieces of pain.

  I slammed the gear into reverse, the tires squealing as I backed up and swerved out from the dimly lit parking lot onto the highway. I rehearsed what I would say to him, going over and over how hard I would cuss him out and rip into him for lying, for making me love him, for ultimately destroying me, because I had convinced myself he knew all along what he was doing to me—baiting me to surrender to him just so he could tear me to shreds.

  I had just gained control of myself when one of his songs came over the radio.

  Never had I had an experience quite like that, and really, how many people can say they have?

  At that moment it became crystal clear that I couldn’t escape him—even if I left him, even when he was no longer part of my life, I would never rid myself of him, because he was fame.

  He was fucking Jag Steele.

  I had known, along with the rest of the world, who the hell he was for the past six-and-a-half years. He’d known who I was for the past two months.

  When we were through, he’d never have to see me again, but I would be forced to see him on TV, on magazines; I’d have to skip over his songs on the fucking radio. And what the hell would I do when the tabloids smeared him and every girl that would come after me all over the front page?

  Well, I guess I’d just have to swallow that down like every other piece of hurt I had dealt with in the past.

  He could easily forget who I was, but I would be forced to remember him. Even when all I wanted to do was forget him, fame—his ridiculous, fucking fame—wouldn’t let me.

  Chapter 25

  I stood in front of his door, staring at the wrought iron pattern. It looked like the door to a castle, but how deceitful that thought was. This was no castle; there was no prince, no happy ending.

  It was like a dungeon. A place I had come to die. To pay penance and rot.

  I tried to keep my chest from heaving, but I failed, and I clenched my fists at my side. Anger wove its way through me, followed shortly by sadness at how foolish I had been.

  I tried to make myself hate him.

  And to make matters worse, as I stood there, I kept having the urge to vomit. Even the kid in my womb hated the idea of him.

  I almost turned and left, because I wanted to ignore it. I just wanted to pretend it was all a lie: this kid on the front of the magazine, the fact that I loved him, the fact that I was pregnant—I wanted to leave it all right there on the doorstep of his Beverley Hills mansion.

  But I couldn’t.

  I had to stop being a child. I had to stop avoiding things I felt ill-equipped to handle.

  Sean avoided the fact that he had a problem, and look where that got him.

  There was such little life left inside of me, and I was mortified that this encounter was going to destroy it. But I couldn’t let it. Part of me hoped that this was all a lie. Surely to God he would have told me. He had seemed so real. I honestly had believed he loved me. Before he ever told me, I thought he loved me. I felt it in a way I never had before. There was part of me that could only breathe when around him, I was that sick in love with him.

  So sick in love that I had been blind, I had ignored things I never should have. Love can make you sick, and when you are on your deathbed, you become desperate for anything that you think may mend you. You ignore warning signs, just to live one more day oblivious to your own mortality.

  I was tired of being sick.

  I was over being broken.

  And I could lie to myself as much as I wanted, but I didn’t want to be another stupid girl, I wanted to be his girl. I wanted to have that happily ever after everyone else seemed to find.

  I wanted a perfectly flawed love story—but one that ended with pure love that no matter what, if you had that person, life was worth living.

  Was that so ridiculous?

  No.

  Except for the fact that I’d naively thought I found that with a fucking rock star.

  I pounded my fist on the door and stepped back.

  Nothing.

  I banged on his door again. “Jag. Let me inside!” I shouted, fighting back the tears that wanted to seep from my eyes.

  Seconds later, he yanked the door opened and, without looking at me, spun around to make his way through his living room.

  I grabbed his arm and he turned, glaring at me with red eyes and blown-out pupils. I glanced over at his coffee table and found it covered in white powder. Empty pill bottles were strewn over the floor, and an empty bottle of bourbon was on its side by the couch.

  Liar!

  “Really?” I pointed at the table with the rolled-up magazine. “So at least there’s one thing you’re consistent with, and that’s fucking lying!”

  I knew he’d still been using, but this was a binge. He wasn’t even trying.

  I chucked the magazine on the table, most of the coke blowing off in a large billowy poof when the magazine landed in the middle of the table.

  I had been so damn stupid.

  He was an addict, and I knew he couldn’t have stopped just like that. I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that there was one part of my life drugs wouldn’t fuck up.

  I chose to ignore that constant shifting of his jaw, the shaking in his legs until he’d disappeared to the restroom.

  My eyes darted up from the coke and set on his.

  Jag looked defeated. That constant battle he had going on inside of him about who he was, about what he’d done…he was losing it. He was losing himself, and that had become physically apparent.

  At that moment I could look at him and tell he no longer had control. He was so broken, he was so lost. The drugs had eaten away at him, they had devoured him, and all I could see was Sean. All I could see when I looked at Jag standing there, his teeth grinding, that vacant stare fixed on his face, was my brother lying motionless in the middle of his bed.

  All I saw was death.

  Jag no longer possessed any control.

  But I did.

  Jag’s eyes skimmed the headline, and he buried his face in his palms, his shoulders fell, and he stood there, silent and hiding behind his hands.

  He wasn’t getting out of this.

  I jerked his hands away from his face, his eyes pulsing open at my violent reaction.

  “Oh, no! What the hell is that, Jag? Is that true? Tell me that’s not true!” I tossed his hand down. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt because you promised me you’d never lie to me!”

  You swore you’d never hurt me and I believed you!

  He didn’t say anything, he just kept staring at that picture, his shoulders crumpling the longer he looked at it.

  “Jag!” I shook my head in disbelief that I was actually having this conversation with him. “How the hell could you not tell me you have a kid? A kid?”

  As soon as those words escaped my mouth, guilt jolted through me.

  How the hell had I not told him that we were having a kid?

  Wasn’t my “lie” more damning?

  The only way his already having a kid affected me was by crushing my pride and solidifying the thought that this would all end the moment he found out I was pregnant.

  He hadn’t lied to me, he’d just kept a secret.

  He rose from the chair and brushed past me, heading into his kitchen. He rummaged through his pantry and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. Unscrewing the top, he turned the bottle up, tiny bubbles popping up from how hard he was sucking back the liquor. He lowered the bottle and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, then slammed the contai
ner onto the counter, and the sudden noise made me jump.

  “It wasn’t really a lie. It was more of avoiding a topic,” he slurred.

  The fact that he was so high his speech was slurred bothered me, but what upset me more than that was that he had a kid who he had nothing to do with.

  I sunk down onto his couch and the hormones, the emotions, the fear, all of it consumed me in a matter of seconds. As I glanced around at the empty pill bottles and traces of cocaine, I lost all control. I broke, and bent over my knees into a sobbing heap.

  “Princess, I just—” I heard him come over to me. He knelt down and then I felt his hands rub over my legs. “You don’t understand.”

  I didn’t want to look at him, but he grabbed my chin and forced me to come eye level with him. “Shit.” He let out a groan and shook his head. “Roxy, I found out the day my dad died. I had no idea until a few months ago—”

  I needed to know why he left her. I wanted something to make me think this would be different.

  “Who was she?” I closed my eyes. “Who was she, Jag? Did you tell her you loved her? Did you make promises you knew you’d never keep to her too? Because it looks like things really worked out for her.”

  “She was my girlfriend, when I was just Jagger. I met her at the community college I went to.”

  “And you left her?” I pointed toward the magazine. “That kid looks—hell, like, four or something?”

  His shoulders drooped. “Yeah. He’s almost six.”

  “How the hell could you do that?”

  The ability for him to just ignore it all, for him to be a father and never even acknowledge that ruined the person I’d painted him to be. It made Jag Steele more real than Jagger, and I couldn’t handle that.

  “I didn’t do anything.” He grew frustrated. His face slowly turned red, his nostrils flared, and his tone deepened. “I had no idea. Did you not just hear me say that? That bitch left me!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Out of all the things you’ve told me—all the nasty parts of me I’ve shared with you—why didn’t you tell me?”

  All he did was shrug. “Because…” He fell silent, I could tell he was weighing out the best explanation to give me. “I mean, he’s not mine anymore. I’m signing him over to her. He’s got a dad.” Jag shrugged, then pulled at his clothes. “I’m not a fucking dad! Do I look like dad material to you?”

  That ripped through my heart. That comment had given me my answer to what would happen between us, and the depression slammed over me like an angry tidal wave.

  I’d thought deep down inside Jag was like me, but I had been wrong.

  “You signed him over?”

  “Yeah. Well, I’m going to. My lawyer made me ask her for a DNA test, just to make sure she didn’t try to fuck me over any more. And to try to head off any negative publicity if we could. But as soon as that comes back,” he tossed his hands up, “it’s done.”

  Negative publicity? A kid was negative publicity?

  Jag staggered back to his counter and dumped out a chunk of cocaine, pulling out lines right in front of me.

  This was who he was. He was tainted and controlled by his addiction. If I stayed with him, this would be my life. Any time something didn’t go right, any time we argued, he would get high to cope with it, and I refused to raise my child in the same environment I’d spent my entire life trying to escape.

  “You aren’t gonna change,” I whispered, holding back tears.

  That comment got his attention. His stare hardened on me, and he snorted back a line. Disgust rippled through me as I watched.

  He thumbed under his nose and shrugged. “Nah. Probably not.”

  So many things were running through my mind. Part of me wanted to slap him, part of me wanted to help him, and a big part of me was so overwhelmed with sadness that I couldn’t do anything but mumble, “I knew better. Guys like you can’t change. You’re too damn selfish to do it.”

  “Guys like you!” Jag shouted, and tossed down the straw he’d been snorting the coke with, the metal clinking against the granite before rolling off onto the floor. “Guys like you—fuck! Give that shit up already.” His voice echoed from the tall ceilings. “I am who I am. I am a guy like that, princess. Deal with it!”

  That was it.

  That was where I ended things.

  He was too self-consumed, and too lost. As much as I wanted to fix him, I needed someone to fix me, and I couldn’t focus on fixing us both knowing soon enough I’d have a baby to take care of. I had to do what was best for this child, and in that moment the best thing I felt I could do was escape the path of destruction Jag was barreling down.

  “I am fucking selfish, princess. I’m a selfish, arrogant, self-consumed addict. I don’t need a damn kid. I don’t want a kid, and I don’t need anything that will interfere with who I am! And if you’re going to try to change me, I don’t need you either! I’m not sober. I never will be. I don’t want to be—not even for you!”

  And any doubt I’d had about my decision to leave him vanished with that comment. I wasn’t enough. Drugs were his god, that high was the love of his life, addiction had become his religion. I couldn’t compete with any of that, and the only thing that could was death.

  I wanted to cry, I wanted to fall into a heap on the floor and sob, but I forced my shoulders back and glared at him, my lips trembling as I spoke.

  “And you’re a damn good actor. Because for a while,” I swallowed, “for a while there, Jag, I thought you loved me. You made me believe you fucking loved me. Even before you let that lie roll from your lips, I believed it. I thought maybe I was different, maybe you were different.” I paused and thought about how much I’d believed he was different, how wonderful it had been when I could believe that lie.

  “You made me believe I was worth something. You gave me faith and hope, and I thought I’d finally found the person that would fix me. You made me love you. You forced me to fall in love with you. I didn’t want to. I tried to get away from you, and you wouldn’t let me.”

  A quiet whimper broke free, and I swallowed it back. And when I gathered myself enough to finish my thought, I screamed at him, “You let me fucking love you. And now you don’t need anything that will interfere with that badass rock star you pretend to fucking be? That’s not you and you know it.”

  A smirk crept over his face. Reaching to the floor, he picked up the straw and focused on the coke he was pushing into another line.

  “Nah, princess. I don’t need anything to interfere with me.” He looked at me for a split second before sniffing up some more powder.

  My heart was pounding so hard in my chest that I could hear it echoing in my ears. I continued laying into him, telling him how worthless he was. I was to the point of anger that nothing I said really registered with me. Finally, in a moment of rage, I shouted, “I’m pregnant, Jag. Like you said, though, you don’t need anything to interfere with your lifestyle.”

  His eyes bulged in shock, his jaw trembling as he tried to collect his thoughts.

  I didn’t wait. I didn’t give him a chance to convince me to stay, or to apologize for any of the hurtful things he’d said. I opened the door and slammed it shut.

  I was almost to my car when I heard him shouting, “I was angry. Don’t—I fucking love you. I love you more than…”

  I reached for the door of my car, snapping back at him, “More than yourself? You don’t even like yourself, Jag. That’s not saying a damn thing! Maybe if you said you love me more than drugs, more than your fame—but then you’d just be lying to me again! I’m over it, Jag. I can’t…” He took several steps toward me and I shook my head. “Don’t come any closer to me. I can’t take your lies. I can’t take you!” I sat in my car, staring at him, watching him break, tears trickling down his face, but the image of him snorting those lines kept me from giving in to him.

  I cleared my throat. “I can’t put my own kid through what I went through. You’re a lost cause. I wanted to fix
you, but I can’t. Two broken people can’t make a whole, and now I’ve got an entire new set of problems to worry about instead of a doped-out, sex-crazed boyfriend. Do me a favor and when all the questions start coming your way, just say it isn’t yours! Save us both the humiliation.”

  I shut the door, started my car, and sped off.

  My chest burned and everything inside of me felt like it was slowly bleeding out.

  But I couldn’t.

  As selfish as it may have been, at that moment I didn’t want to fix him. I didn’t have the strength to. I’d fought through it with Sean only to lose him and almost lose myself. I loved Jag in a way that almost didn’t seem real. And had it not been for the hurt, I think I could have convinced myself that it hadn’t been real.

  But it hurt, physically hurt me, how deeply I loved him. I knew I couldn’t fix him. At that point, I had to decide whether I wanted to let him kill me or not.

  There was no way around the fact that he would be dead before this kid was old enough to remember him; the only question that I had was whether I was going to let him kill me too. I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t commit that kind of suicide.

  Chapter 26

  My anxiety sped up my pulse when I stepped into the doctor’s office.

  The pale blue walls covered with black and white photos of tiny babies swaddled up in blankets did little to soothe me. All it did was make my stomach flip a few times.

  On my way up to the check-in desk, I noted the very pregnant women sitting with their ankles crossed while doting husbands draped their arms around them.

  And there I was, a bartender knocked up by a coke- addicted rocker.

  I could only assume that once I actually started showing, these prim and proper mothers-to-be would try their hardest to cover up the judgmental glares that would be directed at me. They’d feel pity for me and think what a shame it was that such a poor girl would have to raise a baby on her on. Some of them would probably shake their heads, internally shaming me for not using protection, never having the first clue of what I gave up to protect myself and this baby.