And as she skipped from the room I knew, absolutely, that she’d crossed her fingers where I couldn’t see. It didn’t make me mad though. Frankly, Nat was too cute to get mad at. I liked her too much already.
And I knew, also, that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life avoiding boys and men, just because one particular man ruined love for me.
“Shut up. You don’t want to wake your mamma, do you girl?”
I remembered the feel of his hard hand over my mouth.
The way my tears hitting his calloused fingers hadn’t bothered him at all.
No, he’d kept thrusting and grunting.
As I’d sobbed.
Silas.
“Thought maybe you weren’t coming,” Tanner was only half-smiling. The look told me that he’d been concerned about me, that maybe he’d thought that I’d done something to myself again. I knew, then, that he’d been standing in the bar, wondering if maybe his phone was going to ring. A 911 operator, probably one of his longtime local pals, telling him I’d been taken to the hospital in a bus. That they didn’t know if I was DOA or still hanging on by a thread.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I didn’t mean the rhetorical question to sound so harsh, but it did. Setting my gear down, I beelined away from him towards the bar. Alcohol is a swinging gateway for some people, opening them to a future indulgence in greater, darker shit, pushing back into place once they’ve had their fill. But for me it’s a one-way doorway. I take a swallow of Jack, a shot of Patron, a tall cold beer, and that swings a fresh, temporary barrier closed on what I really want—
to ride that path again, magic carpet style, straight into drug-induced oblivion.
I was slamming back a second shot when a group of girls nearly fell over one another entering the bar. It was easy to tell their type, even easier because I knew it was orientation weekend at the local college. There was no denying they were fresh off of high school graduation, reveling in the freedom of being away from parents and constraints.
I’d told Leon, time and time again, that he should change the allowed age to twenty-one and up, but on open mic nights and live music nights, he made almost as much in revenue selling soda and appetizers as he did on a weekday to functioning alcoholics. It’d be bad business for him to exclude the younger college kids.
One girl caught my eye in particular. She was different than the others, obviously uncomfortable with the whole idea of going to a bar, even if it wasn’t to drink or troll for a date. She wore a faded purple hoodie, her hair braided, long enough that she could pull it over her shoulder, the length of it dangling nearly to her natural waist. She kept her arms crossed over her middle protectively and she stood at the rear of the gaggle of girls—the kind of people I’d ignore on any other day, especially when it came to any sort of nonexistent romantic inkling.
But there was something about her.
Sadness. Torture. Brilliance.
A diamond in the rough, hidden beneath a sweatshirt.
I don’t know how long I stared at her. Too long. Too long because her eyes eventually found mine. She stared at me, as if daring me to look away. Her expression was a nothingness. No, not nothing.
There was fear there.
And the fear is what made me finally blink and break away from the connection. I was scared enough of my fucking self—scared that I’d love someone and kill them again. Scared that when the time came, I wouldn’t be brave enough to fucking kill myself. When my rent was past due. When the electric wasn’t paid up. When there was no food and I had no will to go shopping.
All the little signs I live every day waiting for, to tell me it was the time. That the magic carpet was waiting.
Her look, and everything about her, was a warning. I didn’t need more fear in my life, more brokenness.
“Silas,” Tanner called to me from across the bar. He’d not waited for me, setting everything up on stage. It was just us tonight, sans our other two band mates who were out of town.
I walked away from the bar, leaving the third shot I’d ordered behind. Leon called after me, but I ignored him. My heart was racing, ridiculously racing, and not because I had to sing. It was that purple hoodie girl. I hadn’t felt like that looking at someone since Asher died. I didn’t want to feel this way. Ever again.
I threaded the guitar strap over my head, tried to force my heart to stop beating so damn fast. Without our drummer, we used a background track for the base beat. All the sounds were programmed, linked to pedals that Tanner and I used when Sandy and Mack weren’t here. He was killer on drums, she played the piano like nobody’s business.
Tanner and I were all guitar, all the time. He’d sung lead until they’d heard me laying down a track in my house using a shitty secondhand recording system. I blamed him for getting me interested in music again. Every time I played, every time I wrote a lyric, the sting of losing Asher came back in full force, like I had goddamn Niagara Falls pounding down on my brain.
We sound-checked, strumming a few notes on our guitars and adjusting things. I needed a new set of strings; they were too loose, constantly needing tuning. But the guitar was old too. The first one I’d ever used, the only thing I kept from my days in the Nashville stardom sun. It was a sunburst, brown with a maple fingerboard. The backside of it was covered in stickers I’d thought were ‘insanely cool’ through high school. Shit I look back on and want to slap myself for liking.
It was electric, something some guy had dropped off for my dad to fix and he’d never come back for it. That wasn’t something that happened...ever. Dad figured it meant something and he gave it to me, after several months of waiting on the owner to come get it and pay for the repairs. Until that point, all I’d had was a bust-ass acoustic. A dollar store special sort of gig.
Touching the Fender for the first time was like... finding God in the backseat of a Chevy on a red dirt road.
Tanner moved towards his mic, a crowd had filed into the bar while I wasn’t paying attention. The college newbies were as far from the bar as they could get, already sipping on sodas with what looked like the entire menu splayed out across two tables. I tried not to look for the girl in purple.
But I couldn’t help myself. My gaze was on GPS, the destination her face. And, when my eyes found hers, she was looking at me again. My heart didn’t beat out of control this time.
No. It stopped.
It stopped and then it started again, beating slowly at first, quietly at first, then growing louder and faster. It was like a tether between us, a heart line shooting upwards in inconsistent, unfinished triangles, from her body to mine. Did she feel it too? Maybe. I hoped so.
Yet there was still fear in her. It mirrored the fear inside me.
The first notes of our most popular cover song started on the track, and I automatically began playing, my fingers moving swiftly up and down the strings, dancing between notes. When I leaned towards the microphone and opened my mouth, I saw Asher. Like I always did.
Stood in the back of the bar, full of swagger and life. He’s got on his blue shirt, the one with the strategic tears in it—bought that way, for high dollar no doubt. A pair of acid wash jeans he called ‘retro’ and his hair is pulled back in a long pony tail. He’s got that redness around his eyes, post-use. He’s riding, high and fast. But he’s smiling at me. And I want to jump off the goddamn stage and grab him. I want to shake him and tell him to quit so he can stay alive. Stay alive with me.
But Asher’s already dead. He has been, for a long time.
So I sing. And I find her face again.
With her long hair pulled into a braid that’s not tight, loosening by the second, letting strands of highlighted blonde fall around her heart-shaped face.
We finished the first song and flowed right into one I’d written. Not even Tanner knew that—he thought it was just a song that was popular a few years ago. My best friend in the whole damn world, and I’d never told him about my past. Not that part, at least. He’d witnessed the fall-out over s
ome of the worst things. But he didn’t know the best and the beautiful side—the music, the love, even the loss.
Nashville nights, warm and long
Got you in the back seat
Heaven, girl
Here and now
Cut-off jeans, tank top dreams
Loving you is like breathing
It’s the only thing that’s keeping me alive
If I could give you the world, I would
But all we got are these Nashville nights
Cut-off jeans
Skin showing underneath
Rips everywhere, match the scars
And my heart is whole again
Because of cut-off jeans, tank top dreams
Loving you is like breathing
Heaven, girl
Anna.
I had no idea, no freaking idea, why I let Nat talk me into coming.
The bar was crowded and smoky. I instantly started worrying about the baby when we walked in. I said something to Nat—that I couldn’t be around cigarettes; that they made me nauseous, but she’d been so caught up chatting with the other girls we’d come with. I felt so small, ant-sized. I knew she didn’t mean to wave off my concerns. She didn’t know what I was dealing with. And I’d just met her, so even if she did know about the little bean growing inside me, she had no obligation to care for me.
I’d never had the chance to really make friends and truly care about someone. I was too secluded, too hateful of my situation, too... shy for that. Part of it was my fault, I guess. I thought I was safer if no one knew me. If I kept my head down and did as well at school as I could, then I could finally be free.
And it had worked. I still couldn’t believe it had worked.
There had been times I’d done too well, of course—teachers wanting to take me to math competitions or enter my papers into contests. Things that needed parental permission. I’d always declined, but they’d mail letters home anyways, thinking maybe that I never told my parents about the opportunities. Mom would read them, and trash them. That was okay. I could handle that. But if my stepdad found them, especially if he was drinking, he’d go on the warpath about how I thought I was better than them, that I thought I was too good for the little rambler and small town.
I’d shake my head and tell him ‘no, that isn’t it at all’ and ‘I know I’m not better’, but he’d punish me anyways. A slap here. Violence in words. A chair under my door so I couldn’t get out. A nail in my window to keep it from opening. No dinner or breakfast the next morning. The harshness between us grew, progressively. The older I got, the more he thought I could take. Or, that’s how it felt.
Felt until he crossed the bridge we could never come back from. That night. That first night.
“Anna, you look sort of pale. Drink something.” Nat pushed a bubbling dark soda towards me. I sipped at it without asking what it was. That was a dumb thing to do in a bar, I supposed. It could have been roofied. It could have had alcohol in it, if any of the girls had a fake ID. This time, thinking about little bean, I did put my hand on my stomach. How could you care about something so much and not even really be able to see it or feel it yet? Blind faith it was there. And love is the strangest.
I leaned back in my chair, holding the glass in two hands, and trying to act somewhat comfortable. Yet, the harder I tried, the harder the seat got. The more my back hurt. The more my heart hurt. The more the words of the song the two men on the stage were singing struck at me like fists. Blow after blow. Lyric after lyric.
Loving you was never a choice
I fell into it like breathing
body down beneath the waters
sinking ever deeper
NEVER A CHOICE.
Never a choice.
Sinking.
I stood up abruptly, swaying a little and feeling light headed. I thought I heard Nat say something, but it was like she was speaking through cloth, muffled and unclear. I tried to grab the table as my vision fogged-up. “Nat?” I questioned softly, my voice drowned out by all the people in the bar and the music. The buzz of it all. It was so loud. Too loud. I stumbled, still trying to grip the table or a chair with my fingers. Nat stood up, at least I think she did.
But then I was falling and the world was going black.
I didn’t like the darkness. It reminded me of my room back home. After my stepdad took my nightlight, saying I was too old for it.
That ended up being a good thing. I didn’t have to see him during...
“Anna?” A hand brushed the hair out of my face gently. I blinked once, seeing long, beautiful brown fingers. Nat.
“Here, let us look at her, please.” It was a man’s voice, replacing Nat’s higher, more feminine tone. Nat must have hesitated, because the man spoke again. “Really, we’re paramedics.”
“How do I know that? You were just on stage. I don’t—” she stopped speaking abruptly. “Well, that looks legit.”
“Because it is,” the man sounded a little exasperated now.
“Oh. Okay. But please be careful.” Nat moved away and I wanted to reach out and grab her hand, but I was still too dizzy and, now, nauseous. No one had ever tried to protect me the way she just had. And we barely knew one another. It felt wrong, in a way, that I should have already lived nineteen years with someone truly caring for me. But we don’t all get that. Do we?
“Miss, can you hear me?” I liked the voice; it was kind, sort of soft and happy around the edges. “Silas, lift her head will you?”
Someone knelt near my head and gentle fingers slid into my hair, the loose braid beginning to come undone now. Just as gently, the fingers supported my head off the ground long enough for someone to slip something soft between me and the hard bar floor.
Blinking, I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. My throat felt dry, my tongue caged.
“Hey, Anna, it’s Nat. These guys are paramedics. They want to make sure you’re okay. So... if you could say something, that’d be great.” She sort of danced her last words in a sing-songy way.
“Dizzy,” was all I managed.
“Have you had anything to drink?” A second male voice, deeper, heavier somehow. Nat had said they’d just been singing. And the music had stopped. The band guys were paramedics? No... did that make sense? Everything was spinning, despite my eyes being closed.
“The only thing she’s had is this soda.” Nat’s voice again. I blinked quickly, taking in the sight of so many blurry faces hovering over me and I saw what I thought was Nat handing one of the men the soda I’d been sipping. He smelled it, dipped his pinkie in and tasted it. “I swear, it’s just root beer,” Nat said quickly. “And we never left it unattended or anything. I’m smart enough to know not to do that in a bar.”
The man who’d done the tasting nodded at the other. Then he looked down at me. I blinked slower this time. He had dark hair, a little long and curling around his ears. He had several-day scruff and shadows under his eyes, which were nearly as darkly-hued as his hair. It took me a moment to realize it was the guy I’d locked eyes with at the bar when I’d first entered. The guy who’d been the main singer on stage.
I closed my eyes, my heart thumping erratically. I felt pressure on my wrist then. “Her heart rate’s a little fast.”
Someone made a phone call then, I could tell by the distinct ‘click’ some phones make as you type when the ringer volume’s up. Not that I had a cell of my own. “Hey, Phil. Yeah. Can we get a bus to Jack’s?” It was the first man speaking, with the lighter hair and bigger build.
Even in my haze, I realized what ‘bus’ meant. “No, no ambulance. No hospital. I’m fine.” I lifted my right hand and waved them all off. Slowly, I lifted off of whatever was cradling my head. I stopped a short while, supporting myself on my elbows, trying to force away the fog from my brain and focus.
“Anna, I really think you should go to the hospital.” Nat pushed her way back next to me, displacing the singer paramedic with the nearly onyx eyes.
“N
o, Nat. I’m fine. Let’s just go back to the dorm.” I sat all the way up now, my head absolutely swimming like an overfilled koi pond.
“But—” she protested.
“Please,” I said quickly, desperation clear as a bell in my voice. That seemed to surprise her into agreeing. Which is what I wanted, even if it might bring some questions from her later.
“Miss, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” The dark haired man put a hand on my shoulder. “Let us take you to the hospital, see if you need some fluids. There’s got to be a reason you passed out.”
Of course there was a reason I passed out. Obviously there was a reason.
But I wasn’t ready for the world to find out the secret I carried. Not yet.
“We can’t force her, Silas,” the larger paramedic said.
“But Tanner, she obviously needs care. Look at her.” He pointed at me, like I wasn’t sitting there on the floor.
“Yes, look at me,” I said stubbornly. “I’m fine. I’m fine, and I’m going.” I wanted to stand on my own, without help, but I wobbled and Natalie grabbed me around the waste before I weaved and crashed.
“Sure, you’re completely fine,” the one called Silas said sarcastically. Not very professional of him at all.
“Just leave me alone,” I breathed out without thinking it through. I just wanted to get out of there, get back to the dorm. I wanted to cry.
Silas.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl after she left. I hadn’t met someone before who held pain in their eyes, not the way I did. Looking at her was like looking in a mirror. I played the rest of the set in a daze, staring out into the crowd looking for a face that wasn’t there anymore.
Haunted hazel eyes.
Dark golden hair swept back.
“Earth to Silas,” Tanner’s voice pushed into my brain, in a way not unlike cocaine. Hard and fast.
Blinking, I looked up from where I was—knelt on the floor packing up my guitar. “What?” I said, my voice monotone, my thoughts still trapped in another dimension, working through the feelings that were coursing through my body. Feelings that I hadn’t expected to feel again. The little thrum in my chest that meant my heart was beating a bit faster than it should be. That little tingle across my arms as my hair stood on end, as if sensing the promise of something that I couldn’t see yet.
The Beat Between Us: A Rock Star Redemption Romance (The Heartbeat Series Book 1) Page 4
