Save Me: A TAT Novella

by Melanie Walker

  “I don’t give a shit!” Carrie snapped in a not-so-quiet whisper and was back to staring me down.

  “Carrie c’mon.” Chad tried, but it was too late.

  I snapped.

  “Let her fucking at it for God’s sake.” I said and looked right back at her, my throat tight as blood pounded in my ear drums. Fuck. I was pissed. Hopefully she would shut the fuck up…I should have.

  “Well you sit there like you know what’s best. Like I have no say, none of us do.” She used her arm to indicate everyone in the limo. “I’m sick of the holier than thou shit. He’s my brother!”

  I felt Cassa beside me, digging her nails into my thigh because I had started bouncing it like crazy. “You know, it’s Noah’s choice.” Chad said in my defense.

  “Do you even tell him we care?” She asked and leaned forward to get in my face. I leaned back, my face going red I started ripping at my tie. I couldn’t fucking breathe. “Don’t ignore me Shamus!” She warned and I lost it.

  “Do you think I wanted this?” I yell and turn to tap on the window to the driver. “Pull over now!” I demand and lift Cassa over me so I am beside the door. As the limo comes to a screeching halt, I fling the door open and fly out the minute it stops, slamming the door behind me.

  Two seconds later, I hear that door open and see her getting out. I stuff my hands in my pockets and start walking down the street getting the fuck away from her crazy angry ass. When I felt her hand grab my arm as she screamed my name, in my fucking ear, my sight went black.

  Ripping my arm from her grasp I spun around. She lost her footing a little, but didn’t fall and I saw the look in her eyes that said she knew she went too far. Too late though, I was done. “You think I want this? You think I asked for it? To be his fucking savior!” I roared at the top of my lungs and she flinched at my tone. I shook my head and turned to walk away, but fuck, I wasn’t done. I turned and stomped back toward her.

  Behind her was everyone, standing there- in shock twenty yards away on the side of the street watching. Chad and Cassa, both running toward Carrie and I, when I started screaming again.

  “Do you think I enjoy watching his every move, every step, every mother fucking look to make sure he’s okay? I can’t fucking sleep at night, or eat, because I’m plagued with more fear than I have ever felt in my life. You forget that he isn’t only my friend, but that the band is relying on him to pull through this, that you are and Noelle, Seth and Lilly. Every one of you are praying he will be okay and find strength he don’t fucking have Carrie!!!”

  Chad was now standing in front of Carrie, looking like a bull with his eyes on the red flag.

  I might as well had a name tag that said I was the red mother fucking flag…but oh…I wanted him to hit me and I would pummel his pretty boy face. He could see that though because like a switch, he switched focus and spoke calm. “Bro, look at yourself, look at how mad you are right now.”

  I was breathing fast and had ripped the fucking buttons on my shirt trying to get that fucking tie off, when Cassa stepped beside me. “Baby…” She cried and wrapped herself around me. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want her touching me. I stood back from her and ran a hand over my head, still panting and looked at Carrie.

  “Do you think it’s easy watching him? You have seen him low, but this is scary and he trusts me with it for some reason.” I took a step towards her and slammed my hand against my chest. “It’s killing me.” I cried and felt hot tears splash on my cheeks. “I leave terrified every night, long after all of you are asleep and I climb in bed…” I look at Cass and decide I can’t keep the truth in. I need them to understand “Next. To. My. Wife… and toss and turn in fear he’ll end his life before the morning.”

  Carrie, Chad, Cassa and the rest of the peanut gallery behind us, all gasp at my confession and I shake my head. “Now you get it right? I married her the day he woke up, after I watched him fighting to talk and scream and cry and he was paralyzed with fear because of the tubes, the injuries… he begged me, screaming through that tube to tell him it wasn’t real and the fucking doctor knocked him out. I left that room and took her to the courthouse.”

  Cassa stepped beside me and pulled on my arm, crying. “Stop it Shamus!” She begged but I was done defending myself with stoic silence. They didn’t know what I knew.

  “He proposed to her at your wedding. I’m the only one who knows. She died three hours later. As he sat there begging me to tell him it was all a lie, begging me with a steel stare, I took her to the courthouse and married her the minute I left his room.”

  I lost all my strength at that point and went to my knees on the cement. “That night… that night he flipped his shit. I was the one who forced it on him. I was teasing this little nurse that was bubbly as fuck…” I look up at them and see them watching me. Everyone had gathered at this point and I just hung my head and kept going. “I wanted to know he could still laugh…so I played rockstar.” I look at Chad and Cal and Tay knowing they know the game I played on the nurse. Even when we were small town, that trick always got girls numbers. I see the recognition in their eyes and am glad I don’t need to explain the game… Cassa and Carrie being there and all….

  I sat silent looking at a piece of grass I had picked. “I wanted to know he would laugh. I knew if he laughed he would survive and maybe, just maybe, he’d let it out. He started crying in the laughter, just turned to tears and then he broke through.” I look up at them as I stand and toss the blade of grass before wiping at my eyes. “He flipped the fuck out…” I stepped to Carrie and took her elbows in my hands gently and she looked at me, her face wet with tears and a sadness so raw, it broke my heart.

  “He needed that Care. I wasn’t about to let any of you stop it because he needed to rage. He cursed God, Candey the fucking world hun. He cursed me for telling him the truth. By the time the rage was gone he was raw and bleeding, so I sat beside him with my hand on his shoulder and let him cry. He told me things, said he couldn’t save her…” My voice cracked and I dropped her arms just as she hugged me close crying. “I can’t turn back on him now… I was there, he knows that it’s safe for me to see it. He can be weak with me and everyone else he can be Noah.”

  She nodded and cried as she held me close. I looked at Chad knowing he was a possessive fucker, but he nodded and kissed Carrie on the head before reaching for Cassa and telling everyone to get in the limo.

  We stayed like that for a while, just understanding his pain, knowing we both loved him, our brother…and they all fucking got it now.

  Just… now I had to live with the fact I had betrayed him in telling everyone the truth behind his pain.

  Noah

  Sixteen days, seven hours, fourteen minutes ago….

  “If you don’t knock it off I’m pulling over.” I threatened her and then closed my eyes for two seconds as I felt her mouth on my dick. “Woman.” I said and hit the blinker and pulled to the side of the road.

  She giggled and I watched her come up from my cock and wipe the tears from under her lashes. Candey liked sucking me deep, eyes watering deep. I watched as she pulled that fucking satin pink dress up over her thong covered ass and hop into my backseat. “My pussy is soaked back here…” She taunted and spread her thighs so I could watch her slip her panties to the side.

  I caught the flash of shiny metal from the hoop pierced through the hood of her pussy. Aaaaaaaand I went over the seat, that little flash the beacon to her and where I was gonna spend the night.

  I sat on the back seat, my cock out and in my hand. I took her in my other hand and pulled her until she was straddled over me. I held my dick up as she slipped that thong further to the side…and then all I felt was tight hot pussy and slammed my hips up and in her as deep as I could go.

  “Oh fuck yes!” She cried and sucked my tongue into her mouth and started riding me.

  She broke the kiss with a groan and my hand on her hip holding her in place, twisting my other hand in her hair so her
neck was arched back and I was in as deep as I could get. “Feel that piercing baby?” I ask and I know my ampallang is hitting the only spot inside of her that mattered right then. Three more peircings, called the Jacobs ladder, were right along the wall of her pussy and in one deep thrust I was gonna send her flying.

  “Give it Noah, make this pussy come.” She said, and that filthy mouth of hers, always, fucking always, made me cum. I pulled back slowly, making sure she felt the pop,pop,pop of my ladder and then slammed into her…and off she went.

  “Fuck yeah babe, so fuckin’ easy to make you burst. Mmmm, that pussy sucks me in like a hungry mouth.” I said all of this just beneath her ear, against her neck and used my hand to slide her back and forth on me.

  “Fill me up Noah.” She was screaming and the flutters her pussy made had my dick splashing a fuck ton of come inside her, right where I liked it.

  I loved making her sit with my come inside her, so that when I got her in bed again she was fucking soaked. I could pound into her hard and fast, soaking her even more until my come spilled down her legs and all over me and my sack.

  I am a sick fucking bastard and wear that badge proudly.

  “I love you.” I say and nuzzle into her neck, knowing she is and will always be the only woman who will ever let me be sweet with. I can promise her the world and know I’ll deliver.

  I trust her.

  “I love you too.” She pants against my mouth and giggles like always. She told me once that the giggles were because she was so happy she couldn’t contain it. I pull her to my chest and wrap my arms around her, my fingers lazy as they stroke her spine to the crack of her ass. Only when I feel her shudder at my touch do I move them up, just to slide them down again.

  “Take me home Noah.” She says and places a kiss on my neck. It is the one place I have yet to tattoo and she always kisses me here saying it’s the only spot of me that she can make hers.

  I know she means my tattoos. I have only a few spots of my body that aren’t inked, but my neck…I don’t know. It’s hers and it will stay bare until she is a Beckett and then our last name is going there.

  I am just about to tell her this when I see the brightest fucking light charging my fucking car. It’s literally a second when I realize what is happening and I don’t think. I roll until she is beneath me and I am shielding her…then- pain so fierce makes everything disappear…

  Present Day

  I stare at the window when I see the limo pull up. This is it. I look at the striped candy in my hand, attached to a small photo booth photo of me and Candey from the fair a few years ago the night I finally kissed her the first time.

  She and Carrie had come home for a weekend from school and because it was the fourth of July, we didn’t have any gigs until right before the fireworks display.

  I’d been trying to get inside of her like a mad horny dog for a year straight. It was my luck that Carrie was dating a douche-bag named after a car, that she was able to con me into the photo booth.

  I looked at the picture and for the millionth time the same thought came flashing to my mind.

  I want you here…with me.

  She had kissed me in the booth to keep me distracted from breathing down the guys neck if he even thought of touching Carrie. Candey True had no idea how fast I would move in on her for a kiss, but she learned that night.

  She was mine from then on. She fought it at first. I fought it when it started to matter, but in the end, even the darkest hour, we both knew she was mine.

  I want you here…with me.

  I walked to the kitchen to pop a few pills, like five- and slammed three fingers of Skyy Vodka, when I heard Shame shut the door. Like usual, I didn’t say anything. Just waited for him to tell me it was time and like usual he wouldn’t move a muscle until I was ready. He was the only mother fucker who didn’t talk to me, coddle me or demand shit of me. He was there and nothing more. I didn’t want to be alone, as long as it was Shame there. I wanted everyone else to shut up and go away.

  I hated their pity, despised the sorrow I knew they felt. I wanted my girl back. Only one person I knew who had lived a few years without the woman he loved and that was Shame.

  I know it isn’t the same, but the loss is.

  The sound of feet on the hard wood floor are not a mans. My back is turned and I assume its Cass with him, until she speaks.

  “Bubba?” God damn it. The sound of raw pain in her voice is one I have heard so many times in my life that even deaf and blind I’d have known my sister was behind me by the energy alone.

  I go stiff hearing her voice and the tap of her shoes as she walks until she is beside me. I close my eyes and turn away from her. Only then can I take a deep breath and let my mask fall into place.

  “Ready?” I ask and I pull on my strength hidden beneath the bitterness and the pain and the handful of pain killers I swallowed seconds before. I sound like the Noah she needs right now.

  “No, and I don’t know if you are either.”

  I pause in my steps and I look over my shoulder, putting my aviators on so she can’t see my eyes. “Don’t. Just don’t. Let’s get this over with.” I hear her ask me to wait but I don’t. I open the front door and walk right to the limo and climb in taking a seat beside Shame.

  “Better get the wifey.” I say to Chad and pull the small metal flask from my coat pocket and take a swig, handing the candy pin thing to Cassa.

  I pay no mind to anyone. Not Cass pinning the candy, not Carrie who is outside the limo crying to Chad that she needs a second to calm down, and not to Shame who is watching me closely.

  I let Shame see too much and right now, he knew I was a live wire. “Let’s go.” He yells and like the boss I have made him, in come Carrie and Chad and we are off to end the final chapter.

  *

  Like a robot, I get out of the limo and wait for it to empty. Tayla had explained that there would be local news as well as MTV, VH1 and TMZ there. Sadly, this was a show for the world. I understood. I did. Of all the fucked up, twisted sadness- I understood this. I, along with a couple hundred million, watched as Courtney Love read Kurt Cobains final words to the world. I felt my soul split in two when fans were informed that Layne Staley was found dead after an over dose. I watched every report I could when it happened. So this…this I get and am okay with.

  I don’t have to talk, but I can’t act psychotic either. Good thing Oxycontin takes the pain away. I am numb. Everyone knows it, they all know why the glasses are staying on.

  Dilated pupils and a bit of a slur.

  I have my reasons.

  I am a robot.

  For now they accept this.

  I just want you here. With me.

  I wait until Sev climbs from the limo and then, I fold my hands in front of me, stand straight …and proceed.

  Step, step, step.

  I tell myself this because right now, my feet feel like lead and every foot I cross is one step closer to goodbye. Carrie is on my right and I pause to wait for the rest of them. Shame to my left and Cal and Mike all at my back. I fight each step like it’s taking my breath from me.

  I am inside the church and people are everywhere. Like a lost fucking child, I turn to Shame. I don’t want this, and thank fuck he knows it. Security at the door is the only detail I trust and I acknowledge Drake as he leads me to a small room with two guards at the door.

  “Mr. Beckett.” One beast of a man says and he opens the door. I am ushered in and follow Drake until I see a chair I need desperately. I could see the pink coffin from the corner of my eye and my stomach caved.

  There is my girl.

  I hadn’t seen her in weeks, and though I knew they had preserved her body for this, saving her for me. I couldn’t see her but I knew she was there.

  Unable to keep away, I stood and waited for no one to follow. I walked, each step bringing me to the only thing in my life that made sense. A large photo of her beautiful face was placed over the top and I kept my eyes on hers, pu
lling from her strength until I was touching the cold metal bar lining the bright pink coffin. I fell to my knees.

  I here Carrie behind me gasp and I know she is going to make her way to me, but it is Chad that stops her.

  “No. He needs this.” His voice is demanding, but she doesn’t argue him. None of them say a word. I hear the music playing softly in the background and I knew that this room, this tiny room, packed with people, parted like the red sea when I came to my girl.

  With the people who loved her the most watching, I fell apart for the hundredth time in two weeks. “I miss you baby.” I say and rise to run my fingers along the black metal rail. Even the coffin suits her and the thought turns my stomach to bile.

  Flowers, so many fucking flowers are covering the casket with her photo in the center. I knew Carrie and Cassa made sure there wasn’t a scrap of ugly in this room. Candey would have died just from the thought of a carnation resting over her grave.