“No, of course not. We’re not together. Brierly, I just-”
I was done listening to his excuses. “You know what? I don’t even care anymore. Leave and never come back.” I pointed to the door, stepping away from it so he had plenty of room to leave.
I felt his eyes burning into me but I refused to look at him. The wall was suddenly so much more interesting than anything he had to show me. I briefly wondered what I would do if he didn’t go. He was bigger than me, it wasn’t like I could force him to go. He had never shown me any violence before so there was no reason for me to think he would start now but the thought still crossed my mind.
Finally, I heard rather than saw him leave. His footsteps padded over to the exit and the door gave a soft thud as he closed it behind himself.
I let out the breath I was holding and slumped against the side table. My hands were shaking as I rubbed my forehead. That was going to be the last time I ever saw him. He was probably stalking back to the room he shared with Ace and packing his things. Demi probably sprung for a plane ticket to take him home so he could catch the first flight back. He’d probably catch another gig with another singer before long. He’d be out of Los Angeles before I had the opportunity to return home.
It was probably a good thing I wouldn’t have to see him again. I guess that was one good thing about being on tour, it wasn’t like I could put together a box of his things that he would have to awkwardly collect one day. It was a clean break, crystal clear.
The thought only made me feel more hollowed than before. Forest had managed to accomplish what two-thirds of a bottle of vodka couldn’t. I was numb now, the pain gone and leaving me like a zombie.
I stumbled over to the bed and lay down. My tears had run out, my pain was dulled. The room felt as empty as my life now. I would allow myself one night to feel sorry for myself and I would return the smile to my face tomorrow. Nobody liked a sad pop star.
When the next morning came, I was still trying to convince myself of that. I had popped some headache pills to deal with my hangover and sucked on some vitamin B tablets. I would have done anything to stop the pounding in my head.
The beautifully hot New Orleans morning was far too bright for someone who had a breakdown only the previous day. I was seriously starting to regret drinking so much, like that hadn’t been obvious the night before during the concert.
Over breakfast with Demi I scoured the newspaper for reviews of the concert. I couldn’t find any, which probably meant they weren’t so good and Demi had censored it already. Perhaps that was a good thing, I was more delicate than I pretended.
We left New Orleans for the next city and continued the tour like nothing had happened. Days turned into weeks and things returned to a somewhat normal pace.
Demi had taken it upon herself to hire a new guitarist. Marty stepped up to play lead which meant we could hire someone a little less experienced than Forest to play second.
When she had turned up with a scrawny blonde woman one day and announced she was our new band member, I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. And that girl, Elisa, could play like nobody’s business.
I pretended not to notice Demi’s blatant message at hiring a female. She sure found someone I couldn’t fool around with and go crazy over again. I wasn’t into girls, even ones that could play a riff like a rock god.
Although… no, I definitely wasn’t ready to switch teams yet. I liked men, despite the way they always found the worst possible way to break my heart. I liked the way they smelt, the way their hands were always rough, and the way they pretended not to care in a way that screamed that they did, indeed, care.
As the stretch of highway whizzed past outside the tour bus, all I could think of was Forest. Every thought wanted to wander back to him, reminding me of everything I loved about him. My traitorous brain wouldn’t let me forget and I wanted to erase it more than anything else.
I flicked through the photos on my phone as music played in my ear buds. I slowed down when I reached the photos of Forest and I. Our cheeks were smooched up together, our smiles as wide as the Grand Canyon, and our eyes were bright with happiness. There had to be at least a dozen photos all exactly the same. The only difference was the backgrounds – Orlando, Miami, Little Rock, the list went on like a map of our adventures.
God, I missed him. Up until the end he had been so wonderful. There wasn’t a part of myself I wouldn’t have shared with him. There was nothing I would have denied him. How the hell had it all gone so bad? How could he have been hiding the fact he was married for so long?
For the first few weeks, I had blamed myself. I should have asked him more questions, I should have done some research so I didn’t get unexpected surprises like that. I should have protected myself, held at least something back so I wouldn’t hinge everything on him.
The next few weeks I blamed him. He shouldn’t have played me for a fool. He shouldn’t have hidden something so huge from me. He shouldn’t even have been messing around with me when he had a wife back home. Wife, that word still sent a shiver down my spine.
Now, I just missed him. It wasn’t the same I-want-to-kill-myself hurt like it was with Braydon. When I was with Forest, he showed me that I was somebody worth being. He made me feel strong and worthy of whatever the world had to offer me. Braydon never did that. Without Braydon, I felt worthless and wrong. I resorted to harming myself because I was nothing.
Whether it was intentional or not, Forest left me a better person than he had found me. The realization of that went a great deal toward healing from the pain. Perhaps things did happen for a reason. Perhaps Forest wasn’t meant to be in my life forever, just long enough to teach me what a real relationship might feel like.
It didn’t stop me missing him though. Sometimes I would still wake up in the middle of the night and reach for him. When my hand only groped thin air, the memory would come crashing back and I would lie back again – alone.
He had tried to call on several occasions, I ignored them all. I stopped picking up my voicemail messages too, just in case he had left something there before hanging up in frustration. Text messages were deleted before they were read. I was trying so hard to get over him but he wasn’t making it easy.
Each time I saw his name and photo come up unexpectedly on my caller ID, a jolt of dread would run through me. I had to take his photo off his contact and I changed his name to Do Not Go There. It didn’t change anything. I still went there mentally.
The only good thing about the last few weeks was that I hadn’t received any more horrible scratched-out photographs of myself. I was death threat free for weeks now. The timing kind of made me wonder if Forest was behind the threats in the first place. It didn’t make sense and he had no reason to do it, but nobody else came forward to admit to it. I shelved it as a one off and crossed my fingers it wouldn’t happen again. A small part of me was still expecting something else to occur though.
Out in public I wore my mask. Not even Demi knew how much I was still hurting. As long as I greeted her with a smile every morning, she assumed I had forgotten all about Forest. Nobody else dared bring up the subject. They accepted Elisa into the tour family and that was their answer about whether Forest was coming back or not.
“Hey, Brierly, some good news,” Demi said, sliding into the seat next to me. I quickly closed the screen on my phone, hoping she didn’t see what I was looking at.
“Let’s hear it,” I replied happily. I could really have used some good news, she had no idea.
She pulled up some details on her iPad and angled the screen so I could see. “Your charity is officially a registered charity. We can start taking donations and commence all the projects we talked about.”
That was good news, probably the best news I could get apart from someone inventing a time machine. I had wanted to set up the charity to help other people with eating disorders. It was a small way to spread some of the help I received last year.
Many people that suffered li
ke I did didn’t have access to good medical help. If I hadn’t gone to the hospital that specialized in eating disorders, I had no doubt I would be dead by now. They saved my life but not everyone was that lucky. Hopefully, through my charity, I would be able to help those that didn’t have access to the treatment.
I could make a real difference to real lives, I could help people. That is what I wanted to focus on, not all the scandal and gossip the media wanted me to be entangled in.
“When can we have the first board meeting to go through the program?” I asked eagerly. At the very least it would give me something else to think about other than my overwhelming sadness.
“We’ll be back in Los Angeles in a few days, I can try to schedule something for then?” She was already scrolling through her calendar, pursing her lips as she tried to fit it all together like a jigsaw. Better her than me.
“Sounds great.”
“I’m glad we’re up to this stage actually, it’s been time consuming putting it all together.”
A pang of guilt shot through me. I should have helped more. I guessed that was why Demi had been so distracted lately. Now, I definitely felt guilty. I made a mental note to make it up to her.
Demi shuffled off, murmuring something about rescheduling this and moving that. She loved a good challenge, and as long as I was around, she always had something to make the long stretches on the highway more interesting.
“Hey, boss,” Ace called from halfway down the bus. “We’re about to play cards, you in?”
I looked at the phone. I could either sit there being miserable or do something to take my mind off it. “Deal me in.”
I put my phone away and headed to the back of the bus. I noticed Elisa was already there, fitting in much better than I ever did. So apparently it wasn’t just that I was a female, it was that I was the boss that set me apart. Good to know.
Cards were thrown my way and I started assessing my options. It wasn’t a good hand but I knew how to turn that around in a few moves.
“I didn’t know if you’d come back for more,” Marty said, grinning widely. “You know, after I beat your butt last time.” He high-fived Ace, Ronan, and Luke in turn.
I gave him a cocky smile. “I was distracted then. This time, I’m going to wipe the table with you.” Except, I knew I wouldn’t. One of the guys was going to win this hand, and the next, and every other one until we finished the tour.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was always good coming home. Los Angeles had a feel to it, a vibe I could never quite put my finger on. Perhaps it meant I could retreat to the only place in the world that was truly mine. Perhaps it was the fact my parents were only a short drive away. It could have been any number of things, but I loved it just the same.
My tour bus had dropped me off first. I had spent all afternoon at home, finally able to use all the things I had forgotten to pack. And to sweeten the deal even more, there were no memories of Forest there. He had never come inside my mansion so there were no lingering ghosts haunting me. If I moved, I could get rid of Braydon’s ghost too.
I ran a hand over the dresses lined up in my closet. Was it wrong to miss clothes? I know I certainly did, some of them were like my children. Not to mention the shoes. There was a limit on how many I could lug around the country on tour and it was far too few for my liking.
I picked out some of my favorites and finished getting ready to go out. I would rather put on my sweatpants and sit in front of the television all night but my agent was on my case about putting some good publicity out there. She thought I looked too boring in all my current paparazzi snaps. As a consequence, she had arranged a setup for me and my L.A. friends.
We went to our usual restaurant, the one that would give the media a good view while we pretended to be annoyed by them.
The entrees hadn’t even been finished before my friends turned their attention to me. I had been quiet, trying to fly under the radar. My agent only said I had to look good in the photos, he never said I had to talk too.
“God, Brierly, you are so lucky,” Sierra started, rolling her eyes to emphasize her words.
“Lucky how?” I asked, completely confused. Maybe I had been out of the L.A. scene for too long. I had been on the road for sixteen weeks. Being shuffled from bus to hotel to venue did tend to cause you to exist in somewhat of a bubble. That was one of the things I liked about touring.
Sierra took a sip of her water before she replied, everyone else looked on expectantly. “You’re lucky you avoided a scandal with that drummer boy of yours. That could have exploded onto every magazine cover in the country.”
“He played the guitar and there wasn’t a story to be reported.” I was simultaneously annoyed and offended. And I really didn’t want to talk about it, especially with them. Plus, she knew Forest played the guitar, she was riling me on purpose.
“So you weren’t fooling around with a married man then? I’m sorry, I must have misheard,” she said sarcastically. “I did warn you this would happen, remember?”
“I didn’t know he was married.”
“Hence the scandal.” She pointedly looked at her plate instead of me, passive aggressiveness on the menu.
I didn’t really have any comeback for her. She was kind of right, I was lucky the national media never picked up the story. Thankfully, Demi had managed to quash it somehow. I never asked how she did it and she didn’t volunteer the information. Sometimes it was best not to know.
“What were you thinking, Brierly?” Chrissy chimed in, her perfectly made up eyes wide. “Surely there must have been clues about him being married.” She spat the last word out like it tasted awful on her tongue.
“If there were clues, don’t you think I would have ended it sooner?” I shot back. “I wouldn’t do that to another woman. Married men are off limits in my book.”
“That radio show obviously found clues,” she continued relentlessly. “I don’t know how you could not know. Didn’t he ever say anything that was a little… off? Did he ever get phone calls and then leave the room to take them?”
I tried to remember something – anything – about Forest that would have warned me of his marital status. But there really wasn’t anything. He had appeared completely open and honest with me the entire time. He didn’t even try to be dark and mysterious like most guys I met.
The funny thing was, he appeared to be more real than any of the girls at my table, and he was the one that turned out to be fake. If someone had told me before that radio interview that he was the biggest liar out of everyone I knew, I would have thought they were insane.
As it turned out, apparently I was the insane one. “There were no clues,” I repeated. “I swear to God there were no signs.”
Chrissy pursed her lips, displeased with my answer. “If anyone did that to me, I would kill them. Nobody makes a fool out of Chrissy Hinch.” Did she just call me a fool? I’m sure there was a veiled insult in there. “Tell me you kicked his butt to the sidewalk the moment you found out.”
“Of course I did.”
“Good. You should have told the media about him anyway, let the world know what a scumbucket he is.”
That thought was never in my mind. Yeah, I could have told whoever would listen about how I was betrayed and hurt by the sleazeball who had played me – for a fool, apparently. But what good would it have done me? I already felt horrible for falling for it, I didn’t want to relive the moment for all of eternity.
And despite what Forest did, I couldn’t do it to him either. He didn’t deserve to have his life ruined by zealous fans who took my fight on as theirs or unscrupulous reporters who wanted something salacious for the ten o’clock news. Nobody deserved that kind of attention.
Besides, it wasn’t like he was dating Brierly Wilcox, he was dating just Brierly. I’m sure he didn’t see me as the pop star version of myself. I was just the girl he liked, the one who would laugh at his jokes and give him a reason to go to bed early.
“Leav
e her alone,” Mikayla stepped in. At least one person was on my side. “You can’t help who you fall in love with. The heart wants what it wants.”
“Thank you, Mik,” I said. “At least someone here understands.”
She shrugged like it was no big deal. “If you want my advice, I would write a song about it. I hear Billboard chart topper written all over the sad tale.”
“Oh, and then when you’re promoting it, you can tell everyone how your heart was broken by a mystery man. They’ll go nuts trying to work out who you mean,” Sophia said excitedly. She had my entire release plan worked out, apparently.
“They’d probably think it was Braydon,” Chrissy replied, squinting at the mention of his name. Apparently it was This is your life, the Brierly Wilcox edition. I hoped they didn’t decide to delve even further into the archives. I swear, if someone muttered Oscar’s name, I was going to flee. I would keep running until I tripped over my stilettos and the paparazzi got some cool new shots for the tabloids.
Sierra looked at me curiously, in a way that screamed I didn’t want to know what was on her mind. She leaned in, speaking so low only I could hear her. “You know, you can thank me for helping you stay on track and out of trouble.”
“Why? What did you do?” Did I really want to know? Probably not.
“I sent you a little gift when you were on the road.”
My brow wrinkled with confusion until her words sunk in. A little gift? The only gift I had received was very much unwelcome. “You sent those photos? The death threat?”
She straightened back up again. “You’re welcome.” I wanted to throw my drink at her and her flippant attitude. I had so many questions I didn’t even know where to start.
“Why? Why did you freak me out like that? I thought someone really wanted to kill me.”
“You needed a wakeup call, Brierly. Your head was in the clouds with that guy, you needed to be reminded of your reality or you would have completely floated away with him.” She said it so matter-of-factly, like I should be thanking her by now. Clearly reasoning wasn’t going to work with her. But I didn’t want to cause a scene in the restaurant with all the photographers outside. She would have to keep for later.
Songbird Page 22
