Exit Wound

by Alexandra Moore

  “That tie clashes with that shirt,” I said, hoping to annoy him.

  He looked down at his tie and his shirt, and he must have believed me because he muttered something to himself as he rushed back into the bunk area. I snickered.

  “Don’t get on his nerves today, Frances,” Grayson said in his normal soft tone. He had left for a moment, and when he came back he was wearing similar attire as Ben.

  “Why are you guys getting so dressed up?” I asked him.

  “Today we’re meeting with the human resources sector of our label. They say it’s really important.”

  I cringed at the thought. Human Resources was one of the scariest sectors of all the sectors in any company. They could make or break you. I was pretty sure Ben and the boys felt the same way.

  Soon enough, they were all showered and groomed and dressed similarly to Ben. When Ben came back, he had a variety of ties and a look of desperation on his face. He looked at me for help.

  I picked a better tie and tied it around his neck. “You’ll do great,” I told him with a smile.

  He let out a sigh and nodded. “Okay, I think I’m ready. Bea, why aren’t you ready?” he asked, looking at me. I looked at myself and looked back to him with a questioning glance.

  “I am ready. Why do you think I’m not ready?”

  “You have to see HR too.”

  I groaned, and rushed back to the bunk area to choose a nicer more feminine outfit than my skinny jeans, tank top, and nasty flannel shirt. I chose a pair of straight-legged jeans, a nice flowy blouse, and pinned my hair up.

  “I wish you would’ve told me this last night. My hair is horrendous,” I said to Ben as he passed by.

  “I’m sorry—it wasn’t definite until this morning.”

  He pressed a kiss to my cheek, and I wanted to strangle him. I knew I was going to go off at any minute, but he was being quite charming, which made my raging anger disperse. When I was done “getting ready” again, I went over to the lounge area and found that all the breakfast food was gone. Everyone had eaten, and someone had even stolen food off my plate. This would normally make me angry—though, I decided to let it slide today. Everyone was obviously high on anxiety and stress already.

  When we were in the main office of the label that Ben was signed to, we were called back to the HR section of the building. We were led back by a perky blonde who had a knack for showing off the rack God—or rather, a plastic surgeon—had given her. It was obvious that her breasts were bigger than what they were in her employee ID photo that was stuck in her cleavage. She insisted that they were natural after Rian had asked many inappropriate questions. However, looking at her employee ID, I knew better.

  She left us seated in a room with a long black conference table with matching leather chairs that swiveled. Ben and I sat next to each other, Splinter sat next to me, and Grayson sat on the other end of Ben, with Rian next to him. I was wondering why we were here or if we were in trouble. I was hoping it wasn’t about Everett. My stomach dropped when a bunch of men and women in suits filed in with reams upon reams of paper and clipboards hugged to their chests.

  “Welcome, welcome,” one bald guy said. I assumed he was the one in charge because he sat at the head of the table. Everyone else flanked to the sides, and we were waiting for them to unload their news onto us.

  “So, we’re here on behalf of the Thompson family.”

  My heart sank—this was about Everett.

  “They want to know how you plan on using Mr. Thompson’s shares into the band now that he has passed. I am aware that you have a temporary drummer—although, he isn’t a permanent fix.”

  I glanced over at Splinter, who looked like a puppy who had been kicked in the side. Ben explained the band’s plan for Everett’s shares. I was beginning to feel sick, and I needed some air. I was getting hot, and I couldn’t breathe. I could feel hands on my shoulders, but heard no voices. My head was between my knees as I tried to catch my breath. I didn’t know what happened, at least until Ben explained it to me later that night.

  “You had a panic attack, Frances.”

  “I’ve never had one before, so why would I have one now?”

  While I ate my broccoli and chicken from the nearest Chinese food place we could find, Ben began to explain.

  “Things have changed a lot recently. Panic attacks can happen to anyone. Certain things happen, and they become a trigger. When it becomes too much and we aren’t paying attention, we have panic attacks. It sucks, but it happens.”

  “I’m assuming you’ve had panic attacks by the way you’re talking.”

  “Yeah, I have.”

  I paused for a moment and looked to my brother with a saddened expression on my face. “When was the last time you had one?” I asked, hoping that I wasn’t being too nosey.

  “A long, long time ago.”

  I could tell he was lying.

  “Fortune cookie time,” he said, changing the subject.

  “What does yours say?”

  He ate the cookie first then read the fortune aloud.

  True love is around the corner.

  We laughed, and when I opened mine and ate the cookie, I read mine:

  Proceed with caution—

  someone is out to get you.

  Ben laughed at this. All the while, my blood ran cold.

  Fortune cookies weren’t always accurate. I mean, Ben’s said true love was around the corner. What kind of fortune was that?

  When I was getting ready for bed, I found Splinter out in the lounge by himself, drumming his fingers on the table.

  “Splinter, you all right?”

  “I guess. I guess I got my hopes up.”

  I sat down next to him. “I think I did too.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around me. If we were still in high school, this would have never happened. I wouldn’t have even gone near him. Now that I was no longer in high school and I was college bound, I could see how ridiculous high school really was. All the unwritten rules of high school societal bliss and chaos were all a bunch of BS.

  When we went to sleep that night, I could feel a sense of closeness with Splinter, something I’d never imagine myself saying if we had never left Rosewood. It was odd how things work out in the end. People you thought you hated could turn out to be the people you’d need the most. People you thought you loved could bring you down into a dark abyss without any real hope of escaping.

  The people you thought loved you did something far worse: they pretended to love you despite all your flaws, and with a beautiful and convincing façade, they’d tell you they had your back.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Ben!” I shouted from my bunk.

  “What is it, Frances?” he asked, clearly irritated, walking up to my bunk.

  “What do you think of this guy?” I asked, showing him a picture of a German model. He gave me a weary look. “Do you think I could win him over?” I asked with an innocent smile.

  He shrugged and then whispered, “I think I’m more of his type.” He gave me a wink and walked away without another word.

  I burst out laughing, feeling slightly better about everything that was going on. It was nice to know the real side of my brother. I could finally tell the difference, and it was amazing that there was such a difference. Things were going pretty well; at least, that’s what I had everyone thinking. They thought the old Bea was back and that nothing in the world could bring her down. I tried to make this so—except, it wasn’t as easy as I had initially hoped. I tried and tried to be happy again, and every time, it felt like I was trying too hard. I guess that’s why they call depression the quicksand of mental health. The more you try to fight it, the further you sink. I sort of felt that way, like I was sinking further into this darkness the more I tried to hide it. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to be happy like everyone else.

  There had to be more to happiness than people thought. I wasn’t sure what else you had to do to say you were
truly happy on the inside—though, I figured it was something I would have to figure out for myself. Happiness was a subjective thing. It varied for different people. One person could be happy making a living as an at-home mother for the rest of their days, raising babies and taking care of their home, while others would be happier by themselves for the rest of their life. Happiness was something we all had inside us; we needed to find a way to lasso it in.

  ***

  I heard my name being called faintly from farther down in the bus.

  “Coming!” I yelled.

  I got up from my bunk in a daze and went to the front of the bus. Ben looked somber, and I wondered what possibly could be bothering him. I sat down next to him, and he showed me a picture from Twitter: a picture of his ex and his new beau.

  I wrapped an arm around him. “Ben, you’ll find someone better.”

  I had to believe that my brother would find someone worth sharing his heart with someday soon.

  “You really think so?” I nodded sincerely, and he forced a smile much like mine. Was he doing the same thing I was trying to do? Hide my feelings and put forth a façade that could fool anyone?

  “Frances,” he asked, “why are you so sad?”

  He saw through me—something I hadn’t anticipated.

  I laughed lightly, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’m not sad,” I lied.

  “You’re a bad liar, Frances.”

  Though I laughed again, soon tears ran down my face. “I know I am. I only keep hoping no one will notice.”

  “We need to do something to make you feel better, then.”

  I wanted to tell Ben nothing in the world could make me feel better.

  “Why don’t I pay for your first tattoo?” he suggested.

  I couldn’t think of what I would want as my first tattoo. So what did I do? Scroll through Pinterest for ideas. I found I was particularly attracted to the floral tattoos that were made to be shoulder pieces, and when I showed them to Ben, he approved. I liked one that was a half-sleeve best, but I decided to start out small. We went on Yelp to look for the best tattoo shops around, and when we found one, we went in.

  It smelled of sterile air, blood, and ink. Ben appeared to be very comfortable there, which wasn’t surprising considering how many tattoos he had. I felt so out of place and nervous. I had never been in a tattoo shop—most of my ear piercings were done in someone’s basement.

  When I showed the artist what I wanted, he and Ben teamed up to get me to change my mind of having a small tattoo and getting a bigger piece.

  When the artist, Joe, finished drawing up the sketch for what was going to be my quarter-sleeve, I was beyond amazed. He placed it on my right arm, and when I looked at it, I fell in love.

  I sat down in a chair, and he passed the tattooing needle over my skin for the first time.

  “That’s what it’s going to feel like. You ready to go?” Joe asked. I nodded, and once the ball was rolling—or rather, the tattoo artist was carving a piece of art into the flesh of my arm—I went from nervous and anxiety-ridden to nothing but pure bliss. I was calm, and I was filled with a feeling of happiness.

  It took three hours, but when he was done and he had cleaned up my tattoo, I looked at it in the mirror and tears came to my eyes. Peonies symbolized healing and perseverance, and I needed the healing, and the perseverance was something I was hoping to have dwelling within me. Ben took a picture of the tattoo without the blood, and then Joe took a picture of Ben and me standing together, showing off our arm pieces.

  Later, when I got on Twitter, I saw that Ben had posted the picture with the caption:

  My baby sister got her first tattoo arm piece. #proudpapa

  During our dinner break, when the cameras came on again, I explained the little tattoo adventure to them, showing them my freshly unwrapped tattoo.

  Splinter came up to see my arm. “Can I get a better look?” he asked. I nodded, pushing back a curl behind my ear. He gently lifted my arm and looked at my tattoo. “It’s fitting and very beautiful.” He let go of my arm and went into the bunk area without another word. He and his man-bun were just plain weird.

  That night, everyone seemed to be doing well, and the adrenaline from my first tattoo was wearing off. If I could, I would have locked the remaining bliss up in a jar and kept it in a safe place so it wouldn’t fade so quickly. Unfortunately, things weren’t like that.

  You couldn’t bottle up your emotions and preserve them. You had to remember them and hope that you would (or wouldn’t) feel them again one day. I wished I could bottle up the feelings I had when I got my tattoo and stash them away for when I needed them most. Damn, did I wish I could.

  The next few days were spent teaching me how to take care of my tattoo while on the road and preparing for the band’s hometown show in New York. While everyone else was excited, Splinter was nervous. He was okay when it came to playing all the other shows except to play Madison Square Garden three nights in a row was more daunting to him than traveling across the United States and playing anywhere else. Everyone had a different emotion when it came to coming home and displaying their hard work for everyone to see, love, and judge without abandon. Maybe Splinter had anxiety about that. He wasn’t the most popular guy in Brooklyn. Even though we weren’t in school anymore, that popularity shouldn’t matter. But it really did, to a certain extent.

  Studies have shown that people that were unpopular in high school move on to having successful and happy lives, whereas the popular kids often hit rock bottom. I tried not to wonder what that meant for me personally—though deep down inside, I wasn’t like all the popular kids even though Splinter would argue the validity of that statement.

  That was what was different about him. He would always call me out when I was being a prissy brat or anything unlike myself. I had no idea how he figured he knew so much of what we called ‘the real me’. Maybe it was his ability to see the goodness in people. Maybe he saw what was left of the good in me. I hoped he could.

  ***

  When we played the last show before we headed to New York, I felt a sense of pride. My brother’s music was doing so well in spite of everything that had happened over the summer. His record sales had skyrocketed, and “Femme Fatale” was going double platinum. I was amazed by not only my brother’s talent but by his humble success. No matter how many times I saw him react to the news of something that should have been so mundane to him, he still acted surprised, bewildered, and amazed. Heck, I did too. We would celebrate and go on with the rest of the tour with a feeling of pure joy. At night, we would talk about how different things could be, often left in tears at the thought.

  My first semester at Dartmouth was to start the third Wednesday of September. Ben closed on the house, and he was having me pick out color palettes and new furniture. He was doing a few renovations since it was an older farm house (it even had a bright red barn in the back), and he allowed me to make it a Pinterest dream come true. I picked out every little thing, and once he approved, he would send it over to his contractor. I was happy that he held so much faith in my interior design taste—although, I was a bit concerned by his lack of it.

  “Frances,” he said one night after a show.

  “Yeah?”

  “When we get back to New York, we’ll be packing up the last of your room and making your new one.”

  He was more excited about this than I was, and maybe that was on account of him refusing to allow me to have any say in what kind of room I could have. It was his special project, and with the way things had been going, I was worried I would end up living in the barn until my room was the way I really wanted it. All he had allowed me to do was pick out a bedroom set. I ended up choosing an off-white upholstered headboard and bed frame and a white dresser and vanity set. He also let me get a desk and said he would take care of the rest.

  “What’s your favorite color again?” he asked me.

  “Just make the room color some soft, subdued cool color. Like blue, ma
ybe.”

  I tried not to pester him about my room and all the things he could do to it to make it horrible. I tried to imagine the best room I could ever possibly have. Besides, I wouldn’t be living in it for long. I’d be living on campus for the first year of college. When we were supposed to be sleeping, we often talked about how much we had grown while he let me pick out my dorm room decorations and bedding. I knew I had a roommate, and once I corresponded with her, she said she liked everything I had in mind. So far, things were going great.

  Which only meant that things would plummet downhill again. Such was my life.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Before we could officially go to New York to finish off the tour with a bang, we were forced to do a few interviews, some for magazines and a few others that would be considered press releases. We also had to travel to the ceremony at Ben’s label where they would officially make “Femme Fatale” a double platinum record. We were on what were considered “press days.” They were sort of like break days except all we did was pose, smile, and answer everyone’s questions. I was afraid someone would bring up Everett’s death and my involvement with him—though, Ben reassured me that he wouldn’t let anyone ask such questions. All the while, he hounded me with questions like “Do you like this plum shade or this this duvet cover?” (neither of which really caught my eye) and “What the hell am I supposed to do with only peacock feathers as an inspiration?”

  I eventually began to ignore him. If he wanted to keep my room a secret, I couldn’t help him. Despite that, he spent the majority of our six-hour flight asking me questions about this or that for my room. He would show me pictures that had been zoomed in to show me the pertinent details without giving away what it was.