I closed my eyes, trying to envision his new look. The last time I’d seen him was when I watched the Grammys and the band won the Album of the Year award. He looked happy there, too, almost as if his dreams were fully unlocked and achieved.
“Are you happy, Maggie?” my sister asked.
I smiled and nodded, yet she didn’t notice me knock once on my leg beneath the table.
Happiness was hard to find alone in my bedroom, especially when the one you loved was out loving someone else.
As Cheryl and I spoke, Mama started shouting. “I didn’t break it, Eric! I was trying to fix it. You said you would weeks ago and never got around to it.”
“I told you not to mess with it. Now you screwed it up more,” Daddy barked back.
Cheryl frowned. “What is it they are fighting about this time?”
The dishwasher.
She didn’t ask any more questions. Mama and Daddy only had two versions of their relationship: the silent version, and the angered version.
If they weren’t mute, they were screaming.
If they weren’t screaming, they passed one another like ghosts.
Cheryl and I spoke for a bit more before she started yawning and headed to bed.
After we ended the call, I started playing Romeo’s Quest’s videos on YouTube. I tapped my fingers against my stomach, listening to the instrumentals wash over me. Cheryl understood my head and my soul, and when the lead singer started singing, I felt it—an arrow to my heart.
I listened to every video they had online, over and over again. My favorite song was “Broken Nightmares” because it was sad, but somehow hopeful.
Find me in the dark because that’s where I live
Open up your heart and let the shadows in
I blinked my eyes a few times, trying to envision what the band had been feeling when they wrote those lyrics, those words. Music was one of the best reminders that I was never alone in this world. It was that powerful moment when I heard the sounds and the lyrics. It seemed as if the artist crawled into my lonely head and created the song solely for me, reminding me that somewhere out there, there was someone feeling exactly as I was feeling.
I was sure Brooks would’ve loved them.
“Birmingham, you have been amazing tonight! We are The Crooks, and we thank you for allowing us to steal your hearts tonight,” Calvin shouted into the microphone at our second sold-out show in Birmingham, England—over sixteen thousand tickets sold, over sixteen thousand fans screaming our names and singing our lyrics.
I was sure it would never get old, standing in front of people who allowed you to live your dream out loud.
The four of us had been living our dreams for the past ten years, starting as an opening act for our favorite band, and now as the main event. Our lives were far from normal.
“Also, shooting a happy birthday to my partner in crime who turned twenty-eight today. Happy birthday, Calvin! The world’s a bit drunker because your voice exists.” The crowd cheered, screaming for an encore, which we weren’t allowed to do because time was money, and money was something management hated to waste.
We all rushed offstage and I crashed into my dressing room, just to have Michelle, my personal assistant, immediately coming at me with a list of radio and television appearances scheduled for the upcoming week.
“Great show tonight, Brooks,” she said, smiling and juggling her iPad, iPhone, and a pack of Skittles in her hands. “So tonight, there’s an after party at Urban.”
“The same Urban from last year where somehow Rudolph ended up in a fist-fight over tuna being made with dolphin meat?” I questioned, walking over to my sink and grabbing a wet cloth to wash my face.
“That’s the one. They’re throwing Calvin’s birthday party tonight.”
I sighed. I hated clubs, but I loved my best friend. “Therefore I have to be there.”
“You have to be there, at least for photos, then you can dip out whenever. In the morning, you gotta be at KISS 94.3 by five for the radio interview. After that we shuffle over to The Morning Blend at seven, at nine we will go to The Mix 102.3 for a live stream radio shoot, and then by twelve we are meeting at Craig Simon’s talk show. Back to the arena at three for sound check, meet and greet four-thirty to six, then dinner with the opening act where there will be a photoshoot with a few reporters before the show at eight. Any questions?”
“Um, yeah, when do I get to sleep?”
She snickered and began typing on her phone. “You know my motto, Brooks—”
“We can sleep when we’re six feet under,” I replied, echoing her words. I sat down in my chair and lifted up the package I had put together that afternoon before the show. “Can you find a post office to mail this off tomorrow?”
Michelle scowled. “When am I supposed to find time to do that?”
I smirked. “You know my motto: why not find a reason to visit a post office each day?”
“That’s not your motto, but I’ll do it.” She snatched the book from my hand, and narrowed her eyes at me. “Does it bother you?”
“Does what bother me?”
“That she never sends books back anymore?”
Maggie hadn’t sent me a book since the year before when I told her I was seeing Sasha. Did it bother me? Every single day. Did I miss the pink Post-its? Every single day. Would I ever let on that it hurt? Never. “Nah. I’m not really expecting any kind of reply anymore.”
“You must’ve done something awful to make her stop.”
“What makes you think it was my fault?”
She smiled. “The penis in your pants.” She started walking off toward the door to leave. “I really hope whoever this book girl is has a huge Beauty and The Beast-style library, because she’ll need it with all the books you’ve sent her way lately. You’ve got twenty minutes to shower and wash up before we head over to Urban.” With that, she was gone.
I sat in front of my mirror and breathed in all my changes. I had bags under my eyes at the age of twenty-eight, not small bags, very noticeable bags that our makeup artist was so good at hiding. My arms were inked up from my younger days of drunken tattoos while doing concerts around the U.S., and my constantly growing beard was longer than it should’ve been, but my manager, Dave, told me beards were in and he therefore refused to let me shave.
I wondered what Maggie would’ve thought of my hairy face.
I wondered what Maggie would’ve thought about me.
I wondered if I ever crossed her mind the way she always seemed to cross mine.
“Hey, hairy monster,” a voice said, breaking me from my thoughts. The moment I swung around in my chair to see Sasha, I felt guilt. I hated when my mind wandered to Maggie May when Sasha was around. It didn’t seem fair to anyone.
Sasha walked over to me and sat in my lap. “Tonight was amazing. You’re amazing,” she whispered, kissing my nose. The guilt was fast to fade whenever Sasha came near me. She was beautiful, not only in her looks, but in her kindness. You didn’t find many people as gentle as her in the realm of fame.
“Thanks,” I replied, kissing her chin. “We have to make an appearance at Urban tonight.”
She groaned, hating clubs as much as I did. “Seriously? I was hoping we could go back to the hotel, turn on the whirlpool, and order room service.”
“Oh, don’t tempt me.”
Her lips glided against mine. She tasted like red wine, her favorite drink of choice backstage whenever she was able to fly out to catch one of our shows.
“I fly out in the morning. I have a photoshoot in Los Angeles, then a runway show in New York.”
“You just got here a few days ago,” I complained. Since the tour had started, Sasha and I had only seen each other a handful of times, but we always found a few minutes to FaceTime each night. She’d flown to Birmingham four days before, and even though we were in the same city, I still had to run around all the time. It wasn’t fair to our relationship, but Sasha knew what it was like. I’d flown out t
o see her during my breaks, but she’d been working on her career just as hard as I had been on mine.
“I know. I miss you. I miss you even when you’re right here.”
I pulled her closer in my lap and rested my head on her forehead. “How about this? How about we make a quick stop at Urban, for an hour or so, then go back to the hotel and pull an all-nighter eating room service in the whirlpool?”
Her body stiffened up and a pleasant smile formed on her lips. “Don’t you have a busy day tomorrow? When will you sleep?”
“I can sleep when I’m six feet under,” I joked, mocking Michelle. “But seriously. I’d rather be tired because I got to spend time with you than fully rested any day.”
Her hands fell against my cheeks, and she bent forward to kiss me. “I’m wild about you, Mr. Griffin. Now come on, you go shower and get ready for tonight.”
We made our way to Urban and stayed an hour and thirty minutes—longer than we thought we had planned to stay, but it was worth it. Calvin had the time of his life, and it was the best feeling in the world, seeing him happy. Stacey was right there on his arm, too, the same place she’d been since eighth grade.
There was something about Sasha and me when we went out together—people noticed us. We were the life of every event; we laughed, we drank, we danced. Our mouths were always moving nonstop, chatting it up with people, and we had a way of finishing each other’s sentences. Being social with Sasha Riggs was effortless. We gelled together so well it was impossible for anyone to doubt we had been destined to meet one another over a year ago.
The ‘it’ pair, magazines called us.
The next Brad and Angelina.
America’s next royal couple.
It was a lot to live up to, but we did it with our charm. There was no one else I knew who could keep up with my words—with my voice.
By the time Sasha and I headed back to the hotel, we were both pretty drunk. Whenever she was wasted, she got the hiccups, and it was the cutest fucking thing in the world. We kissed the whole way up to our room, and when we made it inside, she kicked off her high heels, hurried over to the whirlpool, and turned it on.
“Grab the room service menu and order anything you want plus French fries. Lots of French fries.”
I moved toward the telephone to order the food and paused when I saw The Kite Runner sitting on the end table.
My chest tightened as I started flipping through the book and reading Maggie’s tabs.
“I’m gonna put bubbles in it. I don’t know if I’m supposed to, but I’m gonna,” Sasha shouted.
I didn’t reply; I just kept flipping.
“Tonight was actually a lot of fun, wasn’t it? I loved the crowd. There was a lot of…”
She kept speaking, but I stopped listening. The guilt started coming back to me as I read Maggie’s notes. I shouldn’t have felt the way I did. I shouldn’t have missed her. I shouldn’t have been pulled back to her every time I opened one of the old novels she sent.
“Did you order?” Sasha asked, walking my way. I opened the drawer on the nightstand and shoved the book in, closing it fast.
“Hm?”
“Did you order the food?”
“Oh, yeah, not yet.”
She raised a questioning eyebrow. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
No. “Come here,” I said, sitting on the king-sized bed. She sat down on the bed, facing me. I took her hands into mine. “Can we try something?”
“You’re scaring me…”
“Sorry, I just want to try five minutes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I want us to stare at each other for five minutes.”
She grimaced. “Why?”
“Please, Sasha? I just…I need you to try.”
She nodded. “Okay.” During the first minute, we struggled to make eye contact. During the second minute, she commented on how weird being quiet was. At minute three, she dropped my hands. “I don’t get it, Brooks. I don’t get what’s going on with you. I mean, we had such a good night, and then we get back to the hotel, and you’re all weird.”
“I know, sorry.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is this about the book girl?”
“Who?”
She bit her bottom lip. “You know, the book girl. You think I don’t notice your hands are always either on your guitar or in a book leaving notes you never leave me? Sometimes when you’re reading, I could be naked in front of you doing the hula and you wouldn’t even notice.”
She took a deep breath. “I love you, Brooks,” she said, her eyes filled with hope and a bit of worry.
My lips parted, and as I was about to speak, no words came out. All I could think of was, “Thank you.”
Sasha shifted her body and stood up from the bed. “Wow. Okay. I’m gonna go.”
“Sasha, wait!”
“Wait? Wait for what? Brooks, I just told you I loved you for the first time, and you said thank you. Jesus! You’re such an asshole!” she hollered. “It’s really hard being third, but I did it because I thought maybe somewhere along the line you’d bump me up.”
“Third?”
“Third in your life. You’ve got your music, your book girl, and then the rest of the world, and no matter how hard the rest of the world tries to keep up with your attention, you’re never fully there.”
I was an asshole. A true asshole. “I’m sorry, Sasha.”
“We’re good together. Everyone can see it. We’re good. We make sense.”
I nodded. She wasn’t wrong. She and I made sense to the whole world. I only wished we made sense to my heart, too.
She bit her bottom lip. “We’re breaking up, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, I think we are.”
“You love her?” she whispered, a few tears falling from her eyes.
My thumbs wiped away the evidence of her sadness, but only seconds later more showed up. “I tried not to. I wanted this to work. I wanted us to work.”
She shrugged. “I deserve better, you know.”
I nodded. I knew.
“And just to be clear, I’m the one breaking up here, not the other way around. I’m dumping you. Because I’m a catch, Brooks. I deserve someone who’s smart, and funny, and charming. Someone who’s not distant when we’re in the same room. Someone who sees me and loves me wholly, fully.”
“You do. You really do.”
She wiped away her tears and stood tall, grabbing her purse before leaving. “But what I deserve most—what everyone deserves most—is someone who looks at me the same way you look at those books.”
For the past few years, I’d stare out my window at Mrs. Boone’s house where she’d sit and drink her tea. Mama never did soften her stance on Mrs. Boone. When Daddy told her she was always welcome in the house, Mrs. Boone declined, saying she didn’t want to cause any more trouble. Still, we drank our tea. She’d always look up at me at noon and smile as I held a cup of tea in my hands. It was my favorite hour of the day, the thing I looked forward to the most.
Lately, she’d been missing.
The first few days, I didn’t think anything of it. Her car was gone from the driveway, and I figured perhaps she had taken a trip, even though trips weren’t something Mrs. Boone ever partook in. The next week, I started to worry when she hadn’t returned.
The more days that passed, the more nervous I became. Daddy went on a search, pulling in a few others from the neighborhood, and reported her as missing to the police, but they were certain there wasn’t anything they could do to help.
It was five in the morning when Daddy woke me with the news. “There was an accident, Maggie. Mrs. Boone was in a car accident and has been rushed to Mercy Hospital. She…”
He kept talking, but I couldn’t hear hi. The words went in and out of my ears. I didn’t cry. I was too shocked to cry. She was unconscious and in pretty bad shape. Daddy said she had been driving a bit wild, and an eyewitness said she had seemed confused and lost.
&
nbsp; When he left my room, the more real it became. I had to go see her. She had no one to check on her. She had no family. I was all she had.
So I had to leave.
“Are you sure, Maggie?” Daddy asked while he stood in the front foyer with me, ready to drive me to the hospital.
I nodded.
Mama’s head tilted up, gazing at me standing in the doorway. Her narrowed eyes had an intense focus, almost as if she was waiting for me to fail. Almost as if she wanted me to fail. “She’s not going to do it,” Mama said, a sharp tone to her voice. “She’s not ready. She’s not going anywhere.”
“No,” Daddy said sternly. “She’s going.” He locked eyes with me, his stare filled with hope and compassion. “She told me she was going, and she’s going. Right, Maggie?”
I knocked on the door twice, and he smiled.
Mama shifted around in her shoes and crossed her arms. Her nerves were loud and clear while Daddy once again missed them. “That’s a lie. Watch her. Watch her run back to her bedroom. It’s okay, Maggie. You can go back upstairs. Don’t let your father pressure you.”
“Katie, knock it off,” Daddy scolded.
She grimaced and remained silent, but I could feel her stare on me.
My hands were clammy, and my heart pounded against my ribcage.
Daddy smiled up at me. “Don’t worry, Mags. You got this. You can do it,” he cheered me on.
Shh…
I stepped backward once, and he noticed, stepping toward me. He rushed to me and shook his head. “No, no, no. Maggie, you can do this. Here.” He extended one hand out toward me and used his other to knock on the door twice. “Yes? Remember? You said yes. You’re coming.”
My eyes darted to his shaky hand and when I looked back at his eyes the hope he once held was swallowed whole by confusion and worry.
“Maggie?” he whispered, extending his hand more.
I stepped backward, and hit the end table in the foyer, shaking my head back and forth.
“Come on, Maggie. We have to get going,” he said.
I knocked on the table once. No.
The Silent Waters Page 17
