by Shandi Boyes
“Noah, wait up” Marcus yells, before he catches up to me at the elevators.
“Don’t do anything stupid that you might regret tomorrow” he warns as Slater and Nick join us to wait for the elevators.
“It’s packed, do you think we can get in?” Marcus asks Slater when we notice the long queue that is lining the street outside of ‘Mr Mix’s’ karaoke bar.
“Come on” I advise as I walk straight past the hundreds of people lining up to go directly to the bouncer standing outside the bars entrance.
“Noah Taylor from Rise Up” I advise to the bouncer.
Shouldn’t we start getting some benefits from all the time and effort we have been putting into our album?
“I know you” smiles the large dark skinned bouncer. His teeth shining brightly in the moonlit sky.
“Come on in” he advises as he opens the red velvet rope for me and the band to enter, causing the patrons in the queue to let out a loud angry gasp.
“Fuck yes” Slater laughs as we walk into the heavily packed bar, pleased that we are finally starting to get some pull in the industry.
There is a large karaoke stage against the very back wall, a glass bar lines the complete left hand side and there are tables and chairs scattered throughout the middle of the bar. Looking around at the small handful of booths that line the right hand side of the bar, I now understand why the queue outside was so long. There are several well-known actresses, actors and musicians sitting in the roped off VIP section.
“Good evening gentlemen, I am Tony owner of Mr Mix’s. It’s a pleasure to have you in my bar this evening” introduces a man that stops directly in front of us.
He is quiet short, the top of his head not even reaching my chin and he seems just as wide as he is tall. His hair is black and slicked into place with a whole heap of hair gel.
“Noah Taylor, nice to meet you” I reply as I accept his hand to shake.
“Would you gentlemen like to sit at the booths or in the regular seating?” he questions as he screws his nose up in disgust when he states the part about regular seating.
I quickly glance over towards the booths before turning my gaze back to Tony.
“Regular seating will be great” I reply.
Just because you become famous doesn’t mean you need to turn into an arrogant snob, like most of the people in the booths appear to be.
Once we take our seats, Slater goes and gets us all a round of shots. I have never really been a hard liquor drinker as beer has always been my choice, but I can still feel my blood rushing through my body after seeing Zander smirking behind Emily, that I need something a bit more substantial than beer.
“To success and getting Noah smashed!!!” laughs Slater as he lifts the shot glass to his mouth and swallows the brown liquid in one hit.
I had lost count of how many shots I had swallowed by the time the first hour ticked by, but it was helping to simmer down the anger I had raging inside. The table we are sitting at is becoming more crowded as fans hoover in close to us. They are enjoying the opportunity of being able to party with someone famous. We even signed a few autographs, I even signed one girl’s cleavage in permanent black ink when she requested it.
“Noah, don’t fuck it up” Marcus warns as I plop back down on my seat next to him.
Anyone would swear by the way he was acting that I was getting a blowjob from the girl instead of just signing an autograph.
“You should sing Noah” one pretty blonde girl requests while fluttering her eyelashes at me. Her cleavage is dangerously close to escaping her tight pink singlet top.
“You want to hear me sing?” I flirt back. Her gaze seeks mine as she nods her head seductively while she slowly licks her lips.
“What do you want to hear?” I breathe out slowly as I move closer to her face, causing her to blush.
“Umm I don’t know” she whispers slowly. She is that close to my face I can feel her breath against my lips.
“Alright, go and pick something and I will sing it for you” I advise as I tap my index finger gently on her nose.
I am so fucking drunk right now I am not even sure if I was actually hitting her nose or not. But she eagerly runs off towards the stage to select a song for me to sing.
“Noah, I think you have had enough” Nick advises as he pulls me back down into the booth.
I look over and notice that Slater, Marcus and Nick are all watching me with uneasiness, as their eyes narrow at me.
“It’s just a song, I’m not fucking her” I angrily state, before I stumble out of the booth to head towards the stage.
I take the microphone off the eager fan while attempting to give her a curtsy, I nearly end up tripping over my own feet due to the amount of liquor I had consumed. I quickly gather my footing and stand in the middle of the stage. I immediately recognize the introduction to the song she has selected, it is Bon Jovi’s “Always”. The song couldn’t have been anymore perfectly selected for how I am feeling right now. I manage to belt out the first few lines without hesitation, but as soon as I reach the chorus “I will love you baby, always and I’ll be there forever and a day, always” all I can see is Emily standing before me. I end up dropping the microphone on the wooden stage before staggering back to the booth in search of my phone in my leather jacket.
“Fuck” I yell when I realise I have left my phone at the hotel.
“Here” states Marcus as he hands me his cell phone.
I quickly dial Emily’s number as I stumble out the front of the bar.
“It he ok Marcus?” Emily questions concerned into the phone.
‘It’s me” I reply harshly.
“Noah, oh my god, I have been trying to call you for hours. Where are you? Are you ok?” Emily questions panicked.
“Why did you lie to me Emily?” I slur into the phone.
“Are you drunk?” she replies angrily.
“Yes, but answer the fucking question Emily, why did you lie to me?” I question angrily as I start to walk back to the hotel.
“I haven’t lied to you Noah” she replies as she takes a small inhale of breath which means she is going to start crying soon.
Even though I am fucking angry at her, it still kills me to know that she is crying.
“Where are you Noah?” she questions in-between small sobs.
“I just left a fucking bar. Why him Emily? Out of everyone, why him?” I ask as I sit down in the gutter, noticing a few people milling outside of the karaoke bar look over towards me in recognition.
“Noah, I don’t understand what you are saying, you are slurring so bad I can barely understand you” she whispers into the phone.
“Fucking Zander” I angrily yell into the phone.
I wait for Emily to reply, but she remains completely quiet on her end of the line. Other than hearing her small inhales of breath I would have assumed she had hung up on me.
“Emily” I slur into the phone, wanting her to answer my question.
“You have no right questioning me about my past Noah, no right at all! I have to live knowing the countless women you have slept with before me, but you can’t even handle knowing I had slept with one man before you” she replies angrily.
“The past” I snarl angrily.
He was so much in the past that he was standing directly behind her smiling into the fucking camera. I peer up from the gutter and notice that Marcus is walking over towards me.
“Yes Noah, the past, you’re being an immature, jealous, insensitive jerk” she yells as she huffs loudly into the phone.
“Call me when you are sober Noah” Emily states angrily into the phone, before she hangs up on me causing me to scream out my frustration into the street.
“You know Emily, Noah; you know she wouldn’t break your trust” Marcus assures me as he assists me out of the gutter and helps me to walk back to the hotel.
The next morning, I woke up with the worst thumping head I had ever experienced in my whole twenty-two years. I k
new what Marcus had said was true, but seeing Zander standing in the background smiling at the camera continued to play havoc with my insecurities that one day Emily would eventually leave me for somebody better. I worked so hard the next two months trying to become the man that Emily deserved, so I could be successful enough to give her everything she wanted, but instead of pulling her towards me, I slowly let her slip away. I was too jealous and insecure to ask her why Zander was there that night.
“Tell me what happened Noah and I will try to help you” states Dr Miller with concern in her voice.
“What’s the use? It’s too late now anyway” I reply quietly as I look up at the clock and notice that our hour session has ran over by fifteen minutes.
Chapter 15
The past few weeks I have managed to talk to Dr Miller a lot more about Emily. It still fucking hurts every day that I talk about her. But Dr Miller has made me understand that Emily knew that I loved her. She has also tried to help lessen the guilt that I feel for not seeing Emily for those two months, but nothing she can say to me will ever convince me that I wasn’t in the wrong, even though the circumstances of not seeing Emily for those two months were not entirely my fault. I should have manned up and asked her, instead of letting the doubts I had fester for weeks on end.
I remember after I had won Emily’s heart back and we were sitting in the cave at Bronte’s peak talking, I stiffened when Emily had said she appreciated me being honest with her. I wanted so badly then to ask Emily about Zander, but I knew that she would have gotten angry about me questioning her. It wasn’t that I believed Emily was cheating on me, I just wanted to know why she had never told me that she had seen Zander at her school. I am known to have a jealous streak, but I didn’t like the fact that Emily had kept this a secret from me. It was only after I had returned to Los Angeles after winning Emily back that I found out that Emily had never lied to me.
“Noah there is someone here that wants to see you” announces the Destiny’s Records executive assistant Peta.
We had just finalised a meeting with Cormack and Delilah in regards to the upcoming concert tour we are doing with the ‘O’Reilly Brothers’. I was a bit excited about who could have possibly came to visit me in Los Angeles, until I rounded the corner and recognized the arrogant smirk looking at me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I yell angrily, as I walk up to Zander standing in the studio’s lobby.
“I just want to talk to you” he says quietly while his gaze looks past me.
When I turn my head, I notice that Peta and Delilah are both standing there watching our exchange.
“Five minutes” I state angrily, before storming out into the street as Zander slowly follows behind.
“If I find out you have fucking touched her I will…” I start to spit out angrily.
“I haven’t touched her” he advises, interrupting me.
He roughly runs his fingers through his long dark hair, making me realise he hasn’t even attempted to turn himself into a man. He still looks like a teenage boy who spends all his time at the beach.
“I don’t even know why I am fucking here!” He breathes out angrily, his gaze shoots up towards the cloud filled sky.
“She doesn’t even know that I am there, I have been hiding in wait for the day that she would leave you and then I would have had a chance to make it up to her for all the wrong I had ever done to her” he says regretfully, while his gaze turns to me.
“I transferred to Parkwood State a few months ago and I noticed Emily the instant she walked out of her economics class. I couldn’t believe out of all the colleges, I end up transferring to is the exact same College that Emily attends. After being riddled with guilt for years I thought fate had finally played its hand and that this was going to be my opportunity to make everything right with her” he informs me, as his eyes slightly gloss.
“I watched as she looked over towards me and did the most beautiful smile, before she started running down the stairs. It was only once she leaped into your arms that I realised the smile planted on her face was for you. I should have been fucking happy that even after everything I had put her through she could still find happiness, but I just couldn’t feel happy, I just felt angry, sad and jealous. So I waited in the wings, seeking out an opportunity to swoop in and win Emily back. It was only when I overheard her talking to you on the phone that I asked my mate Matthew to grab her in a bear hug, hoping that your jealousy would force you to make a mistake” he confesses, as I grab a hold of his shirt roughly to pull him towards me.
That telephone call was the start of the worst two months in my relationship with Emily.
“But she never gave anyone even a second look, she started taking extra classes and spent all her time studying in her room, waiting for you to call. She didn’t even notice me when she walked right past me while talking to you on the phone last week. She seems so miserable and heartbroken and then I saw your performance on MTV and I realised how much I had hurt her again. I fucked up and I am here trying to make it right” he states.
Staring into his eyes I realise that he is in love with Emily, I can’t blame him for that, she is the type of girl you can’t help but love. I push him away from me as I stand in the street clenching my fists tightly, while staring directly into the eyes of a guy that has caused Emily months of pain and torment, and then I realise I had done the exact same thing. I wasn’t any better than the pathetic man standing in front of me. But I was lucky, as I still had Emily’s love, as much as I wanted to make Zander pay for what he had done to Emily, I knew that he would already be hurting knowing that he was never going to have her. I know that Emily’s heart belongs solely to me. So as hard as it seemed at the time I walked away, leaving Zander untouched and went and called the love of my life to make sure she knew how much I loved her.
Chapter 16
“You are in the final stretch now Noah, your very last week” exclaims Dr Miller as she sits down on the large reclining chair next to the double sofa I am sitting on.
I never thought I would have been able to survive three long months in Rehab but here I am in the final week. It has been an extremely hard few months. The first few nights I heavily detoxed after spending the last several months constantly drunk. My hands had started to shake so bad the first few weeks that I was becoming concerned that I may not ever be able to play the guitar again, but once the detoxing finalised my normal hand movements returned.
Jacob has visited me every weekend over the past three months. He always seemed extremely uncomfortable during his visits that I had told him he didn’t need to come every weekend, but he always refused and said he would be back the following week. I have never seen Jacob really nervous, but as soon as he walks into the double doors of the facility he goes as white as a ghost.
“Okay, so today I think we need to discuss what your life is going to be like once you leave Hope Hills. I know when you first arrived I had misjudged you Noah and I did apologize for that. But, I need to make sure you realise that your life is going to be very different once you walk out of these doors again. The temptation to drink is going to be very strong, especially for someone in your profession. You are always going to have the paparazzi following you around, trying to get a reaction out of you. You can’t let them get to you. You need to remember the steps for anger management that you have been taught here. Stop and think about the situation, breathe deeply, consider what actions you could take, analyse the situation and act accordingly in a grown up responsible manner” Dr Miller explains firmly to me.
I didn’t even consider the fact that as soon as I exit those large double doors, I will be once again thrown to the wolves defenceless.
“I also think it is extremely import for you to go and visit Emily” she confides softly waiting for me to react angrily at her.
“You keep trying to deny that this has happened, but you need to bring it to reality, face it head on” Dr Miller whispers.
The remaining week o
f rehab is spent preparing for me to go back into the real world. They even returned my boots, clothes and toiletries and I noticed that the cargo pants hanging in my wardrobe still had their drawstrings intact. I look at my reflection in the mirror as I run my hand down my jawline, that is hidden behind a large scruff of messy facial hair. Lowering my face into the vanity to splash it with water, I lather the shaving cream all over my scruffy beard. As the razor slowly moves along the edge of my jaw I feel like part of the old Noah is starting to resurface.
A smile forms on my face when I remember Emily attempting to shave me after we had spent the weekend together for her nineteenth Birthday. I had picked her up as per our usual schedule on a Friday afternoon but I had planned a whole surprise weekend for her.
