by Mandi Beck
Today is Lyric’s first birthday, and Cora and Perry insisted that I throw a huge party. Not that they had to twist my arm. I want nothing more than to celebrate my miracle. In the kitchen with Perry and Joaquin, they sit and talk while I move around the kitchen humming “Love Me Tender” to an almost asleep birthday girl on my shoulder. When the doorbell rings, I wave them away and go to answer it. It’s probably Bear with the cake. Opening the door, my smile slips a little when I see that it’s not Bear but Stone.
He stands, a stuffed pink bird with its wings wrapped around her baby and a pretty little gift box in his hands.
“Hey, Wills. I came to wish Lyric a happy birthday and bring by her present,” he says, letting his gaze fall to her, love shining in his eyes. Immense guilt washes over me. So I lash out.
“Stone, what are you doing here?”
“I just told you—”
“No, not just here today, I mean here. In Toronto,” I hiss in a low whisper. I don’t want JD to walk up on this. Things are just finally going back to normal after the awards.
“I think we both know the answer to that, Birdie.” He grins but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
“What’s the matter? Did your girlfriend leave town already?” My tone is nasty, tinged with jealousy. I hate myself for it.
“Girlfriend?” Stone asks, confused.
“The one that you had on the red carpet with you. It’s fine; you don’t have to pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
When he raises his hand to smother a laugh my eyes narrow dangerously. “Birdie, I brought Scar with me to the show. She drove with my truck from Austin and asked if she could go with me since she’s never been.”
My eyes pop wide from their glare. “Scarlet is here?” Oh my God I’m an idiot. A jealous one and now he knows it.
“She was. She had to get back though. She wanted to come and see you, but I had to leave town for a couple days, and she felt funny staying on her own here. She wanted me to tell you that she misses you though and to call her.”
I shift Lyric, embarrassed at my hasty assumptions.
“I miss her too. I’ll call her this week,”
He just nods and watches me for a second. It’s the softening of his eyes that I can’t handle. So again I lash out, stepping out on the porch and further away from the occupants inside.
“Stone, why do you keep doing this? I don’t want to do this push/pull thing with you anymore.”
“Can’t be helped, Wills. You’re my rhythm. I need you, to be me.” I watch the strong column of his throat expand as he swallows, but before he can continue I interrupt him.
“No, I used to be a part of the music, Stone, that's when—”
“You are the music, Wills!” he whisper-shouts forcefully so as not to wake Lyric. “You are the fucking music. Every verse. Every lyric. Every God damn note is you,” Stone says softer now. “I bleed you, Willow. I sing you! You're the music that lives in my heart. It's always going to be that way; it always has been. Whether we're together or not, whether you admit Lyric is mine or not. It's always going to be you and me, Birdie.”
His voice catches on the nickname that before he came back he hadn't used in so long. He drops his head, his hands shoved into his pockets, and I just watch him, tears sneakily streaming down my face. I’m not sure when they started and I’m not sure I can stop them. I want to tell Stone the truth. But I can't without hurting me. Once I tell him, nothing will be the same for either one of us ever again. As it is, he’s trying so hard to convince me to come back to him and I don't want to be that girl anymore. I don't want to be the girl that they whisper about in pity or laugh at when they think she can't hear. I want to be the woman that I've become since I've left him. The woman that loves him still but also loves herself and knows that she can live without him. I'm not sure that he's capable of loving that woman. I'm brought from my thoughts when he raises his head and tags me with his cool gray eyes. Reaching up, he dashes the tears from my cheeks with his calloused fingers. Searching my face with his own tear-filled eyes.
“I’ve been a fuck-up all my life, Wills. I fucked up everything because I could, and everyone let me because nobody gave a fuck. I fucked up with you so bad, over and over I fucked up, baby. I know I did. I did you dirty when all you did was love me,” he says shakily. “When I was a nobody playing dive bars, you stood beside me and encouraged me. Once I made it big, you stood behind me and let me shine, and all you ever asked for was my love and respect, and I couldn't even do that shit right, even though I wanted to so fucking badly. So fucking badly,” Stone whispers as he brushes a thumb across my trembling lip. “Wills, I'll never let you go, not really. Please don’t ask me to.”
He stops speaking and I stare at his throat and the tattoo peeking out of the collar of his shirt. Watching again as he swallows. I close my eyes when he starts speaking in a voice clogged with emotion. “I love you so fucking much, Willow. So much that I'm going to give you the respect you've always wanted and deserve. The tour starts the day after tomorrow, only a few small shows for promo. Tell me to stay and I'm here, Birdie. Just one word and I'll cancel the whole fucking thing, I don't care. You mean more, this baby,” he places a hand over Lyric’s back as she sleeps against me, “means more. Tell me to stay, Wills,” he pleads. I fight the sob trying to break through and raise my head to meet his gaze.
Letting my eyes wander over his face, memorizing his every feature, the love and desperation rolling off him in waves, I shake my head no. “You need to go, Stone. The band needs you, the guys, they depend on you,” I tell him on a broken breath. Then stronger, “I need you to go. I can't do this anymore. I cannot be who you need me to be.” Taking a step back, I break his hold on me, replacing his hand on Lyric’s back with my own. “If I let you stay, if I ask you to, I'm not the only one you'll be hurting the next time, and I can't allow that, Stone. I could never inflict that kind of hurt on another person, especially my own child.” The words hurt him. They’re like a punch to the gut; it’s obvious in the way he flinches. When he opens his mouth to say something, the door creaks open behind me.
“Stone, I didn’t know you were invited,” Joaquin bites out in a tone about a mile south of welcoming.
“Yeah, well, Willow doesn’t tell you everything, I’m sure,” Stone responds, his tone just as chilly.
“Probably not, but I know her pretty damn well, and I would bet money that she didn’t invite you over.”
“You think you know her, but you don’t. You don't know her, not like I do.” JD shakes his head, ready to argue. “You may know her body,” Stone chokes out, clearly not liking the way the words taste on his tongue if his pinched face is any indication. “The feel of her skin. But you don't know her. You don't know that she likes to be sung to when she can't sleep. Or that she had her heart broken by that asshole Eddie Christensen her junior year. That Arrow took her to prom in place of him and that I hated every minute of it. You don't know that her aunt smelled like roses and would cook for us on Sundays, and you don't know how hard it was for her to say goodbye to the only family she had left.” He looks over at me. I’m barely able to make him out through the tears in my eyes. This Stone is the one I fell in love with, and it kills me that it took losing me, losing himself, to find this version again. “You don't know her. Not like I do.” The words are spoken softly but with conviction and so much truth. Nobody could ever know me the way Stone does.
All the heartfelt sentiment lasts about two point five seconds before all hell breaks loose and the hot-headed Stone replaces the sentimental one. Seeing it happen is like watching someone flip a switch to light up a room. Not wanting Lyric to be woken up by the outburst I’m sure is about to come, I step into the house quickly, almost running into an eavesdropping Perry.
“Here, let me take her. I think you’re going to need to have all of your senses available to diffuse the situation out there.” Even she knows, from her spot in the window, that shit’s about to go
down.
Handing her Lyric, I get one foot onto the porch when I hear Stone, who has stalked off the porch to pace, say, “You’re not needed here. No matter what you’ve been playing at, this is my fucking family. Not yours. My girls!” Stone seethes, thumping a fist against his chest in agitation, possession.
“You don’t know shit. You rock star types are all the same, you know that? Everything is always about you, until it’s not,” JD spits out, disgusted, descending the steps after Stone. “I’m not playing at anything. I’m here because Willow wants me here. Why are you here again?” Joaquin asks, a smug, calm look taking over his face.
“I’m here for my family. I—“
“They’re not yours! Willow hasn’t been in a long time, and Lyric never was,” Joaquin roars, startling me. I’ve never seen him angry, let alone enraged as he is now. “Tell him, Willow. Tell this selfish piece of shit what happened the night he threw you to the wolves. His precious Wills, tossed out with nothing!” he yells, malice and hate dripping from every word, his accent more pronounced.
I gasp, my hand flying to cover my mouth, a strangled “Joaquin” bubbling past my lips. Stone tenses next to me, eyes narrowed and bouncing from a pissed off, pushed to his limits Joaquin to me. There is no stopping the onslaught of tears. They come hard and fast, leaving trails of fire on my already overheated skin.
“Birdie?” Stone looks at me for answers. The confusion evident as he steps closer.
My arms tight around my middle, I take a step back, the sob caught in my throat escaping. I shake my head no, but it doesn’t matter. Joaquin just keeps talking, his voice fading in and out, wavering like a heat wave on a summer day, bending and shimmering right in front of my eyes. Teasing, promising to burn me.
I turn to run away from it, from them, but Stone stops me, “Birdie, please. What is he saying?”
His voice is ragged, war torn. And it brings me to my knees. Dropping to the ground, I bury my head in my hands, the pain swallowing me whole, leaving nothing for me to hold on to. Nothing to grasp at, to anchor me to the here and now. I’m blank on big chunks from that horrid night. I don’t want to remember any of them, fight daily to forget, but my mind swirls as JD just drones on, ignorant to what he’s doing to me. What he’s stealing from me. This isn’t his story. Listening to him, while trying to block him out, the memories taking me back to a bar down the street from the posh hotel that I had just been evicted from by the man whom I’ve loved all of my adult life. An innocent, kind smile and an offer of a drink and an ear. I tear at my hair as I recall waking up in a strange motel room, alone and . . . naked from the waist down with a head leaden and fogged. To jackknifing to a sitting position and scrambling to find my pants, finally finding them and shoving my legs into them as I run to escape. Tripping over my shoes and falling onto the door. Of pausing just long enough to snatch up the sandals that had caused me to stumble before yanking open the thin door to the room and breaking out into a cheerfully sunny day, unaware of the violent storm brewing inside of me.
“Miss? Miss, are you okay?” I whirl toward the sound of the voice, my head swimming and the glare of the sun throwing me off balance. Staggering, I’m steadied by a gentle hand to my arm. I flinch, yanking my arm back, still willing my vision to adjust. “It’s all right; I’m an officer. I won’t hurt you. I’m just going to reach in my pocket and show you my badge.” His voice is soothing but it still grates over the rawness of my skin, my ears, the throbbing in my skull. “Here it is, miss.” He flashes me his shiny badge and it’s like a thousand knives to my sensitive eyes. Wincing, I recoil too quickly, listing to the side. “Easy, there. Let me bring you to this bench; we’ll get more help on the way.” The stranger is careful not to touch me and I’m grateful. The thought of his hands on me has me bending at the waist and retching. Stomach tightening painfully, I dry heave, moaning as I do. Before long, I’m being lowered to a gurney and loaded into the back of an ambulance. Talk swirling around me that I understand but don’t want to accept. Possibly homeless . . . no identification . . . Rohypnol . . . rape kit . . . all of these words worse than the last until I just tune them all out and squeeze my eyes shut.
When I wake up again, I’m in a curtained off hospital room, a nurse and the same gentleman who helped me earlier speaking quietly in the corner. I open my mouth to speak, but my throat feels full of sandpaper and glass. Rushing over, the nurse lifts a straw to my lips, instructing me in a soothing tone to drink. She asks the man to leave as a doctor walks in. A woman with a face full of compassion and that’s when they tell me. Drugged and raped. I had been drugged and raped a block away from my hotel while my boyfriend laid inside, high, drunk, and most likely with another woman, maybe even a harem of women. Drugged and raped . . . drugged . . . and . . . raped . . .
He’s still talking, but I can’t take anymore. This isn’t right, this isn’t his story to tell no matter how far Stone pushed him. “Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it!” I yell through my tears. “Stop it right now!”
When two strong arms wrap around me and pull me up, I know it’s Joaquin. Struggling at first to move away from him, he tightens his hold. “Shhh, chèrie. Shhh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I let him push me. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m so sorry.” I can hear the sincerity in his voice, but at that moment I don’t care. I trusted him. Confided in him. My shoulders sag in defeat. I lean back when he tugs me again, into his solid chest, and let him soothe me with soft words, some in French, some in jagged English, as he feathers kisses on the side of my face, in the mass of hair clinging to his beard. In my despair I forgot about Stone standing there until he takes hold of my arm, pulling me from Joaquin's hold as he pushes back on his shoulder. There is anguish and jealousy, fear and trepidation mixed with the confusion of before. It’s all more than I can handle, and I just want to go inside and hold my daughter. To bury my face in her sweet-scented hair and just . . . be. Instead I’m caught between two men, both of whom I care about and both of whom have destroyed my trust.
I hear Joaquin let loose a string of curses. And then softly, “Hey there, Lyric, come here to JD, your mama is okay, little songbird,” he soothes. I watch through my tears as he takes my daughter from Perry’s arms and goes back into the house with her. My friend looks worried and torn but finally follows.
On unsteady legs I turn, embarrassed, hurt, and exhausted, both mentally and physically, to face Stone only to find him staring at the house, to where Lyric just disappeared. Horrified, he just gapes after her, the look in his eyes pushing me over the edge as he shakes his head in denial. I slap him hard across the face. He reels back, palm to the red imprint of my hand, looking at me in shock. Pain, despair, disbelief . . . guilt flash across his face.
“Don't! Don't you dare look at her like that!” I seethe, rearing back to hit him again. He catches my wrist, restraining me so that I can’t slap him. “She's mine, not his! Mine! She is pure and innocent, every beautiful and decent thing inside me,” I insist, my voice breaking on yet another sob. “You don't get to look at her like that! Ever, Stone. Ever,” I wail as I pound a fist against his chest and he lets me. Over and over until we’re both on the ground and he’s pulling me into his lap. His tears coming as fast as my own. Arms bound around me as I fist his shirt in my hands. “She's mine. My heart’s rhythm. Don't you look at her like she's not,” I cry. My words coming out on hiccupping, body-wracking sobs as I repeat over and over, “She’s mine. She’s mine.”
Stone methodically rocks and soothes a hand over my hair to my back and then up again, over and over, working to calm us both. Him knowing is almost a cleansing for me. I feel free of the burden that the secret was, even if I hate how he had to hear it. The pain is always there, always lingering. The fear, the blame, the sadness. Then I look at Lyric, and I’m . . . grateful. That’s not a word anyone should ever use after being raped. But from that ugly, disgusting, and vile darkness came the most beautiful, rewarding light. That’s what I have to hold on to. My daughter and music hav
e helped to heal me when nothing else could. My Lyric, who should be a daily reminder of the horror that I went through, is my saving grace.
I tried so hard to shield Stone from the truth, partly because there’s something inside me that blames him, and another larger part of me that wanted to protect him from the ugly because he’s had so much of it in his life. I’ve wanted to tell him so many times, all for different reasons. To hurt him, to scare him away, and sometimes because I needed him. In my weakest moments I wanted to tell him so that he would hold me and make it all okay because he’s always had that power. But once he came back, I couldn’t. I was so afraid that telling him would force him back into a world of drugs, alcohol, and despair, and I couldn’t bear to take that chance when he’s come so damn far. Him knowing now though, is healing in itself. I feel like I’ve taken a giant step out of the darkness that I’m not always aware is shadowing me. I just have to hope that it won’t drown him in his own feelings.
I’m not sure how long we sit there in the grass, rocking and crying, sniffling and soothing. Minutes, hours, days. But we’re still there when Cora and Bear pull up, and we must look as horrid as we feel because before the truck rocks to a complete stop, Bear is out and dashing toward us.
“What did you do to her, you motherfucker?” he bellows. Lifting me from Stone’s grasp like I’m nothing more than a doll and placing me behind him. When Stone reaches to bring me back into his arms, Bear grabs him by the shirt, winding back to punch him.
“Bear, no. Stop. He didn’t do anything,” I shout as I push back on his chest, trying my best to get through to him.
Cora flies out of the passenger side to intervene, pulling on his massive arm.
“That’s enough. She’s okay, Bear. Listen to Willow,” she soothes. All the time he’s got a hold of Stone who’s not even trying to fight back or protect himself. Looking at him over my shoulder as I strain against Bear’s weight, Stone looks completely void. His face ashen, his eyes blank, bereft.
