“Goodnight, Frankie,” Austin said.
It was the first time he’d spoken to me the way he used to, like all the frustration and hurt had melted away to leave behind the boy I once knew.
A few minutes later, the light in his room turned off.
— AUSTIN —
12. GOOD VS. EVIL
FOUR PLUS YEARS AGO — NOVEMBER 2012
I ran my hand back through my hair, even though the makeup artist had already finished with me and I was certainly screwing up whatever she had carefully done. I read the text one more time as my feet carried me back and forth across the dressing room that Dallas and I shared.
Mom: Frankie’s plane is delayed.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
I’d moved to Vegas to do this show even though I hadn’t wanted to. I’d put up with rehearsals, and bossy creative directors, and Dallas’s mood swings for three fucking months and the only thing that I wanted, the only thing that I cared about, was that Frankie made it to opening night.
If I was stuck in Vegas, three thousand miles from where I wanted to be, and I was going to do this thing, if I had to put my plans on hold to make Dallas happy, I at least wanted my best friend here to share it with me.
Best friend. That wasn’t even a weighty enough term to cover what Frankie meant to me. She was more than a friend, she was the other half of me. She was….my heart. And I knew that was a cheesy thing to even think, but it was true. Ever since the first day that I met her, I’d found that my heart beat harder and faster when she was around. And when she wasn’t? It felt empty.
I scrolled back through my texts to read our last conversation earlier in the morning before she got on the plane.
Me: Can’t wait to see you. I miss you.
Frankie: Ditto. I have a lot to tell you.
Me: Tell me now.
Frankie: It has to be in person.
Me: Tonight.
Frankie: I’ll be there.
And that was the last I’d heard from her before she boarded the plane. Of course I’d wondered what it was that she needed to tell me in person that she couldn’t say over text. I hoped it wasn’t something bad, something about her dad or Nana. She had been acting more withdrawn lately, strange even, but I thought it was due to nerves about her upcoming visit. She’d never been out of Maryland before.
I rubbed the back of my neck because if I rubbed my chest to ease the pain of the constant ache I felt from missing Frankie, I might screw up the ridiculous costume they’d stuffed me into. If I knocked off any of the sequins, the costume director Lilith would probably go batshit crazy and try to cancel the show. I snagged my sleeve on the cello during dress rehearsal, and you would have thought the little tear I’d caused was a mortal wound by the way she reacted. I think she’d counted every single sequin and rhinestone she’d sewn on my costume before she let me get into it tonight.
And the costume? That was a fucking disaster of epic proportions. I almost bought myself a plane ticket home the first time I had to put it on.
I looked like I’d raided the closet of Elvis Presley…during his drugs and donuts days. My jumpsuit was all white, and once my hair was done to Lilith’s satisfaction, I looked like I could have been an Elvis impersonator at any of the casinos on the strip. Dallas got off easy. He had a jumpsuit too, but it was black. He was the Johnny Cash to my Elvis I supposed. The theme of the show was good versus evil, and the ridiculous costumes were part of that.
I typed out a quick message to my mom.
Me: Will she get here on time?
My mom responded right away. I assumed she was just hanging around the airport waiting for Frankie’s plane to get in. Knowing my mother, she was making the least amount of effort possible. She might be at the airport, but chances were that she was in her car and not even considering going to baggage claim to meet Frankie and help her out.
Mom: Of course. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure she gets there before the show starts.
Me: Don’t forget to give her the backstage pass for after the show
Me: I don’t want her to get lost
There was no response for a few minutes, and I wondered if my mother intended to respond at all. Letting her go pick Frankie up from the airport had me more nervous than the show itself.
My mother and my best friend had never gotten along, but once it was clear that Frankie and I weren’t just friends anymore, my mother’s dislike of Frankie was almost full on hatred. Forcing Frankie to hang out with my mom was something I’d never willingly do if I had any other choice. My mom was her own special kind of torture on her best days. But for Frankie? She’d hold nothing back.
Mom: Everything will be fine. Just worry about the show. I’ll see you back stage after.
Someone nudged me in the side, and I turned to see Dallas at my elbow, just as glittery and made up as I was. We looked like we belonged in a drag show instead of a cello show, but he didn’t seem to care. His face was alight with excitement.
“We sold out. On opening night. Every fucking seat! I told you we could do this,” he said, punching me playfully on the arm.
I smiled at him. There was only one seat I cared about, but seeing Dallas so excited to have the chance to live his passion…it was incredible. There were so many people that never got the chance to live their dream. I was not only watching Dallas live his, but I was living it with him.
“Then I guess we better give them the good stuff.”
“We’re going to have them begging for more,” he responded, his hands gesturing wildly. He was like a live wire dragging across the ground and lighting up everything in its path. His excitement made me forget, just for a moment, my worries over Frankie’s plane. “Rising Stars was nothing compared to what we’re going to give them tonight.”
He wasn’t wrong. We’d had months of planning to come up with the most complicated show this casino had seen yet. There were pyrotechnics, a moving stage, and a cast of dancers so massive that I still hadn’t managed to learn all of their names. It blew my mind that people were willing to pay one hundred dollars to sit in the nose bleed seats to watch us perform.
“Let’s give them their money’s worth,” I said, slinging my arm over his shoulder, careful not to dislodge any of the decorations we were wearing.
Dallas looked around in confusion. “Hey. Where’s Frankfurter? Wasn’t she supposed to be here already?”
I dropped my arm and rubbed the back of my neck again. “Yeah. Mom said her plane is delayed. We won’t see her until after the show.”
Dallas was usually too self-centered to notice the discomfort of others, but he’d always been in tune with me. Maybe it was a twin thing. Or maybe it was because I was the one person he knew would support him fully no matter what insane ideas he dreamed up.
“Don’t worry,” he said, reaching up to fix my collar where I’d knocked it askew. “She said she’d be here. Frankfurter will fly the damn plane here herself if she has to. It’ll be fine.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I know. I’m just nervous.”
I wasn’t nervous. Not for the show, anyway. We’d rehearsed the show so much that I was dreaming about Dueling Cellos every damn night. No. It wasn’t the show that had my stomach twisted in knots. I was nervous about being with Frankie again. We’d gone from seeing each other every single day for years to spending three months apart. And even though we still talked on the phone and over Skype, there was something about the distance created by technology that didn’t compare to a warm body and hearing a voice in person.
Would things be different?
No. Of course not. There was nothing that could come between Frankie and me. At least that’s what I told myself.
As part of his performance ritual, Dallas liked to spend the last half hour before show time listening to music, so it was no surprise when I turned around and found him lounging on the couch with his earphones on. In my opinion, he was taking his life into his own hands with Lilith by risking his costume that
way, but I had a feeling Dallas could talk his way out of trouble with anyone, even a terrifying costume designer.
To quell my own nerves, I grabbed one of my comics off the table in front of the couch and sat down gingerly on the edge of the cushion, anything to distract myself before the show.
“It’ll be fine,” Dallas said loudly, without looking at me. “She’ll be here.”
I nodded because I knew he was right. There was nothing that could keep my girl away.
When we took the stage thirty minutes later, I looked out into the crowd toward where I knew Frankie was supposed to be, but the lights were so bright that I couldn’t see anything but a teeming mass of people and shadows. I still smiled in her direction, to let her know how much it meant to me that she was there.
It wasn’t until we were back in the dressing room, still high on the performance, that my mother finally broke the news to me.
Frankie hadn’t come.
Back at the hotel, I called and texted, but Frankie didn’t answer. When I contacted Nana Ruth in a panic, she assured me that Frankie was fine, but that she had changed her mind about coming to Vegas. When I asked why Frankie hadn’t told me herself, why she wasn’t answering her phone, Nana Ruth just sighed.
“The girl has it in her head that she’s doing you both a favor.” She muttered something under her breath that sounded like a curse wrapped around a name.
“Put her on the phone. I want to talk to her,” I demanded. What had gotten into Frankie? What had changed since we talked earlier in the day? Everything had been fine this morning. Hadn’t it?
Nana Ruth made a disappointed sound. “I wish I could, honey. But she’s not here. She’s not living here anymore.”
“What? Where did she go?” My mind was blank. I couldn’t come up with a single reason for Frankie not to come to Vegas. I also couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d go instead if she wasn’t with Nana Ruth.
“I can’t tell you that,” Nana grumbled. “She made me promise not to tell, and as stupid as I think she’s being, her reasons are not mine to share. She’s got it in her head that it’ll be better if you both just go your separate ways.”
“Nana...that...that doesn’t make any sense.” I paced the small room in our hotel suite where I’d locked myself in. I fisted my hand in my hair, pulling hard enough that the pain was the only thing to tell me that this wasn’t some awful nightmare. Frankie didn’t come. She was gone.
Somewhere, down below in the ballroom, the after party was raging and I didn’t give a fuck. Nothing mattered but Frankie.
Nana huffed. “You’re telling me. All I can say is that she’ll come around. Eventually. In the meantime, just do your thing, honey. And remember where home is.”
I couldn’t convince Nana Ruth to tell me where Frankie had gone. I never got an apology or even an excuse from Frankie herself. I searched social media, but her accounts were gone. I scoured motocross sites and online boards for a mention of her, but it was as if she’d never existed.
Frankie had chosen to disappear, and she didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye.
As the days wore on and Frankie’s disappearance became more final, a horrible theory took shape in my mind. The only thing I could think of that would cause her to want to go our separate ways was another guy. It made sense. We’d been separated for three months. What if she had fallen in love with someone else? Is that what she needed to tell me? Is that why we’d both be better off? Is that where she’d gone to live?
With her not around to tell me I was crazy, that something like that could never happen, my mind finally settled on that idea. I had left home, and Frankie had given her heart to someone else. She didn’t need me anymore.
Something vital inside cracked that day. My hope. My heart. My happiness. Sometimes the breaking is so traumatic, that you keep on moving and living as if nothing is wrong, but all the while the broken parts are tearing you apart on the inside in ways no one can truly understand.
That’s what that night and every day since had felt like to me…shredding my soul little by little.
***
From the darkness of my room, I watched Frankie lift her head from her arms and then move to the bed, flopping across the mattress before clicking off the light. She didn’t even bother to close the window. When I was younger, it would have been an invitation to come over and visit her without anyone being the wiser. Now, all I could think about was how easy it would be for someone else to come in and hurt her.
I shouldn’t feel protective of her. I shouldn’t worry. But I did.
Maybe it was all those years apart, not knowing what had happened to her. Or maybe it was guilt over knowing I’d sacrificed my dreams with her to help Dallas and I hadn’t been able to protect him either. Whatever the cause, I had to admit that I’d always felt a need to defend Frankie—from the kids at school, from her brothers, from all the people who couldn’t see the amazing person she was.
She might not have needed me to look out for her, but I’d always wanted to.
And she’d never let me.
From the first moment I’d met her, we’d become fast friends. Even now, that feeling of protectiveness, the desire to be responsible for her, was as natural as breathing. The problem was, my instinct and my heart were at war with my brain. My brain was telling me to hate her as much as my instinct wanted me to pull her close and kiss her. It was frustrating that no matter how badly she’d hurt me when she disappeared, what I wanted most was to get lost in her.
And that was stupid because I honestly didn’t know if there was much left of my heart to survive if she betrayed me again.
Since I couldn’t decide what to do—listen to logic or follow my heart—I’d done my best to ignore her. That was the only way I felt I could survive. Maybe that’s why she had reminded me of our prank war. She realized as well as I did that conflict between us, even if it was in jest, was better than nothing at all.
I sat there, watching her dark window, wanting to ask her why. Why didn’t she show up? Why did she just disappear? What had I done? What couldn’t she tell me? I knew that she had loved me once, so what could have possibly caused her to walk away that day and completely cut me off? Even if she stopped loving me, she’d always been my best friend.
Didn’t I deserve to know?
Annoyed, I stood up and set my cello on the stand in the corner and then turned and walked through the darkness to the hallway.
Not only did I deserve some answers, but Frankie was right. She deserved a little payback.
I felt my way through the hallway and down the stairs in the dark, not bothering to turn on any lights until I got to my kitchen. I rooted through the pantry and when I found what I was looking for, a smile spread across my face.
If the only thing Frankie wanted from me right now was a battle, I’d give her one.
***
For all her scolding that I needed to change my locks, Frankie still hadn’t done it either. I supposed there was no point in changing out all of the handles and locks if she and her brothers were just going to sell the house anyway, but it still made me nervous that I could get in so easily. How many other people had gotten a key to this house over the years? And here she was living alone.
I let myself in with the key on my Red Hot Chili Peppers keyring. Then I crept up the stairs, trying to keep the two trash bags I was toting from making too much noise. Although I wasn’t sure why I should bother. Frankie wouldn’t wake up even if I drove a donut truck through her front door. And with her addiction to donuts, that was saying something about her ability to sleep like the dead.
When I reached the door to her room, I let the trash bags fall to the floor, and I pulled the folded-up newspaper and roll of masking tape out of my back pocket. It was close to sunrise, so I quickly taped the newspaper loosely across the trim around her doorway from floor to ceiling so that there was a huge space between her door and the paper. Once that was done, I took the first trash bag and carefully
started to dump the contents into the pocket of space I’d created.
It had taken me all fucking night to pop two trash bags worth of popcorn. But it’d be worth it. When she opened her door, she’d have an avalanche of popcorn that would probably take longer to clean up than it had taken me to pop.
I’d just finished dumping in the last of the second bag when the alarm of a clock radio began to blare on the other side of the door. I paused, waiting to hear whether she was going to hit snooze. I glanced over my shoulder to the room behind me where I could see through the window that the sun had started to rise. But that shouldn’t mean anything. Frankie liked getting up early about as much as she liked Jared Bennet, which is to say she hated both.
As I stood frozen in the hallway, my arms still poised over my head in the act of dumping popcorn, I heard a groan and a few muttered curses before the soft pad of footsteps crossed the room.
What the hell was Frankie doing getting up this early? Weatherby wouldn’t show up for another three hours, and from all the years I’d known her, she’d professed that being awake before the sun was only acceptable if one had pulled an all-nighter.
Before I could puzzle out an answer, the door opened inward with a strong whoosh that sucked all of the popcorn with it. I could easily see everything over the edge of my wall of newspaper.
She let out a screech of surprise as kernels of popped corn cascaded around and past her, covering the floor of her room. Frankie’s head whipped around in confusion as she took in the massive amounts of food now littering her bedroom floor. I watched as gusts of air from the ceiling fan above blew popcorn under her bed and dresser.
I slowly lowered my hands and dropped the now empty bag on the floor. As she muttered incoherent words, I contemplated whether I should laugh or haul ass out of there before she came to her senses and went for the baseball bat she kept hidden underneath her bed.
For several long moments, Frankie just gazed around in astonishment at the drifts of popcorn that had buried her up to the knees. She didn’t seem to know how to react, and I was enjoying every second of her disbelief. It was even better than the whipped cream pie to the face.
Hated (Hearts of Stone #3) Page 15
