by Racquel Reck
He nods. “I miss you, Morg.”
My eyes start to burn; I can feel water collecting underneath them, threatening to spill over. Shit, I’m such a pansy. I shouldn’t be feeling anything right now. I need to up my dosage. That hit I took earlier wasn’t enough. “I miss you too, bud. Give your momma a kiss for me.”
“I will.” He shuts off his camera and my screen goes blank.
I’m a piece of shit. Nothing’s made me feel any better—the drugs, the women. Nothing. I look around the dressing room. My band’s absent. They went to dinner, and I stayed behind like I always do. I’m never hungry anyway. They don’t question it—just think I hit the bottle hard since Shay and I aren’t together. They know nothing about the speedballs I’ve been shooting up. I inject them in the soles of my feet. And when I can’t do it there, I wear long sleeves. No evidence. That’s the way I want it. They don’t have to know how far I’ve fallen.
This drug gives me the ability to function while I’m on stage. I need it—otherwise I’ll fall apart. I’m not going to be like this forever. Two more shows, one here in Cincy and our last one in Detroit, then I can say I’m going on a two-week vacay and check into a rehab clinic. Get my shit clean, and be there when my baby is born, whether Shay likes it or not.
My phone goes off. “Yeah.”
“How much do you love your girl?”
I jerk up in my chair. “Who the hell is this?”
His laughter comes through the phone.
A thousand needles prick up my spine, and my hair stands on end. I know that laugh.
“Do you love her enough to shell out ten grand a month?”
Gary? “The fuck did you get my number?”
“Check your e-mail then call me back.” The line goes dead.
Shay. I frantically click over to my inbox. Sure enough, there is an e-mail from [email protected]. I click on it, and all it says is to watch the attachment, then call him back.
I hover the mouse over the link, afraid of what I’ll see if I click. The coke in my system has my nerves dancing. I’m energized, and I can feel rage building up from the pit of my belly. I click.
It’s a video.
I don’t hit play; just stare at the frozen image of Shay, bent over a bed, half naked. I can’t bring myself to click the button. My heart’s pounding away inside my sternum as slick, slimy frogs flip-flop in my stomach. A chill goes down my spine, and goose bumps burst out across my skin. I don’t know what that fuck head is trying to do. What is his motive here for throwing it in my face? Nothing good.
I turn away from the screen. The sight of Shay naked, pregnant with my daughter, and submitting to that fucker makes me sick. My adrenaline’s kicking full force. Not a good combo. I don’t know whether to hit something or puke.
My hands shake with the urge to crush someone’s skull as I call the motherfucker back.
“That was quick.” He laughs.
I growl.
“Didn’t like the video? Shay had a ton of fun making it.”
“Fucking cocksucker, I’m—”
“Violence will get you nowhere.” His tone goes cold. “Now, for negotiations.”
What the fuck? “Nego—”
“I want ten grand a month to keep this from going viral.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. This asshole’s in-fucking-sane. “What makes you think I’m going to pay that? Newsflash, Dick face. She dumped me for you.”
“Oh, I think you’ll pay. She is the mother of your child. What will your daughter think when she grows up and sees how much of a whore her mother is?”
Blood surges. My vision darkens. Fists clench so hard I almost annihilate the cell in my hand.
Gary laughs. “Yeah, I figured I’d get that reaction out of you. It’s the only reason I haven’t beaten her so bad that she’d miscarry. Your daughter, Morgan. A sure way to have your compliance.”
“If you fucking—”
“If I what? Don’t worry, Shay’s safe for now. But I have about a dozen or so of these tapes. She consented to them. So unless you want her smeared all over the net, you’ll pay me ten grand a month. Am I clear? You’re a big star now. What’s ten grand when it comes to protecting the rep of the mother of your daughter?”
A roar starts low in my throat, but I grind my teeth and school my voice. “If you do that, I’ll kill you.”
“Oh, you can try.” He laughs. “And even if you did, I still have the tapes, and my partner will make sure they go viral. Hum…Ben’s nine and in another year or so he’ll be going into middle school. You know how it is when boys hit puberty. I’m sure one of his friends is bound to stumble across this little video. How do you think Ben will react to that?”
I plow my fist through our dressing room door.
“Fucking cock-sucking son-of-a-bitch motherfucker!”
“That’s quite a vocabulary you have there.”
He’s blackmailing me and I have no choice but to take it. I can’t have Ben or my daughter growing up with this video out there. What in the hell was Shay thinking?
My body vibrates, and I can’t tell if it’s from the speedball I had earlier or the rage running through me now. I can’t believe she’d agree to make sex tapes with this POS. She had to know dick face would use this against her. Unless they were both playing you from the start.
“What the hell happened in here?” Wiley peers through the fist-sized peephole I just put in the door.
“Tick, tick, Morgan,” Gary says. “I’m waiting.”
“I need to think about this.” Cause I do. If they are trying to play—
“Think about what?” Wiley comes through the door.
I hold up my hand.
“Of course,” Gary says. “Two days. If that money isn’t in my hand in two days I’m uploading the shit. Have a nice concert, by the way—love your band.” The line goes dead. I chuck my phone across the room as sounds of sex erupt from my laptop.
“Whoa, dude,” Wiley says as I rush to turn it off.
“You guys sitting around swinging your nuts to—” Bryan stops dead in the doorframe as I’m frantically trying to click off the video, but with every click another video pops up.
Tryst pushes Bryan aside as Shay’s moans echo around our dressing room.
“What the fuck is that shit?” Tryst’s murderous brown eyes lock on mine.
I’m not scared.
My veins feel like they’re about to explode in my arms. I chuck my laptop across the room and it smashes into a mirror hanging on the wall. The glass shatters and falls to the cement floor. My heart is flying out of my chest and it constricts. Blood pounds in my head like it’s getting ready to pop.
I get up in Tryst’s face, so close I could bite his chin off. “Do it, motherfucker!” He’s an ex-marine. He could probably kill me with his pinkie. I don’t care. All the energy that’s coiled down inside me snaps. It races up my arms and explodes. I push Tryst so hard he slams backward into the red brick wall. The sound of his skull hitting cracks out throughout the room. He slumps, landing on the bits of my busted laptop and shattered glass.
I roar.
My heart knocks so hard against my sternum, a sharp pain goes through it. My head is full of helium, floating up to the ceiling but dropping again. I brace myself against the door jam. My breath saws in and out. Sweat beads down my face. My skin flushes with heat. The adrenaline begins to slow.
Wiley, Lina, and Bryan are frozen, jaws hanging open and eyes wide. Then they blur.
It’s fucking hot in here.
I’m coming down off the coke high and entering the heroin half of my speedball. I need to sit down. But I need to be on stage.
Shoot up. I have to. I can’t go out on stage when I’m about to pass the hell out.
A blurry vision of Wiley steps toward me. “Morg, man—”
“I need to use the bathroom.” I turn toward the hall.
Tryst groans.
Lina steps in front of me. “We have to be on—”
“I’ll be back before then.” I don’t mean to be rude, like I want another woman mad at me, but shit. I have to do this. It won’t take me that long to shoot up.
#####
After pulling the tourniquet tight, I slap the crease of my elbow, encouraging a vein to appear. The soles of my feet are too annihilated to take the hit there. Long sleeves it’ll have to be. There it is—a big, fat blue one. I can see it through the haze of my exhaustion. I pick up the needle and press it to my vein. There’s a sharp pinch and I pull the plunger back. Blood pools into the needle, mixing with the drug, and then I slam the plunger down. The heroin and coke combo shoots through me, bringing with it euphoria in pulsating, calming waves.
My knees start to buckle, and I catch myself on the sink. The spoon and the empty bag fall to the ground. I make my way to the toilet in the employee bathroom. As soon as my ass hits the seat, my eyes go dark. I see nothing, feel nothing except the sensation of floating. I’m lost in an abyss.
There’s pounding coming from somewhere. It’s not my heart. That beat is slowing.
“Morgan!” Wiley’s voice enters my subconscious. “Hurry up, man! We gotta be onstage!”
Stage? Oh, yeah. I laugh. I’m supposed to sing.
I peel open my eyes as the effects of the heroin are blasted away by the new sensations of the cocaine. My body buzzes and I know this won’t last long. The drug dips in and out of lucidity, going from grogginess to energized over and over again, until the coke works its way out of my system and the heroin takes over completely. Then I’ll crash. But with as much as I’ve taken, this high should last while I’m on stage.
I jump up off the toilet and stash the needle, tourniquet, and spoon in the back of the toilet. I’ll get it later when I’m done with my performance. I roll down my sleeves so my band won’t see the track marks.
“Dude!” Wiley bangs on the bathroom door. “If I have to—”
I fling the door open.
Wiley drops his fist mid-pound. “What the fuck, man? We’re ten minutes late. You hear that audience? They’re getting pissed.”
My body is buzzing. All this energy I have racing through me has me bouncing on the balls of my feet. I pass Wiley.
He grabs my arm. “What’s wrong with you? You tweaking out?”
I rip my arm from his. “Nah, just excited! Let’s get this shit done!” My voice is a little louder then I intend it to be. But fuck, I feel great.
“I don’t think—”
“Then don’t! Let’s rock!” I jump, then dart toward the stage.
Wiley’s behind me as I come up on Tryst’s back. He has a cut on his shaved head. Oh yeah, I threw him into a wall. “Tryst, man! Shit! I’m sorry!”
He slowly turns and looks me up and down. His eyebrows shoot skyward, then pull into a pinch. “No sweat. It was a hard thing to swallow. You good? You look like you’re—”
“Never fucking better!” I slap his back. My body is zinging. I feel like I could take on the world. And win!
The roar and boos of the audience blast out the heavy metal door I open. They’re pissed. Oh well. They won’t be for long.
“Morgan.” Lina touches my arm. “Maybe we should cancel the—”
“Cancel? No fucking way!”
Wiley’s eyes soften.
What the hell does he have to be concerned about? He doesn’t know what I did. Or does he? Do they?
Tryst’s scowling as usual. Fuck Tryst. He always thinks he’s so much better than everyone else. Why? Just ’cause he was a marine. Shit. I’m not scared of him.
Bryan runs a hand over the spikes in his blue hawk. “Check it, dude. That was some pretty heavy shit. If you aren’t up for—”
“This is about earlier? Ha!” For a moment I thought they suspected me. I must be blitzed out of my mind. Perfect! Fuck Shay! I bounce. All the power in me is ready to take on my fans. “I’m ready to go!”
“Good.” Emily pushes my back.
Where the hell did she come from?
“Get your asses on stage.”
“Yeah! Let’s do this!” My heart is racing like a train. I’m ready to ride and rock this shit out!
Thirty-one
Shay
Oh! Ouch! I grab my ribs. My daughter’s gonna be one hell of a soccer player. Glad I only have one more month of this crap.
“You okay?” Gretchen asks as she wipes down the front counter.
“Yeah, she’s just a little wound up today.” I walk over to my station and pass Ben sitting at his desk with his laptop, his eyes glued to the screen. He’s torn up about my breakup with Morgan, so I let him watch the playback of his concert from the night before. It’s the least I can do, and Ben’s new favorite band is Stones of Rage. Still think they need a new name.
My face falls as I glance at the screen and see Morgan doing what he does best, commanding his audience with all the confidence of a pothead. Only this time he’s different—he looked juiced up on something, like he’s the energizer bunny. He bounces across the stage a little faster than normal. Must be his manager’s doing. Fuck Emily, and fuck Morgan, too. They can have each other.
My heart pinches and burns. God, will I ever get over the pain I’m feeling? It’s so much worse than those few times Gary and I broke up. I eat because I have too, although food has no taste. It’s only a necessity. My sleep is disrupted constantly with visions of Morgan. If I wasn’t pregnant and didn’t have Ben to take care of I’d shrivel up and lock myself in a dark hole somewhere. I really don’t feel like living anymore, but I have to for my kids. So I force myself to go through the motions of everyday life.
The bell rings.
Bebe comes in carrying a brown Panera Bread bag. Lunch. I don’t want to eat but I have too. My sinuses tickle. Morgan always used to bring me Panera. I choke back the tears threatening to come.
She sets the bag on Ben’s desk and pulls out a sandwich. “Grilled Cheese.” She sets it in front of Ben, then digs back into the bag. Her whole demeanor toward me these last three months has changed. She’s become distant. Even at my baby shower last month I could feel the cord of our friendship straining. I accepted Gary’s deal and she’s pissed. She thinks just ’cause he signed away his legal rights that I should stop. I tried to tell her it’s not that simple. But short of telling her Gary’s threats and involving her, which would be shitty on my part because they’re siblings, I keep quiet.
Gary might have signed the paperwork to null his parental rights, but that won’t stop him from nabbing Ben when I least expect it. And Gary’s smart. He’d plan it out so that before I even knew my son was missing they’d be gone. With his connections, I don’t doubt it for a second. So I muster up the courage and force back the shame and go to him twice a week.
“Bread bowl.” She sets it down in front of me.
The baby kicks. Another rib shot. “Jesus!” I grab my side.
Gretchen rushes across the room. “Are you okay?”
I nod, then inhale slowly. “She’s just rambunctious.”
Ben screeches. His eyes are huge as he pulls off his head phones. “Morgan just dropped on stage!”
Bebe glances at the screen and her face loses some color. “Holy shiz!”
That can’t be right. Morgan knows how to move around the stage. He wouldn’t just fall off it.
Gretchen and I make our way around the desk and look at the screen.
Everything inside me stops. A cold chill creeps into the fibers of my soul as I take in the scene playing out before me. EMTs are surrounding Morgan. He’s lying on the stage and not moving. What the fuck happened? How’d he get hurt? “Bebe, can you take Ben upstairs to eat his lunch?”
“I can watch it again, Mom.” He rolls his eyes and skips the scene back to just before Morgan dropped.
Before he hits play I stop him and shake my head. “Upstairs.” Like I’m going to let him watch this again.
He gives me a dirty look.
“No.” His tone is sharp.
“E
xcuse me?” He just told me no? “Benjamin Samuel Kelly. You’ll go upstairs and finish your lunch. Backtalk me again and you’re grounded from your laptop.”
His brows pinch and he screams, “You’re ruining my life!” He snatches his sandwich. “Morgan’s my dad. You can’t keep him from me.”
Holy shit! I’m sucker punched in the gut. How did that happen? Ben thinks of Morgan as a dad? I tried to avoid this. I didn’t think that my feelings for Morgan would hurt my son. I thought he just thought of him as a friend. I had no idea how deep those feelings ran.
Ben runs from the room, and I hear his little feet stomping up the stairs to our loft. A few seconds later the door slams with a loud boom.
I’m a fucking horrible mother. Morgan was right. I wasn’t taking Ben’s feelings into account. How could I do that? I slump down in Ben’s chair.
Bebe is mean-mugging me. “I’ll make sure he’s okay.” She disappears into the back.
I should go see if he’s okay. Somehow I know it won’t help. He’s mad at me and needs time to cool down. I’ve never seen him act this way. It’s like he lost all the respect he had for me. My little boy is growing up and forming his own opinions. He’s on the cusp of being a preteen, and I know that there’s more than hormones at stake here. I have no idea how to deal with it.
“Wow!” Gretchen shakes her head.
“Not you too.” I let my head hit the desk.
“No, not me too.” She rubs my back and I soak up the comfort. “He’s just upset and doesn’t understand the situation. Give him some time. He’ll get over it.”
Get over it? Get over Morgan not being around? I look back at the screen. The image is paused on Morgan lying flat on his back. What the hell happened to him? Sadness comes over me, and my heart skips as I click play.
Morgan is bouncing across the stage. He’s really into it and all hyped up, then—
He drops.
Nothing hit him. There is no blood. Just Morgan falling.
All the blood drains from my face. I jump up from the chair. My heart stops, then kickstarts again. Did he have a heart attack? Is he dead? I fumble for my phone and bring up Tryst’s number. Praying to whatever God is up there that Morgan hasn’t left this world.
