by Riley Scott
She took a seat on the bed next to her best friend and turned to face her. “Tell me a story,” she said, lying back against the pillows.
Brittany giggled. “What kind of story?” she asked.
“I’m glad that you didn’t question that I wanted a story,” Chris said. “Instead you just ask me what I want to hear.”
“It’s what we do,” Brittany said, turning to lie beside Chris.
Feeling Brittany’s warmth beside her, she felt comforted. This was home. Maybe Brittany was meant to be her home. She eyed her best friend, taking special note of her beauty. She longed to roll closer and let Brittany hold her, to plant soft kisses on the top of her head.
“What if I tell you all about how the pretty little princess at my work broke a heel the other day and completely had a meltdown?”
Chris smiled. Brittany’s question snapped her out of fantasy. She settled in and got comfortable, letting all of the pain, the analyzing and the worry about tomorrow fade as she got lost in the normalcy of a moment sharing silly gossip with her friend. There was nothing normal about what she was feeling though. Her heart fought with logic. She had messed up her life badly by getting involved with the wrong woman. She had to consider the possibility that things fell apart so she would finally realize what she had here.
They had always been open with one another, but Chris didn’t want to hurt Brittany. She kept her mouth shut. Brittany’s voice washed over her, reminding her that it could be the voice she listened to every day of her life. She wasn’t in a place to make that decision yet but she knew she loved Brittany.
Imagining the future she could have with someone who actually loved her, who wanted her, who was steady, who was an adult—hope washed over her, helping her drift off into a much-needed, deep sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
“What’s gotten into you?” said Paul, opening Raven’s door. Raven looked up from her bed. “You’re in your pajamas. It’s not even midnight. Who are you and what have you done with my little sister?”
“Hey!” Pete yelled, sticking his head into the doorway behind Paul. “Want to come have a beer with me?”
“No thank you,” she said. She smiled. “Drink one for me please.”
“You sure?” Joe asked, appearing to be standing on his tiptoes behind Pete. “We’re out here solving the secrets of the universe and jamming some Zeppelin. You should join in the fun. It’s therapeutic and god knows we all need the therapy of solid rock jams.”
“Thanks guys,” she said, shaking her head. “I have a headache and am calling it a night.”
Pete and Joe nodded and disappeared back into the main area but Paul remained in her room. “Do you need some Tylenol?”
She shook her head and waved him in. “Come sit with me,” she requested, moving over to make room on the edge of her bed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
She hated that question. Clearly, if she wanted to talk about something, she would. Letting out a sigh, she pushed aside her irritation. Aiming it at him would be misguided. She knew the real culprit in this whole mess. She faced her every time she looked into the mirror.
“I fucked up,” she said quietly, even though her words hurt. “Truth is, I’m not even sure that I should say that in the past tense. The fact is that I’ve been fucking up continually for so long that I’m not sure I’d know how to make a good decision if it was the only one left to make.”
“We all make mistakes,” he said, putting his arm around her.
She wanted to bask in the feeling of being protected, but she couldn’t. Even so, she didn’t move his arm. “It’s more than a mistake,” she said. “It’s not like I colored outside of the lines or lost my car keys. I fucked up on a grand scale. I’m a walking time bomb. I always have been. We all know it and everyone else who has observed even a bit of my life should know it. But I didn’t protect the innocent bystanders. I didn’t protect her. I should have been better than that. She deserved more than being put in the line of fire and then just discarded as though she was nothing more than another person who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t just fuck up. I fucked up someone else’s feelings, someone else’s heart and probably someone else’s career—for no reason other than I don’t think things through.”
He held her closer and the tears came. As sobs wracked her body, she whispered the words that she had been tossing around in her head all day. “I think there’s something really broken inside of me. I want to get help.”
She had thought she was prepared, but when Paul cried with her, held her, rocking back and forth, she thought she might just explode from the onslaught of feelings.
“Stop crying, please,” she managed through sobs. “I can’t take it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, wiping his tears, getting his hands tangled in her mess of hair. “I just never thought I’d actually hear you say those words.”
“Me neither,” she admitted, feeling the weight lift from her shoulders. “I don’t know where to start. I’m scared.”
“I’ll be here every step of the way,” he said, pulling her in closer. “You know that there’s no one in the world who is more my family than you are and you know I’d never leave your side.”
“Thank you,” she said, another wave of tears wracking her system. “I should have done this years ago. I don’t know why I’ve been so stubborn. But I’m ready to change. I’m ready to feel. If the past couple of months have taught me anything, it’s that I have to be more. She told me that plainly and I resisted. But she was right. Everyone has been right all along. I can’t keep doing this—not to myself and not to those around me. I have to be more, or I’ll disappear and no one will remember anything but what a mess I was. That’s all I’ll have to hold on to if I’m not careful. The fame will fade. The ability to make music won’t last forever. Without that, who am I, other than another tortured soul who was too stubborn to be something more?”
“You’ve always been more,” Paul said, his voice gentle and soothing, but clearly still chock full of emotion.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I could be more. I am more, somewhere underneath all of the things I’ve become. Right now, I’m a scared little kid, still running. I’m nothing more than that little girl who used to hide out and hope that the pain would go to someone else, anyone else. The only thing that’s changed is that people pay to listen to me sing. Other than that, I’m not more. But,” she paused, taking a breath to affirm her resolve, “I could be much more and I know that now. I know that, within me, there is more and I’m ready for everyone else to see that as well. I’m ready to do it for those I’ve hurt and to avoid hurting others in the future.”
Wrapped in his embrace, she let the silence stand.
As they sat, she let it all come back to her, every piece that hurt. She let her mother’s dark brown eyes flash in her mind, remembering the way they had always held the power to break her. Forcing herself to breathe, she made her mind relive even the most painful events, letting them come and finally facing what they meant to her.
“Those things do not define me.” She repeated the mantra over and over in her head, silently and finally facing the fact that she had let so many things control her and define her for too long.
When the sobs finally subsided, she turned to face Paul.
“I need to talk about it,” she said, clearing her throat.
“I’ll listen,” he said, the raw pain clearly dancing in his eyes as well.
“I know you were there for most of it,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “If it’s too much to go back through it, I’ll understand and find someone else.”
He shook his head. “I’m here, no matter how many times we have to relive it.”
It was the encouragement Raven needed. She took a deep breath, finally prepared to let the floodgates open. “I am not Erin,” she said, her voice confident and smooth, much to her surprise. As she listened to her words, she heard a
new woman, stronger and far more real than she had ever been. “I hate that name for all that it’s associated with. You were there through the dark periods, the years where Erin was all that I was. I was my mom’s greatest fuck-up. She told me a million times and I carried that with me.
“I was a mistake and I wasn’t needed or wanted for anything other than child support. I was hers to use however she saw fit. When she needed food stamps, I was her cash cow. When that ATM ran dry and when my father disappeared, I was nothing but a scapegoat. I was there to take the beating from her clients, or boyfriends as she called them. And then I became someone else’s problem.”
Paul winced and held on. “I know,” he said, nodding for her to continue.
“You were there in the aftermath,” she said, a single tear sliding down her face. “You were there. You kept my secrets. You were there to remind me that I was worth something other than a buck or two. You saw it, so you know. You know who Erin was. You know who Erin was later on, when I was nothing that anyone would miss. There were days I disappeared from foster homes for three days before anyone checked on me. There were still occasional bruises, depending on if I was in private care or in a home. There were horrible days and you saw them all. That’s who Erin was. But I have to realize that none of that defines who I am today. I’ve been acting like some kid who’s afraid of the monsters lurking in the darkness. But the part I never appreciate is that I survived it. I survived it so that doesn’t mean that I should be some shell of a person. That means that I should be stronger than anyone else.”
When she paused, Paul looked at her, his blue eyes sparkling with questions. She nodded, giving him the opening.
“What does that strength look like?” he asked. “As far as I’m concerned you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”
“No,” she said, quickly dismissing the thought. “I’m far from that. You, of all people, should see me as I truly am and know that I’ve been nothing but weak and cowardly. Yes, on the outside, I’ve got it all together. Sure. I’ll buy that for a moment. But, is it a good thing to live life so isolated? Is bitterness a badge of honor? I’ve just been scared. That’s the real truth. I’m not tougher or stronger. I’m running scared, terrified that I will need someone and they will leave me. I’ve been scared that maybe my mother was right about everything and I’m not good enough. I’ve been scared for my entire life and it’s consuming me. I’ve let it drive me to this point where I have almost been ready to throw it all away. But I won’t. I can’t. I am not what my mother thought I was. I am not her and I am certainly not weak enough to let her continue to control me.”
“When did you piece all this together?” he asked, when she reached for the glass of water beside her bed.
“Over the last couple of months, I’ve realized that I’m scared,” she admitted. “It would wake me up some nights, when I was comfortably nestled in Chris’s arms. I would wake up with my heart racing, afraid that I had finally caved, afraid that she would be the one to undo me. I would feel fresh fear whenever she would look at me with those bright green eyes, because, when she did, I felt magic flow between the two of us. I knew how good she was for me and I knew deep down that I just couldn’t be enough. I let who I used to be and what happened to me dictate who I was now.
“And when I messed up, when it all came crashing down, I looked in the mirror and I saw my mother. It wasn’t my eyes, but hers that looked back at me. In that moment, I knew I had no one to blame but myself. I let it get this far. I should have sought help a long time ago—and not the kind of help that comes in a bottle or a little baggie. I should have sought real help and tried to become who I can be—who I still want to be.”
She paused, letting her words breathe the fresh air of truth into the room. “I have Chris to thank for helping me realize it. I’m going to do this partially to honor her hard work, but more than anything, I have to do this for me—for Raven and for all that she stands for.”
Chapter Eighteen
Strumming her fingers on the table, Chris waited in the conference room. Eight had come far too early this morning and had served as a wake-up call that she was going to have to get her life back together. There could be no more of this gallivanting around like she was a teenager.
As the fluorescent lights above buzzed, her head pounded. She remembered everything she had disliked about this room. But this was where she belonged, a world of suits and heels, meetings and deals, polite smiles and professional speak. She didn’t belong on a dingy bus, laden with temptation, booze, drugs and good-looking women. This was her world and she had to readjust.
Drinking her coffee, she checked her watch again, wishing that time didn’t seem to move at a turtle’s pace when one was as nervous as she was. Her nerves tingled, as she made a mental note of how Susan was always on time. Currently, she was running seven minutes late. Odd. Of course, that could mean that traffic had been bad this morning, but it could also mean that she was dreading this meeting as much as Chris was. As the coffee hit her stomach, she thought she might vomit. The acidic, warm beverage danced with her butterflies and suddenly she felt like she had just gotten off a tilt-a-whirl.
When she finally heard the click-clack of her boss’s heels down the hall, she took a deep breath, bracing herself. There would be questions, all of which she could answer. But it would be the parental-like look of disappointment and disapproval that she was pretty sure would do her in. The door opened and she tried to offer a smile at the familiar face. She could feel how fake it was.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice hoarse from last night’s crying.
“Good morning,” Susan said, her tone giving no indication of how she was feeling. “It’s good to see you back. It feels like it’s been years not months.”
“Thank you,” Chris said, genuinely grateful. “It’s good to be back.”
Susan took a seat across the conference room table from Chris, setting her coffee cup on a coaster before clearing her throat. “Do you want to begin?” she offered, extending an open palm to give Chris the floor.
Chris’s heart felt as though it might beat out of her chest, but she nodded, hoping she looked more at ease than she felt. “I know I got myself into this situation,” she started. “I accept full responsibility for all of my actions, but I just had to come back. The situation had turned toxic and I could no longer be in that environment. You were copied on the email I sent Frank Karnes and I have hopes that we won’t lose the account. The work we’ve done for them so far has been phenomenal, seriously head-and-shoulders above what anyone else has ever been able to do for her.”
“I’ve seen,” Susan said, nodding with approval. “It’s been quite an impressive campaign. It’s been odd not to be at the center of it, to have you out there on your own, calling the shots. And I have to say that up until the last few days, I’ve been very proud of what you’ve done. You really proved yourself.”
“Thank you,” Chris said. She knew she wasn’t out of the woods. “I apologize for letting my professionalism slip on this one. I should have been smarter about it all.”
She paused to take a deep breath and Susan put up her hand to halt the apology. “I won’t ask you what you were thinking or why you did what you did. I get that sometimes things get out of our control. I know you know better than to make some of the choices you did, and I know that you’re clearly remorseful. You know very well that we all hold ourselves to a high standard here and that I can’t have everyone thinking that it’s acceptable to do what you’ve done. I also know that we’re all human. Most of the time we’re overworked, stressed out, tired humans. We can be weak. When we’re thrown into new situations and life changes—especially with everything you’ve been through with the passing of your dad—we sometimes let our judgment cloud.
“For that reason, I’m not going to dismiss you. The rest of the staff will think you’re getting a stern talking to in here and taking a short time of leave. But I’m human too and we all deal with
life’s pain in certain ways. Consider this your ‘get out of jail free’ card. It must never happen again.”
Chris had always wanted to be treated like the others. Although Susan often put her on a pedestal and she had been given special treatment after her father’s death—getting more than typical bereavement time off to get her life in order—she always tried to level the playing field. She didn’t want to be seen as the boss’s favorite. But this time was different and she felt relieved. She should be fired. She knew that much and she felt her confusion mount. “Why?” she asked.
“You’re an adult. I can’t tell you who you can and can’t date. Of course, you know it’s inappropriate to date someone you work with and that’s why we don’t condone interoffice dating. However I’ve never formally put a limit on clients, mainly because it’s never been an issue. I’m working with HR to see what we need to do about a new policy. Even so, you are an adult and you made a choice. God knows it’s been long enough since you’ve taken time to date, so I’m happy you put yourself out there. Maybe next time, you’ll take a different approach.
“I know how smart you are and I know how much you care about your career. You’ve always viewed the company as though it was something you were a part of—not just a paycheck. You’ve helped me sell business and you’ve taken pride of ownership, not only in the work that you do for our clients, but also in our brand and our image. I realize you let that slip here, but I know you’re smart enough not to let something this serious ever happen again.”
Her tone was warm and almost motherly, but very stern. Chris tried to process it all. The weight of Susan’s mercy pressed down on her, making her want to cry all over again.
“I will be much smarter,” she said. “I honestly don’t really know what came over me. I lost control for a while and I just let things happen.”
“Good,” Susan said, nodding. “Now tell me what happened. I need to know, because I’ll be taking over this account from here on out.”
