by Brenda Ford
Hank nods at me before he leaves, putting me effectively in-charge of baby-sitting Alex and ensuring that he’s in a suitable state before working the party circuit. That shouldn’t be too difficult… should it?
“Alex?” I scream as I race through the room, giving up the pretense of looking for him quietly now. The panic has well and truly set in and I know for a fact that it won’t subside until I lay eyes on him. “Alex?”
“What’s going on?” Rachel grabs me and pulls me to one side, hissing at me to quiet me down.
“It’s Alex!” I yell, ignoring her silent pleas to be quiet. “Hank asked me to… to look after him. To make sure that he has some coffee before coming to this party to sober him up a bit.”
“Oh no,” Rachel groans. “Hank knows that once Alex starts, there isn’t anything you can do.”
“I didn’t grab him. I didn’t get him when he got off the stage. He went the other way, probably to avoid me, and by the time I got around there he had vanished. He’s gone, Rachel. How does someone just go like that? It doesn’t happen, does it? So, I assume he came to this party. He knows that it’s happening, doesn’t he? So, it makes sense. Plus, if he is already drunk, he will be searching for another drink…”
“Freya.” Rachel rests her hands on both of my shoulders. “You need to calm down. Can you breathe with me?” I feel stupid, but I do as she commands. “Right, good. Now I want to remind you that Alex isn’t your responsibility. It doesn’t even matter that Hank asked you to do it. If it was so important to him, he could have helped.” I start to argue that he wanted to get here to set up, but then I realize that she’s right. If Hank cared enough, he would have waited behind to sort Alex out. “This is something that Alex does all the time. He vanishes when he’s been drinking, and we can’t find him. He has found the craziest ways to hide so we don’t even bother anymore. There’s no point in looking when he could be anywhere in the city, when he doesn’t want to be found, and when he won’t come back with us anyway. And he really wouldn’t want to be found right now because he knows how mad we will all be. You need to just leave him. Come and enjoy the party. Remember, this is about you as well. You and your career. There are people here that you should meet.”
I dart my eyes around the room and note all the people that I could do with talking to. Even if it’s just to introduce myself and say hi so they know my name and how to get hold of me. It’s what Nathan wants me to do. It’s what I always have done. Music is my life. My career is the most important thing. It always has done, and it always will be. I need to remember that music is all I will have when all of this is over.
“People I need to meet,” I gasp. “Yes, you’re right. I do need to meet people.”
“Freya, is there something going on here? Something that means you might be a bit more freaked out about Alex than you should be? Because I am here for you, I hope you know that. I can help you?”
“No, I…” I try to pull away, to run before answering this question, either in to the room to speak to people, or out to run away, but Rachel grabs me and pulls me back to her. She has started this now and I can see that she isn’t about to let it go. “I don’t… I just need to…” Her warning look silences me. I can see that she isn’t about to let me make any excuses to stop this. I need to play it off somehow. “We have gotten close, that’s all. We have a good friendship and it makes me worry about him.” I shrug helplessly. “I know that you are all confident he will come back and all will be okay, and that’s because you have been in his life longer than me, but I can’t help it. I’m worried about him. Really worried about him out there on his own that drunk.”
“That isn’t too drunk for Alex, believe me,” she shoots back wryly. “But I think there is more.”
“What do you… mean?” I can’t meet her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If you admit to me right now that you have feelings for Alex and that something might even have happened between you, then I will blow off this party off with you and help you find him. Because if it isn’t that, then you should focus on your career and remain here where you are most needed.”
Love or career… a choice that I never thought I’d struggle with. I didn’t think that it would ever become anything of an issue for me. But here I am, really struggling with it, unsure of what to do.
“Come on, Freya, I’m only trying to help you here. You know me.”
“Fine.” I toss my hands in the air in frustration, but also giving up. “There are feelings. Things might have happened, but it hasn’t helped him. It hasn’t made him happy enough to give up his drinking so perhaps I should just stay here and focus on my career. Is there any point in me looking for him to make him sadder?”
“Sweetie.” Surprisingly, Rachel beams at me. “You can’t do anything to stop Alex’s addiction, however happy you make him. It isn’t up to you to heal him. That’s something he needs to do himself. But if you have feelings for him, then he has something else to fight for, to heal for, so let’s go and find him.”
Chapter Twenty
Alex
I blink a few times, barely able to open my eyes through the agony shooting through my skull. It’s like I have a building site up in there, complete with drills hammering against my brain. The smell of sick radiates around me making my stomach churn even more violently. If I could move, I would probably throw up again, so maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t. I’m stuck here in this unfamiliar bed, wishing that I could go home.
“Where the fuck is this?” I moan as I spot the crack in the ceiling above me. This isn’t the standard that I have become used to with Hank as our manager. Sure, it isn’t always five star deals. What would be the point when it’s just a room to crash in? But it’s never got yellowing walls and a crack in the ceiling.
I might not be in the most logical place right now. My brain might ache with confusion, but I’m pretty sure that there is only one conclusion that I can come to. That this isn’t a hotel booked by Hank. I must have wandered off at some point throughout the night and gone too far to go back to the hotel.
“Fuck, he is going to be pissed,” I moan aloud. “They all are because I’m in such a state.”
It’s bad enough thinking about how Rachel, Hank, and Gary are going to react to this. It won’t be good for sure, but actually, I might be more concerned with how Freya is going to take this. She will be heart broken, probably she won’t want anything else to do with me just because I couldn’t keep away from the booze. I don’t even have a good reason for it this time, there is nothing that drove me to the drink, aside from a compulsion. An uncontrollable need to just have a little sip… which in turn became far too many sips.
“You don’t deserve her,” I scold myself. “If you have pushed her away, it’s your own fault.”
I turn over on to my front, pausing for a second to suck in a couple of deep breaths just trying my hardest not to throw up. It’s hard to hold myself together when all I want to do is fall apart. Then I allow my eyes to drift towards the window to see what shit the outside world has to offer me…
“What the…?” I bolt upright, forgetting the sickness and the pounding head ache as I immediately realize that I’m not where I’m supposed to be. There’s no way this is any of the cities that we’re supposed to be performing in, which is the weirdest thing ever. I know that I was the drunkest that I have been in a very long time, but did I get on a train or something? A bus maybe? I must have left somehow…
My blood runs ice cold as I realize just what this means. This is worse than I could have imagined. Now, not only will I be getting my ass kicked for drinking when I wasn’t supposed to be and skipping out on the hotel, it seems that I have also really left. I don’t know where the hell I was headed or where I should be going, I just know that things are about to get incredibly real and raw for me. Life will get harder than it already is, and I only have myself to blame for the current state that I am in. Marvelous.
�
��Where the fuck am I?” I scrabble around to find my cell phone, hoping that it will have all of the answers. I just hope that the battery is still charged on it. It’s usually pretty good, but I don’t know when I last plugged it in.
Holy shit. I freeze even more when I look at the screen and notice hundreds of missed calls that I have. From everyone in my life. It’s safe to say that everyone knows about me missing, and no one is impressed.
“Fuck…” I scroll through them all feeling sicker by the moment. “What did I do?”
Then there are the messages from everyone getting increasingly panicked by the moment. Somehow, they seemed to just know that this isn’t the usual vanishing act from me, and I soon realize why. I haven’t just been gone for a few hours. Actually, in reality while I have either been so shit wasted that I don’t know what is going on, or during the time I have been passed out, a couple of days have gone passed. And in those days, we were supposed to do a show. I have got myself in such a state that I have managed to miss one of the tour dates.
“Fuck.” I pinch myself to check that I’m not asleep. “Tell me this isn’t real. It can’t be!”
If it is then I don’t know what I will do. There isn’t any turning back from that, is there? There’s no way to make up for missing out, which means I am about to be roasted. The band will despise me, management will be fuming, and the fans are going to hate me too. I have gone missing and none of them know where I am. I didn’t perform for them which means they wasted their hard earned cash on tickets that were worthless.
“Oh my God.” Just as I am about to do some more research into this, to see how bad it really is, the battery on my cell phone which has served me faithfully up until this point, gives up and dies. The black screen taunts me with absolutely no information to give. I can’t find out anything else… well, I suppose I could always go to the reception desk to beg for a charger, but I will have to be in the right frame of mind to face another human being. Especially with all of this new information bursting around and around in my brain.
All of a sudden, a small dusty box in the corner of the room catches my eyes. A TV! That might not be quite as useful as the Internet would be, but it gives me a chance to search without seeing another person. So, with my pulse racing like crazy, I grab the television remote and bring the screen to life. Immediately, I find the news, and it’s only a few moments later that I see my face and how much all of this has spiraled out of control.
“Holy fuck.” I clasp my hands to my mouth, stunned at what I’m seeing. “Holy mother of God.”
This is out of control for sure. Way out of control. I’m basically being listed as a missing person and there is a nationwide man hunt for me. This certainly isn’t being kept a private matter with the band which means… well, I don’t even know what it means. It’s too much for me to wrap my head around.
“What the hell? How is this even happening? It’s bizarre.”
I dive up towards the window and close the curtains sharply. I don’t want anyone to see me, to know that I am here. The last thing I need right now is to be in the middle of a media shit storm. If anyone gets wind of where I am now, then every reporter in a hundred mile radius will descend on me and make my life hell. The questions they will ask don’t even bear thinking about. They will dig deep in to me, not caring that I might want some space to deal with my personal issues. They are vultures, wanting to pick apart anyone in trouble, and they will love this. I’m sure they are all already coming up with their own theories, picking up on how things have been for me recently, and they will all want to prove them right. That’s the thing with journalists, they don’t care if they are right or wrong. They just want to have a good story. They just want to be the first one to witness someone falling apart. Someone once said that I might be causing the end of Blood Red Masters, and they might have been right.
I never wanted that. For myself, or the other people in the band, which is seriously troubling. How have I let myself slide this far? How have I fallen so badly? Why didn’t I stop myself?
I flop back on the bed and fix my eyes on the TV screen, needing to watch it all, to drink it all in while wondering how I am going to get myself out of here. I mean, I can’t exactly walk outside and see what happens. I must have just gotten lucky that whoever checked me in to this motel either didn’t recognize me or didn’t care enough to report me. I don’t know if I will get that again. I might well be stuck here for good.
The knocking on my bedroom door makes my heart pound fearfully. I pull my hood up over me, trying to cover as much of my face as possible. Much as I don’t want anyone here right now, I do need my cell phone. I need to charge it so I can contact someone. So I can get help and maybe food as well. I really am starving. But until I open this door and I face who’s outside, praying to every deity possible that may or may not exist, that the person doesn’t recognize me. I wish I didn’t have to face this, but I do.
I pull the door open just a crack and stick my hand out. I can see a woman on the other side of the door who is luckily so bored of being at work that she doesn’t even acknowledge me. She simply shoves the cell phone charger in to my hand and starts to walk away, not even waiting for a ‘thank you’. I almost give her one as well, but I stop myself at the very last moment on the off chance that she might recognize my voice. It’s rude, but since I’m apparently a very rude asshole when I have been drinking anyway, I go with it.
As I close the door, filled with relief, I wonder once more why I have this addiction to drink, why I can’t just stop it even though I know it’s destroying my life. It goes without saying that this has to be the last time that I ever touch a droplet of booze. I don’t know if I’m realistically strong enough to follow through on that promise, but I need to try. And really try this time. Not just try a bit. Even when it gets hard or I get that urge, I can’t drink again. Somehow, I need to make sure that I keep myself away for good.
I plug my phone in and stare at it, waiting for it to get enough charge to switch on. Impatiently, I turn the television off behind me, the sound irritating me now. I’ve been watching it for hours anyway, seeing all of the reports about me and my disappearing act, so I don’t need to look at it any longer.
“Don’t worry, everyone,” I mutter in to the air, as if anyone can hear me. “If you are worried and not wanting to tear me to shreds. I will let you know where I am soon. All will be good.”
I guess the only thing I need to work out is who I’m going to call first, who will kill me less if I get in touch with them. I have a fair few choices and I know that everyone will be in touch with one another, so I only need to speak to one person… but who? My brothers, my friends, my band mates… who?
Chapter Twenty-One
Freya
“I mean it, Freya,” Nathan tells me fiercely. “This is it now. You need to come home. Alex has broken the contract now by not even being around to do shows, so whatever you do doesn’t matter. You need to get away from that and be here so we can think very carefully about your next move.”
This is all that I wanted, for a very long time, but now that Nathan has given me the opportunity to do so and I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave while I don’t know where he is. I’m worried about him. This is huge. This is massive, isn’t it? He’s a proper missing person. I can’t stop thinking about him being in a ditch somewhere. Drunk, injured, in harm. Or what if someone has him? I know that it’s pretty crazy to assume that he might have been kidnapped, but at this rate anything could have happened. He does have some wild fans…
“I don’t know, Nathan, I don’t want to abandon everyone at the moment. It’s rough here. They need me.”
“They have each other. They don’t need you as well. What are you worrying about? You don’t know owe them any loyalty. You need to think about yourself and what is right for you.”
I tap my toe and bite down on my bottom lip as I try to get my head in order. I know that he’s right and I probably should put my caree
r first, but as Rachel now knows about my feelings they are more out in the open and I don’t want to run away from that. I might not be enough for Alex, maybe I haven’t helped with his addiction, but that doesn’t mean I will go. From what I understand of the messy situation, Mandy just abandoned him after things went wrong, so the last thing I need to do is run too. He might not need me. He might not want me around. But I am going to be here regardless. Just in case. For once, I’m not going to put my career first. I can’t.
“I need to stay,” I say to Nathan. “Just for a little bit longer. Please trust me that I know what I’m doing.”
“I can’t understand that decision, Freya. It doesn’t make any sense. Especially since you were the one who wanted to come back in the first place. Why don’t you just come back to me and we can talk?”
I don’t say anything… mostly because I can’t. I don’t know how to explain what’s going on with me right now. Not to a man who is going to tell me that I have lost my damn mind.
“You really aren’t coming back, are you?” he asks sadly. “I can sense that you have made up your mind. Usually, I let you do what you think is right because your instincts are great, but this time I’m not so sure. I just don’t know where your head is at, what you’re thinking. It doesn’t make any sense.”
