There is no simple answer, but it’s time to admit defeat.
I pick myself off the floor and call for an Uber. I took one here so at least my truck won’t be abandoned here like some mockery of Clifford the Big Red Dog.
An hour later the guy lets me out on the street. I stand there, staring at the building.
I’m far from sober yet—drinking practically non-stop for the last two weeks will do that to a person—but I know this is where I have to be as stupid as it probably is.
I wish when Kira had said she couldn’t love me I could’ve accepted it, or talked about it like a normal human being, but that’s not me. Or who I was, since I never want to be that guy again.
I’m tired of always turning to shitty ass things when I’m angry, or scared. I’m tired of using them as a crutch, a security blanket. I’m tired of not recognizing who I am and being a man I should be ashamed of, but one I know my parents would be appalled to see I’ve become.
If I don’t get my ass in line now … I’ll die.
Fear strikes my heart, but I know it’s true.
With the band, with more success around the corner, and tours with God knows what substances around … I’d die.
Live fast, die young.
I don’t want that to be the legacy I leave behind to my unborn child. I want my kid to know me, to love me even if no one else in this world does, I want my kid to know I’ll always be there.
I want to tell Kira my love is true, even if she doesn’t love me, and I’m so fucking sorry for what I’ve done—what she’s expected of me all along.
I’m exactly the man she feared I would be.
She’ll never forgive me for this. I know it. But I won’t keep this a secret.
A splatter of water hits my cheek and I tilt my head back, looking up at the dark cloudy night sky.
April showers bring May flowers, I think to myself.
I can’t help but feel it’s significant somehow.
Forcing my feet, one in front of the other, down the sidewalk and up the stairs I beat my hand forcefully against her door.
It’s fucking late, nearly two in the morning, but if I don’t do this now, I’ll chicken out and I’ll never tell her.
I keep banging my hand, hoping she hears it.
A minute later the door is pulled open roughly and I stumble as she appears with a robe wrapped around her body, tied above her bump, and a baseball bat held ready in her hand.
“Rush?” she blurts. “What are you doing here? You’re drunk,” she states, taking in my bloodshot eyes and disheveled appearance.
It rains harder now, plastering my hair to my forehead.
“I had to see you,” I tell her, pain ripping through my body.
“It’s after two in the morning. This couldn’t have waited?” She starts to close the door and I slam my hand out, barring her from shutting it.
“No,” I say forcefully. “I needed to see you now.”
“Go to the hotel and sober up.” Her tone is final, but I don’t listen.
“Kira!” I shout. “I’m trying to talk to you. I … fuck.” I look away from her. How do I tell her this? How do I possibly admit the sin I’ve committed? “I did something bad.”
“If you killed someone, I can’t be an accessory.” She starts closing the door again.
“I fucked someone else!” I yell at the top of my lungs.
You shouldn’t have just blurted it like that you fucking idiot.
Her face pales, her lips parting. “W-What did you say?” Her face crumples in pain, pain I know she wishes didn’t show.
“It didn’t get that far,” I correct, “but it came close.”
“How close?” She swallows thickly, her brown eyes brimming with tears.
“Too close,” I confess. “But I stopped Kira, I stopped because I love you.” I reach out, trying to hold her, but she jerks away.
“This is exactly why I said I could never love you,” she seethes, pointing a shaky finger at me. “I knew something like this would happen. All those men growing up told my mom they loved her too, but guess what Rush, it was just words! None of them ever actually meant it. I knew it would be the same with you—and now what? You’ve come here to rub it in my face?”
I grab the top of the doorframe, leaning in close to her as rain courses down the sides of my face.
“I do love you,” I plead with her to believe me. “I love you so damn much, Kira, but you said you could never love me. I shouldn’t have done what I did tonight. I know that. I will regret this for the rest of my life,” I speak passionately, needing her to understand.
She shakes her head. “Get help, Rush. Deal with your demons and stop making them my problem.”
“Kira,” I beg. “Please, believe me. I love you—I couldn’t let this lie fester between us, I had to admit what I did tonight, what I was going to do.” In the distance I swear I hear thunder rumble.
“You’re a liar, a cheater, an alcoholic and God knows what else.” Her eyes are fire burning amidst the rain. “Leave me alone. Let me raise our child on my own. Our son doesn’t deserve to grow up with such a pathetic excuse for a father. I hope you get better, I do, but I don’t want anything to do with you. Come near me again and you’ll regret it. Try to fight me for rights to our son and I promise you’ll never see him.”
My breathing is ragged, and I’m stunned into silence for a moment.
“Son?” I blurt.
“I found out this week,” she tells me. She looks me over, almost like she’s trying to memorize what I look like. “Goodbye, Rush.”
Before I can stop her, the door closes and locks.
“Kira!” I yell, pounding on the door. “Come back! This isn’t over!” It can’t be.
I pat my pockets, looking for her keys, but I don’t have them on me and when my eyes drop to the doorknob I know it would do me no good anyway. She’s changed the fucking doorknob.
“Kira,” I yell, begging, pleading, praying for her to come back. To understand I know I fucked up. I’m admitting it. I’m an asshole.
I drop my ass down onto the step of the wooden decking. I’m soaking wet, shivering, but I don’t care. I deserve the physical suffering too.
This isn’t how I meant for any of this to go. On some level I believed falling in love with her was the cure-all for my grief, that I could be responsible, and we would live in blissful happiness and raise our child together.
Be a family.
But my family is gone, and my chance at one in the future is gone now too.
I’ve thrown away everything good in my life, for a tryst in a bathroom stall, for a bottle of alcohol that’s only dragged me deeper and deeper into something I can’t crawl out of.
I’m staring at rock bottom, and I don’t like it at all.
I could keep digging farther; see how far this hole goes, essentially digging my own grave. Or I could rise to the surface for the first time in years.
It won’t be easy, child, but you can do it. You know why? Because you have a warrior’s heart.
I press my fingers over the beating organ and I swear I can feel the ghost of my mother’s fingers there too.
It was something she told me every time I wanted to give up.
She was always there with a hand to haul me back up.
This time, I have to do it on my own.
31
Kira
“Kira!”
I put my hands over my ears, sobbing. I can’t hear his voice. I can’t hear any more of what he has to say.
Showing up here to tell me he almost fucked another woman? What was he thinking? And why does it hurt so damn much?
“Kira!”
“Go away,” I whisper brokenly, and I know there’s no chance he even heard the two words.
I drop to my knees, wrapping my arms around myself as I cry.
You don’t even love him. You don’t love him, Kira. You don’t love him.
I tell myself this over and over again, but e
ach time I do it feels less and less true.
I can blame him all I want, but the fact is, we’ve both made a ginormous mess of things.
I gag at the image I conjure of him and some nameless woman when only weeks ago he was touching me on the hotel bed.
Jumping up, I run to the bathroom and yank my hair back just in time to throw up in the toilet.
My biggest fear has always been ending up like my mother. Attracted to men who hurt me, crying over losers who aren’t worth my time.
I’ve become an exact replica of the woman I never wanted to be.
When I’m certain I’m done throwing up I sit with my back against the wall, bowing my head.
How did things get so screwed up? Where did I go wrong to end up like this?
I press a hand to my growing belly, at the little life I was so hesitant of in the beginning and now I cling on to as a source of hope.
My son.
I have to make things better for him, and that means cutting Rush out of my life. Maybe he can get his shit together, I want to believe that, but my life and our son’s life is better off without him right now.
I rub a tear off my cheek, wondering what would’ve happened if I told him I loved him back in the hotel.
Would we still have ended up like this—or would we have lived blissfully ever after?
I want to believe we could’ve been happy, things could’ve been good, but I know in my heart it’s not true.
We’re both train wrecks waiting to happen—his just did, and mine … mine must be around the corner. Waiting to sneak up on me.
I pick myself up off the floor, dust myself off like I always have, and brush my teeth before getting back into bed.
I tell myself not to think about it, Rush isn’t my concern, but my heart aches for him and anger still simmers at what he did—because at the end of the day, I might’ve told him I can never love him, but it was a lie.
I already do.
32
Rush
“I fucked up.”
“Jesus Christ!” Cannon comes awake, his limbs flailing wildly as he finds me standing over him. “Why the fuck are you leering over me?”
“I fucked up,” I repeat.
“What time is it?” he asks, squinting at the clock.
“Five.”
“Great, then let me sleep for at least two more hours before I have to deal with you and your shit.” He crooks his tattooed arm over his face
“Cannon, please, man,” I beg. “I need you.”
He sighs and drops his arm. Stifling a yawn, he sits up. “Go start some coffee. Something tells me I’m going to need lots of strong ass caffeine for this.”
“Thank you,” I tell him, and nearly wince when he gives me a pitying look.
He knows.
Of course he doesn’t know exactly what I’ve done, but he knows it’s bad or I wouldn’t be coming to him.
After I finally plucked myself off Kira’s stairs I walked around for a while. I was already soaking wet, so it didn’t make much difference to me.
I stopped in front of a building downtown with paper cranes hanging from strings in the window. Emblazoned across the window was a sign—The Paper Crane Project, it deemed. There was a paper with information about what they did taped to the inside of the glass. I’ve probably passed by that building hundreds of times since we came here, it’s not far from the studio, but I never stopped to pay attention.
I did tonight, and if it had been daytime I would’ve gone inside.
Reading what they do … I felt a connection to their mission.
They write messages, positive ones, and then fold them into an origami paper crane. They leave them around town, in public places for people to find. The sheet of paper said their mission has spread across several states and they’re hoping it catches on even more.
I want to be a part of something like that. Something good.
But I also have to help myself.
I brew Cannon’s coffee and I’m pouring it into a cup as he comes out of his room, tugging a shirt over his head. I’m glad I had the forethought to change into dry clothes as soon as I got back here. Otherwise, I’d be a popsicle.
“Give me that,” he demands, reaching for the coffee with a tattooed hand. He takes a sip and sighs. “That’s good.” Inclining his head toward the couch he says, “I take it this is the kind of conversation more easily swallowed when sitting.”
“Yeah, probably,” I sigh rubbing my hands together.
I feel completely sober now, but who knows what the fuck I’d score on a breathalyzer test. I’m probably lucky I didn’t get arrested when I was walking around town so late, or early depending on your perspective, in the pouring down rain.
Cannon sits down and takes a large gulp of coffee before setting it on the table.
“What’d you do?” he asks, as I sit down in the chair across from him.
“Something horrible. Something unforgiveable.” I scrub a hand over my tired face. I haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours.
“It must be bad if you look so dejected.”
“After … after I left the studio … I mean, I was already fucked up. I took an Uber to D.C., walked around a while, that kind of shit, and then … well, I went to a club.” I rub my face. How I told this to Kira is beyond me, because she’s the one I betrayed, who I hurt the most besides myself—but telling Cannon is like confessing to a parent that you took a joyride at fourteen in their car.
“Spit it out. I’m not awake enough for your babbling.” He’s peeved sounding, and frankly, I deserve it. I’ve been a jerk to him. To everyone. I’m a mess—a mess I couldn’t see until I took things too far.
“I drank some more, and there were chicks there, hot ones. I started dancing with one and we kissed—”
He sits up, glaring at me with narrowed eyes. “Please tell me it was only a kiss.” I give him a sheepish look. “Hold up, I need more coffee for this.” He picks up the mug, holding up one finger signaling me to wait while he gulps down more of the dark liquid. “Continue,” he says with a flourish, setting his mug down once more.
“Somehow we ended up in the bathroom. There was more kissing, then there were tits, and … I just wanted to forget, Cannon.” I plead with him to understand where I was coming from, to not hate me too. “After she started to suck me off, I stopped it. You have to believe me, it didn’t go any farther than that. I felt like shit, I still do. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel okay again for what I’ve done.”
He shakes his head at me, biting his tongue. “How could you? Do you not really love Kira, because I can’t imagine loving a woman and then cheating on her?”
“I know.” I bury my face in my hands. I can feel the sickness creeping back up my throat.
“You’re an asshole,” he tells me. “A real fucking idiot.”
“I know,” I breathe. “I’m a screw up, an asshole, an idiot. I’m an alcoholic, man,” I choke, looking away from him. Admitting the words out loud was more difficult than I anticipated. Those words grate on my ears.
I’m an alcoholic.
But it’s true, I am. Cannon’s known all along, but I wanted to believe I still had some semblance of control over my life. I didn’t.
The only control I have now is to accept I need help.
He stares at me, shocked I’ve finally accepted the truth.
“What are you going to do about it?” he asks me.
He’s said all along I’m the one who has to decide I need help. It can’t be forced on me.
“I’m going to join AA,” I tell him matter-of-factly. “I don’t know what else I’m going to do, but it’s something. I saw this place in town, The Paper Crane Project. I thought I might start by going in there. I feel drawn to it for some reason.” I shrug like none of this is a big deal, but it’s huge.
It changes everything.
“Are you going to tell Hayes?” he challenges.
I inhale a shaky breath and exhale. “Yes. I can
’t keep this a secret.”
“Good,” he says. Leaning back, he assesses me. “What about Kira? Are you going to tell her about this … romp?”
“I already did,” I admit.
“Shit.” He curses, running his fingers through the longer stands on top of his head. “I take it that went…?”
“Horribly,” I finish for him. “I deserve for her to hate me.” I look away, picturing her in my mind in the doorway of her place. Her look of utter devastation, anger, and the worst of all—the acceptance that this was what she expected of me all along, and why she could never love me.
I didn’t prove her wrong. I proved her right and I’ll never be able to forgive myself for that, for not being a better man.
“I guess this was the wakeup call you needed.” He shrugs, and leans over to pick up his coffee cup.
“I hated I needed it to begin with,” I grumble. “I hate myself for letting things get this bad.”
He shrugs. “You’ve never dealt with shit. You ran from it. Now, it’s caught up to you.” He raises his glass in a cheers motion. “Make the best of it.”
“How can I possibly make anything decent out of what I’ve done?”
“You can’t take it back,” he explains with a shrug. “But remember, actions always speak louder than words. Be the kind of man you know you can be.”
“She’ll never forgive me.”
“So?” he counters. “You don’t need to get better for her. You need to get better for you. The rest will fall into place.”
“We’re having a son, Cannon. A little boy.” I feel tears filling my eyes and I dam them back. I don’t know when I became so weepy, but I’m over it. “She told me I’ll never see him.”
He sighs. “Yeah, well she’s pissed at you. Heat of the moment.” He waves his hand in easy dismissal, like her words are no big deal. “Frankly, I don’t blame her for telling you that. Go her.”
“Go her? Are you on her side now?”
“I’m on the side where my best friend gets help and gets better. Now, you have the best motivation possible. Get better for you—then prove to her that you’re not only deserving of being in your son’s life, but hers too.”
Wild Flame (The Wild: A Rock Star Romance Book 2) Page 25