by N. N. Britt
Tonight would almost feel normal if not for the blue uniforms of the paramedics lingering in the background, waiting and ready.
Carter went first. He marched over to the drum kit and climbed the riser. Johnny followed him with his bass. The arena lit up. A wall of shaking hands quivered behind the shimmering veil of colored smoke.
Heat filled my chest.
I watched Frank as he listened to the roar of the crowd with his eyes shut. He was soaking in their voices. Taking them all in until it was enough. Then his hand jerked, fingers tapping against his thigh. I could tell his mind was slipping into another dimension where only music existed. Jaw tight, he readjusted his in-ear monitor.
Dante took off with his guitar strap wrapped around his neck. The spotlight followed him as he stalked across the stage with his typical swagger, ripping through a couple of simple chords and tossing smiles at the front row. The black body of his Stratocaster sparkled under a bright stream of orange.
Johnny walked over to the edge and raised his hand in the air to get the crowd going. The level of noise was no longer bearable, even where I was standing. I had to cover my ears for a brief second. I felt the tremble again and a shiver of excitement zapped down my spine.
Then the intro tune began to subside. Stage left lights flickered and dipped. Stage right followed suit.
Frank drew a deep breath and headed straight for the microphone. His silhouette moved purposefully against the phone-studded net encircling the inside of the dark arena. Fog swirled around his boots while he drank in the endless stretch of what promised to be the real mayhem.
The heat in my chest spread to my stomach. Frank neared the edge of the stage, dragging the microphone stand with him. His gaze danced across the floor as the security line tightened beneath where he stood. The frame of his carved-to-perfection body lingered against the infinite sea of hands that were thrust in the air.
I reminded myself to breathe. This was a stunning view. A view of power. I’d seen this exact image last night, but with Frank, every day was the beginning of a new adventure. Be it a midnight ride in a Ferrari or a rock show at the Forum. Palms pressed together, I watched him talking to the audience. Dante pitched in a few words. There were no excuses or mentions of yesterday’s set. The speech was a short thank you and the fans loved it. They ate up everything Frank said. They clapped. They professed their love and bathed in the love he professed to them. The energy was off the charts. It felt as if the entire city was gathered here tonight. Not just physically but spiritually. Those who still had reception and could handle the rage of the crowd without going nuts livestreamed.
Borders and social status were erased. Music united people. Music brought peace.
And Frank’s job was to make sure every single person would take a handful of beautiful memories home with them.
The band kicked off the set with the Hollow Heart Dream material. The first two songs were fast and anthemic, festival-worthy crowd-pleasers. I knew the lyrics by heart. My lips moved along with Frank’s. His energy level skyrocketed with each second. Face and shoulders lax, he rocked on his heels to the beat. After the four song mark, he gave the microphone to Dante and went for a quick check-up backstage, where a bottle of water and a towel were handed to him. The crew was on standby and people moved in.
Frank’s physician had insisted on monitoring his vitals during the set to avoid complications after the show, so as soon as Frank chugged the water, he whipped out an oxygen mask and then measured his blood pressure.
I stayed in my spot and watched, my heart thundering. Frank looked sweaty and ruffled, exactly what a rock singer should look like, but the dark spark in his eyes and the rigid movements of his body said it all. He was ready to get back into action. He was fine.
When the physician finally pulled off the cuff and gave Frank a nod, my chest released a loud sigh of relief.
As the show progressed, Frank turned up the heat. A lick of aggression colored his voice. Even during the slow tracks. He was riding the adrenaline high along with the rest of the band, the audience, the guests, and the crew.
“Are you having fun yet, L.A.?” The words shot through the arena with some slight feedback. The crowd reciprocated.
He spun around, dashed over to the stairs, and climbed them up to the platform that occupied the right wing of the stage. Dante produced a few rapacious chords and grinned at the people on the floor fighting for room to breathe. He reveled in the chaos he’d created. It was obvious that madness fed his dark, tortured soul.
Including the encore, there were seven more songs to go, and every second that passed was another second I could scratch off my imaginary clock. In my head, this set was a race against the unknown, a race against time, a race against failure. Was Frank going to make it or was the same animal that had caught up with him yesterday going to take him down tonight before all the songs were sung and all the solos played?
“I can’t hear you, L.A.!” he screamed into the microphone as he walked to the middle of the platform. Another roar. His eyes met Carter’s and they exchanged subtle smiles.
Dante ripped through another sequence of ragged chords and whirled in his spot, which caused him to lose his hat, but he didn’t care to look for it. He seemed preoccupied with his guitar and the sounds it made. Notes finally fell together and the intro riff of “Adrenaline Lane” launched the arena into a state of absolute anarchy. Dirty, sweaty, music-infused anarchy.
I had no idea what was expected of me as the lead singer’s girlfriend. Was I supposed to stand still and smile? Was I supposed to clap politely? Or was I allowed to let loose? There were no rule books on how to behave around filthy rich people when you dated one of them. My gut told me to enjoy it. And I did. I moved to the beat and I shook my head. A stupid grin spread across my face and didn’t want to come off. My cheeks hurt, but at that moment, I truly didn’t care.
Music and memories took me over entirely. My pulse pounded in my throat. My blood rushed through my veins, hot and thick. Frank’s voice was everywhere—oxygen in my lungs, sparkle on my skin, and strength in my bones. We were an invisible cloud of dust and eternal ashes traveling through the universe and existing together.
Stage fog blurred my eyes and all I could register was Frank’s silhouette on top of the platform. The pyro went off and everyone began to stomp. I felt the heat crashing into my face. My hair rose from the blast, floated down, and slowly fell back into place, its soft brush warm on my shoulders.
Their feet trampling, the crowd chanted. I squeezed my eyes shut and sang along. Line after line until Frank’s voice perished among the clamor of the instruments.
Then came the gasp. It was a low, chilling sound that made my skin crawl. The drums still rattled, but the tremble of Johnny’s bass had melted away and Dante’s guitar went off key. Like a mile-long drop into an abyss of nothing. Heart clenching, I snapped my eyes open and scanned the stretch of space between me and the platform. Frank wasn’t there. The fog was thick and the lights spun uncontrollably, slicing through the darkness. I couldn’t see well, but I could hear the distressed screams as they grew louder. Then the music stopped.
Dread seized my chest. People behind me started to push, their whispers deafening. Static noise and panic took over the backstage area as paramedics barreled through. Janet and Bruce ran in after them. The fog was settling and bright lights flooded the entire arena.
That’s when I saw him. He was on the floor, face up. Dante sat next to him, cheeks abnormally pale. Carter stood behind Dante. Johnny, like the true gatekeeper, still held on to the microphone, but terror twisted his features.
A howl tightened my lungs. Frank wasn’t moving. I palmed my mouth and began my approach. My heart had fallen out of my chest somewhere along the way. It was the strangest sensation. The immediate need to know he wasn’t hurt overwhelmed me. My emotions were fragments of feelings, similar to a broken mosaic that clattered inside my head.
I didn’t make it past the safety line. Ro
man intercepted me and grabbed my arm. His grasp wasn’t rough, but it was firm enough to stop me from going any farther.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Evans. It’s best you stay back.” His voice boomed over the noise.
Then I saw Corey shaking his head furiously and waving his hands. He didn’t want me anywhere near Frank right now.
I understood. I would have become another unnecessary complication if I were to show up on stage in front of twenty thousand people in a dress that was made of a piece of fabric that was smaller than a bandana.
“Okay.” I gave Roman a nervous nod. “What happened?” I tried to sound calm, but I was having trouble holding it together.
“Not sure just yet, Ms. Evans.” Shaking his head, he released my arm and marched into the chaos surrounding Frank.
A stretcher was rolled on stage. I heard another collective gasp, then waves of worried murmurs rippled through the arena. The crowd was restless.
My shoes suddenly felt small, tight, and very uncomfortable. My spine stiffened. I balled my hands into fists and waited to the side while the paramedics tried to get Frank off the floor. My manicured nails dug into my palms, stabbing the tender skin, but I didn’t feel anything. Not a lick of pain. It was all in my chest, squeezing and tearing at my hammering heart.
On stage, technicians and crew members ran around with their walkie-talkies, and I could see the pattern of Janet’s dress behind the wall of bodies as she hovered above her son. The paramedics finally managed to put Frank on a backboard and lifted him up after a brace was settled around his neck. Cries filled the arena—a fusion of sounds of anger, fear, and disappointment.
Low thuds and feedback came from the speakers as Dante tapped the microphone. He pushed the tangle of dark, wet locks off his forehead and held up his hands, asking for silence.
When the paramedics pushed the stretcher away from the audience’s line of sight, blind panic clutched my brain and I barreled my way in and grabbed the side rail, needing to look at him, needing to know what exactly he was going through. His eyes were wide open, unblinking and full of horror as they looked past me.
“Ma’am!” One of the medics elbowed me, knocking my purse off my shoulder. “Please step aside!”
My gaze swept the length of Frank’s body, checking for blood. One small cut carved the skin near his sweat-coated temple. I reached for his fingers and they were stiff and unresponsive.
“Ma’am! We need you to step aside!”
“Miss Evans, please!” Roman insisted, ripping me away from the cluster of paramedics trying to work on Frank.
Dante’s voice reverberated in the back of my head. He was talking to the fans. I heard Carter resuming on the drums. The noise of the show began to fade away as we scrambled past the backstage crowd and into the hallway. A muddle of sobs, shouts, and radio static trailed the stretcher as it clattered against the floor.
“Where are you taking him?” I asked no one in particular. My lungs were out of air and the words that tore through my throat were dry spurs. “Where are you taking him?” I caught Janet’s sleeve.
She glanced at me over her shoulder. “Cedars Sinai.”
The strap of my dress fell and my purse dangled against my leg as I trailed behind in my four-inch heels.
Outside, the distressed blues and reds of the ambulance gleamed against the polished bodies of the eighteen-wheelers that lined the dock.
The muffled roar of the audience filled the parking lot as I watched the medics loading the stretcher into the back of the vehicle. Janet and Billy jumped in behind it. Roman went next.
Eyes trained on Frank, I slung my purse over my shoulder and pushed through the chain of security.
“Only family!” a voice barked at me as the ambulance doors slid closed.
“I’m his girlfriend!” I cried out, my fist thrust in the air in an attempt to hit the vehicle, but my coordination was off. Heck, my brain was off too. My entire life was crumbling like a sandcastle under the tide.
“I’m sorry. Only family!”
“Roman!” I called and waved my hand to get his attention, but he was turned with his back to me.
“Ma’am, please step aside.” A security guard rested his heavy hands on my shoulders. A flashlight jerked across my face.
Delirious, I stomped my foot. “Don’t fucking touch me and don’t fucking ma’am me!” My blood boiled with rage.
“You need to calm down, ma’am!”
I spit out another string of expletives, but the piercing noise of the siren devoured my words. The ambulance moved. Without me. I wasn’t sure what exactly I felt at that moment. Mad. Terrified. Erased?
Emotions clogged my throat. I dropped my gaze to my chest and realized my backstage pass was missing.
People around me yelled and ran in different directions. Inside the arena, the noise was subsiding. The drums had stopped. I spun on my heels and scanned the crowd, looking for a familiar face. My heart was a thrashing mess somewhere in the pit of my stomach. My pulse raced. Brooklyn stood near one of the trucks with a phone pressed to her ear. I couldn’t make out a word she said, but for the first time since I’d met the woman, I saw her emitting emotions. Mostly shock.
Corey was nowhere to be seen. My hands shook when I pulled out my own phone to check the reception. With twenty thousand people Tweeting and Instagramming about another Hall Affinity fiasco, the chances of getting an Uber from anywhere within a half-mile radius of the Forum were less than zero.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I growled, staring at the single bar in the top left corner of my screen.
The app lagged.
I felt it then. The tears of despair pooling at the back of my eyes. I didn’t know what triggered them, the incident itself or the fact that I hadn’t made it into the ambulance, but the sudden shift terrified me. The unknown terrified me. The helplessness terrified me.
It had been my sixteenth birthday when my mother shared her wisdom with me, the motto I’d always followed.
Don’t ever let a man in to the point where when he’s gone, he’s taken a part of you with him.
She called it the breaking point.
Tonight was exactly that. The moment I’d been avoiding at all costs. And it happened the moment the ambulance left, taking Frank, taking my sanity, and taking my heart along with him. The entire night felt like an episode of a badly scripted reality show with an unlikable, unstable female lead. Me.
Stop it, Cassy. You’re an independent woman. You don’t fucking cry in the middle of a crowded parking lot.
I sucked in a deep breath through my teeth and choked down the wave of defeat. My gaze darted from person to person until it reached the dark shock of Dante’s hair near the back entrance. Cigarette dangling between his lips, shirt unbuttoned, he was surrounded by the screaming crowd. Something told me some of those people might have been overzealous fans who’d snuck in. Carter was right behind him, drenched. He pulled off his shirt and used it to wipe the sheen of sweat from his forehead.
“Dante!” I called, rushing over. The click of my heels rattled in my ears.
He spun around and the wind whipped the sides of his shirt against his thin torso. People swarmed between us as we caught sight of each other. His expression was withdrawn, his eyes dark, and as they wandered across my face, I had to ask myself whether he understood what had just happened or he was experiencing the same type of delay Frank had felt during the motorcycle crash.
“Are you going to Cedars Sinai?”
Dante nodded. “You have a ride?” He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and spit on the asphalt. Anxiety riddled his face.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Okay, come on.” He jerked his chin and headed toward the black car that was waiting.
I followed. “What about Carter?”
“He’s riding with Johnny.”
We climbed in the back. The doors thwacked shut, separating us from the mayhem. Dante rolled down the window and continued puffing on his cigarette.
>
Phone clutched in my palm, heart racing, I stared at the arena lights smeared behind the tinted glass as we maneuvered through the developing gridlock. The traffic on Manchester was just as bad, if not worse. Cars lined up one after another.
Dante finished smoking, tossed the butt outside, and closed the window. His hand rested on his thigh, long fingers tapping out a nervous dance against the expensive denim.
“What happened?” I turned to face him as endless questions swirled in my head. “He was fine before the set.”
Dante dropped his gaze to the floor. “I don’t know. He tripped.”
I needed more than that. I needed an explanation my brain could work with. “What do you mean tripped? It makes no sense!”
“I don’t fucking know, Cassy!”
Our voices clashed inside the car like two cymbals. Mine was a raging high-pitch and his was frostbite on my skin.
I shivered. “But he was fine!”
Dante palmed his face, and I heard the rumble of his labored breath. “Can you shut up for a second, please?”
My phone buzzed. Again and again. Messages and email notifications that couldn’t make it through inside the arena. I hid the device in my purse and tried to breathe through the panic. My pulse thrummed in my temples and my body shook uncontrollably. I wasn’t sure whether it was from the AC that blasted from everywhere or shock.
Dante lit up another cigarette, this time not bothering to roll down the window. He smoked fast. Deep, nervous puffs. Rigid movements. His chest trembled.
I watched him from the corner of my eye. The tense set of his jaw gave away his temporary animosity toward me. Smoke was everywhere. In my hair, in my eyes, in my lungs. Suffocating me and reminding me once again why I’d never dated anyone who was addicted to nicotine. It was a deadly habit.
Cracking my own window open, I plastered my cheek to the glass and breathed. Cool air crept up my arms and legs. Worry for Frank settled deep in my chest.
Dante finally lowered his window. I heard the rustle of his clothes and the rough scratch of his vocal cords as he cleared his throat and spoke, “You probably want to call your family and make sure they don’t talk to reporters. Mom. Dad. Dog. Just in case.”