by N. N. Britt
My wrath was immense. Apocalyptic proportions. I hated my father. I hated Frank, but most of all, I hated myself for not being enough for either one of them.
Every drop of my blood raged a mad fire. The fury was absolute. Blinded by hurt, I kicked the bike with all the strength left in me. It tipped and fell over, its crash drowning out the sounds of the music and Frank’s loud, angry breaths.
Resentment blazed in his eyes. He spun to the Escalade, jerked the door open, and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Disbelief choked me. Fists balled, I screamed. It was a spiteful growl. No words. Just noise. My lashes were heavy with tears and I felt them spill down my cheeks one by one, burning my skin. Sick adrenaline ran through my veins.
Frank was out of control. Delusional.
He activated the remote inside the car and I heard the soft scrape of the automatic garage door behind me. Cool air rushed in from the outside. The Escalade’s engine rumbled.
Think, Cassy. Think! my inner voice howled.
My gaze scoured the shelves as I searched for something to stop him. My trembling hands sifted through the scattering of useless gadgets. The man didn’t have a single tool in his garage that a car owner actually needed.
Grabbing the first thing I deemed strong enough—a wrench, I raced over to the door and wedged it into the chain. A shrill screech pierced the exhaust-filled air as the metal panels came to a halt.
The Escalade was like a beast. It roared, its tires squealing against the cement floor. Cursing, Frank scrambled out of the vehicle and began his approach.
I shook my head. “Please stop.” He drilled past me and yanked at the wrench but to no avail. He was too drunk.
Heart thrashing, I charged back into the house to get my phone.
A string of expletives followed by heavy footsteps and the banging of furniture trailed after me while I galloped through the hallway as if the floor were on fire.
“Fix the goddamn door.” Frank’s voice carried over the noise.
Dialing Roman’s number, I ran out onto the terrace. The cold stones bit my feet. The line clicked.
“Ms. Evans?”
“You need to come over right now. Frank is drunk. He just tried to get on his bike.” I paused to catch my breath and hopped down the stairs, skipping a step.
“Mr. Blade gave me the rest of the week off,” he said carefully.
Behind me, the front door slammed.
“I don’t think you understand. He’s very drunk and he needs a doctor,” I muttered as I walked to my Honda, my keychain clutched in my palm so hard, my skin started to tear. “I really don’t want to call in a domestic disturbance, but I don’t know how to handle him.” My words were turning into sobs.
“I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you.” I breathed out a sigh of relief and fumbled with the key fob to unlock my car. My hand shook.
Frank was closing in on me. “Where the fuck are you going?” His voice was an ugly rasp and didn’t sound like his own.
I spun around and matched his stare. He looked dangerous. And not in a good kind of way. His body swayed like a leaf in the wind, ready to drop to the ground.
“And where the fuck are you going and where the fuck have you been all day?” I screamed back. “I needed you! Isabella needed you! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You broke my fucking door.” Fuming, he motioned at the garage door. “Then you tried to fucking assault me in my own house!”
I could see the Escalade’s headlights streaming into the foggy yard from under the jammed panel. “Well, why don’t you sue me for that, Frank, huh? Since that’s your best strategy when things don’t go your way.”
“And then you tried to fucking kill me.”
“Are you serious?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
He staggered over.
I rounded the car to stand on the opposite side. I needed to put some distance between us. A barrier.
“You wanted to talk, let’s fucking talk.” His face was ravaged by pain and anger. “What do you want to know? Do you wanna hear about how it feels when you drive into a fucking wall riding a hundred and twenty an hour?”
“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this, and I can’t be with you when you’re like this. You promised me you’d get help!”
“And you’re supposed to be my girlfriend, not my fucking therapist.”
We went on arguing for endless minutes until the rumble of Roman’s car broke us up. He dragged Frank back into the house and called a medic.
I left.
Old, almost forgotten memories of my father flashed in front of me as I steered my Honda down the mountain road. He’d been a sloppy and mute drunk who spent his days glued to the TV with a bottle of whatever he could get his hands on while our mother worked two jobs to support his habit.
But not once during all those fourteen years of living with an alcoholic had I felt the way I felt with Frank tonight. Terrified.
I’d been ignored, but I’d never been yelled at and subjected to the kind of emotional violence he’d put me through.
My hands still shook and my heartbeat was like a damaged vintage tape, pounding, scratching, and getting stuck. I drove without any sense of direction, making random turns and listening to my heavy metal playlist that consisted mainly of classic Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold. Frank’s angry voice still roared in my head and I wanted his screams purged. I wanted today, with all its disappointments and resentment, erased completely.
The bottom of my right foot burned like hell. Roman had been kind enough to snatch a pair of shoes for me before I left. I couldn’t bring myself to go back into that house. Not after everything that had happened there.
Hours later, I squeezed my car between two SUVs down the street from my mother’s apartment. My mind still raced. I wasn’t sure why, out of all people, I came to see her.
We sat in the kitchen surrounded by the soft rattle of the wall heater. The familiarity of the place soothed my aching soul.
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Still shocked, she shook her head and stared into space as I continued to blow my nose, napkin after napkin. “He needs to want to stop drinking. There’s no point in fighting it otherwise. You can threaten, you can plead, you can try the intervention route, but it’s not something he can just turn off.”
My mother knew all about being in a relationship with an alcoholic. Sadly, she’d never succeeded, which made me wonder whether loving someone was enough.
I left her place very late, exhausted and unsure what to do next. In my apartment in Burbank, Ashton was sprawled on the couch, asleep. An empty pizza box and Red Bull cans sat on the coffee table. The TV was still on. My brother had started to turn into a younger and prettier version of Levi.
I tiptoed into my bedroom, shed my clothes, and crawled under the blankets. After hours of brutal metal and ugly crying, silence felt nice. Comforting even. I dug deep into my brain and tried to fish out happy memories of Frank and me, moments when he made me smile, moments he was sweet and charming, but all I could see was his face vexed with anger and the void he’d become.
I loathed that my worry for him was stronger than my hate and that it pushed me into calling Roman.
“He’s asleep, Ms. Evans.”
“Is his shoulder okay?”
“Hard to say right now. I’m taking him to get an X-ray tomorrow. Doctor’s orders.”
“Keep me posted?”
“Sure. Ms. Evans?” He paused. “I’m glad you called.”
“The last thing I want is for his name to be dragged through the mud while Marshall Burns is getting all the attention.”
“I know you probably won’t believe me, but he appreciates it. He’ll regret most of what he said tonight when he sleeps it off. Don’t take it personally.”
“Good night, Roman.”
“Good night, Ms. Evans.”
It was the doorbell that roused me the next morning. Or afternoon, to be more exact, because the digital
clock on the phone read twelve thirty.
Outside my apartment stood a delivery person with flowers. I knew they were from Frank. Phone calls and messages began a couple of hours later, probably when he finally sobered up. I ignored every single one. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.
I needed space and I needed to rethink my priorities.
Then I had to discuss the duet fiasco with Maria and Linda, which was the hardest conversation I’d had in years. The man had singlehandedly ruined months of collective work, and now we were left to pick up the pieces.
“What the fuck happened to Frank yesterday?” was the first thing Ashton asked when he got home from school.
Leaning against the kitchen counter with my arms crossed on my chest, I was watching the plastic container with a premade entrée revolving inside the microwave. My appetite was absent, but my brain needed something other than coffee. Frank drama aside, Dreamcatchers required my undivided attention. Levi and I were in talks with several venues, and now that my boyfriend’s involvement was up in the air, things promised to get more complicated.
No one would care about a girl from Northern California if a big name wasn’t attached to the project. Linda would have to try really hard to keep us afloat.
“I don’t want to talk about him right now,” I told Ashton.
He scratched the back of his neck and dipped his head to check what was inside the microwave. “Trouble in paradise, huh?”
“You can have it if you’re hungry.” I motioned at the container and returned to my room.
The apartment felt too small for the two of us. I couldn’t tell whether it was because I was used to the luxury lifestyle of Frank’s Malibu mansion or because Ashton had turned my place into a man cave. Everything looked strange. Every detail stuck out. As if my place wasn’t mine anymore. Even the gigantic teddy bear no longer made me smile.
I’d never taken Frank for a big texter, but apparently, the man knew exactly how badly he’d fucked up yesterday. He was showering me with messages nonstop. I had to set my phone to silent. By the time evening rolled around, TMZ had gotten wind of what had happened at Gary’s studio. According to “a source close to the singer,” Frankie Blade decided not to record the duet for reasons that were yet to be explained. I didn’t know how this information had become public knowledge.
Still wired from yesterday’s fight and all my disappointments, I was sitting in front of my computer and sorting through emails when an unfamiliar number flashed across the screen of my phone. I answered. It was force of habit. It could have been film-related.
“Hello. Is this Cassandra Evans?” the male voice asked.
“Yes.” My gut told me that picking up this call was bad judgment on my part.
“This is Brad Finley from Entertainment Weekly. Do you have a comment about your relationship with Frankie Blade?”
A rush of anxiety raced through me. I hung up without saying a word and noted a new message from Levi that had just come in.
You’re out, it read.
Frazzled, I clicked the link he included.
There they were, the photos of me and Frank from the Ventura gas station. No faces. But then there were other photos of him with Isabella, screenshots from her Instagram with me in the background.
Ready for the worst, I drew a deep breath through my teeth and looked at the headline.
“The rumors are true: Frankie Blade is dating”
“Secret relationship isn’t that secret anymore: Former Hall Affinity singer Frankie Blade is seeing music reporter Cassy Evans”
The time stamp indicated the post had gone live thirty minutes ago.
I dialed Levi.
“Is that what it takes to make you return my calls?”
“Sorry, I was on the phone with Linda and I just…needed some alone time.”
“We don’t have the luxury of alone time, Cass. Margerie Helm just emailed me back. She wants to meet.”
“Really?” My heart sputtered in my chest. “You’re not kidding me?” The woman had been so hard to pin down, I was about to scratch Melrose Cinema from our venue list.
“No. I’m not. Something tells me you would hate me forever.” He paused. “You wanna let me in on what happened to Frank yesterday?”
“You know I can’t.”
“I assume he’s off the project for good?”
“Yeah. I wouldn’t count on him. Let’s move forward with the editing. I’m not sure he’s up for anything at the moment.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me, Cass?”
“Let’s not talk about him, huh?”
“Okay, okay,” Levi agreed. “I’m just going to pretend your face isn’t all over TMZ next to the face of the man who fucked us over.”
I moved my gaze down the screen of my computer. “Hey, at least they got my name right. Already better than Starbucks.”
“You should see the numbers. Your interview has been getting tons of hits.”
Sometimes Levi’s obsession with numbers infuriated me. My soul was torn apart and all he cared about was the magazine’s traffic.
“A lot of trolls?” I asked, pulling up Rewired’s front page to search for my interview with Frank.
“I suggest you don’t look.”
I scrolled to the bottom of the post and skimmed through the latest comments while Levi continued to talk.
I wonder if she sucked him before or after.
She should find another job…
I bet she got that interview because she gives good head.
Dante probably watched, bwahaha.
My stomach knotted. I minimized the window and began to pace my room. This was expected, yet the online remarks hurt.
“Are you okay, Cass?” Levi’s voice pulled me out of my daze.
“Yes. I am.”
I was lying. I was a complete mess for the remainder of the day. I had to shut off my phone because the calls and the messages from the reporters were too much. Deep in my heart, I understood I shouldn’t care, but I didn’t have enough experience dealing with bullshit. I couldn’t just turn my feelings off like Frank could.
But hey, I did give good head. My rock star boyfriend loved it. Or ex-boyfriend. I couldn’t really define what he was anymore.
I spent the next day glued to my computer, dealing with the fallout of Frank’s studio no-show stunt and dragging countless emails from reporters trying to get an exclusive into my trash folder. The tabloids were hungry for details and kept on blowing up my phone and my Facebook inbox. For the sake of my mental health, I had to change the privacy settings in all my social media platforms, which only made it worse.
In the afternoon, after Ashton got home from school, we set up a small camp in the living room and worked on Isabella’s article for Rewired. To keep readers up to date with her journey, Levi and I had agreed to post weekly recaps.
I sat on the floor, cross-legged, coffee in hand. My brother was next to me, sipping on his Red Bull and staring at the empty screen. An hour later, we were still only two paragraphs in.
“This article isn’t going to write itself,” Ashton croaked as I got to my feet and paced. My brain was lagging. This week’s piece was supposed to discuss Isabella’s experience working with Frank, but since Frank was out of the picture and she recorded the single alone, I had no idea what to put in the goddamned article. The words didn’t want to flow.
“Anyone approach you at school today?” I checked.
“You mean like reporters?”
“Yes.”
“There was one dude. He was hanging out in the parking lot. I didn’t talk to him.”
“Good.” I gestured at my laptop. “Don’t touch anything.”
Ashton leaned over the screen and stuck his tongue out.”
“You’re sleeping in your car if you lick my shit.” Laughing, I retreated to my bedroom to make a call.
“He’s fine,” Brooklyn stated over the phone. “X-ray didn’t show any major damages or fractures.”<
br />
“Is Roman there?”
“Yes. He’s staying at the house.”
“Thank you.”
“You should talk to him, Cassy.” Brooklyn’s voice softened. “I really am tired of arranging flower deliveries for you,” she added sarcastically.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to talk to him at this point. We’re in such deep shit with the sponsors and Isabella and her mother.”
“Don’t worry about money. Jay Brodie’s services are paid for. They’ll just have to tailor the campaign to suit your needs.”
“I’m not worried about the financial part. I’m worried about how this might reflect on Isabella.”
“She’ll be fine. It’s best for everyone that Frank stays off the press’s radar for now.”
“Is he drinking?”
My question was met with silence.
“Have you considered calling his parents?”
“Billy’s here. He flew in today.”
A sigh of relief left my lungs.
“You should talk to Frank too. He’s not in a very good place mentally and it could help us get him to rehab faster.”
Guilt was a horrible feeling. It overshadowed all the other feelings I had in me toward Frank. He was alone and depressed, and no matter how much he’d hurt me by ruining everything I’d been building for Isabella, I still wished him well. I still loved him in a horrible twisted, unhealthy way.
“I’ll think about it,” I told Brooklyn and ended the call.
I just couldn’t get past my pride yet. I needed time.
Frank made it difficult. He showed up at my place later that night, drunk. I was in my room, going over the monstrosity Ashton and I had written earlier. My phone buzzed and Frank’s name lit up the screen.
Open the door, the message read.
My heart leapt into my throat. The man wasn’t serious, was he?
I peeked into the living room. Ashton was fast asleep on the couch, hugging his laptop. The lights were off.
Please, another text popped up.
A muffled noise drifted at me from behind the door.
I slipped into my knee-length sweater and hurried outside. My pulse quickened, my mind raged. Frank stood off to the side. His right arm was back in the sling and a leather jacket was thrown over his shoulders. He looked every bit the mess a person who’d been drinking for days should look. The dim light illuminating his face accentuated the paleness of his skin and the bags under his eyes. Two-day stubble framed his jaw.