Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

  It was wrong to come here angry - to come here needing one more thing from a dead man - but I didn’t know where else to turn.

  What if this was it? The last mistake. The one I couldn’t come back from.

  The one that was one too many.

  “Sir, this is a crime scene—”

  A dagger to the eye would have had more finesse than the look I shot the cop with as his hand came up, just barely stopping in time before it smacked into my chest.

  “I’m family,” I ground out. It was more truth than lie and I didn’t care what anyone had to say about it.

  “He’s good, Dan.” Eli appeared in the doorway, his face drawn and ashen.

  The officer moved to the side, giving me a nod.

  With a low growl, I stepped around him and into Larry’s house. I coughed to mask the choked sounds that tried to escape my chest. It was the most painful kind of déjà vu. I had just been here. In this hall. At that table. Looking out those windows.

  And Larry had, too.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” Eli stated, looking even less pleased to see me.

  “I had to.” Just like I had to apologize at some point for choking him on my doorstep last night, but not now.

  I pushed by my grieving friend into the house.

  Like I hit a wall, I paused and felt the pressure well in my chest, my eyes burn with tears I refused to shed.

  Larry’s presence was stifling. Everywhere. Everything.

  “Why are you here, Ash?” Eli asked, following me. “What’s going on?”

  My fist tightened at my side.

  Walking through the kitchen toward the door to the garage, I prepared myself for gruesome; goodbyes aren’t supposed to be pretty anyway. Goodbyes hurt. They hurt like a motherfucker.

  “I need answers.” I reached for the doorknob and pulled.

  It still had the same squeak as when I’d been staying here. Every morning, I’d wake up on Larry’s couch, sick and desperate for a drink, to hear Larry leaving for Roasters. He’d turn and look at me, ask if I wanted to help at the coffee shop, and then leave when I didn’t respond.

  Until one day, I did respond.

  I responded because I didn’t feel like I was dying. I responded because the giant hole inside of me that I’d filled with booze was finally empty and dry and I realized there were so many better things to fill it with - like giving back to the man who I’d never be able to repay.

  My hands gripped the doorframe as I stepped into the garage. It was the same coppery-sweet scent that had been all over Eli last night. His truck was parked on the far side, in front of an old chest of tools that had lost more pieces than it held.

  And all along the wall to my left, the concrete was decorated with the distinct maroon stain of blood.

  “Fuck.”

  Touring with the band and with Blake, I’d seen a ton of abstract art. Smears and splatters of color that were supposed to mean something - evoke something other than the feeling that some five-year-old had gotten lucky with his finger paints.

  It looked like one of those paintings. Only it wasn’t abstract or art, it was real and death.

  “They took the body last night,” Eli said hollowly as my eyes trailed along the blood that ran down the wall and onto the concrete floor, pooling around the drain.

  I turned and dry-heaved into the small trash can near the door.

  “Jesus, Ash.” A strong grip on my shoulder whipped me around; it was attached to Eli. “Are you alright?”

  “No.” The word came out more of a threat than an answer. “No, I’m not fucking alright.”

  Anger poured through my veins, the familiar beast straining against his leash.

  “He’s gone. And I’m not better.” I knocked his hand off my shoulder and spun to face him. “I need to know why he left. I need to know what the fuck he saw in me because I don’t see it. I need to know why I was worth saving, but he wasn’t.”

  I advanced on him, but he stood still, my face leveling inches from his.

  “You want to tell me?” I demanded. “You want to tell me why when he left, all I got was the memory of what an asshole I was? Huh? Why is that all he left me with?” My voice rose with each word until I was shouting in his face. “After everything I’ve done, why is he the one that’s gone?”

  I pushed against Eli’s chest as though he were responsible, and he stood there like a wall, taking whatever I threw at him, which only made my anger at myself worse because I couldn’t control it.

  “After everything I’ve done, how could he just fucking give up?” I roared. “How?” I used both hands to push him away. “After what I did to her, how the fuck could Taylor still want to love a man like me?”

  Eli balked at the last and I realized the spew of my self-loathing had finally made it down to the very pit of my heartbreak.

  “I should’ve been the one to die in this house in my drunken-fucking-stupor,” I spat with a low, despairing voice, and declared, “I’m getting a drink.”

  One drink. Just one.

  Just to drown me a little faster.

  I was lost, and I was going to be a father.

  What kind of role model would I be? I thought bitterly, the claws of my former monster scraping against its cage, begging to be let out just for one drink - just one to take the pain away.

  I felt the parts of me trying to fight it – the parts that had grown and strengthened here in Carmel, in my sobriety – but maybe they weren’t strong enough. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough. If Larry wasn’t, who the hell did I think I was?

  I felt the hand on the back of my collar before Eli whipped me around and my back slammed against the wall.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Anger finally bubbled to his surface.

  Instinctively, I began to struggle against his hold.

  “You come here - to his home - and say shit like that?” he demanded, shaking me. “After everything he gave to help you fight your addiction, you fucking throw it back in his face - on his goddamn grave?”

  “He’s the one who shot himself!” I yelled back, shoving against his chest “He’s the one who threw everything he ever did for me back in my fucking face!”

  And then my knees hit the ground as I doubled over and began to wheeze; Eli’s punch to my stomach knocking the wind from my lungs. With choking and straining gasps, they began to refill with the sanity it seemed I’d lost for a moment.

  Lifting my head, I stared at the bloodstain on the wall as I coughed and sputtered.

  “I’m sorry.” The words were frayed, just like my emotions.

  I felt like a failure - like I’d failed him.

  And Taylor.

  And I’d lashed out because it felt as though my heart was being ripped apart at the seams.

  Rising, my jaw clenched as I met Eli’s unrelenting stare. His fists were still tight at his sides, prepared for my retaliation.

  Dragging a hand through my hair, I finally took a deep breath and rasped, “Guess we’re even now.”

  There was hardly a flicker in his eyes of acknowledgment. He’d punched me back from the edge and he stood vibrating with his own anger and grief, but still prepared to do it again if necessary.

  “Did you come here for Larry or did you come because of Taylor?” he demanded.

  I planted my hands on my hips. “Don’t know.”

  “Why shouldn’t she love you?”

  Fuck.

  I glared at him. “Because I’m an asshole. And I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have bothered you here… now… It’s not the time for this,” I told him. “What’s between Taylor and I can wait.”

  “Really? It can wait?” he sneered, folding his arms across his chest and taking a step toward me. “Because last I checked, Larry was dead.”

  I recoiled like he’d struck me again. The truth packed a punch.

  “Larry is dead, Ash. You… Me… We can hate that fact with everything we’ve got but it won’t change it; Larry has all the goddamn
time in the world. But Taylor? She’s still fucking here. There won’t be endless amounts of time for you to fix whatever the hell is so important you had to come rail at a dead man for answers. A dead man who would be pissed as hell to hear your horseshit excuse.”

  “It’s not a fucking excuse,” I growled, my anger bristling again. “I’m trying to deal. I’m trying to fucking process that he’s gone, and Taylor’s baby is mine. And let me tell you, it feels like it’s a little too fucking much - too many goddamn mistakes at the moment.”

  “Yours?” he croaked in disbelief.

  My head jerked with a nod, the truth erupting from my lips. “On tour, when I found out about my sister and Zach, I got drunk. Which is saying a lot for an alcoholic, I know. She brought me home from the bar and we slept together.” I let out a harsh laugh. “And I didn’t remember any of it. Not until last night.”

  His body became less tense. “So, what’s the problem? I mean, you basically claimed the kid as yours before this…”

  I shook my head. “She didn’t tell me, Eli. Why would she not tell me? What have I done to make her think she couldn’t give me the truth?”

  In my head, I heard her answers like a track on repeat. Too bad everything was blurred together right now with loss and betrayal. First, Larry. Then Taylor.

  He let out a heavy sigh. “Don’t know, man. All I know is that the only time you fear the truth is when the truth means you have something to lose. Just look at Larry… what would make him think he had nothing to live for? That he had no one who cared enough to get through this with him?” He broke off and I had a feeling he was answering some of those questions for himself. “She’s not him. But you get my point. The worst fears are irrational because even reason gives them no solace.”

  “What if she didn’t tell me because I’m just not good enough to know?” I wondered, kicking at the stones by my feet.

  Irrational.

  She’d loved every moment that I talked about taking care of her and the baby. I couldn’t twist the look in her eyes to be anything else.

  “And what if Larry didn’t tell us because he thought he didn’t matter to us?” Eli shook his head and pointed a finger at me. “I call bullshit, Ash. Bull-fucking-shit. You’re a good man. We’ve all made mistakes, but I didn’t need five minutes with Taylor to know she doesn’t judge you for what you did, to know she believes – like I do, like Larry did – that your mistakes are far from defining you. So, I’m not gonna stand here and let you be a fucking idiot and lose someone else who loves you.”

  I dragged my stare to his. Both of us, friends before, now brothers in this tragedy. We’d pull it together. We’d do what we had to do. But it wouldn’t be the same.

  “She didn’t keep this from you to punish you, Ash,” he stated. “She loves you.”

  All of the wind whooshed from my chest, taking the last traces of my self-loathing with it.

  Yeah, I’d made a mistake. But no, I wasn’t that man anymore. And that was what mattered: the man I was now.

  “I’m an idiot,” I agreed, clarity smacking me in the face.

  I couldn’t fault her for questioning who the father of her child had disappeared to become. And I couldn’t fault her for fearing the depth of my loyalty when I found out.

  Because the plain fucking truth was that it went pretty goddamn deep.

  If I had opened the door that day to hear her baby was mine, the line between care and responsibility would’ve blurred in my own mind, and the one between loyalty and love would’ve forever remained murky.

  And she deserved a helluva lot better than murky.

  “I don’t know about that,” he said with a strained laugh. “But I know Larry would be fuckin’ pissed if he saw you here, knowing you walked away – knowing you chose to punish yourself instead of fixing everything with her.”

  “Yeah, he would,” I admitted roughly, his words spilling through the ripped seams of my heart. “He knew she was the one. From the second that sneaky bastard gave her the address to my house, full-well knowing I wasn’t alone that morning. He knew.”

  “Sometimes, it’s easier to look out and see what everyone else needs while being blind to your own suffering,” he replied, hollowly.

  I wished there was something I could do… something to say. I knew if I didn’t have Taylor - if she wasn’t on my mind and in my heart - this battle would be a lot harder. But Eli, he was alone. No family that I knew of; Larry had been the closest thing… and now he was gone. And just like that, Eli was left to handle everything.

  “Can’t believe he’s gone. Doesn’t seem real.”

  Life wasn’t fucking fair, forcing him to pick up all the pieces when the hollowness in his eyes said he didn’t even have the strength to pick himself back up.

  “It will.” His face shadowed and his eyes ducked. “And it’ll hurt like a bitch.”

  “Thank you.” I reached out and gripped his shoulder, his focus returning to me. “If there’s anything you need… anything I can do.”

  His jaw tensed but he only jerked his head in a short nod.

  “I’m good. Have to get Dex to track down Laurel, but we have it under control.” Grief was shoved back down underneath his stoic control. “Just… go take care of Taylor. That’s what I need,” he muttered, reaching and pulling me in for a hug. “He’d never forgive me if I didn’t remind you what was important right now.”

  Loss was important. But so was love.

  Loss was a season, sinking in slow like fall before turning colder and bleak like winter. But winter comes to an end, and in that loss, something new would grow. Not better, just different, but still good.

  Love, though, love was like the sun. You had to fight for it when it finally shone in your life because if you weren’t careful, if you lost it, it would leave your whole world dark.

  27

  Taylor

  “Taylor!” Eve screamed as she saw me, running over and locking her arms underneath mine to hold me up. “Oh my God, Taylor. Wake up!”

  I blinked, feeling my body being lifted up against hers.

  I must’ve passed out.

  I doubled over, almost taking Eve with me, as the pain struck again, and remembered what caused it.

  “Something’s wrong,” I grunted, bright red pain searing around my abdomen like a belt of fire.

  “Oh my God.” She slung my arm around her shoulder. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  Putting one of my arms over her shoulders, I leaned on her as we staggered over to her car. Thank God, she was here. Between the moans of pain, I thanked God that she’d come outside to find me.

  My hands shook as I tried to get the seatbelt in place, sagging in relief at the click before I turned against the seat and curled up into a giant ball of pain.

  “Hang on, Tay. Just hang on.” She reached for my hand as she peeled up the drive, stones kicking up angrily against the car.

  In between the moments where I was consumed with the pain, I heard her first on the phone with the hospital and then, another minute later, cursing Ash as she hung up the phone.

  “Dammit, Ash. Pick up your goddamn phone,” she huffed as she squeezed my hand. “It’s going to be okay, Tay. I’ll get ahold of him.”

  “Told him… about the baby…” My head rubbed against the seat. “Doesn’t want… to see… me.”

  “Bullshit,” she told me, speeding around cars that were slowing us down. “I don’t know what happened, but he called me to ask if I would come check on you. He may not know what he thinks about whatever you talked about - but he sure-as-shit knows how he feels about you. And that look I told you he had before? Yeah, it hasn’t changed.”

  I cried out as another burst of pain wracked me, leaving me gasping and crying.

  By the time we reached the hospital, Eve was crying, too, as she scrambled out of the driver seat screaming for help.

  It felt like I was in a movie - or a scene from General Hospital - as they lifted me onto a gurney and rushed
me through the emergency room, all the white and painfully bright lights blurring. It would have felt so much cooler if I could have felt anything but the mind-numbing pain.

  I didn’t feel the needles that poked into my arm even though I normally would be queasy and faint at the sight. I stared blankly at the nurses and techs who were moving and feeling and attaching things to all sorts of places on my body. And when I closed my eyes and finally gave in, there was no doctor or Ash in sight.

  Ash

  I jogged back through the musk of mourning pervading Larry’s house until the cool outside breeze blew against me, taking with it the fear my lungs had been filtering from my heart.

  I wasn’t the same man I was months ago.

  Larry had played a big role in that and words weren’t enough to be able to describe just how much he’d come to mean. But, in the end, I was responsible for my change. For my choices.

  Larry might have been the match, but I was the fuel - my need to be better is what burned the imperfections from me.

  Alcohol hid the monsters inside me that I couldn’t face; Taylor healed them.

  Months ago, I was broken.

  Today, it was still a struggle to see the light.

  But it was there. Bright. Burning. True.

  Only by breaking can we heal stronger.

  And I couldn’t get back to Tay fast enough.

  My truck roared to life and I threw it into gear just as I heard vibrating coming from the passenger seat. I remembered tossing my phone over there when I left the house. I almost didn’t reach for it. Couldn’t be more important than what I was about to do now. But after the third buzz, I couldn’t stop myself.

  Eve?

  “Hello?”

  “Ash! Oh, thank God,” she bawled and hiccupped into the phone.

  “Eve, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” And then the fucking earth fell out from underneath me. “Where’s Taylor?”

  “A-Ash, we’re at the hospital. T-Taylor collapsed. I went out to check on her like you said and she was just lying there… o-on the deck. There was blood.” She coughed and sputtered. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I-I tried to call you… They took her to do tests and they won’t let me back, they won’t tell me what’s going on, they won’t let me see her—” She broke off and sobbed.