Catch Me When I Fall

by Jackson, A. L.

  She peered at me, terror and hope brimming in her eyes.

  “Of course.”

  Of course, it was my own terror at what she was gettin’ ready to say that sped through my veins.

  “I understand that you feel that way. My brother . . .” She almost rolled her eyes as she looked at me as if I would get it—as if we were thick as thieves—the oldest of friends.

  “He’s . . . intense,” she seemed to settle on.

  Without my permission, a small laugh pulled from my throat.

  “Yeah, just a little bit.”

  She crossed her arms and started to pace in her own anxiety. “He takes things to the extreme. He was my hero, you know, growing up?”

  She glanced over at me.

  I remained silent, not sure what to make of her showing up here. Across the entire country.

  “I mean, could you imagine your big brother being the lead singer in a band? So cool, and you wanted to be just like him?” She eyed me with a small smirk. “Well, I guess you can.”

  Warmth spread, a blanket of it, one I wanted to return to her and hold her with.

  I liked her. Liked her way too much, which only made every second of this harder.

  “I’m sure he was somethin’.”

  I could only imagine Royce as a teenager. So alive and wild and unruly.

  Impassioned by his songs.

  Relentless in his commitment.

  A devastating force every time he stepped into a room.

  “He was gonna be a big deal. Like a huge deal. Everyone knew it, saw his talent. I mean, my father despised him—”

  I cringed when she mentioned it, hating that was the kind of home Royce had been raised in.

  “So for him to sign Royce’s band, they had to be good. But my father . . . he always judged everything by its dollar value. How much money it was going to make him. So, A Riot of Roses? You could bet they were going to be worth a lot.”

  Her smile faltered a little. “Even when he was giving it his all for the band, working nonstop, doing everything it took to make it big? He was still there for me. Took time for me. It wasn’t like either of my parents really gave a crap.”

  She sucked her top lip between her teeth, like it was a nervous habit. “Even when he got married, he made sure I knew I was still his girl.”

  I tried not to flinch at the picture that invaded my mind.

  Still, I was hugging my arms over my chest.

  Trying to hold it together. To be okay with this part of Royce’s life when part of me felt like it should have been mine.

  “And when he had his daughter—”

  I choked, unable to stop the shock, this feeling as if I were being strangled.

  The final stake confirming I didn’t know Royce at all.

  That he’d never let me in.

  My hand darted out to the back of the couch to keep me standing.

  “He has a child?”

  Maggie’s face twisted in remorse. “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t know he hadn’t told you.” In discomfort, she fiddled with her fingers. “But of course he wouldn’t. He doesn’t talk about it. Ever.”

  I forced myself to look at her.

  “He was devastated when he lost her, Emily. Absolutely destroyed.”

  “How did he lose her?”

  Why was I asking this? Torturing myself?

  She blew out a shaky sigh, hesitating. She seemed to have to convince herself to continue. “Royce found out that Cory was involved in some bad things with my father. I know I wasn’t supposed to know about it, but I heard the two of them arguing in the office. Royce had said he’d kicked Cory out of the band. My father had demanded that he bring him back. Royce had refused. Said he wouldn’t stand for the band to be involved in anything criminal. Tensions between my father and Royce had been running high. Getting worse and worse.”

  She dropped her gaze, paced in agitation, flapping her hands at her sides as if she were trying to shake off the trauma.

  “Royce had picked me up that night and told me I was his date for the show. I was so proud, Emily. So proud that I got to stand by him. Just be in his space. I was always his biggest fan. But he had an interview afterward. He’d left me in one of the private rooms backstage. He made me promise not to leave that room until he came back for me.”

  A tight sob worked its way free of her throat. My soul wept. Pain leeching out, or maybe it was taking on some of hers.

  “There was a knock at the door. I . . . I thought Royce had forgotten something. But it was Cory. I tried to shut the door, Emily. I did. But he was too strong. He forced his way in. He’d locked the door behind him, told me Royce was trying to steal what was most important from him, and it was time my brother learned a lesson.”

  Oh God.

  I couldn’t handle it.

  Her story that felt far too familiar.

  The debased, despicable man whose soul was set on desolation.

  “Maggie,” I whimpered, holding my stomach.

  Without looking up, she held one of her hands out toward me, as if she were asking me not to say anything until she could get it out.

  Her grief so strong.

  Unrelenting in the space.

  “He forced me, Emily.” Her words turned haggard, grating whimpers. “Forced me. The whole time, he kept saying it was Royce’s fault. Like he had a right. And then . . . he . . . ”

  Her fingertips went up to rake at a spot on her collarbone. “He cut me. Marked me. Told me that I belonged to him.”

  A shiver of revulsion rocked through her.

  She tugged down her shirt to show me the angry X that was almost a perfect match to the one I bore on my hip.

  My hand went to my mouth and a tear slipped from the corner of my eye.

  But Maggie . . . they were pouring down her face.

  “Cory just . . . left me there on the floor,” she continued, barely able to speak. “Bleeding and crying and sure that I was going to die.”

  Her teeth raked over her quivering bottom lip. “Royce found me. I can barely remember anything at that point . . . I was going in and out of coherency. Completely in shock. I just remember him coming through the door and finding me crumpled on the floor. The roar that came out of him before he rushed in to gather me up in his arms.”

  Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “I woke up in the hospital the next day. My father was there . . . sitting in the chair beside me.”

  A tremor rolled through her body. “I just remember . . . remember the coldness that had taken to the room, this feeling that nothing in my life was ever going to be the same. He was so casual, Emily. So callously casual and matter-of-fact while I lay there in that hospital bed. He’d said that Royce had been arrested for attempted murder after an assault on Cory Douglas. An unprovoked assault.”

  I was trapped by her unwavering gaze, by the truth of what she was trying to convey.

  “I’d tried to tell him what happened. I’d begged him. Told him he was wrong. Pleaded with him to believe me. He just pushed to his feet and leaned over me, his voice hard and frigid.”

  Hers went distant, her eyes pinching at the corners with her own heartbreak.

  Her own betrayal.

  “My father told me that I’d been carrying a glass down the stairs the night before. That I tripped and it broke and I cut myself. He said that was it. There was nothing more to it. Then he walked out. My own father, Emily. And my brother served a three-year sentence because he was the only one who was willing to stand up and defend me.”

  Agony clawed. So sharp, sinking in, ripping me to shreds. I was trying not to weep.

  For Maggie.

  For Royce.

  Only she wasn’t finished, and I didn’t know how much more I could take.

  “A month after he was convicted, my brother’s wife filed for divorce and petitioned the court for his parental rights to be revoked. Royce was deemed a danger to his family. I’m sure my father paid off the judge to make sure it went through. It wasn’t
too long after that she and Cory started showing up in pictures together.”

  Oh God.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “Cory took everything from him, Emily. His wife. His child. His band. His freedom.”

  “Royce.” I couldn’t stop the whimper from fleeing through my lips.

  Maggie wrung her fingers, cleared some of the roughness from her voice. “When he was released, he was offered a job at Mylton Records as head of A & R, but he was written in as second-in-line. It was the one good thing my mother ever did for either of us, but I’m pretty sure she only did it to absolve her of a little of the guilt she felt for going along with what my father demanded. I always knew Royce had a plan. He’d promised me he would finish what he started, but that it would take time to take down an empire that strong.”

  A shiver rocked my soul.

  This was where I’d become a tool. A puppet in his intricate play.

  She must have caught my reaction because she angled her head, a frown pinching her brow.

  “After all that, Emily . . . after everything the two of us had been through . . . could you imagine when my brother went to Atlanta to sign an up-and-coming band, a band called Carolina George, and he discovered Cory Douglas attacking their singer? Using her the same way he’d used his sister? He’d lose his mind, wouldn’t he?”

  Everything lurched.

  The ground trembling beneath my feet.

  “What are you saying?”

  Memories flashed. Me in that hotel room. Someone from room service interrupting the attack.

  She edged a little closer. “He came to sign your band, Emily, but instead he found you.” I stumbled back a step, unable to process what she was telling me. Maggie kept on, her tone dipping in emphasis. “That girl would haunt him. Make an impression he couldn’t erase, and he would do everything in his power to make sure he could protect her, too. Just like he protected his sister.”

  My hands went to my mouth. “No . . . he couldn’t have—”

  But I knew it. The familiarity I’d felt. The intense warmth. The comfort I’d felt when I’d first seen him at that bar.

  As if he’d been sent to find me.

  Royce.

  “He did, Emily. And I know you don’t know me. That you don’t trust me or him, but you needed to know. You didn’t become a part of the plan. You became a part of the reason. His reason.”

  Hope and doubt warred, my heart taking off at breakneck speed. “But what about his wife?”

  I was gripped by the echo of the night he’d made love to me. When he’d confessed the name, uttered it aloud as I’d traced my fingers over the words forever marked on his chest.

  “Anna.” I spoke her name like a plea. “He loves her. He told me.”

  It nearly buckled me in two admitting it.

  To give her voice.

  Confusion craned Maggie’s head, and her eyes narrowed before a tender smile took to her face. “Anna?”

  She said it like a question.

  I nodded frantically.

  She slowly shook her head. “Emily, his wife’s name was Nadia. Anna is his daughter.”

  I was shaking, trembling so hard I could feel it rattling the walls.

  Rattling my soul.

  “His daughter.”

  Her smile was somber. “He’s had to fight for everything in his life, Emily. For everyone he loves. He lost her, and I hope to God he gets her back. But you need to know, he needs you just as much.”

  Maggie reached into the flap of her bag and pulled out a massive envelope. “I intercepted this from the attorney yesterday. I thought I should deliver it myself—just in case you had any further doubts.”

  She handed it to me. Weakly, I accepted it, my knees wobbling and spirit trembling. “What is it?”

  She angled her attention toward it. “Something you need to see.”

  She moved for the door, turned the knob, and paused in the threshold. “It was so nice to meet you. I really, really hope I see you again.”

  Then she stepped outside and left me there holding the papers that felt as if they weighed a million pounds.

  Overcome, I rushed for the high table set up at the wall beneath the stairs, my nerves clanging in desperation as I quickly dumped it out, my heart in my throat and my stomach on the floor.

  Frantic, I scanned the paperwork.

  The first was a copy of the acquisition of Mylton Records by Stone Industries.

  Sebastian Stone’s production company.

  Royce had let the company go.

  What did this mean?

  Scrambling, I flipped to another stack sitting underneath.

  I jolted in surprise. It was a new contract for Carolina George.

  The offer double what it had originally been.

  Or we were given the choice to walk away.

  Tears blurred my eyes, and my pulse came in rampant, erratic beats. I started to shout for Richard, to give him encouragement that the band was secure.

  That Royce had been looking out for us after all.

  The way he’d promised.

  But I froze when a tiny slip of ripped paper floated free, dancing and dipping until it hit the ground.

  Energy surged.

  As if he were right there, watching me with those fierce, unrelenting eyes.

  I picked it up, hardly able to read the words scrawled on the scrap.

  I never knew what it meant

  I thought my heart was breaking

  Turns out it was only making room for you

  So catch me

  Catch me when I fall

  I’m right here

  Waiting for you to catch me when I fall

  And I knew . . . I knew it was time to finish our song.

  Thirty-Two

  Royce

  From the front seat of my car, I stared across the busy street at the fenced-off lot on the opposite side of the road, heart screaming like an engine roaring down the interstate.

  My palms slick with sweat.

  What was I doing?

  Sitting there like some kind of creeper.

  But today . . . today I found that I couldn’t force myself to drive away.

  Children ran through the playground, their shrieks and laughter suspended in the heatwaves that clung to the stagnant Los Angeles air. Ricocheting and reverberating.

  Shouting of the kind of joy I’d lost four years before. The day my heart had been ripped from my chest and my world had been cast into nothingness.

  Thrown into darkness.

  Nothing left but a hunger for revenge.

  A quest for retribution.

  It’s funny how people came into your life so unexpectedly and changed everything.

  Made you question.

  A glimmer of light in the darkness.

  She was a star that had shone in the midst of a total eclipse.

  Soulshine.

  Misery tightened my chest, pressing deeper and deeper into my spirit and clotting my mind. I squeezed my eyes closed against the assault of it. Trying to choke it back. To remind myself why I could never have her. The way I’d used her.

  A little girl ran along the fence of the play yard, her head tipped back with laughter and her short black hair cropped around her cherub face.

  Pink cheeks and the darkest eyes.

  My soul shook.

  I stared out the windshield at the child I no longer knew but recognized with every part of me.

  Terrified.

  Terrified of who I’d become.

  Terrified of what I’d lost.

  Terrified of my past.

  Thing was, I refused to live it for the rest of my life.

  It was time to make a change because I couldn’t keep going on like this.

  I picked up my phone and tapped out the message to my attorney. The one I’d been talking to for the last two weeks.

  Getting up the nerve.

  Me: I’m ready.

  It took all of five seconds for it to buzz back.
>
  Kimpleton: You’re sure? This one can’t be about revenge.

  I stared at the tiny child running in the field, chasing a soccer ball.

  My daughter.

  My daughter.

  Me: With her, it never was.

  I tossed my phone back into the console, put my car in drive, and pulled from the curb into traffic.

  I was struck with a brand-new feeling. Something so foreign that I wondered if it was real.

  Hope.

  Dim but gaining in force.

  Because someone taught me recently that life isn’t about the past. Yeah. It was what shaped you. Formed and fashioned. But it was how you handled it that mattered most.

  For the first time in my life, I was going to handle it right.

  And I had one more stop to make.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, I pulled up outside the warehouse in an industrial part of the city. A bit seedy and so L.A. that you knew you couldn’t be lost. Graffiti covered almost all of the metal siding, most of it done by local artists that had been invited in to do their thing, other pieces appearing overnight, mind-blowing portraits and scenes that shouldn’t be possible coming from a can.

  But when an artist had the need to create, that creation was unstoppable.

  Medium didn’t matter.

  It was the heart, the passion that did.

  Guessed maybe that was what I was riding on when I stepped out of my S7, knees knocking like a fourteen-year-old kid getting ready to get his dick wet for the first time.

  Maybe that’s what it felt like.

  Starting over.

  A new experience.

  A second chance.

  Something that might count in the middle of the destruction raging a path through my insides.

  Maggie kept telling me to do something about that vacancy.

  To go after what I wanted. To listen to the voice inside of me that was calling out to be filled.

  To just pick up the fucking phone and call.

  The expression on Emily’s face when she’d looked up at me that night promised that I knew better. There was no going back. Too much damage done.