“I know you’re hurting, and I’m just as confused by Aria’s sudden departure as you are, Yoshi.” Gus sighed, uncrossing his arms. “But I’ve got some important news. And I figured, since you’re already upset about Aria, now’s as good a time as any to give you even more fucked-up news.”
Unconvinced that any news could be more fucked up than Aria being gone, Yoshi fell back into his seat, picking the lint off his jeans. “Yeah, what’s that?”
“We found your father.”
Yoshi gasped and flew out of his chair, facing Gus completely once he was on his feet. His eyes doubled in size. He took firm hold of the vanity, causing Becky’s makeup case to wobble. “You…” He faltered. “You what?”
Gus nodded.
Yoshi brought his hand to his heart. “You found…? How did…? What was…?” He swallowed the lump in his throat, unable to keep up with his wild mind. He looked towards the door, then back to Gus expectantly, like an excited puppy. “Is he here? What did he say?”
Gus lifted his eyebrows, shifting and taking a seat on the arm of the makeup chair behind him. “He’s not here,” he said. “And he won’t be.”
Yoshi’s hold on the vanity grew tighter. He tried to speak, but nothing came. Some part of him wanted an explanation, but then he realized he didn’t need one.
“He lives in Austin.” Gus sighed, lowering his eyes. “We, uh… We invited him to the show tonight. Offered to fly him out. Offered him free front row seats. Room and board at the hotel. He, uh…” Gus realized he couldn’t finish, shrugging and meeting Yoshi’s eyes. Then, he just shook his head.
If Becky were still in the room, she’d be in the midst of screaming in frustration, because Yoshi’s eyes glowed again. The moisture threatening the edges of them seemed seconds from tumbling over.
“Did you tell him—” Yoshi’s voice broke, and he covered his mouth with the back of his hand when he felt his lips trembling. As soon as they were still again, he motioned to Gus, but his voice still trembled. “Did you tell him how good I’m doing?”
Gus frowned, covering his stomach with his hand. “Yeah, Yosh. We did. We told him.”
“Does he know that I’m a star?”
Gus’s face collapsed with the same emotion he saw in Yoshi’s, and he nodded.
“Everything I’ve accomplished?” Yoshi’s voice hitched. “Does he know that sixteen thousand people lined up tonight, just to see me?!” he roared, banging his fist against his chest.
Gus stood tall and tried to speak but nothing came, just a soft sputter. He took a step towards Yoshi, reaching a hand out.
But Yoshi stepped away. Circling the makeup chair and crossing the room, putting several feet between them, he kept his back turned to Gus.
When his body trembled from head to toe, so furiously he’d have guessed an earthquake had come pounding through the room, he clenched his fists for control. When that didn’t work, he wrapped his arms around himself, bending forward when his stomach went sick.
It wasn’t until Yoshi felt Gus’s hand on his shoulder from behind that he faced him again, allowing Gus to pull him against his shoulder just as the first sob escaped his lips.
“All right. Okay,” Gus whispered into his ear, holding the back of his head, his voice ripe with emotion. “I got you, Yosh. To hell with him, all right? I got you.”
“Why doesn’t he love me, Gus?” Yoshi begged, his words mumbled into Gus’s shoulder. He gasped in a shaky breath, his voice sinking to a whimper. “Why doesn’t he love me?”
Gus jammed his eyes shut and tightened his arm around Yoshi. He held him close until Yoshi’s tears rocked both their bodies, until he was fighting tears of his own. Until Yoshi’s left the shoulder of his jacket sopping wet and he didn’t have a single tear left to give.
--
The show went off without a hitch, as it always had. If the fans in the sold-out Dallas crowd had any inkling that Yoshi had fallen apart in his manager’s arms that night, they hadn’t shown it. They sang the words to all his songs, giving every one back to him. He’d yearned to give them the words just as passionately as they gave them to him, but he couldn’t. His mind had taken him to too many places all at once, and by the time he found himself bowing after the encore, he couldn’t even remember putting on the show at all.
His eyes had searched the crowd, looking for that one discerning fan, the one who would surely be disappointed at the half-assed show he’d put on, but that fan hadn’t existed. He’d said good-bye to the crowd and had been met with nothing but blind exuberance, screams of adoration, and words of love. Stuffed animals, letters, and gifts were hurled at him, some coming dangerously close to bopping him over the head before colliding on the stage on all sides of him. At the beginning of the tour, he’d gone out of his way to sweep up all the gifts, letters, and artwork the fans sent soaring onto the stage, but his tour bus was only so big, and with every new stop, it became impossible to keep everything. Gus had promised him that it was all going someplace safe—the stuffed animals to charity, the artwork and letters to a storage location Yoshi could visit at a later date. Yoshi, however, had a nagging feeling it was all going straight to the trash.
He wished he could care, but he didn’t have it in him.
“Aria,” he whispered into his cell phone later that night, leaning forward on his knees and staring up at the moon. A few shards of the grass he sat on snuck through his sweatpants and stabbed his skin. He’d been asleep on the tour bus before the driver had been forced to stop for gas in the middle of nowhere. While his crew caroused the isolated rest stop in the distance, Yoshi had moved to the grassy hill overlooking the moon, which looked massive in the starry night sky.
Tears stung his eyes, and he covered his mouth with his hand when he couldn’t decide what he was feeling. Sadness? Confusion? Rage? Some maddening mix of all three?
“Aria,” he said again, and the tone of his voice confirmed that it was all three. “I don’t understand what the fuck I’ve done to deserve this. To deserve to be completely ignored by you for three weeks. At this point, I just want to know that you’re okay. I have no way of getting in touch with you and you won’t return my fucking calls…” He paused when he felt himself going off on a tangent. He couldn’t very well cuss out a girl who was flat-out ignoring him; it would only verify whatever negative feelings she harbored for him, making her close off for good. He couldn’t risk pushing her away any more than he already had.
“I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Bo. Without you, I’m just a shell of myself. A fucking shell and—” His voice broke. “Gus found my father and—surprise, surprise—he doesn’t want to see me. Big fucking shock, right?” The first tear spilled over his eyes as he gazed up at the moon. “Everything I’ve accomplished, and he still doesn’t want to see me. He doesn’t even want to see me so he can attempt to use me for my money. And the worst part? I would’ve let him….” Yoshi exhaled. “I would’ve let him use me, if it meant seeing him. But I guess I’m that impossible to love, that inconsequential, that meaningless. I’m not worth loving. I’m not worth acknowledging. I’m not even worth exploiting.”
He couldn’t finish, and he drank in the moon until it burned his eyes.
His voice lowered. “I really need you. I need you so bad right now. More than I ever have, and probably ever will. You’re the only one who—” He swallowed. “You’re the only one who understands. You’re the only one I always believed would never leave me like he did. You swore you would never leave, and I believed you. So do right by that vow, Aria, and call me back.” The hardness in his voice nearly won over as he slammed his hand down on the grass and tangled his fingers in the shards. “Please.”
When he felt himself teetering on the edge of a meltdown, he ended the call, burying his head in his knees.
--
Carmen smiled as she bounced out of the 7-Eleven with an arm full of Hot Cheetos. They’d always been Yoshi’s favorite, and since she could te
ll he’d been down, she’d bought him a king-sized bag, hoping to cheer him up. She bumped shoulders with one of the many roadies who had a crush on her as they made their way back to the line of tour buses parked in the quiet lot.
“Damn, look at the moon tonight,” the roadie said, nodding towards the giant moon that peeked over the edge of a grassy hill.
But Carmen couldn’t focus on the gleaming white globe. Her eyes were riveted to Yoshi, sitting on the hill, spine bent, hunched forward like he was seconds from breaking in half. He had his knees pulled up to his chest with his elbows resting on them, raking his fingers through his hair.
“Tell him to come on back to the bus. We’ve only got about five more minutes if we’re going to stay on schedule.”
Carmen nodded her understanding without breaking her eyes from Yoshi. She saw the roadie moving away from her from the corner of her eye.
When her phone buzzed in the back pocket of her cutoff shorts, she nearly leapt out of her feet. Not because the buzzing was unexpected, but because she knew who was behind it.
The same person who’d been behind it for the last three weeks.
She tried to breathe away the anxiety that roared in her stomach as she brought the phone to her ear, listening to the message.
Yoshi’s strangled voice came through the receiver.
“Aria…”
Carmen nearly hung up. She’d been hanging up for almost a week now. The messages were becoming more difficult to listen to by the day. For some reason, this time, she didn’t.
“I don’t understand what the fuck I’ve done to deserve this. To deserve to be completely ignored by you for three weeks. At this point, I just want to know that you’re okay. I have no way of getting in touch with you and you won’t return my fucking calls… I’m just a shell of myself. A fucking shell and…”
Carmen brought the phone from her ear when heat gurgled in her gut. Still, she was unable to stay away, bringing the phone back to her ear.
“Gus found my father and—surprise, surprise—he doesn’t want to see me. Big fucking shock, right? Everything I’ve accomplished, and he still doesn’t want to see me. He doesn’t even want to see me so he can attempt to use me for my money. And the worst part? I would’ve let him… I would’ve let him use me, if it meant seeing him. But I guess I’m that impossible to love, that inconsequential, that meaningless. I’m not worth loving. I’m not worth acknowledging. I’m not even worth exploiting—”
Carmen ended the call as quickly as her finger would allow her. She almost dropped it to the ground her fingers shook so much.
When she looked up and saw Yoshi rising to his feet, she realized her chest was heaving. As he made his way back towards the tour buses, unaware of her eyes on him, she looked down at the phone and typed a message under ‘Aria’s’ name.
As she typed, she knew it was the message that would end this madness once and for all.
But before she could send it, her thumb trembled over the button.
She looked up again. Yoshi had just disappeared back onto the bus. She knew he would go straight to the rear to join Phil in the studio, where they would write another album filled to the brim with songs about her.
Her.
Carmen’s eyes hardened. She looked down at the message she’d typed. From Yoshi’s end, it would be the first message from ‘Aria’ in three weeks. The first response since the last time he’d seen her. Her gaze danced over the words she’d typed, thinking about how he would feel. Surely he would be excited when he saw her name on his phone’s display. A glimmer of hope would race through him as he unlocked his phone and raced to his text messages. His eyes would blaze over the words like an inferno.
Then, with four simple words, his world would come crashing down.
“Never contact me again.”
Carmen read those words over and over, dreaming of all the different ways he would take them. She thought about the album he’d write after reading this message. The sweet songs he’d written for his precious Aria wouldn’t be quite so sweet the second he was blasted with this doozy.
Dragging in a haggard breath, Carmen hit Send.
18
It had been a long time since Aria had cried herself to sleep.
The first month, she’d gotten used to it, the tears lulling her into the sweet release of unconsciousness. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d wondered if this was her life now. Unable to close her eyes without the debilitating weight of the pain in her heart helping her along.
Then the second month came, and she only cried herself to sleep every other night.
The third and fourth month, only every once in a while.
And now, the fifth month. The month when she only cried herself to sleep if she’d been triggered. Turning on a radio and accidentally hearing his name, or one of his songs. Tuning on the television and being accosted by a commercial with his face on it. Even buying eggs at the damn supermarket made her feel like she was on a mission with Seal Team Six, danger lurking around every corner. Display cases, overhead music, magazine racks—the threat of his presence was constant, and it was everywhere. There wasn’t a single corner of the world that was safe for the ex-girlfriend of a pop star.
But last night, she’d brought it on herself.
Last night, she’d purchased his new album. She’d played it from beginning to end. She’d known buying it had been a colossal mistake.
And it had been. Oh, it had been.
She pulled open the door of her Manhattan apartment and was met with exactly what she expected after hearing a knock on her door that morning.
“Oh, friend,” Shaun Green said, her wide brown gaze filled with pity as she took in Aria’s puffy eyes, dirty pajamas, and rat’s-nest hair from the hallway. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to listen to it.”
Aria stepped away from the door and entered her apartment, heading to the kitchen where her coffeepot was calling her name.
She knew Shaun had work that morning. Since she worked right down the street at The New York Times, she’d often stop by Aria’s place to say hi on the way. Aria was rarely in the mood for company, but she could hardly turn away the woman whose apartment she was subletting.
“Would you like a cup?” Aria asked, looking to Shaun as she took a seat at the small dining table that separated the kitchen and living area.
“No, thanks. That stuff will have me bouncing off the walls,” Shaun said. “So, how are you?”
Aria shook her head as she made her coffee. “I shouldn’t have listened to it. You were right. My mind told me no. My psyche told me no. My heart told me hell no. But I still pressed Play. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s had that same effect on the entire world. The world can’t say no to him. How the hell did I expect myself to?”
“It was pretty dark. The first album was so sweet. Simple. Dance-y. This one?” Shaun whistled. “I knew you’d open the door looking like a bulldozer had hit you square in the nose, and sure enough…”
“Thanks,” Aria said dryly, taking the seat across from her, steaming cup of coffee in hand.
Shaun didn’t say much else, giving her the option to keep the conversation going or drop it.
“I was fine,” Aria said after taking a swallow. She didn’t usually drink her coffee black, but she hoped the painful taste would force the pain in her shattered heart to redirect itself to her taste buds. “I was fine… until I got to…”
“‘Howling at the Moon,’” Shaun finished.
Aria nodded, sucking in a breath. “He sang that song to me when he took me to the London Eye for the first time.”
Shaun nodded. “The second that song went off, Adam and I were in the middle of breakfast. I looked at him. He looked at me. He tried to play it off, something about putting too many onions in his hash browns, but he got a little teary-eyed. And we both just said ‘Aria.’ Then I raced over here.”
Aria buried her fingers in her hair. “I just don’t understand how he could
write such a heartbreaking, accusatory album—when he’s the one who left me. He’s the one who never returned a single phone call. He’s the one who texted me saying he didn’t love me anymore. He’s the one who didn’t want to fight for us. It wasn’t me, Shaun.”
“I know.”
“He’s the one all over Instagram and the tabloids with that—” Aria bit her tongue, hating where it nearly took her. “With Carmen. He’s the one who chose to make his fake relationship with her real when he still had a chance to fix things with me.”
“We have no way of knowing whether their relationship is real, or whether it’s still PR.”
“It doesn’t matter. He knows how I felt about her, and he’s still in the streets with her on his arm. All while ignoring my phone calls. Clearly, he doesn’t give a damn about me, and never did.”
Shaun pouted, unable to argue. “It’s just so strange how it all went down. I still can’t get my head around it. You two grew up together. Inseparable for years. Even Adam is lost. He said that, of all the things he saw coming, he never in a million years suspected you and Yoshi would grow apart.”
“He grew away from me,” Aria said. “And Adam called that from day one. He told me to count my blessings because once Yoshi got swallowed up into that media machine, there’d be no escaping. He was right, but I refused to hear it. I thought I knew better. I thought we loved each other enough to roll with the changes. But love doesn’t exist in his new world. It can’t exist…” Aria thought back to the night before, listening to a song where Yoshi had written a lyric that said exactly that. That love couldn’t be real in his world. His voice had risen during that line, breaking as it hit the highest point, striking her in the deepest pit of her heart. Her face curled and she burst into tears. “Why did I listen to that album? Oh, my God. Fuck.”
Encore (Stereo Hearts Book 2) Page 24