The Wreckage of Us

by Cherry, Brittainy

  The hardest part about the nightmares? When I’d awaken, I couldn’t roll over and have Ian hold me. I couldn’t pick up my phone and find calmness with his voice. I couldn’t go to him for comfort.

  Leah frowned at me as her clay mask began to harden. “I wish I had a better update, too, but truthfully, James is pretty worried. He said Ian has been drinking a lot more too. The guys thought the music and concerts would’ve helped Ian, but his heart just isn’t in it at all anymore. You know why I think that is?”

  “Why?”

  She reached across and placed her hands against mine. “Because you are his muse, and he doesn’t have that anymore. He misses you, Hazel.”

  I lowered my head as tears filled my eyes. “I know.”

  “And you miss him. I can tell. You haven’t been yourself, either, and if I’m honest, I just don’t understand why you broke things off with him. You two were as perfect as Big Paw and Holly—meant to be together. I wish I had what you and Ian had. Is it because of the distance? Or, like, those women hanging around the band? Because they are just in it for clout.”

  “I don’t know what clout is,” I commented.

  She laughed. “Of course you don’t, my sweet, sweet Hazel. All I’m saying is Ian would never betray you by hooking up with another woman, if those are your fears.”

  “I wish that was it, but it’s so much more complicated than that, Leah. There’s just so much more at risk with me being with Ian that I’m not willing to put up with.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and a baffled look landed on her face. “That sounds really telenovela of you,” she nervously joked. “What in the world could be at risk with you and Ian being a couple?”

  I swallowed hard and shook my head as tears filled my eyes. Just thinking about Charlie’s threats made me emotional. The way he’d talked about causing issues to the ranch and, worse, to Rosie terrified me.

  “Hazel,” Leah sighed, her eyes watering just from seeing me grow emotional. “What is it?”

  “I . . . I shouldn’t tell anyone. The more people who know, the bigger risk there is for trouble.”

  “You have my word that I won’t tell a soul, I promise. Besides, whatever is eating you up shouldn’t be solely on your shoulders. Hazel, you’ve done so much to help others. You’re literally nineteen years old and raising your newborn sister. You deserve help. Let me help you. Let me take some weight off your shoulders.”

  I took a deep inhalation as tears began rolling down my cheeks. “It’s Charlie. He’s back in town.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Charlie? Who’s Charlie?”

  That unleashed a sea of information to catch Leah up on the wildness that was my life. The more details I gave her, the lower her jaw dropped in horror and complete shock. When I finished, she plopped back against the sofa in disbelief.

  “Holy balls. You are a telenovela,” she exclaimed, completely distressed. “Oh my gosh, Hazel. And you’ve been dealing with this all on your own?”

  “I didn’t have anyone I could tell. I had to do it on my own; it was my only choice.”

  “No,” she disagreed, shaking her head. “Maybe in the past you had to handle things by yourself, but you don’t have to do that anymore. You have a family now. People you can lean on for help or at least comfort.”

  I gave her a half grin as I wiped the tears falling from my eyes. “Thank you, Leah.”

  “Of course. It all makes sense now, too, why you pushed Ian away. If it makes you feel better, I would’ve done the same exact thing—especially if that psychopath threatened Rosie. You made the right choice. Even though I know it crushes you.”

  “It really does, Leah. All I can do is think about Ian and hate myself for hurting him. I know he had abandonment issues, and for it to happen right after he crossed paths with his parents makes it even worse. I wish I could explain things to him, but that is too risky. I just hope he’s able to move on and find his happiness again.”

  “I’m sure the guys will make sure to look after him. I have no doubt about that. But as far as you go, I’m here to make sure you find your happiness again. That’s what friends are for.”

  I thanked her as she leaned in and gave me the tightest hug in history, and she promised me that everything would be okay someday.

  I wished I could believe that to be true, but knowing that Charlie was out of prison was enough to leave me always on edge. What if he snapped and decided to harm Rosie and me, simply because he could? Charlie was a madman whose actions never truly made any sense whatsoever. At least he couldn’t get to Ian and harm him. There was some comfort in that knowledge.

  Later that night, I awakened from a nightmare due to a crying Rosie. I scooped her up in my arms and tried to soothe her back to sleep; then I took her outside into the darkness of the night and rocked her in the chair on the porch. I looked up at the stars sparkling throughout the sky, and I made a few wishes.

  I first wished for my sister to be safe from any harm. If anything ever happened to that little girl, the little girl who’d had a chance of being adopted by a family who wouldn’t have put her life in danger, I would never forgive myself.

  Then I wished for Ian’s happiness, praying that someway, somehow, he’d find himself another muse. I wished for him to move on from me and for his battered heart to heal over time. I wished for him to not give up on love and close himself off once more. He’d worked so hard to tap into his feelings, and I’d hate for him to lose that connection to himself again.

  Lastly, I made a wish for myself. I wished for the ability to stay strong even during the darkest of times and for my heart to keep beating every day, even though each beat hurt more and more as time passed without Ian by my side.

  If those wishes could come true, I’d never have to wish upon another star in the sky.

  37

  IAN

  “Are you kidding me?” Eric blurted out during our meeting with the record label. We all sat there in full disbelief as we spoke to the team of people in charge of our first album launch. “How does something like this even happen? I mean, you do have a solid team behind you making sure this doesn’t happen, right? I mean, you’re Mindset Records, for goodness’ sake. How did this even happen?”

  Eric was angry, which didn’t happen often, but he had every damn reason to be pissed off.

  Hell, we all did.

  Our first album—the album we’d poured our blood, sweat, and tears into—had been leaked across the internet.

  Max sat at the table, checking his two cell phones repeatedly, appearing to try to do damage control on the situation at hand. Donnie Schmitz, the head of Mindset Records, sat at the head of the table, with his hands clasped together. “We’ll be honest; this is a major mistake on our part. What’s worse is we are still two months out from the launch of the album. Which means we have to make some choices. We can’t push out an album that has already been leaked, so we must shift. We need new material, and we need to get you in the recording studio as soon as possible.”

  “What?” I huffed out. “Are you kidding me? It took us months to nail those songs down! We can’t just pump out a new album out of nowhere.”

  “Now, I know how this can sound daunting,” Donnie began.

  “I think the words you’re looking for are fucking impossible,” Marcus corrected with a grimace.

  Donnie continued, “But we have a list of tracks that are already fully developed. All you need to do is get in the studio and do your magic.”

  “What do you mean, fully developed tracks?” James asked.

  “We called in some of the best songwriters in the industry,” Max cut in, nodding my way. “It’s the greatest news. Warren Lee wrote the tracks.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Warren Lee?”

  “Yes.” Max nodded. Warren was one of the best writers in the industry, if not the best. Working with him meant Grammys and money. Everything he touched turned to platinum records. But what did using his songs mean for us?

  It wasn
’t authentic. It wasn’t ours.

  “We create our own music,” Marcus said, with his hands clasped together and a determined look on his face.

  “Yes, but you don’t have the time to create your own music. You said it yourself. It took you forever to create those tracks. So we took the hard part out of your job. Now, you just go in the studio and do what we tell you.”

  “We aren’t robots.” Eric sighed, taking off his glasses and pinching his nose. “We don’t just do that cookie-cutter bullshit.”

  “Yeah, didn’t we tell you that from day one, Max? We wanted to be us—the Wreckage. Not some bullshit manufactured band that doesn’t have a voice of their own,” James added in.

  I sat there quiet, unsure of what to say, because one: I was a tad bit drunk. And two: I couldn’t come to grips with the fact that all of those months of our work were gone. Everything we’d sacrificed to create that album meant nothing.

  All the time I could’ve been back in Eres with Hazel, growing our connection . . .

  What?

  No.

  Whiskey was supposed to drown out my thoughts of Hazel, not make them heavier.

  But still, the lost time creating music that ended up being worthless hurt.

  Fuck. What was the point of it all?

  “That was before this leak happened. Look, you guys, I’m pissed off too. You think I wanted this to happen? Of course not. But this is where we are. This is the place we are sitting, and we can moan and whine about it all damn day, or we can get to fucking work. Besides, Warren Lee makes superstars, and you are going to be superstars if you get out of your own fucking way.”

  The mood of the whole space was pretty damn disheartening. My bandmates looked as if they’d been hit by a semitruck. Eric kept going on and on about how he didn’t understand how something so major could happen with the record company’s security system.

  How did a whole album just get fucking leaked?

  “And if we refuse to use Warren’s songs?” I asked.

  Donnie pushed his lips together and gave me a hard look. “Listen, you signed a contract with Mindset Records, and we know this issue wasn’t a fault of yours, but to put it frankly, you owe us music. Time is ticking, and I don’t want to have to bring in the legal department on this.”

  Of course.

  We were being pushed in a corner, forced to create something that wasn’t authentic, something that wasn’t ours.

  It was literally an artist’s worst nightmare.

  Why did it feel as if the world was crashing around us? Why did it feel as if our dream was slowly but surely shifting into something that wasn’t ours to hold anymore?

  We were in the hands of a record label that had the power to control our every move with the threats of lawsuits—lawsuits that I was certain we’d lose in a heartbeat.

  I cleared my throat. “Can we have a minute to talk with the band alone?”

  “Sure. But don’t waste too much time trying to figure out a way around this,” Donnie mentioned as he stood, along with the lemmings who followed after him. “We don’t have time for diva artists.”

  Diva artists.

  I didn’t know it made someone a diva to want to speak their own truths.

  They all left the room as the guys and I sat at the table.

  The guys and Max.

  We all glanced his way with confused looks. He looked around with a cocked eyebrow.

  “What?”

  “We were hoping to talk alone,” Marcus mentioned.

  “I’m your manager. I need to be here for these meetings.”

  James shook his head. “This is more of a band-only conversation. We’ll notify you once we get our thoughts together.”

  Max sighed and brushed his hand over his mouth. He muttered something under his breath, and I was happy I didn’t hear him. He was probably calling us spoiled brats or something.

  He picked up a folder and slid it our way. “These are some of Warren’s songs for you. Look them over. These have Grammys written all over them. Don’t be stupid about this, you guys. Make the right choice.”

  With that, he left, closing the door behind him. The moment that door clicked, Marcus flew to his feet. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he exclaimed, waving his hands around like a madman.

  “There’s no way we can do this,” Eric said, flipping through the songs. “I mean, I’m sure these tracks by Warren are great, but they aren’t us. And we’ve built our whole social aspect around being us. People don’t want songs from Warren; they want songs from us.”

  “It’s impossible to create a brand-new album in that amount of time. We can’t do it,” Marcus said, sounding defeated. “Plus, I’m sure they’ll fuck us with law fees, and we’d end up broker than we were before we left Eres.”

  “We can try,” James offered. “We can try to make our own music over the next few months. I know it will be hard as hell, but we can work our asses off to make it happen.”

  The three of them began going back and forth—arguing about what would work and what wouldn’t. The more they argued, the more my chest felt as if it were on fire.

  I picked up the pages on the table and began flipping through the songs Warren Lee had written.

  I zoned out as I read the lyrics. Lyrics that meant nothing to me. Lyrics that were cookie cutter and mainstream. Lyrics that belonged to someone else.

  And I was going to be forced to sing those songs.

  “We’re taking Warren’s songs,” I said, pushing myself to stand up.

  “What? No. Dude, we can’t do that. We can’t sell out like this,” James said.

  “He’s right, Ian. I know we are in a hard spot, but we can’t just throw away everything we’ve worked for,” Marcus agreed.

  “We have a limited amount of time, and we can’t waste time trying to create new songs,” I explained.

  “But . . .” Eric sighed, but he didn’t finish his thought.

  Probably because he knew I was right.

  “I can’t let us all go into major debt and lawsuits because of this, you guys. We can’t go backward. We have to move forward.”

  “Even if that means selling out our souls to mainstream music?” Marcus asked.

  “Let’s be honest; we did that the moment we signed the contracts. If we wanted to stay small, we should’ve walked away at the beginning. We signed a contract, you guys, and there’s no way to get out of it. I’m going to go tell Max we’re taking Warren’s songs, and we’ll get in the studio tomorrow to get going.”

  I walked out of the room and only stopped when James came chasing after me.

  “Ian, wait up. What’s going on, man?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He narrowed his eyes as if he were staring at a stranger. “You don’t even want to fight to try to create our own music again? You don’t want to try?”

  “I’ve tried my whole life, James. I tried with my parents, I tried with Hazel, and I tried with our music. Trying doesn’t work. We might as well just go with what they want us to do. It will be easier that way.”

  “Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s worth it. You don’t mean what you’re saying. You just feel defeated, but you can’t let your pain weigh you down so much.”

  “I don’t feel pain,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “I don’t feel nothing.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a problem?” he asked.

  Maybe it was.

  But I was too tired to really fucking care.

  I lay in the darkest form of night. Even when I opened my eyes, I felt as though I were still staring into the blackness of my eyelids. How long had I been lying in the shadows? How long had I been in my current state of affairs? I shifted a bit, and my lower back stung. My whole body ached from head to toe, as if I’d been hit by a semitruck. What the hell had I done yesterday? Run a marathon? Fought a grizzly?

  Oh yeah, I’d gotten drunk as hell after leaving the meeting at Mindset Records.

  I rubbed the
palms of my hands against my eyes, completely dazed and confused as I tried to piece together the last few hours of my life.

  Dammit, Ian. How did you get here?

  I didn’t mean that in a superdeep, profound, meaningful way. What I meant was, How the hell had I fucking gotten here? And where, exactly, was here?

  My head pounded at a vomit-worthy speed as I tried to swallow down the crashing memories of the meeting at Mindset Records.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, and before I could sit up, two pairs of arms wrapped around my body in the darkness.

  Two big, strong pairs of arms lifted me up from my bed. As I went to holler, someone covered my mouth with one hand and my eyes with the other as the arms carried me away. I began kicking and trying to shout as I was hauled to the hallway of the hotel, in a complete panic as these men carried me away.

  Was this some kind of fanatic kidnapping? Was someone going for me because of my money?

  I bit the hand that was covering my mouth and heard a shout of pain. “Dude! What the fuck?”

  “Shut the fuck up, will you?” the other hissed.

  “He fucking bit me!”

  That voice . . . was that . . . Eric?

  “I don’t care if he fucking bit you. We aren’t supposed to talk!”

  “Well, you weren’t the one who was freaking bit!”

  “I told you to duct-tape his mouth!”

  “I’m not some freaking psychopath! I wasn’t going to duct-tape his mouth!”

  “That’s why you got bit, you idiot!”

  Eric and Marcus?

  I’d know that bickering from miles away.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I yelled now that my mouth was uncovered.

  The hands dropped my body to the hallway floor, and when I was allowed to look up, I saw my three bandmates dressed in all black like fucking ninjas. What in the ever-loving hell was going on?

  “What the hell is going on?” I blurted out, rubbing the back of my head, which had smacked hard against the floor.

  “Sorry, Ian, we were, er—we thought—” James started, looking guilty as fuck.