Westside Series Box Set

by Monica Alexander

  “No, we’re going to go. Dad will be fine with it. Grab your stuff. I’ll tell him we’re leaving.”

  She didn’t argue with me. She just nodded and started to open the drawer where her bag was stashed.

  “Let me save what I was working on,” she mumbled as she started to click on things on her screen.

  I walked back to the studio where my dad apparently was with Sabrina Tyler. I wasn’t really in the right mindset to meet a celebrity, so I hoped she’d be in the recording booth, and I could duck in and out without an introduction.

  No such luck. As soon as I knocked, the door opened, and there sat Sabrina, a guitar in her hand and several people around her, listening as she worked out a track. My dad was watching her intently. I didn't want to interrupt, so I listened for a few minutes.

  “Now play it the other way again,” he told her.

  I fully expected her to be a diva and tell him that she wanted things her way, which was exactly how I’d always pictured Sabrina Tyler, based on the media circus that had surrounded her for years. She was known for being a demanding bitch, and she’d been a PR nightmare with the stunts she’d pulled when she’d been at the height of her crazy spree that had been fueled by too much partying. She’d almost burned out before going to court-ordered rehab a year and a half earlier. Since then she’d been almost completely out of the spotlight, but it looked like she was now ready to jump back in with both feet.

  I listened to her play the riff as my dad listened, my ear he’d helped train hearing the nuances of the beat as she alternated picking bass notes and high notes on her guitar, giving the song a folky sound with a pop twist. It was cool.

  “I like it that way,” my dad said.

  “Me too,” Sabrina agreed.

  My dad looked up at me. “Hey kiddo. You’re taking off?”

  I nodded. “We are.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.” He looked at Sabrina. “Can you give me a second? I just want to say goodbye to my daughter.”

  “Your daughter?” she questioned, turning to face me. “Hi!”

  “Uh, hi. How are you?”

  “I’m so great. Your dad has been amazing throughout this process. I can’t even tell you,” she gushed with a huge grin on her face.

  Her light brown hair, that I remembered being a rainbow of colors at one point, was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and she wasn’t wearing any make-up. It was startling how effortlessly beautiful she really was, all fresh-faced with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Despite a few years of hard partying and past pictures that showcased her looking hard and tired, it seemed she’d emerged as a completely new person. She wasn’t what I’d expected.

  I returned her smile. “That’s great to hear. Dad’s one of the best.”

  “Sabrina, this is Elisa, my oldest daughter. Elisa, this is Sabrina Tyler, her manager, Dixon, and her band, Eddie, Justin, Colt and Erica.”

  Suddenly all eyes were on me as the whole room turned to say some version of hello.

  “Hi everyone,” I said, giving them a wave.

  “Elisa’s just in town for the week,” my dad told them. “She does PR for Westside, so she’s on tour with them now.”

  “Oh, Westside!” Sabrina said excitedly. “I met those guys a few years ago. They’re so sweet.”

  “Yeah, they’re pretty great.”

  “Tell them I said hi,” she said cheerfully.

  “I will,” I told her.

  “Let’s step outside,” my dad said as he opened the door.

  I followed him out into the hallway.

  “I’m going to take her back to my place for the weekend,” I told him. “Keri’s visiting her parents in Ohio, so Amy can stay in her room.”

  He nodded. “And you leave on Sunday?”

  “Yeah, I do, so I’ll have to see what she wants to do then.”

  He nodded. “I think that’s a good plan. I was worried about her, El. She looked like she’d been crying when she came in this morning, but she wouldn’t talk to me.”

  “Yeah, she just found out last night, and even though Troy lied and told her he didn’t do anything, I think she doubted him.”

  “I never liked that guy. I don’t care what Amy says. Any guy who puts a bruise on a girl isn’t right in my book.”

  “I agree. He’s a jerk.”

  He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Call me tomorrow and let me know she’s okay. I’ll hire movers to get her stuff out of that apartment, and I’ll find her someplace else to live.”

  I nodded. “We’ll figure it all out.”

  As I turned to leave, my dad called my name, so I looked over my shoulder at him.

  “See if she’ll open up to you, El. I don’t know what’s been going on with her these past few months, but she’s not okay.”

  “Well, maybe she will be now.”

  He shook his head. “I think it’s more than Troy. I just don’t know what it is. She won’t talk to your mother or me, but we’ve both been concerned that she’s dealing with more than she can handle right now.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thank you.”

  I headed back up front to meet my sister, hoping I could help her through everything she was dealing with. My dad was generally a laid back guy, and for him to be so concerned had me worried. I knew my personal experience would help Amy with what she was going through with Troy, that was for sure, and because of that, I knew we could have a long night ahead of us. If there were other things she was battling, I hoped she’d open up to me. We’d never kept secrets from each other in the past, but now it felt like everything was different. I wasn’t sure what she’d tell me.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Van

  Have to cancel tonight – sorry – I’ll make it up to you.

  That was the text I got from Elisa right around the time I landed at LAX. My first instinct was to panic. I’d just seen her that morning, but with everything that had transpired the night before, I was a little on edge. I needed to know that she hadn’t changed her mind again.

  Her vagueness had never been less welcome, and I hadn’t been able to dial her number fast enough. When she answered, though, she called me baby, and I was able to breathe a small sigh of relief. Then my nerves ratcheted back up as she told me an abbreviated version of what had happened with Amy and Troy.

  Elisa explained that she wasn’t going to be able to come over to my house like she’d planned, so I told our driver to drop me at her apartment in West Hollywood. I honestly had half a mind to find out where Troy lived and go beat his ass, but I knew that wouldn’t be prudent. Katherine and Damon were already dealing with enough bad press from Phillip’s incident. I didn’t need to do anything to draw more negative attention to the band.

  The good news was that Phillip seemed to be doing better. He hadn’t fallen back into his depressive state, and he even had plans to hang out with Dillon, since Meredith was back in Michigan for a few days. Cam was going to be holed up with Andi, so I felt comfortable taking off to go see Elisa.

  “Hey you,” Elisa said when she opened the door, pulling me inside and into her arms, seeming as grateful to see me as I was to see her.

  Inside her apartment, the scene in front of me reminded me so much of the first time I’d met Amy that it was ironic. Chinese takeout was littered all over the coffee table, along with crumpled up tissues and two empty frozen yogurt cups. Elisa was dressed in a tank top and leggings, and the original Jurassic Park was playing on the TV, the volume lowered.

  “How is she?” I asked Elisa.

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Van, she’s in such a bad place right now. I’ve never seen her like this, so I don’t even know what to do to help her,” she said in a hushed tone.

  “Because of Troy?”

  “Because of everything, but he just made it all worse. It sounds like he was pretty mean to her, and she didn’t even realize how bad it had gotten. She was almost blind to it.” />
  “Mean to her? Tell me he didn’t hit her,” I said, the urge to do something drastic on Amy’s behalf stronger than ever as I considered the fact that Troy was a bigger dick than I’d thought.

  Elisa shook her head. “Not really,” she said in a hushed voice. “She said there were times when he grabbed harder than was necessary, which probably explains the bruising I saw on her arm that one time, but it sounds like he was more verbally abusive and controlling than anything else. She said he put her down all the time, and he’d started to poison her against me and my parents and her friends. He didn’t seem to want to share her, and Amy said he was always paranoid that she was sleeping with other guys. She said he gave her a hard time if he couldn’t get her on her cell phone. He told her she dressed like a slut, and that she did it to attract other guys, so she started covering up more. He even accused her of sleeping with the TA in one of her classes and with one of the guys who was helping her in the math lab. She said he’d lash out at her any time he saw her talking to another guy, and it just became easier to avoid situations that would make him upset. She thought he was doing it because he loved her, but I think that notion went out the window when he cheated on her. It was pretty much the last thing she expected, because every time he’d get all crazy and accuse her of cheating, he’d break down and beg her not to leave him. She’d end up comforting him, even though his behavior was completely irrational and accusatory. She said he’d call her a slut and a whore, and then he’d beg for forgiveness. She said she always forgave him.”

  “What a dick,” I grumbled.

  “I know, and to make matters worse, she had a really hard time with school this semester. It sounds like Troy didn’t make it any easier for her. I guess he demanded a lot of her attention, and he didn’t like how much she was studying. She didn’t end up doing so well in her classes, so she’s thinking about dropping out of school.”

  “What?!”

  Elisa shushed me and jerked her head toward the hallway where her and Keri’s bedrooms where. “She’s taking a bath, and the door doesn’t exactly block out sound. I don’t want her to hear us talking about her. She’s really fragile right now. I didn’t expect it to be this bad, and after my dad said how hard it had been for him and my mom to get her to open up to them, I wasn’t sure she’d talk to me. But I think things came to a head yesterday. She told me everything, and I just sat there in shock, not sure what to do.”

  “Yeah, but dropping out of school? Amy loves school.”

  Elisa shrugged. “I’m not sure she feels like she knows herself anymore, and in her eyes, her GPA was everything. A good med school won’t let someone in if they don’t have the grades. I think she feels like she doesn’t have another choice.”

  “Shit,” I said, running my hand back through my hair. “Okay, well, what can I do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we can take her mind off of everything somehow, help her see that things aren’t as bad as they seem.”

  I nodded. “Right. Okay. Sounds good. How do we do that?”

  Elisa laughed, but it sounded strained. “I have no idea. I’ve been trying to figure that out all night. I told her to take a bath and see if she could relax, but I’m not sure what else to do.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” I promised her, and then I pulled her into my arms. “How are you doing?”

  I felt her shrug. “I’m okay. It’s hard to be on this end of things, and I hate that I have to leave in a few days. She’s been mad at me for so long that selfishly, I’m a little glad to have her back. I hate that I have to go.”

  “She’ll understand,” I assured her.

  “I know she will.”

  “And how are you about everything else in your life?” I asked cautiously, squeezing her a little tighter.

  She pulled back enough to look up at me with a tiny smirk on her lips. “Are you asking about us?”

  I nodded sheepishly, feeling like a tool for sounding so insecure. “Maybe.”

  “Don’t worry. My feelings for you haven’t changed since this morning.”

  “So, you still love me, think I’m the greatest thing to ever happen to you, and you can’t imagine a world without me in it?”

  Elisa laughed. “Sure, let’s go with that.”

  “You don’t sound very convincing.”

  She shrugged. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “Van?” I heard from across the room and looked up at the same time Elisa did to see Amy watching us with a questioning look on her face.

  As soon as she saw her sister, Elisa pulled away from me. “Amy. I thought you were taking a bath?”

  “I was, but I heard voices. I wanted to see who was here. He was not who I expected.”

  “Yeah, I can explain that,” Elisa said, and I was realizing very quickly that she hadn’t yet told Amy about us.

  I might have been offended had I not taken a second to think things through. Considering we just decided to tell people, Elisa really wouldn’t have had an ideal time to tell Amy that we were dating. And based on the look on Amy’s face, she didn’t seemed thrilled to see me.

  Elisa looked flustered, so I figured I’d help her out. “Hi Ames,” I said, taking in her red and puffy eyes as I slid my hand into Elisa’s. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You’re together,” she deduced.

  “Yeah, we are. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Elisa said quickly.

  Amy nodded a few times, looking like she was pondering the news. “That’s really cool, I think.”

  “It is,” Elisa assured her.

  Then Amy cocked her head to the side. “But didn’t he cheat on you? And didn’t you just spend the last few hours commiserating with me about what a jerk Troy was for cheating on me?”

  I looked over in time to see Elisa’s face fall as Amy brought up the one part of our history I wished we could erase. Her hand slipped from mine, and I decided not to protest. Whatever was going through her mind in that moment, and with the way Amy was glaring at me, I didn’t feel like I had a good argument to defend what I’d done. It had been shitty, and I regretted it, but that didn’t change the fact that it happened.

  “Amy, I thought you’d be happy for us,” Elisa said cautiously. “You told me a few months ago that I should give Van another chance, that what happened with us happened a long time ago. I thought you would be okay with this.”

  Amy crossed her arms over her chest. “That was before I knew what it felt like to have a guy do that to me. My perspective’s a little different now.”

  “I’m not Troy,” I told her. “I’m sorry he was a jerk to you. I honestly want to go after him on your behalf.”

  “Don’t bother,” Amy said, looking away.

  I watched her for a few seconds, trying to read her expression. “Amy, I’m not going to hurt your sister. I love her.”

  “Troy told me he loved me too,” she mumbled, and then her eyes started to fill with tears.

  Elisa crossed the room to her, but Amy had already turned on her heel and was heading in the direction of Elisa’s bedroom. I watched Elisa follow her, not sure what I should do. Amy obviously didn’t want me there, but I was pretty sure Elisa did. I figured my girlfriend’s feelings trumped her sister’s and took a seat on the couch.

  I settled in to watch the rest of Jurassic Park, which I’d seen too many times to count, but it never really got old. Thirty minutes later, Elisa came out and settled in next to me on the couch. I opened my arms, and she tucked in next to me and laid her head on my shoulder.

  “Is she alright?”

  Elisa nodded. “She’ll be fine. I think she was just surprised to see you. The last she knew you were at Adrienne and CJ’s wedding with Veronica Isaac, so to find out that you and I have actually been dating since that night was kind of a shock. In addition to everything else she’s feeling, it’s a lot to take in.”

  “I can understand that. Am I safe to assume that she hates me?”

  “I really don’t think s
he does. She’s just confused. She sees what you did as the same thing Troy did.”

  I sighed. That was the last thing I wanted to talk about – ever – but I wasn’t sure I had a choice anymore.

  “Isn’t it, though?” I asked tentatively.

  “No, not really,” Elisa said unconvincingly.

  “You don’t believe that,” I told her and felt her bodyweight sink against me. At least she wasn’t pulling away.

  “I’m trying not to compare the two,” she said honestly.

  “But it’s hard not to.”

  “Yeah, it is. I’ve been thinking about it ever since Amy told me what Troy did.”

  “What do you want to know?” I asked her, figuring it was better to get everything out in the open. We’d held off talking about this, but it needed to happen. We couldn’t just let it go. It was a big part of our past.

  “What happened that night?” she asked. “Why did you do it?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her honestly as I tightened my arms around her. “I’ve thought about that night so much in the past few months, and I can’t come up with a good reason. I was young and dumb, and I missed you. At the same time, I was afraid of what I was feeling for you. I didn’t think I was good enough for you. I didn’t think I could be the guy you needed, and I was afraid that you’d end up leaving me when someone better came along. It was so many reasons all wrapped into one mistake that I wish I could take back.”

  “But you asked me to be your girlfriend that day. You said it completely out of the blue. Why did you do that and then go sleep with someone else?”

  “Because you hesitated,” I told her. “You didn’t say yes, and when you did that, you played into every single thing I was afraid of. So I got really drunk, and I tried to forget what I was feeling, and I ended up hurting you.”

  “Did you really want me to be your girlfriend?”

  “Yes and no,” I said honestly. “There was a part of me, probably the guy I was before all the fame shit went to my head, that thought you were perfect. But there was this other part of me that wanted to have options. That part of me would have kept me from being able to treat you the way you deserved. I was an idiot back then.”