The moment we stepped into the conference center for the press release, I felt faint. Splinter helped guide me as we walked to the stage, and I tried my best to stand on my own behind Ben while he gave his speech.
When it came time for questions, I knew the hot topic would be the leaked photo. Surprisingly, it never came up. No one asked, and no one stared at me like I was the cause for anything at all. No one asked for me to speak; no one asked for me to do a thing.
When the press conference was done, we went back to the hotel, ordered dinner, and while Ben and I made the last minute adjustments to the home we were making together, I asked him, “Have you called to check on Mom?” He was quiet for a long moment. “Have you checked on her at all?” I asked when he didn’t answer.
After another long pause, I let it go. I didn’t understand how he could have so much disregard for her when she needed us the most. We had sent her off to rehab in hopes the doctors and other patients would be enough. Kind of like I hoped she would be enough for me. She never had been, so a selfish part of me had hoped that the doctors and patients wouldn’t be enough to soothe her. I knew it was wrong, but it would be a nice slice of karma, so it didn’t feel as horrible as it should have.
After tonight, we would be playing the last three shows of this tour. We would then be going our separate ways. Ben and I were headed to New Hampshire, and Grayson would be heading back to Los Angeles with Rian. As for Splinter, I wasn’t sure what his post-summer plans were. Nor had I bothered to ask. Maybe I should have considering how much time we were spending together, and how close we had grown since we’d left high school and gone on this tour together.
I texted him, and we met out in the main hallway in our PJs.
“What’s wrong, Bea?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to ask you some questions.” We slid down against the wall, sitting in the hallway.
“Where are you going to go after this all ends?” I asked. “School? Work? Are you traveling? Are you staying here?”
He looked taken aback by my influx of questions, and when I finally took a breath, he asked, “Why are you so panicked about my after-summer plans?”
Swallowing back my initial impulse to be snarky with him, I simply told him the truth in the best way I knew how.
“Splinter, you’re the only real friend I’ve got left. I know I didn’t give you the time of day back at Rosewood, it’s only now that I realize how stupid that was. I should have paid more attention. While I was busy being a royal and looking down at you, barely acknowledging your existence, you noticed me when I couldn’t even look you straight in the face. I want to know what you’re doing because I don’t want this to be the end of our friendship. I want to keep in touch. I want to be your friend for as long as you can put up with me, and—”
He placed his hand over mine, cupping it in a gentle grip. “We’re going to stay friends after this, Bea. You know too much, and I know too much. We either stay friends or die trying to ruin the other’s reputation.”
We laughed together, and he gave me the biggest promise anyone could ever give me—a pinky promise that meant we would keep in touch, no matter where we were or what we were doing.
I went back to bed. After tonight, everything was going to change for me. Whether it was good or bad, I wanted to feel every part of it: the joy, the pain, and even the sorrow. I didn’t want to repress a single thing anymore. I wanted it all, and I wanted it right then.
Right as I was ready to fall asleep for the night, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. Without a second thought, I checked it. Two text messages came onto the screen display: one from Splinter and one from the anonymous messenger.
Splinter: These last three nights are going to be the best ever. Get some rest, because we’re not going to get much after tonight.
I smiled at his heartfelt message, and when I looked to the message from my anonymous stalker, I knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy getaway.
Anonymous: Welcome home, B. Pay your debt or live eternally in regret.
My time was running out, and so were my options. I could only hide from him for so long, and I didn’t where I would be safe. Should I ask for help? Should I figure this out on my own? Was I even safe to begin with? I know I didn’t feel safe with the threatening text messages I had received nor the stalking. There was no escape.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We woke up incredibly early the next morning. We still had a lot to do even though our press days were over. It was the first night at Madison Square Garden, and the boys decided to go and practice there early. This meant waking up at five in the morning and going over to the venue while the production crew and all the people involved in making Eden Sank’s concerts a reality were still setting up the stage for the show.
They went into the back of the green room and tried to practice there, and I could tell Splinter was nervous. He was off, and Splinter was never off. The poor guy kept dropping his drumsticks like a baby who was learning to grasp objects for the first time. He was Splinter Nightingale for Christ’s sake. I couldn’t believe that he was letting all of this get to him.
“I think it’s time for a break, guys. What do you think?” I said. I needed a moment alone with Splinter, and this would be my only chance of getting him back to where he needed to be. The boys all filed back to the stage to see how the production team was doing, and when Splinter stood to join them, I grabbed his shoulder.
“What is it, Bea?”
“Stay here with me; we’re going to practice some more.” I handed him his drum pad, and he looked at me as if I was crazy.
“I thought you wanted us to take a break?”
“I did,” I said. “But you are overthinking everything and ruining yourself.”
“Bea, I think you’re overreacting.”
“Am I?” I asked with a hint of knowing in my voice.
He stared at me with a dumbfounded look.
“They’re intimidating you, and this venue is intimidating you. You’re off your game, Splinter. You aren’t in the zone.”
“What zone?”
“Your zone. Whenever you play, you go to this place that makes it hard for you to be distracted by the things around you. You’re not there right now. You need to find that place again.”
Splinter looked at me curiously. “You haven’t been ignoring my existence after all.” He smirked and I swatted the side of his arm.
“Shut up, and sit your ass down. We’re going to practice until you get into that zone of yours.”
We practiced and practiced, and I sometimes yelled at him as if I was a person in the crowd trying to throw him off. I threw things at him, and he blocked them with his drumstick, all the while maintaining his rhythm and beat. I was proud when we were done, and when the boys came back from their break, Splinter was on point.
I kept checking my phone. It was filled with notifications about tonight’s show. Thankfully, there was no more talk about the leaked photo. For that, I was grateful.
However, there was an underlying feeling I had. I didn’t know how to explain it except every time I had my phone in my hand I had a feeling of impending doom, like everything was going to fall apart. Maybe I was being paranoid. Whether it was a feeling, a vivid dream or a vision—some people just knew something was going to happen before it did. They had warning signs and signals that led them to believe they were in the wrong place, the wrong time. I wanted to believe I had that, at least with the feelings I had.
I knew in my heart before it happened…when Mackynsie died. I didn’t need the doctors to break it to me or for anyone to tell me a thing at all. I knew as we reached the hospital; I knew the moment the car collided with hers. I knew the moment I woke up and she didn’t. I knew, and I don’t know how I did. Intuition was a funny and cruel thing to have.
I was hoping that this feeling in my heart was wrong.
***
While we waited for the venue to open the doors, we formed our pray
er circle. It was weird without Everett here, and despite how many times we had done the prayer circle without him, it was still an unsettling feeling. Even if it was going to be short-lived that Splinter was a part of the band, I tried to put my thoughts of Everett behind me. A part of me wanted to believe he was sick at home, wishing he were here with us as much as I wished he was. I wanted him back so badly. All these thoughts came to me while we were praying.
When we heard the venue filling up our, energy got higher, and our excitement grew with each passing moment. This was going to be an amazing show; I could tell by the way the boys were acting and how they reacted to seeing the sold-out crowd from behind the stage. I was happy for them—I really was.
From the moment they rushed on stage to the moment they came back for intermission while another band went on, I was in pure disbelief. They were living their dream, and so was Splinter. He wasn’t nervous anymore, and I could tell by the huge smile on his face. He was covered in a layer of sweat, and he was breathing heavily, but he was happy. The anxiety he’d experienced earlier was gone.
He came up to me, hugged me tightly, and whispered into my ear, “Thank you.”
When they went back on stage, I was a bit distracted. I kept thinking of the last time I had seen Ben before he became as famous as he was now.
It had been the night leading up to Christmas Eve. We had stayed up late talking—though when I had gone to sleep, I had been woken up by the sounds of loud shuffling in the hallway. Afraid that Ben and my mother had been fighting, I’d opened up my door a crack to see outside. Instead of a brawl, I had seen Ben with a backpack on his back, trying to lug a huge suitcase and two different duffle bags over his shoulders.
“Ben, what are you doing?” I had opened the door all the way and had gotten a good look at my not-so-sneaky brother.
“Bea, go back to bed. I don’t want to risk Mom—”
“Where are you going with all those bags?” I’d taken a closer look and seen he was holding what looked like a boarding pass. “Are you leaving me? It’s—”
“Bea, I’m sorry. I’m doing this for you. I’m doing this for us.” He’d pulled me into a tight hug, and I’d yanked a handful of his hair. It had been longer than usual, so there had been a lot to grab.
“Bea don’t! That hurts. You can’t keep me here.”
I’d watched him with teary eyes. “What about me? What about Mom? How am I—?”
“I’ve got it all taken care of. Here, take this.” He had handed me a large brown envelope. It had felt weighted as if there were multiple things inside, definitely more than paper.
“I need you to keep this away from Mom. It’s for you and everything you’ll need. I’ll send more in time.”
“Ben, please, don’t leave me.”
“Bea, you’ll thank me one day for this.”
I had shaken my head, tears brimming in my eyes. “I’ll never thank you for this. If you leave me now, you—”
“You say this because you’ll miss me. We will still talk, I promise.”
“If you’re going to promise me anything, promise me—”
He’d set down his bags and pulled me close again.
“From me to you, I’ll always be true,” he sang. “A promise I’ll make, one I’ll never break. Together or apart, you’ll always have my heart. One promise I ask of you, is that you always stay true, and to keep the faith. With this, you’ll be okay.”
By then, we had both been crying. Ben had hugged me one more time until we had seen colored lights flashing into the living room from outside the window.
“That’s my signal; I’ve got to go.”
I’d held onto him for as long as I could. I hadn’t known where he was going or when he would be back. I had felt like this was our final moment to say anything and everything to each other.
“I love you, Sissa.”
With tears streaming down my face and leaving stains on his shirt, I had said, “I love you too, jerk face.”
***
Now, I was happy to be with my brother in a place like this. He was right—I was thankful that he’d left and done all of this for me. If it weren’t for all the money he had made doing this, I would have never survived. There was no other way around it. Yeah, living alone with my mother was Hell, which was why I’d usually stayed with Mackynsie’s family, the Campbells. They hadn’t minded—they’d seen me as another daughter. They’d treated me that way too.
I never did really get to see or talk to Ben after he’d left, so technically our promise had been broken. I eventually figured out where he had been living, thanks to the return address and the postmark on the envelopes filled with money he had always sent me. Eventually, he started to wire me the money through Western Union, so I couldn’t see his address anymore. The most I saw of him was the appearances on TV or on YouTube.
I was angry for a while since he did break his promise to me, as well as the fact that whenever he had a show in town he never came to see me. I never did ask him why that was even though I probably should have by now. However, the more time I spent with him this summer, the less it mattered to me.
As Ben and the boys went back on stage for the rest of their show, I smiled to myself and checked my phone again. There was nothing from my unknown stalker. Even if it was still an unknown person, I kept feeling like it was Crosley. I had no real proof other than Kingston being in the magazine office the same day I was and the way he reacted to me noticing him. It was all too coincidental to not make sense. Though everything was leading me back to Crosley as the culprit, I had to have more proof. Though I had a feeling that the proof I needed was the very thing that was going to get me what I had been threatened with: a six-foot hole in the ground.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The moment the show ended on the first night, we were all high from an adrenaline rush. It was amazing, and I couldn’t believe how far we had all come in three months. Heck, looking back at some of Eden Sank’s earlier works, I couldn’t believe how far they’d come in the past six years.
We tried not to party too hard when we got back to the hotel, but our excitement and our high energy weren’t going to let us back down so easily. Musicians weren’t morning people anyways.
The boys rested up while I cleaned up as much as I could so as not to piss off the cleaning staff. When I was done, I went to go take a shower and get dressed. By then, the boys were up and wanted breakfast. The hotel had stopped serving breakfast an hour before they woke up, so after much discussion, we decided to take a trip to a nearby pancake house.
The buzz from people seeing the bus with Eden Sank’s logo alone was immense, and I was in a state of disbelief again when I saw how many people wanted the attention of the band members, even Splinter.
I sat back and let everything happen, which seemed to work in my favor. No one wanted to know me right then—though, I managed to photo-bomb a few of their pictures.
I couldn’t believe how loved they were. It made me appreciate them even more because I had loved them first.
I still remember the first time I had met all the boys, Everett included. I was six years old when the band first took its earliest form. One of Ben’s friend’s had given him an old guitar a few years back, and he would mimic the movements of guitar players he watched on MTV. Grayson and Rian were his best friends from school, but Everett was new. He was the last to join the band, and he was one of the youngest out of the group. Yet he always left an impression that he was wise and not of this time. Sometimes he acted plain stupid like every other teenage boy—though, there were many times I could tell he was an old soul. Despite being new to the group, he fit right in. Somewhere in between all that, he found his way into my heart. I wasn’t sure how it started except that one night while the boys were in New York, he decided to visit me. He was mad because my brother hadn’t called or come to see me himself. We sat up late eating popcorn and watching old horror flicks. Ben never knew, and I told Everett it was our little secret as I snuck hi
m out the window when we heard my mother waking up.
The next time he visited me, I was fourteen, and I was beginning to fill out thanks to hormones and puberty. We did the same we had done the last time he visited: watched TV and ate junk food. We stayed up talking again until Mackynsie called me late that night, asking if she could come over. I said goodbye to Everett that night and didn’t see him again until I was sixteen. He was visiting New York early in anticipation of the start of his tour with Eden Sank, and he ended up staying at my apartment for most of his stay. That was how we realized we were more than friends. I enjoyed his visits so much and having him so close by. If Mackynsie, who was jealous that I even had had sex to begin with, hadn’t caught us, more would have happened. A lot more would have happened.
After that, I never saw him again until he was outside my apartment in Old Trusty, waiting for me to graduate. He looked so happy.
Thinking of this brought tears to my eyes, and by the time the boys were done, we all went straight to our table and ordered our food.
While the boys were talking candidly about that night’s show, Splinter must’ve noticed my tear-stained cheeks. I assumed that to be true once he placed a hand over mine and asked quietly, “Are you all right?”
I nodded and shoved away his hand, continuing to ignore him. I didn’t want to tell him why I had been crying, nor why I wanted to ignore him so badly. He couldn’t possibly understand.
While we were paying the bill, I brought up something with my brother.
“Ben, we still need to go by the old apartment to pick up the rest of my things.”
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