by Layne Harper
“Not a good idea, MK. Just leave it alone.”
Ignoring him, I lift the tape. The slit goes from just past the apple of my cheek and extends along my eye socket to where my brow stops. It’s large. It’s red, angry, and so discolored. I put the bandage back on, securing the tape.
He reassures me by kissing my wet hair and saying the words out loud that I just voiced in my head. “The plastic surgeon said that you might need another surgery, but eventually makeup will cover it.”
I don’t reply. I stand there as he uses his brush to work the tangles out of my matted hair. Eventually, my hair is long, straight, and knot-free. “Want me to blow it dry?”
I love him for asking, but I’m so tired. I just want to sleep. “It’s okay. I need to lie down.”
Once again, without my permission, I’m carried back to his bed. Dreamless sleep finds me, which I’m so thankful for. There are no nightmares of a giant red gash and no voices fighting around me.
Chapter Nineteen
Johnny Knite @RealJohnnyKnite
My girlfriend, MK Landry (NoPinkCaddy), suffered an accident while alone in her home. She’s recovering. I appreciate your well wishes.
Johnny Knite @RealJohnnyKnite
NoPinkCaddy is excited to share her story, but doctor’s orders are to stay off electronics. Give her a few more days.
The rest of the day, I spend in bed. I thought it would be difficult to lie still in a quiet room, but my head throbs badly enough that the darkness and solitude are welcomed. The only visitor I have is Aaron, and he checks on me frequently. At dinnertime, we eat takeout Chinese in his bedroom, and I fall back asleep.
Now, it’s morning and I’m rested. My head doesn’t hurt as badly as it did, although my cut burns, and I’m ready for my life to be back to normal. “Please go to my house and get my laptop,” I beg.
Aaron stands next to the bed, staring down at me with his arms crossed. “Nope. Nada. Not going to happen. Not in this lifetime.”
“I feel so much better. I promise to limit my time on it, but please don’t make me stay another day in bed.” Lightbulb moment. “I’ll stay in bed. I’ll work for a little while. I’ll even time myself, and then the laptop will move to the side and I’ll rest.”
“What part of no don’t you understand, MK? You’ve a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. If he clears you then the laptop is yours.” He has such a smug look on his face that I have visions of punching him.
“Pen and paper. Can I at least handwrite a post and then type it tomorrow?”
“Pen? Paper? What’s that? We don’t have those archaic tools around these parts.” Mister Emerson says the words, but I know he carries around a notebook and pencil. Jerk.
“Ugh,” I sigh in frustration. “Then I get visitors, and I at least get to leave this prison.” I scoot up in bed so I’m leaning against the brick wall.
He does this huge, exaggerated eye roll. “I don’t fucking want to share you. But fine. And if it’s too much, I swear to God, I’ll kick them out.”
“Yay,” I cheer. This feels very much like I was just granted permission from my dad to take the car out for the first time. “Can I have my phone?”
His eyes turn to slits. “No. No electronics.”
I slap my hand on the bed. “Then how do I get visitors?”
“Grace and Sam can hang out with you. Most of Sam’s part is finished.”
I feel claustrophobic. Scooting out of the bed avoiding the dictator, I carefully remove Aaron’s borrowed T-shirt and grab my overnight bag.
“Showing me your awesome tits?” He smirks.
I ignore him.
“Take another day to rest. In case you’ve forgotten, your brain is bruised.” Tenderly, he runs his hand along the right side of my face. Then he tips my chin so I look into his eyes. “MK, I saw you unconscious, not moving in a hospital bed. Fucking nightmare. You’ve only been released from the hospital for thirty-six hours. Please, take it easy for me. The band and I need to finish in the studio today, and I can’t do that if I’m worrying about you.”
I walk into Aaron’s closet and grab a fresh T-shirt. His guilt trip is successful. I’ll be good.
He smiles. “That’s my girl. Grace will be around all day if you need her.”
“Fantastic,” I reply sarcastically.
We eat a late lunch together, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, before he heads to the studio.
I can’t stand the four walls of his room any longer, so I grab a blanket and settle into his comfortable couch. No TV. No electronics. No books. No music. Resting my brain is for the birds.
I sit there for like five hours—probably ten minutes—before I begin feeling itchy. The dull ache in my skull tells me that I do need to rest, but it wouldn’t hurt to just sneak my phone out.
I begin by looking in the obvious places—on top of counters, in drawers. Nothing. Just when I’m about to start opening the always closed doors, Grace walks in through the back door.
“Hello MK. How are you feeling today?” she asks. She’s so formal. I wonder if this is just how she is, or if I’m getting the special treatment.
“I’m better. Thanks.” Another lightbulb moment—I’m full of them today. “Hey. You don’t happen to know where my phone is, do you?”
“I think it’s in the office.” She turns and walks down the hall that leads to Aaron’s bedroom. The last door on the left must be his office, because she opens it and walks in. I follow behind, anxious to see what the room looks like.
It’s rather boring—looks like it’s styled with your standard executive office furniture from Office Depot. It’s also too big for the room, and is completely off scale. There’s a laptop in the middle of the desk, and a few pens are scattered around it. The walls are a shade of taupe. My guess is this room is never used.
Grace opens a drawer and asks, “Is this it?” She holds up my phone case. It’s pink and in black writing is a quote by Coco Chanel. A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.
“That’s it.” I grab for it, just assuming it isn’t charged since that’s how luck seems to be going. There’s a charger in the kitchen in case I need it.
I follow her out of the room, shutting the door behind us. We both walk into the living room.
“Do you mind if we talk?” she asks as she sits down on the couch.
I’m wary, but happy she’s at least trying. Maybe this is an opportunity to induct her into the MK Landry Fan Club. I curl on the other end of the couch.
She begins with a flip of her shoulder-length blond hair. “I may have come off as a bit cross, and I want to apologize for that. I’m not sure what Johnny has said about our relationship, but it’s more than family.” She pauses and shifts her weight as if she’s trying to get closer to me. “Let me explain. I’ve managed his career since he was twenty and I was eighteen. So you see, we have a family business. He’s the front man. I make his ideas come to life behind the scenes. If you asked him what the budget is for this album, he couldn’t tell you. He doesn’t know how many zeros are in his bank account. He lives passionately, goes with his gut. I generate spreadsheets and make sure his taxes are paid.
“The last couple of years have been rough. He’s an addict. Addicted to the normal crutches—booze and drugs. But he’s also addicted to life. He likes the highs of performing on-stage and the thrill of thousands screaming his name. He’s a hedonist and doesn’t know how to be any other way.”
“Can I interject?” I say, grabbing a throw pillow and hugging it against my chest as if it will shield me from the hard realities she’s sharing. But I have to defend him. “I think you’re wrong. I think he’s worked so hard these last twenty years and because of that, he embraces life.” Thoughts of him telling me about his dad enter my mind. I don’t know him well, but I could imagine him pushing himself to prove to his father’s other family that he’s great, in spite of their shunning.
She smiles and has the same twinkle in her eye Aaron gets when he kno
ws he’s right. “You’ll see, my darling. I’m warning you right now, you’re his play-thing, his new addiction. He’ll tire of you when life gets rough—when the honeymoon is over. When you’re no longer the new hotness. A new one will come along, and you’ll be like the rest of us—lost in his shadow.” She sounds wistful.
“Grace, I appreciate you looking out for me,” I reply sweetly. “But my paycheck and livelihood are not tied to Aaron. If, like you say, he tires of me, I have a great group of friends and family who love me. I will never, ever be lost in someone’s shadow.” That’s what I say, but I’ve already seen evidence her words are true. My mind travels back to walking into this same room when it was filled with his band. I was the nobody, and he was their sun.
Her words burn in my chest. I stand up, grab my phone, and walk towards the safety of Aaron’s bedroom.
As I’m shutting the door, she says, “Johnny is like a Dementor in the Harry Potter books. He sucks your soul and leaves you an empty vessel. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, MK.”
***
My head throbs from my conversation with Grace by the time sleep finds me. When I wake, it’s in the evening. The room is darker. I roll over and stare at the ceiling crisscrossed with cedar beams. I’m so damn tired of sleeping. Tomorrow has got to be better.
Voices outside of Aaron’s room catch my attention as I fully wake up. Tiptoeing to the door, I press my ear against the hard wood.
“You’re an addict. I mean, look at your sugar consumption, Johnny. They warned you about it in rehab. You haven’t been able to switch from eating garbage to nutritious foods with vitamins because you’re white-knuckling being sober and using that poor girl. She’s your new addiction. For God’s sake, let her go.” Grace says, I think. It’s a female voice that sounds a bit muffled.
“Stay the fuck out of my personal life. You get business and Jude, but that’s it. You don’t know shit about her,” Aaron replies, and then there’s a loud noise like something has broken.
“You’re an asshole. You always have been and you always will be. You suck at relationships and take the good out of people, leaving them empty shells. I mean, look how you treated the mother of your child,” Grace yells.
There’s another loud, clanking noise, and I jump.
Aaron replies with so much force I’m surprised the walls are still standing. “Fuck you! How dare you bring her up? That was nineteen years ago. Get out of my house.”
Grace matches his tone, “Your house? Your house? You wouldn’t have two nickels to rub together if it wasn’t for me. I’ll see you in Austin.”
Then the door slams so hard that the house really does shake. I tiptoe back to bed, crawl under the covers, and pretend I didn’t hear a word.
After a bit, the back door closes and the house is silent. I take a moment processing what I overheard. Grace’s anger is not just directed at me. There’s obviously a deep family dynamic I’m not aware of. And it sounds like in her mind, she’s trying to protect me. But that’s where she’s wrong. I don’t need protection from Aaron. It’s like I told her—I have my own life, my own dreams that don’t revolve around his lifestyle. I cast shadows, not wilt in them. So far, my relationship with Aaron has shown me there is more to the world than I’ve been living. NoPinkCaddy and the doors it can open for me are just the beginning. Hopefully, Aaron will be by my side as I walk down this new path I’ve chosen—or he won’t and that will make me sad. Either way, I’m Mary Kay Landry, and I’ll be okay.
Praying that Grace is gone and Aaron is cooling down, I leave the safe confines of his bedroom. As I enter the kitchen, I find Sam sitting at the counter.
She jumps and grabs her chest. “You startled me. Johnny said you were asleep.”
“That’s all I seem to be able to do.” I smile. “Sorry. I should’ve been louder, but I thought the house was empty.” I open the fridge and find a bottle of lemonade. It’s like Christmas. My mouth waters in anticipation. Grabbing it, I cradle it in my arms. I could kiss it, I’m so happy to find something that isn’t carbonated.
“Grace is probably flying back to Austin, and Aaron is trying to find a way to cope. I’m sure you heard their fight.” She points at a cabinet. “I think there are chips in that one.”
There’s a bag of Zapp’s. Christmas and New Year’s in one beautiful day. I grab the bag and join her at the counter. “I caught the tail end.”
“They’ve been at each other’s throats for months. It was bound to happen. How are you feeling?” She steals a chip from the bag.
“Been better, but I’ll survive.” I rest the bag between us.
“You look like hell,” Sam says, as she stands up and walks around the island to rummage through the cabinets.
“Yeah. I know. Hopefully the doctor will have good news tomorrow.” The lemonade is my favorite—very tart, but tasty. “Why’s Grace so angry?”
Sam turns around. She wears a red tank top that shows off her very manly arms, yet she’s tiny. She must be a body builder with like five percent body fat. “Wouldn’t you be if you were constantly cleaning up the messes?”
I’m silent for a moment, contemplating her statement. “Do you think that I’m one of Aaron’s messes?”
“Why is there no booze in this house?” she laments as she opens more cabinets. Finally, she grabs her phone and texts someone. Then to me, she says, “We’ll have a nice bottle of wine in about fifteen minutes.”
I’m about to ask her the question again when she says, “The fact that you call him Aaron makes you unique.” She throws her hands up. “I don’t know, girl. I like you. I know he was scared to death when you were in the hospital. I know he thinks you’re great, but he’s Johnny Knite. Living on the fringe is kind of what he does.”
Living on the fringe is kind of what he does. I roll her words over in my brain, but it just makes it throb more so I stop. I’m chin-deep in this relationship. It’s not like this is something that’s going to clear itself up. I mean, when I slept with him I knew who he was. Only time will tell if I’m his new hot toy or here to stay.
“Don’t look so down,” Sam says. “Your face already looks like shit. I didn’t know that many shades of purple existed.” She has such a huge smile on her face that I can’t help but smile also.
“Will you take a picture of me for my site?” I ask as I slide off the chair and exit the kitchen. Moments later, I return with my phone.
I hand it to her.
“Flip your hair over your shoulder,” she instructs as she holds my phone up.
I do what she says and pose like a Vogue model. She loves it and gets into it, snapping away.
Seamus walks through the back door with a couple of bottles of the same red he purchased for me. Without asking, he uses the electric wine opener and pours us both a glass. Sam and I toast as I take a sip.
“Thanks, Seamus,” she says, giving him a nod.
He returns the nod and turns to exit out the back door.
“Oh my God,” she screeches. “The wine matches your bruises. How funny of a post would that be?”
“Love it!”
She holds the wine glass up to the left side of my face until she finds a shade of purple that matches the closest. Then, I take the glass and she snaps away. I can see the post developing in my head, and my heart beats faster with excitement. This is a perfect opportunity to show my readers how you can turn lemons into lemonade or sour grapes into yummy wine.
“What are you doing?” Aaron asks as Sam and I both turn to him, look at each other, and giggle that we’ve been caught.
He frowns and his scowl borders on scary.
“Matching the wine to my bruises.” God, when I say it like that it sounds dumb.
“Well, I guess that’s my cue,” Sam says, grabbing the unopened bottle. “Talk to you later, MK.”
I wave.
When the door shuts, he says, “Do you think drinking’s a good idea when you’re on painkillers and antibiotics?” He’s wearing a wetsuit, an
d his hair is a damp floppy mess. He must have been swimming. Did he take my advice and use exercise instead of coke?
“I had a sip,” I reply, laughing. “You swam laps.”
He will not be distracted. “Not funny. I told your mom and dad I’d take care of you. Don’t make me a liar.” His face reminds me of stone. Skin is stretched so tightly over his prominent features that he looks as if he’s had plastic surgery. Pencil-thin lips do not return my smile. The neoprene hugs his sculpted physique, not leaving much to the imagination. There’s a bulge where his crotch is, and my mouth waters.
“You’re the most bipolar person I’ve ever met. One minute you’re like a teenage boy who never grew up. The next minute you go all dad and responsible on me. I can’t keep up with which version of Aaron I’m dealing with.” I polish off my comments with a sip of my wine. I’m thirty years old, certainly no longer a child.
“Just call me responsible.” The pulse in his neck beats faster. “Don’t take another sip.” His fists clench by his side.
See, I’m the second child, the baby of the family—don’t challenge me. The surest way to get me to jump off the tall rope swing at Grandmother’s lake house was to tell me not to do it.
Defiantly, I pick up the glass and take another sip.
In two long strides, Aaron closes the gap between us, takes the glass out of my hand, and throws it against the wall. I look over my shoulder and watch the dark-colored liquid sliding down the off-white plaster.
“What a shame. That was a really nice wine glass,” I reply, standing up and walking down the hall to Aaron’s room. My heart pounds. How dare he?
I shove my things into my bag. It seems he’s ill-equipped to deal with life when it doesn’t go his way. Grace may have catered to him for the past eighteen years, but I will not. I can make concessions and compromises—that’s being in a relationship. Bending to his every whim makes me more of an employee, and that’s not how I’ll be treated.