by Ciara Knight
A horn honked on the other side of the building, reminding me there was still life out there. My emotions were spent, all my anger drained after punching a garbage can until my knuckles bled, my sadness after crying myself to sleep each night. It was time to do something, but there were only two options.
I rotated the small, clear bag between my fingers. The thought of easing the pain caused a hopeful spark inside me. It was my birthday after all. Certainly I could celebrate the only way I had left. The other option was to call Ton collect and go back to New York. That wasn’t as appetizing an idea. All I knew was that I needed to do something. At twenty I shouldn’t still be hovering in the darkness. It was time to grow up and deal with life, even if it sucked worse than an anteater with a sinus infection.
I pushed myself up on rubbery legs, slung my duffel over my shoulder, and decided it was time to say good-bye to Atlanta. Either by entering a drug-induced haze of bliss or by flying away and never returning.
I held the pouch tight between my fingers. If I was gonna get shit-faced, I was gonna do it while I watched Bands get torn down. Guess there was a third option. Get high tonight, then call Ton tomorrow. Just enough to numb the pain for a short time before facing sobriety again.
As I walked, my wrist began to itch like I’d gotten high on poison ivy leaves. I scratched it, but it wouldn’t go away. I looked down at the X and dug deeper, tearing the skin and causing my arm to bleed. “Why’d I make this commitment? Why?”
Memories of my promise and getting inked screamed at me, reminding me of what it was like before I met Ton, or the rest of my friends in the Straight Edge community. They helped me up, but made it plain that if I broke my vows I’d be beaten then tossed out. Ton said they were extreme, but would they really do something like that?
I rounded the corner and gripped the baggie. No, it was nothing but a crutch. I’d pass it to skater boy and call Ton. It was time for me to take responsibility and stop blaming the world for everything that had happened to me. I fell for Drake’s bullshit; it was as simple as that. I had no one to blame but myself, and Drake. I’d knock him out if I ever saw him again. I hated him. I hoped he choked on that money. Or better yet, that Barbie would poison him once they married and take off with the cash. That would be Alanis Morissette ironic.
A pounding in my chest broke my concentration. Then I heard car horns, shouting, and…music. I looked up to see flashing lights. The street out front of Bands was jammed with cars. Then, through the crowds of people lining up along the street, I saw men carrying equipment through the side door off the parking lot. Bands was alive.
I broke into a sprint with the little energy that remained in my body. The cold air stuck in my lungs and I stopped at the edge of the park, bending over to heave in some air. Afraid I was hallucinating, I approached the building slowly and saw the flier posted out front. It was happening? But if Drake was gone, then who?
I hurried to the side door. The chains were gone, but the door was locked, so I went around front. Ton stood at the entrance, his massive frame and height blocking the closed doors to the club. Energy erupted inside me and I pushed through the crowd, ignoring the angry shouts and overwhelming smells. “Ton!”
“Scarlet?” He stepped forward and the crowd shifted like a biblical parting of the sea. “Where the hell have you been?” He grabbed my upper arm and shuffled me through the doorway. “Not open yet. Wait outside,” he snapped at the horde of people clamoring to get inside. The door slammed behind me, and we stood in the darkened main hall. “Drake!” he yelled, his voice booming over the chaos in the main room.
Still holding my arm, Ton looked down at my knuckles. “What the hell happened?” He turned my hand over and spotted the bag of drugs. His eyes drilled into my skull. I didn’t have to look to know that he literally would’ve cut me in half right there if he had laser vision. “You didn’t. What about your promise?”
My hands trembled. Emotions―fear, elation, sadness, excitement―fought for dominance. “I didn’t. I swear,” I stuttered, not knowing what to say. The sounds, the lights, the emotions were all too overwhelming.
“It’s time to open the doors. What’s going on?” Drake entered the hall and stopped dead in his tracks.
My heart leaped out of my chest then instantly smashed into the pit of my stomach. I wanted to fall into his arms, but at the same time, I wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp for leaving me.
“Scarlet?” His wide-eyed stare slowly descended until it landed on the drugs in Ton’s hand.
“I didn’t,” I stammered again, not sure why I was defending myself to him.
Drake shuffled to me, his mouth hanging open. “What happened to you? I’ve looked everywhere. I couldn’t find you. I had police. I—”
“You looked? I waited, but you didn’t show.”
Drake smoothed my wild hair from my face. “I was with my grandmother. She was sick for days, and then she…died.”
“Died?” I mumbled back, unable to process the loss. Confusion circled in my brain, waiting to pull me down into nothingness. “No, you convinced her to give you money. There was a clause in the trust agreement.”
“How do you know about that?”
Nearly two weeks of sleeping on the street came flooding in, and I swatted his hand away from me. “You used me to get the money and then tossed me to the side.”
His face squished into a painful, mouth open, kick-to-the-gut expression. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Barbie. She told me the truth. That you used me so you could convince your grandmother to give you money and then you were running off with her. I was just a tool to get what you wanted.”
“You believed that?” he stumbled back. “You left, ran away without a word?”
“I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer!” I shouted.
“My cell phone account was turned off for some reason. I’d raced to my grandmother’s side and didn’t leave until she passed. I tried to call Ton that day to tell you she was sick and to wait for me, I’d be back to get you, but Ton had already boarded his flight. Then my grandmother took a turn for the worst.”
Ton shook his head. “I flew back the day after he called and told him I’d bring you to him, but when I got here you were gone.”
“I waited two days. I came back to a condemned sign.” I pressed my fists to my eyes, trying to relieve the tension.
“Ton searched for you everywhere before he told me you were missing. He knew how much I needed you by my side when I buried my grandmother. How could you believe Margo?”
“The sign,” I mumbled. “The sign. It confirmed what she told me. I didn’t believe her when she told me that you’d used me. I didn’t believe her when the cop dragged me out of here. I didn’t believe her when I slept in the freezing rain all night waiting for you. But what should I have thought when I saw the condemned sign? What would you have thought?”
Drake clutched his hair, pulling it from the scalp and pacing. Fists pounded the door, shook it against the lock. “Margo. She was still on the forms at the retirement facility. When we were dating, I listed her as my emergency contact. She’s the only person I had left in my life at the time. They must’ve called her. That’s how she knew I’d be gone.”
Ton snagged her arm. “Now’s not the time. You two can talk later. You both need a minute to process all of this.”
Banging sounded outside. Strums of instruments sounded from the stage.
Drake paced, then dropped his hands to his side. “I can’t do this right now. I’m not failing my brother and my grandmother. Not tonight.”
Drake unlocked the front door and swung it open. People gushed inside, filling the small hallway and out onto the dance floor. “Don’t let her out of your sight,” he ordered Ton before disappearing with the crowd.
I tried to go after Drake, tried to find him in the sea of chaos, but the only time I spotted him, he had a fake smile plastered on his face, his eyes staring straight ahead.
I covered my ears to block out all the noise and scooted back, running smack into something hard—Ton. He snagged my upper arm and pulled me to the far corner, away from all the people.
The hall spun around me, and I wanted to run, to get away from everything, all the people and the hatred I could feel radiating from Drake. Was he right? Did I turn my back on him? I didn’t know.
I lowered my hands and kicked the wall. A King Kong on crack waiting to explode.
Ton grabbed my shoulders and held me still. “There was nothing I could do. I was on the plane. We both thought you’d wait for him. We didn’t know about Margo.”
I clutched my fists and fought the angry tears in the corners of my eyes. “He hates me. I knew I shouldn’t have believed her.”
“That man over there doesn’t hate you. He walked up and down every street in Atlanta looking for you. He’s emotional. He feared something horrible had happened to you on the tail of losing his grandmother.”
I shook my head. “Why are you defending him? You’re supposed to hate him like you hate all the other guys.”
Ton’s eyebrows knit together, the lines deepening on his bald forehead. “I saw how much he cares for you when he didn’t sleep for a week.”
“If you guys were so upset and really cared about me, why’d you have this?” I threw my hands up, encompassing the crowd around us. If Drake’s grandmother died, then he has his inheritance. He didn’t need to host the Battle of the Bands anymore.”
Ton didn’t say a word. He just walked over to the small table near the door and picked up an orange flier. “Drake thought it might be the only way we’d find you.”
I scanned the sheet of paper with an old picture of me, the word missing, and some contact information.
“We were going to pass them out here and make an announcement. He didn’t care about saving the club as much as he cared about saving you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A band member strummed his guitar, and a high-pitched squeal sounded from the speakers. I cringed at the noise, yet everyone gathered in front of the main stage in anticipation. I managed to push my way through the crowd to the bar. Based on my calculations, there were about fifty people more than the fire code capacity.
Once through the sea of bodies, I managed to climb the four steps to the bar area. Hawaiian poured drinks, slid cups along the bar top, and made change. “Hawaiian.”
He didn’t look at me, only remained focused on his job. “Hey, Scarlet.”
“Scarlet? What happened to Einstein?”
He placed two caramel-colored drinks I assumed were Coca-Cola by the three X’s inked on the patron’s shoulder on the bar top. “Yeah, I don’t think you’re so smart if you believed that woman. You broke Boss’s heart. Not cool. Not cool at all.”
“Where were you? You were supposed to be back Tuesday.” I tried to get him to listen, but that Polynesian politeness disappeared, replaced by a curled lip snarl.
“My flight was canceled.”
“I didn’t know,” I protested, but I knew it was pointless. He returned to his drink orders. Everyone had a job to do but me. I stood there…useless.
I maneuvered through the bar to the backstage area where I found Drake. He held a clipboard in his hand and directed some guys hauling equipment to the staging area. I took a deep breath, wishing I could talk to him somewhere less distracting, but this felt like a “now” kind of thing.
The spotlights set on the stage cast a red glow over the black floor. The beams of light broke and surrounded Drake at the edge of the stairs. I marched up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. “I want to talk.”
“Does it look like I have time right now?” he snapped. I’d never heard him cross at me before. I didn’t like it.
“No, but we need to talk. I didn’t know. Barbie had the police here and documents. She said you packed my duffel yourself and that you shut off your phone so you’d never have to speak to me again.”
Drake held up a hand. “Stop. I can’t. I just can’t right now.” That was when I realized he’d broke. I’d broken him, or his grandmother’s passing had. Maybe it was from exhaustion, but he wasn’t living. I knew. I’d perfected that slumped posture and fake smile. He was going through the motions, but blocking out anything that took energy to process. He didn’t want to feel.
The lights settled on the stage and the drummer clicked his sticks together. “One, two. One, two, three, four.”
Two notes and a few beats echoed through the place, barely audible over the screams of the audience. He’d done it. The Straight Edge event was finally underway. But then everything went dark. Only the small pattering of the drums, strings, and a faint voice sounded.
“What the…?” Drake pushed past me back up the stairs.
“Boo!” the crowd started to roar. Audible shouts of “money back” and “what a joke” echoed in the darkness.
The tension mounted, and all I could see was Drake’s cell phone illuminating the clipboard in his hand then scanning around the backstage area.
“They’re gonna rip this stage apart,” Ton hollered from behind me. “What’s goin’ on?”
Hawaiian bobbed up the stairs with a flashlight. “Blew a circuit or somethin’.”
“Ton, you can fix it!” I shouted.
Ton, strangely haunting in Hawaiian’s flashlight, nodded. “Walter, show me the fuse box. Drake, you get on stage and try to calm them down.”
They all disappeared, and I was left standing in the back with nothing but the noise in my ears and the desire to scream.
“Give us a minute,” Drake shouted over the crowd. “We’re going to get everything back on.” He returned, rubbing the back of his neck. I looked toward the stage, now lit by various cell phone flash light apps. The drummer was leaning against the piano, which had been moved to the side of the stage to make room for the equipment in back. The singer and lead guitarist huddled near the drummer.
Ton returned, holding wires in his hands. “Dude, someone sabotaged you. It’s gonna take a few minutes, but I think I can wire it to at least get electricity to your stage and this room, but the back rooms and upstairs will take more gear than I have on me right now.”
“Go, do it.” Drake shooed him away.
“Okay, everyone, calm down. Don’t forget we do have two major labels represented here tonight to help judge. All we need is a few minutes to work out some technical difficulties.”
Two men stationed in chairs on the balcony stood. Drake eyed them. He scanned the audience, me, and the room. “If they leave this is over.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The producers.” Drake hopped down from the stage, shoved through the crowd to the back of the room, and slid between the men and the exit door.
If the people from the label left, this crowd would go ape shit. Ton was good at what he did, but it would take too long to get the electricity back up. It was getting hot in here, too, and people were already getting cranky. What they needed was a distraction. The band could probably play without light but not sound. Without their amplifiers, their instruments were as good as toys.
I eyed the piano but knew I’d never be able to play for this many people. It was impossible—all those eyes on me, judging me, seeing into my soul.
I caught sight of a blond woman in the middle of the crowd below in the mosh pit. She stood out with her hair and sparkling jewelry. She’d done this. If I didn’t do something, she’d win. I willed all the noise and confusion from my brain. I had to apologize to Drake, but he was busy with those men. I knew it wasn’t about losing the club anymore. It was about failing his family. I couldn’t let him face that reality.
Fisting my hands, I waltzed past the guys leaning on the piano and sat down on the bench. Neurons fired all over my body, but nothing reached my fingers. I dared a backward glance at Drake. He stood with his mouth ajar, staring at me. When I met his gaze, I saw everything I wanted to say. I longed to purge the desire to please hi
m from my body. I returned my attention to the keys and poured my soul into a melody that I hoped would tell him how sorry I was for not trusting him, for disappearing on him, for breaking his heart.
My fingers stretched between keys to hit the notes of my soul. Memories flooded in from the past couple of months, and I pounded out my fear of leaving New York and arriving in Atlanta. I played chords of desperation for losing my first real job, then clicked along the higher notes to echo when I’d secured the one at Bands. My emotions danced up and down the keys on a swerving path of hope, loss, determination, and…love.
I didn’t know how long I played, but when I saw his eyes look at me with sorrow, the music dipped to a feather light ripple across several keys before fading into the unknown. I huffed through the exhaustion of pouring my feelings out, only to remember all the people staring at me from behind. I heard nothing but bone-chilling silence.
The lights cut on, and I finally found the courage to lift my head. The three guys standing by the piano gaped at me with wide eyes and open mouths. When I turned, I found my worst night terror unfolding before me. I backed away from the staring crowd, but the piano blocked my escape.
A lone clap sounded, then it was joined by more, growing into an eruption of applause. Drake broke through the crowd at the bottom of the stage steps. I swiped the tears from my eyes and tried to keep my chin up. It was time for me to stop looking away. It was time I faced life.
He climbed the steps slowly and deliberately until he stood a foot away. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
I gasped, my eyes darting about the room as if I didn’t believe what was in front of me. Had he listened and understood how I felt?
His hands clutched my cheeks with more force than he’d ever used before, and his mouth claimed mine in an epic sweep of mind-numbing, knee-quaking ecstasy. I felt his tears slide down my cheeks. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and he lifted me from the floor. The crowd continued to clap, but the noise faded into nothing but a blur beyond the haze of all that was Drake Markham.