"Gabriel, do you want to ask anything else?"
"A whole lot more," he confessed. "But I know you will not answer me."
It was the girl's turn to laugh, but it was a real laugh.
"Would you tell the secrets of your best friend?"
"No..." he admitted. "Not if he didn’t want me to tell.”
"And you think Lissa wants me to tell?"
“Certainly not”. He answered in frustration. "Especially for me. The girl hates me.”
Angela laughed again.
"Oh, please, don’t let me down. I know you're smart enough to realize that she's not exactly the one who tries to look like. She doesn’t dislike you or she would have come home.”
"She wouldn’t." He hesitated. "She does anything to make you happy."
"Not anything..." Ang sighed. "There are things she couldn’t stand for me.”
“Who is he?” The rockstar asked once what was crazy to learn from that answered the call. He felt ridiculous, but he was jealous of someone who didn’t even know who he was or how important it was in Melissa’s life.
"Someone who should not exist." The female voice sounded angry. "I will not say more than that..."
He already imagined that he wouldn’t have a concrete answer, but the little he discovered left him with his stomach wrapped. It sounded as if the mysterious guy was someone important, maybe an ex-boyfriend. That why the girl ran away from his kisses. Maybe she still felt something about the ex who was looking for her at her best friend's house.
"All right," he answered in despair. "I shouldn’t even have asked. It's none of my business.”
“Gabriel...”
"It's all right, Angela.” He repeated and forced himself to sound natural. “I enjoyed talking to you. We can talk more often... Not just about Melissa. What do you think?”
“I'll love it.”
“Great! You can call whenever you want”
♫
When they knocked on the door, Melissa had her suitcase neatly packed, dressed and made up, just as the new cuts had been bandaged. She was presentable, but she had no desire to get up off the floor, where she was sitting with the sketchbook in her hands. She was trying to draw something productive, but what came out was a picture of her worst night. She thought about throwing the drawing away, but she kept it, and she didn’t know why.
The rapping became louder and the girl forced herself to get up, cursing when she felt her thigh ache with the movement. She staggered for a moment, feeling dizzy and lethargic, but when she reached the door, she pricked her nose.
He expected to find Arthur, or if she were lucky, Gabriel. She shouldn’t have exploded with him.
She was regretted, of course, but although she wasn’t thinking of apologizing, she could use a dose of the strange calm that the singer was able to provide.
She really needed it, for it seemed she had claws pulling her into a depressive limbo from which she didn’t seem very capable of leaving.
Even the cuts hadn’t had the same effect as before, as much as she spent a good part of the morning thinking of making new ones, perhaps more funds. She needed the pain.
But, unfortunately the person on the other side of the door was not the singer or his assistant. It was just one of the security guards.
“Good Morning!” He greeted her. “Gabriel asked to enter your cell phone. You forgot in the party yesterday.”
She stared at the device for a second, wondering not to pick it up. Could get another unwanted call. But if she did it, how would she talk to Angela? And there was a blessed rule of the contest in which she committed herself to being always communicable.
With her hands shaking, she picked up the cell phone.
“Thanks!” She whispered.
"Are you all right, Miss?" The man asked. “Do you need something?”
“I’m okay!” She lied and automatically closed the door.
She glanced at the cell phone once more before tucking it into her jeans pocket. Ignoring her aversion to mirrors, she went to the bathroom and searched for her image. She looked sick, despite her makeup, as she always did after a crisis.
She couldn’t do anything about her appearance, so she resigned herself and returned to the room only to pick up her purse. She needed a new phone number and she'd have to get one before she could go on.
♫
Melissa spent three of the five days of pause locked inside the hotel room. She had left only the first day to buy a new chip for her cell phone.
No one from Gabriel's production sought her, even the singer himself.
She would have remained where she was if Arthur hadn’t knocked on her door the morning of the fourth day, summoning her to have coffee with them and then watching Voss's rehearsal over the last few days before start the tour.
She didn’t feel like attending any rehearsal, just as she wasn’t hungry... She'd barely eaten anything in the last few days. But, intimately, she wanted to see Gabriel. They hadn’t spoken since the New Year's Eve party and, considering that he hadn’t sought out the young woman, she could have guessed that the singer was hurt by the way he was treated.
She asked the assistant to wait a minute and crawled into the bathroom to touch up the constant make-up she wore. She had also hardly slept, and her appearance wasn’t the best. Fortunately, the foundation that Gabriel had given her to hide the scars on her wrist easily covered the dark circles, but even all blush of the world disguised the pale face.
“Are you alright?” Arthur questioned her as they left the room and made their way to the elevator.
Lissa reached into the pocket of her coat, trying to hide her sweaty palms. She was nervous about being able to find Gabriel again. How would it be received?
"Yes. Everything is awesome..." She answered quietly.
She was strange, even stranger than usual, the assistant pondered as they silently followed to the hotel restaurant. And the proof of it was that she didn’t even give him one of her acerbic replies when he pulled the chair up for her to sit down and teased her in jest:
"What have you been up to these days, Wednesday?" Arthur occupied a chair beside the girl together to await the arrival of the rockstar.
She didn’t answer because she had just seen Gabriel enter the restaurant, laughing at something his bodyguard had said.
Melissa saw the moment his smile died and his ever so nice face turned serious at the sight of her.
The singer ran a hand through his wet hair, his gaze locked on hers as he walked toward it.
She lowered her head, staring at the plate on the table. The hurt look she'd seen at the party was still there and it looked like had a fair amount of irritation on the musician's expression as well.
“Good Morning!” He said as he settled down.
It was not a good day for Lissa, but she returned the length and risked a new look at him, meeting his dark brown eyes.
She sighed and looked away again. She didn’t know what to say, so she allowed Arthur to start the conversation, chattering about the latest preparations for the shows.
"I don’t think Melissa is interested in knowing the backstage details”. The singer broke his friend at some point and rose from the table, according to the buffet.
Lissa followed his gaze and felt her eyes burn. Standing beside him when he clearly didn’t want her around was almost as bad as the constant oppression that accompanied her daily. It was when she realized that he could be her most potent antidote, but he could also be the rock that would smash her for good.
"It looks like someone woke up in a bad mood." Arthur commented, looking from Gabriel to her, apparently without understand what was happening. "We'd better suit ourselves, too."
She was not hungry, but she followed the assistant to the buffet automatically. She didn’t pay attention to what she put on her plate, she was wondering if she should go back to the room and hide there for a few more days.
When she returned to the table, Gabriel was back in his
place. He didn’t look at her or say anything, he was focused on his breakfast as if he was afraid of the food on his plate creating legs and running away before he could feed himself.
Melissa was just stirring the fruit she had taken, without taking her mouth.
"So, Wednesday, you didn’t answer..." Arthur spoke again, trying to dispel the tense mood that was in the air. “What are you doing? We have not seen you in the last days.”
Melissa looked at Arthur, and she wanted to let go of one of her insightful answers, but could think of nothing.
"Nothing..." She answered simply, her voice was apathetic as she felt. "I'm not doing anything."
The two men looked at her without acknowledging her, but Gabriel was the only one to speak.
"Have you spent all this time training how to distill poison out there?" He smacked her, but deep inside he wondered if she hadn’t spent the last few days too busy talking to the mysterious guy to take the time to look for a tour team she didn’t want to have to attend.
Incessantly, Melissa didn’t know what to answer. She usually attacked to defend herself whenever necessary, but looking at Gabriel wanted to use her usual weapon, she just didn’t know how.
It had been a terrible idea to have coffee with them.
"Apparently, I need to perfect my techniques. Do you want to be my guinea pig, Gabriel?”
"What's the matter with you two today?" Arthur said.
Melissa snorted, then set the plate aside.
"What is it, nanny? Will you keep regulating me too?”
The assistant laughed. He was accustomed to the girl's biting humor and was beginning to think she preferred Melissa roughly to Melissa strangely quietly at the table.
"Arthur, what did you really want when you set up breakfast?" Gabriel questioned seriously, annoyed at his friend having fun at Mel's expense, and annoyed that she didn’t seem to care about the malaise between them.
"I was hoping you were in a better mood because what I have to say will dramatically worsen your already shaken state of mind..."
“Can you just talk?” Melissa rolled her eyes and leaned back, giving up pretending to eat something.
"We found out that the magazine that that journalist represented, actually did not exist.”
“What?” Gabriel looked at his friend. “What do you mean by that?”
“We still don’t know how he managed to fool our team, but the fact is that he had a authorization credential for an interview for this magazine that no one has ever heard of... We never heard of it because it does not exist.”
"Well, I guess that explains why he did everything he could to get me out of my mind... He probably wanted to sell the story to some tabloid.”
"It's likely..." Arthur admitted grumpily.
"I bet you're even more regretful now, are not you?" Melissa regretted the moment the words came out of her mouth, but there was no way she could erase what she had just said.
Gabriel looked at her intensely. He was already sorry for what he had said and stayed even more so when he heard her. He almost apologized, but she chose this moment to get up.
"If that was all you had to say..." The girl looked directly at Arthur. "I'm going back to my room."
"We still have the rehearsal..." The assistant replied, somewhat intimidated by Melissa's glacial tone. “But that's okay... I'll call you when we're ready to go”.
"About that..." She let her shoulders drop a little. "I forgot to tell you I have a new number. I have not memorized yet, but I'll call you and you'll find out the number.”
“A new number?” Arthur considered her for a moment. “Since when?”
"Since the new year..." She replied with a raised face.
"And you did not give the new number to anyone on the team?" The assistant questioned irritably. “Oh really? What if we needed to talk to you? You know you have to be always available and...”
"I was in the room, Nanny, you just need hit the fucking door." She cut him off irritably.
"All right... And why did you change the number?"
"I lost my old chip at the party..." she replied, making Gabriel look at her closely. Angela had called her friend after the party, and the chip had not been lost. She was lying and the singer wanted to question her about it, but if he did he would have to explain that he had answered a call that was for her.
“How did you lose it?”
"What difference does it make, Arthur?" The rocker spoke sternly. "Maybe she wants to keep the old number for someone special."
Gabriel couldn’t know that what he had said struck Melissa like a stab in the back.
She felt her body shudder and, shamefully, her eyes filled with tears. Luckily, she was able to look away before anyone noticed. She didn’t answer, just turned her back on the two men and left the restaurant like a lightning.
"What happened between you two?" Arthur questioned his friend when he saw him throw a napkin on the table.
The singer didn’t respond either, he was trying to understand the hurt that he could see in Melissa's face before the girl left the breakfast untouched behind.
CHAPTER NINETEEN - FIX YOU
“Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you”[26]
A rthur stared at his wristwatch, irritated. Gabriel was late, just like Melissa. They were probably together.
The breakfast next to the two had been strange, to say the least and although he tried, he couldn’t get any response from the friend to his questioning about what was going on. But he wasn’t a fool, and it seemed they had argued.
This was the kind of thing he had tried to avoid when he told his friend to be responsible and not get involved with a fan, especially a fan who would have stayed with them for so long. Now, he would have to manage, besides the singer's career, the misunderstanding between the two so that the world didn’t realize that there was something strange going on between them.
It was already bad enough having to deal with the aftermath of the confusion on New Year's Eve.
He just wanted the both of them to make his life easier. It wasn’t asking too much. But the two of them stood in this impasse, they weren’t really together and never left, and now, to make matters worse, they were all irritable with each other.
Stifling a curse, the attendant turned to face the clock and then pulled out the cellphone, started to call Melissa when he remembered that the girl had changed the number and hadn’t yet passed the new number. He would have called Gabriel if the back door of the car had not been opened and the singer had entered the vehicle.
The expression on the face of the rockstar was unfriendly.
"Where's Melissa?" Arthur asked when he noticed that his friend was alone.
“How am I supposed to know?” Voss replied in a bad mood. "I was not born with her, Arthur.”
"You weren’t born glued, but you keeps hanging around with her..." He nodded. "I told you this wasn’t going to work. You did not listen to me, so now all you have to do is improve your mood and act like nothing ever happened. We still have a year to go.”
Gabriel thought to reply, but his friend didn’t give him time.
"I'll get her, and it's good you're back to normal when we get there."
Without waiting for an answer, Arthur left the car behind him and went back into the hotel, marching directly to Melissa's room.
He found the security he had assigned to the girl leaning against a wall near the door.
"Where's Melissa?"
“In the room, Sir. She hasn’t left since she return from breakfast.”
“Melissa?” Arthur knocked on the door. “We are late.”
He waited a few seconds for no answer, then he knocked on the door again.
“Are you sure she's here?” He questioned the security guard after the fifth attempt.
“Absolutely. Since I knew they would leave again, I didn’t leave my post until now. She came in and did not leave.”
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Great! The day was getting even worse.
Without calling again, the assistant forced the knob. It was open and he entered the dark room, closing the door again.
“Melissa?" The curtains were closed and the light was off, so he groped for the wall until he found the switch and turned on the lights.
He was ready to call for the girl once more when he saw her sitting on the bed, staring at a spot on the other side of the room. His heart lost a beat as he watched her.
Her long hair was a tremendous mess as if it had been pulled many times and her face was marked by tears that were still flowing silently and by the heavy makeup all stained.
“Mel?" He purposely used the nickname Gabriel used to use. “What happened?”
She didn’t answer, she didn’t even look in his direction. Then he overcame the distance to her, only to realize that the small body was trembled and she breathed with some difficulty.
Arthur stepped down to look into her eyes, but the green eyes were dull and distant. He couldn’t tell whether the girl could see him or not at that moment.
Damn it! He didn’t know what had happened, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good. He also didn’t know how to deal with the situation.
He pondered whether he shouldn’t trip the bodyguard outside, but he didn’t want anyone else to see her as she was. If that were to slip into print, it would be a scandal worse than Gabriel's quarrel with the journalist. So, he took one of the hands that Melissa held close to the body and squeezed it.
It was too cold and for the manager's surprise, the thin fingers were full of black hairs.
With his heart racing, he made her open her hand, and got rid of her hair before doing the same with her other hand.
"Melissa, you're worrying me..." He spoke in a broken voice. “What happened? Talk to me, my dear.”
Still unanswered, Arthur shook her lightly and called a few more times altering his tone as his nervousness grew in the face of the girl's apathy, to the point where he was practically screaming.
It was when she let out a loud sob, the only sound she had uttered since he entered the room, and the sobbing came loudly and painfully.
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