Placing the received card on a nightstand, Lissa removed the pair of boots she wore before she settled on the bed so Gabriel could place the ice on her hip. She purposely chose to not respond to the manager. She really didn’t mean to occupy the other room. They would still try to keep the description, but they had agreed that they would continue to sleep together.
"You have an interview for KiisFM in fifteen minutes" The manager continued to dictate orders, this time directly to Gabriel, when he realized he would have no answer, and removed the cellphone used for the singer's interviews from his pocket and turned on. “Improve your mood”.
The rocker accepted the cell phone, but he kept his attention on Melissa's hip, pressing the ice against the point he knew to be sore.
“Talk about shows, about music, about fans... Nothing more.” Arthur warned, referring to the loving relationship the rockstar now kept.
“Yes, sir.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. But I'll talk about the timeline after the interview... 5 minutes”. The manager checked his watch and sighed. "Mel, do you need anything?" He asked with an almost unknown delicacy that made the couple stare at him. "Any medicine or anything?" He pointed to the girl's hip that was now numb and her trousers drenched.
"No..." she denied with a small smile. “It's all right”.
“Great!” Arth returned to the efficient advisor mode and pulled out his own cell phone, ran a radio application and tuned into the 102.7 FM frequency just in time to hear that they interviewed Gabriel Voss after the break.
A second later, the phone in Gabriel's hand rang. He answered, speaking slowly, but he didn’t move away from Melissa. The voice was still the same and he struggled to be as nice as he always was, but the tone he used denounced that he wasn’t on his best day. The presenter noticed and obviously questioned him as soon as the interview began.
“Honestly?” Gabe leaned his head on the bed. "I'm tired and very angry."
Arthur put his hands to his face and, with a negative nod, asked his friend to shut up.
"Well... You just came back from a break." The presenter replied in an amused tone. "And it looks like you had a good time on the beaches of Sarasota ..." He laughed, referring to the photos and reports that two fans had posted about his encounter with the idol. "About irritated, I think I understand you, the whole mess at the airport must be annoying, but you're already used to it."
"I'm never really getting used to it." Gabriel countered. "Especially when things get out of control, when they get over the edge”.
"It wasn’t that bad..." The presenter's laughter sounded too shrill. "We've had a good laugh here in the studio with the stumbling of your fan”.
It was Melissa's turn to put her hands to her face, suppressing a groan of shame. Great! Now she was a joke on the internet.
Gabriel took a deep breath and glared at Arthur who could only shrug.
“She didn’t stumble. She was pushed.” He replied. "And it wasn’t funny. Someone could have been injured.” Removing the wet towel with the rest of the ice partially melted, the musician stroked her girlfriend's hip.
"Okay... All right... I hope she's okay. Is it Mel, is not it?
“Melissa. And yes, she is okay...’
"Change the subject..." Arthur whispered, practically imploring his friend.
"We're well enough to rock the show tonight”. Gabriel complied with the manager's request. "I hear you have special guests for me."
“Yes!” The host confirmed enthusiastically. “Five lucky people who won our promotion...”
After that, all the interview followed normally, with Gabriel being the sympathetic and idolized singer of always.
Perhaps because he had finally put out what was bothering him, Gabe regained his usual good humor by following the rest of the day's schedule without any trace of impatience and unwillingness.
And when the show finally arrived, he conducted it with mastery, singing and playing some instruments with the animation and disposition of always, interacting with the audience and drawing out sighs in love.
As always, Melissa watched everything from a dark corner in the back of the stage, letting herself sigh passionately, like all the other fans, when he made another cover especially for her.
"My most anticipated moment of the show..." He'd said before he started. “The most special. As special as the person for whom these covers are dedicated”.
Arthur had said that his friend wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut for a long time, and watching him sing to her, Mel concluded that he was right... The little discretion he still had would soon come to an end, but she couldn’t import. Not when he declared himself in the form of music and looked at her as if his life were summed up in her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - KEEP HOLDING ON
“Just stay strong
cause you know I'm here for you”[46]
T hey had warned her that the routine of a tour was too tiring, but Melissa could only understand what Arthur and Gabriel meant when she began to feel on her skin what it was to be constantly on the move, always getting in and out of airplanes, airports, hotels and show houses. Only a month had passed since they had had a few days off and, as incredible as it may seem, she was already wishing she could go back to Sarasota.
It was impossible to keep a close eye when she concluded that she preferred sunny Florida to everything that came with an insane busy schedule.
She could never understand how Gabriel had the energy to fulfill all his commitments without ever complaining or whimpering as he was practically crawling after him.
And to make matters worse, she had to deal with the insomnia that still visited her more often than she wanted. It was true that she slept more now than she had before embarking on the tour, but she still had days when sleep simply didn’t come.
It was already her third night without being able to sleep more than two or three hours at most, and coupled with the fact that they had toured three cities in five days was charging the price on her body and especially on her mind.
Leaving the inseparable sketchbook aside, since she couldn’t even concentrate enough to draw something, Lissa put her hands to her face and stifled a groan. Her head hurt too much, her eyes burned, and the little moonlight that dimly lit the room through the windows made her so uncomfortable that it seemed she was staring at the sun.
She should have collaborated when Gabriel tried to persuade her to take the medicine that would help her sleep, but she avoided medication as much as possible.
Imagining maybe another bath could help, she crawled into the bathroom and sank her tired body into the tub filled with warm water. If she didn’t feel even worse for always, even involuntarily, end up disturbing her boyfriend's rest, she would have woken up Gabriel and asked the singer to join her, after all, she had managed to get some sleep the week before when she shared a tub with the rocker and left him caressing her hair as he sang softly.
Wishing the memory had the same effect as the moment itself, she closed her eyes and tried to relax.
It must have been enough, since the next thing she remembered, was being in Gabriel's arms being carried to the bed.
"It’s okay..." he whispered to her as his body found the mattress and shifted, losing sleep. “Go back to sleep”.
Something in his voice made her sleep startle away, making Melissa look for the male face.
The sun had already invaded the room, so she must have slept for at least an hour and a half, since it was still dawn when she crawled into the bathroom. The bright light made her moan and close her eyes until she became accustomed to the illumination.
She didn’t like the expression on Voss's face as soon as she could look up at him.
“What happened?” She asked, straining her voice to get rid of the hoarseness.
“Get back to sleep, babe”. He insisted.
"I can’t..." Lissa shook her head, grateful that her migraine had subsided a bit, and she focused
her gaze on Gabriel. “Are you crying?” She asked in alarm when she noticed the red eyes. “Gabe...”
"It's all right," he replied, sounding irritated. "I just ..." Setting her free to fidget as she wished, she brushed her hands into her hair and pulled them out. "I just freaked out seeing you in the tub."
It took Melissa a minute to figure out what he meant, and when she realized, she felt awful, more than she ever felt.
Moving as fast as she could, she pulled herself onto his legs and hugged him.
“I'm sorry!” She spoke close to his ear.
She had only fallen asleep, but she could imagine how the scene must have resembled someone who had found his ex-girlfriend dead in a bathtub.
"I couldn’t sleep... I thought a bathtub would help. I didn’t intend to sleep inside.”
"All right..." Gabriel repeated and returned the hug. “It was an overreaction. It's over.”
Mel kept him hold for a while, letting him digest what he had felt earlier that morning and trying to do the same when she realized that she felt powerless and guilty at the sight of the ever-confident Gabriel Voss, looking fragile.
"Do you know what I was thinking before I fell asleep?" She said to distract her boyfriend and herself, using a slightly malicious tone. "Which had been pretty good when we showered together last week."
"You slept before I could cheer up things..." Gabe chose to follow Lissa's direction and not over-think the desperation he felt when he woke up and found his unconscious girlfriend in a bathtub.
"It's not my fault if your voice makes me sleepy..." She teased him.
"In your case, I think this is a compliment..." Taking her from his lap, Gabriel laid her again beside him, but this time he settled close, his fingers caressing the downcast face that stared at him. "I'm worried about you ..." he admitted with a sigh. "You need sleep, Mel.”
"I was sleeping right now..." She tried to tease.
"You need to sleep more than a nap every two or three days. When was last time you slept all night?”
It had been last week, just the day he'd sung for her, into a bathtub. But she wasn’t going to reveal it or he would be even more worried.
"I'm fine." she said with a small smile.
"Are you going to take the medicine tonight if you can’t sleep?" He asked gently. “Please, babe”.
She still hated sleeping under the effects of painkillers, but she found at that moment that she hated even more the way Gabriel looked at her as if she was going to crash into millions of pieces right in front of him.
"Okay..." She agreed, thinking that later she would convince him to try the bath together again before she swallowed the pills she hated. "Now we'd better get ready for breakfast… I'm hungry”.
The rockstar agreed with a nod and would have left the bed if Melissa's phone didn’t choose that moment to play. He watched her pick up the set on the side table, check the display, and make a grimace.
"You will not answer?" He asked when the cellphone was silent and then rang again.
Seeing her mother's name appear on the screen of her cell phone, Melissa wished she could just ignore the call without Gabriel making her answer a bunch of unwanted questions.
Her mother hadn’t called her once in nearly four months away from home; which was not exactly a surprise since she never used to call, except when she needed something. Which invariably meant that her husband had assaulted her again.
Annoyed, Melissa accepted the call when the ringing started again for the fifth time.
“Hi baby!” Her mother sang before she could say anything.
Well, she wasn’t crying or screaming. That was a good sign.
"What do you want, Mother?" She mumbled impatiently on the phone and tried to ignore Gabriel's curious gaze on her.
"It's good to talk to you too, Melissa.” Penelope Bittencourt replied. "A worried mother can’t call her daughter?
“Come on…” Lissa left the bed, without pay attention to the fact that she was naked, her skin still fresh from her adventure in the bathtub. She was too annoyed by her mother's pretense and her boyfriend's undisguised judgment to remember that she had not yet dressed after waking. "Since when do you care about me?"
"Since I've heard from a gossip site that you've been cutting yourself" The direct, sullen and unexpected response made Melissa glare at Gabriel as she felt the air begin to fall.
“What?” She said before letting the phone slip from her hand and crash down on the floor of the room.
“Mel?” Gabriel left his seat on the bed and ran to the girl. “What's happened?
She couldn’t answer, but it was fast enough to buckle down and retrieve the phone before the musician could.
“Where did you saw that?” She asked in a trembling voice to her mother who was still on the line.
“Apparently, it's all over the internet... Your uncle called me very worried and...”
Melissa closed the call before she heard anything else, and that time she collapsed with her cell phone.
“Melissa?” Gabriel bent down beside her. “Babe, breathe...” He spoke to her, shaking it gently. “What's it?”
Not even if she wanted to, she would have been able to respond. It looked like the room was falling over her head.
The migraine returned and the air seemed to be over, but all she could think and see was the marks on her wrists.
Looking down at her arms, she began to cry, which only made breathing difficult.
Since he didn’t know what to do, Gabriel pulled her onto his lap and hugged her.
"It's all right..." She tried to believe in what he was saying. "Whatever happened, it's going to be all right.”
He repeated the mantra for long minutes, until the sound of Melissa's cry was interrupted by loud knocks on the door.
He would have ignored if, in addition to the beating, he hadn’t recognized the voice of his best friend.
Standing with Melissa in his arms, he walked back to the bed and shouting for his friend to wait, retrieved a dress from his girlfriend's suitcase.
“Babe...” He tried to make her pay attention to him. "You need to get dressed."
She listened, but she just couldn’t stop the crying or control the whirlwind of feelings she was feeling at that moment.
With difficulty, Gabriel managed to put the dress on his girlfriend's body while cursing the best friend who continued to knock on the door as if to break it.
“What the fuck, Arthur!” He opened the door, feeling his hands shake. "It’s not a good time.”
“It's a shit moment!” The manager agreed and followed his best friend back into the room. "Apparently, you already know..." He continued when he saw Melissa crying on the bed, her eyes glued to her wrists.
“Know what?” Gabriel glared desperately at his friend. He didn’t know what to do to end Lissa's cry. "Mel, talk to me, honey." He reached for a bottle of mineral water in the fridge and tried to make her drink.
Arthur held the tablet in his hand to the singer and he took the mission to try to calm Melissa while Gabriel read the article that had fallen like a bomb on the head of all.
"Sex, drugs, alcohol and a lot of heavy petting!
This is the underworld of the Rock and Roll stars, but recently we discovered a new facet of one of the most idolized musical styles in the world: Self-mutilation.
That's right my friends, America's sweetheart, Gabriel Voss, is on tour with a fan of tastes ... Quirky. You can check out the bizarre in the photo below.
Now the question that doesn’t want to shut up: Is the company of the rock star sensation of the moment so boring to the point of cutting the wrists? It seems so.
See you next time!"
It was a good thing that Melissa had finally stopped crying, even though she was still too quiet, because Gabriel was very close to starting his own crying crisis.
It wasn’t the revelation of Melissa's self-inflicted cuts or the sensationalist and malicious article, though all of this. It w
as the suspicion of the one who had made the revelation to the press that was forming a cake in his throat and testing his sanity.
"How did that leak?" He asked Arthur after leaving the tablet aside and take a deep breath. "Who leaked it?"
The manager didn’t know or didn’t want to say, but Melissa picked up the electronic gadget that her boyfriend had thrown on the bed and, in an attitude that all three considered quite masochistic, looked at the online page that had favored telling the world her worst secrets.
She didn’t bother to read what they had written about his life, just focused on the image that would prevent them from denying anything.
"Do you still have to ask?" She spoke bitterly as she looked at the photo.
The photo was neatly cut off, excluding the person who held it in his lap, but for those who were present could recognize the time and place: The last day they spent in Sarasota, in the living room of Gabriel's house, when the singer had told his family about the relationship with Melissa and when Karen had seen the marks on Melissa’s wrist.
“There must be some other explanation ...” The rockstar tried to deny it, even more for the incredulity that the feeling of being betrayed by someone who has always relied caused than by the need to defend Karen.
Lissa stared at him with eyes full of hatred, and especially pain, and pointed to the damn picture before trying to play the tablet in his direction.
Arthur prevented the device from reaching his best friend, but he couldn’t stop things from getting even worse.
Gabriel could understand, even though Melissa didn’t say anything that he couldn’t denied of what his younger sister had done, not without losing his girl.
He had tried to avoid as much as he could, but he would have to choose one side of that war and seeing Mel cry again, he knew he would always choose to be with her.
“I'm sorry!” He said quietly, afraid to approach, but needing to hug her. "I'm sorry, Mel! I don’t know why she did this...”
Broken Angel (English Edition) Page 40