Release Me

by Melanie Walker

  I feel arms pulling me away from Noah, but my fists are twisted in his filthy Affliction shirt and I am not relenting. “Cal! Enough man!” Chad says and I look over my shoulder, murderous rage in my eyes and see my sweet girl covering her mouth in shock as tears fall from her eyes seeing me in a state such as this the minute she walked in the room.

  “Enough?” I question with mock laughter and use Noah’s body as I turn and shake him and Chad both free. Chad is a big guy and can hold his own so he barely stumbles, but Noah has nothing but weakness left, a shell, and that shell falls to the floor in a stumbling fumbling break it all as he goes down way. “I haven’t even fucking begun Chad.”

  “Bro I get the anger I do-” Chad is cut off by Sam who steps up beside me.

  “No it isn’t enough. It is about mother fuckin time one of you bastards grew a pair and let that fucker have it.”

  “Sam-” Chad tries to talk but Sam cuts him off. “You are all a bunch of fucking pussies. He is killing himself Chad and we are all sitting here watching too scared to step in and upset him. It’s about damn time one of us stood up and I think you need to bite your tongue and let Cal at him.”

  I am certain I will be shocked by this later, but right now I am still so fucking mad I don’t pause to argue the why’s of my frustration. If Noah needs a beat down I will beat him down, not some low life drug dealer.

  “You suck.” Noah slurs and fails twice trying to get up before giving up and staying in a heap on the filthy floor.

  “I suck?” I say and step around Sam and Chad until I am squatting in his face. “I suck huh?” I spit the words through gritted teeth before hauling him to his feet. The minute I let him go, he sways to the right and falls down hitting the couch face first, and ugh, god only knows what the fuck is on that couch. “I suck but I am here standing on my own two feet Noah.” I haul his ass up again and watch as he falls just as gracefully as before.

  This time when I haul him up I hold him still until his drugged eyes focus on me. “You fucking stand like a man!” I roar and let him go, watching and waiting to see him go down. He doesn’t and I can see the glint of anger in his eyes and it is clearing the haze pissing him off.

  “You watch it.” He slurs and stares me down. I laugh, full on belly laugh.

  “Or what?” I say and push him softly, watching him fall and land on his ass. “What are you gonna do?” I say and stand over him purposely intimidating him. He is trying to focus long enough to get on his feet and fight me. We both know he will lose but I want him to have the fire to try me.

  “Don’t push me Cal. You made your point ha-ha imp fucked up. Now knock it off.” He says and slowly stands on unstable legs.

  “I haven’t even begun Noah. I have a whole lot that you need to hear, chances are I am gonna keep dropping you to your ass too, so I suggest you take a seat and suck it up."

  “Dude, don’t waste your time.” He says and rolls his head back in an annoying gesture that is meant to dismiss me. “Why the fuck can’t you guys just leave me alone and let me die or some shit?” He looks at me now and I can see in his eyes and hear in his voice that he genuinely doesn’t understand why we fight for him.

  “Let you die? Are you fucking kidding me man? You are dead Noah. You look dead; act dead and fuck, you even smell dead. Problem is though that you’re not dead and you refuse to face that fact. She died man, it sucks but life has got to go fucking on or it was for nothing.”

  I saw it before I even heard his tone. Saw the light that fired behind his green eyes just a split second before he reared back and punched me square in the jaw. “You dumb asshole it was for nothing! There is no reason on this earth that I should be here when she was cut short. Not one, so do not preach to me about life going on because it fucking doesn’t Cal.”

  “So what? Stand back as life passes you by? It isn’t even passing you by Noah it is barreling through you at mock speed and destroying everything you care about. This isn’t just your life you are ruining. What about Carrie? What about that sister you bled for, starved for and stole for? What happens to her and Noelle when we find you dead with a filthy needle in your arm?” I am roaring so loud that my voice and my anger are drowning out the music thumping from the other side of the VIP door.

  “Or another deal like tonight that goes terribly wrong and you get killed?” Chad says from beside me, now fully involved in this party and thank God he is. Shame and Noah may have their protective thing going and Sam may have years on all of us combined, but Chad was his brother in law and his closest confidant and he lived every fucking minute of this filthy fucked up reality as he watched Noah kill Carrie in his spiral.

  “Because I don’t fucking care. You are all better off without me.” He says and looks to Shame for help and it is a deafening moment when Shame looks away. “She was what made me whole and that woman is gone and no matter how hard I fight this darkness, it is what it is and she is fucking gone!” He yells in my face; spit flying as his bloodshot eyes stare me down.

  “Yeah? Well she must be turning over in her grave seeing you like this.” I spit back. Before I could even take a breath Noah was on me, strength back courtesy of the adrenaline in his system. We are now fully on one another, punches flying as I try to beat sense into him and he tries to shut me up. Sam Shame and Chad are breaking us up and Chad is holding me from behind with my arms looped through his when Tayla is before me begging me to stop.

  “Stop baby this is ridiculous.” She begs and tries to soothe me but I am beyond it.

  “No I am fucking done.” I say and look beyond her shoulder so I can see Noah. “Done! You son of a bitch! You want to die you do it alone because I no longer want to see it. I will mourn my friend and consider you dead the day Candey died because that is a hell of a lot easier to accept than this. You are out of the band, your wasted ass is a fucking liability anymore and I am fucking done writing excuses for you!”

  “You don’t excuse shit Calvin!” He sneers and tries to break free of Sam and Shame. “You refuse to let anything go! I begged to not come back to TAT. I told you I needed simple for the time being but you push and push!”

  “No you want us to pad your fucking landing Noah. You want to have every excuse to know you aren’t alone but refuse to let us in. It is a sad thing to watch you blow it all away and I am done with it. You are a fucking junkie! You want that filthy brown shit in your veins more than music or the blood that has loved you all your life. You want to stay frozen in time because you can’t fathom life without her and I know it’s why you use, but of all of us Candey would have dumped your ass in seconds flat if she knew you were shooting up. She wouldn’t let you waste away like this and I won’t either. You disgrace her and how deep she loved you by giving up, so from here out do it on your own!”

  “Oh well hey, thanks for the pep talk dad!” He snarls and laughs with absolutely no humor.

  “You want a pep talk?” I ask and this time I push Chad hard enough he lets me go. “You get in my Jeep right now without a moment’s pause and you let me take you to rehab. It’s that or I cut you off. I am that fucking done because next time no one will come save you after you get beat near to death!”

  The room falls to an eerie silence when I finally shut up. Noah is staring me down like Jesus to a sinner and I can barely breathe. I refuse to hope he accepts I refuse to assume anyone in this room agrees with me and I refuse to watch it anymore.

  “That’s what I thought.” I look to Tay and pull her to me. “Let’s go.” I say and make my way to the door not bothering to turn around as I walk away from my best friend... he isn’t even present anymore.

  I’m pulled down by the undertow

  I never though I could feel so low

  And oh, darkness I feel like letting go…

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tayla

  “I’ll meet you at the Jeep, I am too pissed to talk to anyone can you fill in Drake?” Cal asks me once we leave the room and his former bassist and friend be
hind.

  “Of course.” He kisses me quickly as he storms from the club and I watch Chad and Shame follow. I assume that Sam is most likely doing damage control from inside the room.

  I am not sure I can process what I just saw and I am so glad that Carrie wasn’t here for it. Codependent didn’t describe what Carrie and Noah were; they survived by a connection between the two of them. Had Carrie witnessed what just happened, let alone saw Noah in this state... I don’t know what she would do.

  I think of seeing Cal, so enraged and scared and fed up. I have never seen him in that state before. He is passionate about anything that is important to him and I know that the last few months have been rocky between them, but this was something entirely different than rocky. This was ugly.

  “Tayla?” I hear Jenny from behind me and I turn to see her sad face.

  “Hey Jen.” I say and I hug her, thankful she called us tonight.

  “I am so sorry I didn’t call sooner Tayla. I honestly didn’t know that Noah was using again. He is in here like every night but I thought he was curbing the loneliness. We get a lot of widowers in here that just want that cold comfort. I had no idea he was this far gone or I would have said something.”

  “Wait, he comes in here a lot?” I ask.

  She nods. “Almost every night. The girls are good to him, they don’t hustle him for money or anything.” She looks terrified that I am thinking less of her. “They all know who he is and what he has been through, they feel bad for him.”

  I nod and look to the room where Noah and Sam have yet to leave yet. “He would die if he knew women were talking to him out of pity.” I know one thing and that is that Noah Beckett is a prideful man. If he was coming here to find some kind of solace, he would hate knowing it was out of pity that they welcomed him.

  “I don’t talk to him out of pity. I just try to be his friend, if that’s even the word. He talks a lot and I listen as much as I can in between customers. He seems so lost most of the time. About a month ago I started watering down his whiskey and charging him half price.” She looks at me with a sad smile. “I don’t know why he comes here and waits for the time to chat with me. At first I figured he wanted to know more about me being I am Axe’s biological mom, but now I think he just has some misguided sense of comfort from me.”

  I am..., well I don’t know if shocked is the word I would use, but I am dumbfounded that Noah has been confiding in anyone, let alone a woman I thought everyone but Cal and I hated. “I don’t think Noah has a misguided bone in his body. He’s pretty forthright in everything he does.”

  “Well misguided or not, he tells me things that are none of my business Tayla and I swear to God I haven’t told a soul what we talk about. He listens to me too ya know? He says that broken recognizes broken.” She shrugs and looks over her shoulder when a patron calls out to her. “Give me a second.” She says and saunters over, shaking her ass and playing up her tip but I can see in her eyes she is exhausted and worried.

  I watch as Sam holds on to Noah as they leave the VIP room. We make eye contact and he nods his head and I assume he wants to talk. I head over to them and see the enormous tears in Noah’s eyes and it rips me open a little. I see both sides of this fucked up situation. I know that Noah has spiraled out of control and he is lost, but I see Cal’s side too. They cannot rely on him to do right by TAT any longer. Tonight proved that his decision making ability is beyond fucked up.

  “What’s up?” I ask when I meet them over by the ATM.

  “I am gonna go.” Noah slurs and his tears are falling as he speaks. “I ain't letting him take me; I refuse to let this affect him anymore.”

  “Go as in...? Rehab?” I ask and I can’t breathe in hopes that this is really happening.

  He nods and more tears fall from his eyes. “Noah?” Jenny says from behind me and I am not sure if I should ask her to leave, but Noah acknowledges her immediately.

  “Hey Jen.” He smiles the saddest and sweetest smile at her, it’s almost delicate and I literally choke seeing it.

  “I can leave now; Lindsay says she will finish my shift. I would like to be there for you.” She says and the way she talks to him as he is crying before her is astonishing. It is like she is unaffected by his tears or his sadness, a pillar of strength for him where we all are so weak. It doesn’t take a genius to know why he chooses to come to her for a shoulder. Jenny is biased on her take with this. She has only seen the aftermath and so her judgements if any, aren’t misplaced.

  He nods in agreement and I swear to God I am witnessing something no one would believe. Noah leaning on someone and asking for support. Noah crying and accepting he has hit the lowest of points. Noah going to rehab... I am flabbergasted and I can’t hide it very well.

  “I know this looks fucked up Tay, I know it is fucked up, but I am not strong right now and Sam and Jenny get that in a way the rest of you don’t.” He says and I will never understand how Noah can always guess what we are thinking.

  Trying to keep my composure I pull on the fact I am his manager and handle all the PR. “You do what you need to be healthy Noah. Strategically, right now, the band is the least of concerns. Cal is going to get past this just like all of us will. You may not feel it right now but you have our support. I can handle anything business related and when I need to I will make a statement to the press. Focus on you, okay?”

  He nods and like that, a flicker in an almost dead lightbulb, Noah Beckett walked out of the bar with Jenny and Sam and into an unknown future.

  This is how we do, yeah, chilling laid back

  Straight stunin’ yeah we do it like that

  This is how we do, do, do, do, do

  This is how we do

  Chapter Twenty

  Cal

  Two weeks later

  As romance goes when it is me doing the romancing...I nailed this shit. Now this is Washington and I am a celebrity so of course things went easier than had I pulled this extravagant shit five years ago, but I am gonna own it and I am going to make all eyes watching tremble.

  I look up from my kitchen counter when I hear the gate alarm chime and I know the gang is here, including Sam and Noah, though the surprise of Noah being back is an added bonus that just me and the guys know. When it comes to this crowd I have no problem taking something special between Tay and I and making it about us all. We are family. We don’t need blood or matching last names to be one either. Family is about unconditional love, support, brutal honesty, happiness, sorrow and peace of mind that at the end of the day you have this bond that can only make you stronger. We have that and we always have. We carry our weak, we hold our sad, we praise our heroes and we love fucking hard. If that isn’t family then I don’t know what is.

  And tonight I share this one amazing gift with them all. It is Noah here and healthy, it is Axe finally ours and the progress he has made and last but not least is the love for my Tay and I celebrate that tonight. I have spent enough time proving to her how much I love her and that I am in it for eternity, but tonight I show her. Love doesn’t define what I am trying to show her tonight, that word is four letters but they hold a huge impact and it doesn’t come close to what I feel. This connection with Tayla is integral and important. It is loyalty, honesty, compassion, desire, heartbeats, and confusion and of course, loves. Will she ever know to what depth it goes? Will I ever do enough to show her? I don’t have those answers and I am grateful, because not knowing will only make me push harder to prove to her I am her somebody.

  The gang comes in and all sit around my kitchen bar top as I hand out beers, Gatorades and juices. They all know my plan and like always they are here to help and make sure it goes off perfectly.

  If I pull this off, and I really think I will... Then forever starts tonight.

  Tayla

  “You look so hot Tay.” Carrie says when I come into the living room after the absolute longest two hours of getting ready. I am normally pretty fast from shower to car in the getting ready for a dat
e type of gal, but tonight was on a whole new level. That started four and a half hours ago when my girls showed up. “You know it is moments like this that I wish Candey was here. She loved this shit.” Carrie says with a soft sad smile. Just like her brother, I don’t think Carrie will ever recover from losing her. Candey was the first person Carrie let in with no secrets besides Noah. Where Noah had Sam, Carrie had Candey. And she was right, Cans would have loved getting me dolled up.

  “Well I think you definitely summoned her tonight, because no doubt I do look good tonight.” I say with a wink. “Any chance you’ll give me the 4-1-1 on tonight?”

  “Hell no honey.” She says as she compares three different clutches in various shades of grey.

  I nod and roll my eyes in response and drink the remaining champagne in my flute. I look at my closest girlfriends as they have gathered to help make tonight, whatever it has in store, special. We never really talked about the fight over Jenny. Shamus had told Cal that Cassa was fighting with the loss she has endured and knowing that she is suffering and that it is justified for her anger, I have let it all go. I don’t know if anyone will understand our relationship and dynamic where Jenny is concerned but I guess it is all about perception if you aren’t the one living it.

  I start to fidget with the low hip chain belt “Stop fidgeting.” Carrie demands and I roll my eyes. My thoughts immediately go to Noah.

  “Any word from Noah?” I ask her even though for the last two weeks it seems none of us have spoken to him and all Sam will tell us is that he is safe and healthy nut he doesn’t want to talk to anyone just yet.