by P J Gordon
Manda was reminded of escorting Katie through these same doors to see Richard and Josh over a year and a half ago. This time there were no crowds of people waiting outside. The concert had already begun and almost everyone was inside already. The rumbling of the audience confirmed this as she and Kastl walked through the first set of glass doors, and impatience intruded upon Manda’s stillness. She was missing Rain’s performance!
Her impatience edged down a few notches when they passed through the second set of glass doors and she could hear the music more clearly. It was just the opening band. Still, she fidgeted impatiently as Kastl spoke to the door attendant. Manda ignored their exchange. It occurred to her that this was the first time she’d even been in the same city as Richard in over eight months, much less been in the same building.
Kastl had to tug on her arm to prompt her to follow the attendant to a small office situated near the private elevator that they had used the last time. The man in the office recognized Kastl on sight, though he called him Mr. Black. He greeted “Mr. Black” deferentially and handed him a pair of tickets.
“Can I escort you up?” he offered, including Manda in his smile.
“No, thank you,” Kastl declined, already shepherding Manda back out the door. “I know the way. Thank you for taking care of this for me.”
“Whatever you need, of course,” the nameless man in the office replied.
Kastl led Manda out of the office, past the door attendant, up a long escalator to the upper concourse, and to the same suite from which she’d watched the previous concert.
Manda hesitated outside the door. “Who else is in there?” she asked nervously. It was too much of a coincidence for Kastl to get tickets in the same suite. The way Richard had spoken after the first concert, this suite was reserved for Rain’s guests whenever they played this arena. It was negotiated in their contract. If that was true this time as well, maybe Chelsea was inside. She definitely didn’t want to come face-to-face with her right now.
“No one else is in there. It wasn’t being used so I took advantage of it,” Kastl assured her, opening the door and ushering her in.
“How did you manage that?” Manda walked far enough into the suite to see the band that had been playing take their bows and leave the stage.
“I have connections,” Kastl answered evasively. He found a menu on the bar and passed it to her. “I promised you dinner. What’ll it be?”
Manda wasn’t hungry but she knew Kastl wouldn’t accept that so she picked the first salad she saw. While he ordered, she watched the crew reset the stage for Rain. The configuration of the stage was different for this concert. During the previous tour, the stage had been placed in the center of the arena floor, circled by the audience. Now it was at one end of the arena with the audience arrayed in an arc in front of it. The seats in their suite looked down onto the stage from very close range. Manda was sure she was being overly cautious, but she couldn’t suppress the feeling that everyone on stage would be able to look up and see her. She searched out the light switch and turned it off so that only the lights over the bar dimly illuminated the suite. Then she chose a seat in the shadows.
“Don’t worry. The stage lights will be too bright for him to see you, and he doesn’t know you’re here yet.” Kastl took the seat beside her. “I thought I’d better explain things to him in person before I drop you into his lap—assuming things work out that way of course. For now just relax and enjoy the show.”
Manda didn’t enjoy the show though. When Richard finally appeared she wasn’t able to take her eyes off of him. He was taking more of a backseat to Josh now, but she’d never seen him perform with such intensity—as if he were pouring every ounce of his soul into the music. At first the euphoria of simply seeing him overpowered everything else, but after a while she began to notice a change in his demeanor that further eroded the tiny fragment of hope she’d managed to hold on to. The disconnected, miserable look that had torn at her heart while allowing her to hope that he didn’t love Chelsea was gone. Though he didn’t exactly look happy, he did look as well as could be expected after the preceding eight months. Manda’s illusions about her future with Richard faded song by song. A faint shadow was all that remained by the end of the show and then that vanished when Richard took the stage alone for the encore.
A single spotlight blazed on, illuminating Richard in a cone of brilliance. He sat alone at the piano in the center of the stage with a serene smile on his face. As the first notes he played enveloped the audience and the enormous video screen behind him came to life, Manda felt her heart crumbling into small pieces. He was playing her song—the one he’d sworn he would never play for anyone else—as accompaniment to her video. He was over her. That was it then. She had her answer.
She watched with her fists clenched so that the trembling of her hands wouldn’t betray her to Kastl. The final image of her video filled the screen and for a brief moment Richard’s smiling face filled her eyes before the screen and the stage went black. After a short pause, the lights came back up and Josh and Richard stood on stage waving to the audience. Girls and young women filled the area near the stage, throwing flowers to the two men. Richard reached down and scooped up a large bouquet of roses and walked away from Josh. Smiling like the dawning sun, Richard tossed the flowers to someone just off stage. Manda couldn’t see her, but she knew it was Chelsea. He blew her a kiss and in a voice choked with emotion spoke to her, broadcasting his words to the entire arena. “You are amazing.” Then he laughed with delight and walked back to Josh. He draped his arm around Josh’s shoulder and the smiling, waving brothers made their way off of the stage.
Manda began flipping the switches in her head, shutting down her emotional reactions. She could feel the crash coming and she refused to let it happen here. Her face grew smooth and detached and she gathered a cloak of numbness around herself.
It all made sense now. It had been worry for Chelsea that had made Richard so miserable. He’d been afraid that she would meet the same end that Manda had. Now that the threat had been removed he was finally happy. Manda couldn’t destroy that. If Chelsea was able to make him happy, Manda wouldn’t interfere.
She thought of all of the stories she’d read and the movies she’d seen about people who had been captured, or shipwrecked, or for whatever other reason separated from the loved one who thought they were dead. She was able to relate to those tales all too easily now. Manda had always been outraged when the hero of the story would return home only to find that the person they had loved and dreamed about—the person whose memory they had clung to—had moved on and found someone new. She always wanted a happy ending and resented it when the hero or heroine ended up alone. Now she knew she wouldn’t be getting her real-life happy ending either. Life wasn’t a romance movie, after all. Everyone couldn’t have a fairy tale ending, but she would do what was necessary to give Richard his happily-ever-after.
“I’m ready to go,” she announced to Kastl in an emotionless voice.
“Wait here for a few minutes,” he instructed, “while I go prepare Richard.” He rose and turned toward the exit, but Manda put her hand on his arm to stop him.
“No. I mean I want to leave…now. I don’t want to see him.”
“Are you sure? I think he’ll want to see you, Manda.”
“I’m positive. Let’s just go, please.” She stood and turned her back on the stage.
Chapter 45
Manda allowed Kastl to open the door to her hotel suite and usher her in. Her face was blank and still. He flipped on a light, checking the room quickly—out of habit she supposed—and put her bag in her bedroom. Then he placed the keycard into her extended hand and peered into her face.
“Are you going to be all right?”
“Fine,” she replied dully. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed. I know where to find you if I need you. Goodnight Kastl.” She waited until he walked reluctantly out into the hallway, then she quietly closed the door. She turned awa
y and walked a few steps into the empty room.
She’d been holding herself together by a thread since leaving the arena. She knew she wouldn’t be able to call back the icy, emotionless calm once she let it go, so she’d clung to it with single-minded intensity, not daring to let it falter until she could be alone—and now that she was alone, she was afraid to let it fall away. Afraid to think. Afraid to feel. Afraid of the crushing weight she knew was sliding down to bury her. She focused on the superficial. The dim, neat room. The smell of the flowers on the table. The moonlight shining through the French doors.
She walked slowly across to those doors...carefully... afraid to move too quickly, not wanting to do anything to risk cracking the cold shell that encased her. She counted her steps. Fifteen. Better to count than to think. She mustn’t think. She opened both doors wide and carefully stepped out onto the moonlit balcony. Three steps carried her to the rail. She rested her hands on it and leaned over to see the neat flower beds twenty floors down. They formed simple geometric shapes from this high up. She breathed the chill night air, felt the slight brush of the breeze on her cheeks. She could see the nearby river, glittering silver in the moonlight. She could just faintly hear the low roar of the water tumbling over rocks and gravel beds as it rushed away from the nearby mountains. She listened, trying to be soothed. After a time she heard the soft, almost imperceptible sound of wings—to her right she thought. She closed her eyes momentarily, then turned and looked into the inky darkness of Kastl’s balcony. She couldn’t see anything among the shadows, but that didn’t matter. She turned back to the river and spoke quietly.
“Go away, Kastl. Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything stupid. Nothing as melodramatic as that.”
Manda turned and walked back inside, not bothering to close the doors. She’d crossed the sitting room and walked through the bedroom door before the first tears overflowed and dripped down her cheeks. Crawling onto the neatly made bed, she curled up on her side with her back to the door and let the tears soak the crisp white linens. She cried quietly, just a few low, shuddering breathes disturbing the silence.
She couldn’t have said how long she cried before she heard the footsteps cross the sitting room and halt in the bedroom doorway. It could have been one hour or many. She’d been half waiting for them. She knew he wouldn’t have gone far.
“You aren’t thinking clearly right now, Manda. You should see him. Talk to him,” Kastl said quietly.
“Why? I won’t make him feel guilty for getting on with his life, for not waiting for his dead girlfriend to miraculously return from the grave—the girlfriend who thinks he’s a monster and would rather die than be like him. He doesn’t need me complicating his life.” She didn’t want to have this conversation. Especially not right now. She was so tired. She just wanted to not think, to hold off the waves of despair that threatened to overwhelm her until sleep rescued her for a few hours. Then she would wake up and try to live through one day at a time. She wasn’t sure how to do that. She didn’t know how she was going to get through a single hour with the hollow ache in her chest, much less the days and weeks that stretched ahead. The rational part of her mind told her that it would get easier in time. It had too. Oh, please let it get easier! She didn’t want to think about what it would be like though.
“You didn’t mean that,” Kastl stated with unwavering conviction. “You didn’t want him to expose our secret in front of the whole world. I figured that out right away. I’m sure he did too. Don’t you think it should be up to him to decide? Besides, you can’t hide forever. You know he’ll find out your alive sometime.”
“By then it won’t matter. It probably doesn’t even matter now. I don’t belong in his life anymore. I’ve done enough damage and he’ll be happy with...with her.” Her voice broke. “He’ll be happy.” Manda clutched at that thought. He would be happy. That was the one final gift she could give him. She wouldn’t interfere with whatever happiness he had found for himself—whoever he found it with.
“What about you?” Kastl asked gently.
“What about me?” she groaned, annoyed by the question. Why wouldn’t he just go and leave her alone? She was so very, very tired and she longed to escape into unconsciousness for a while. Even the nightmares wouldn’t be able to keep her from sleep. Maybe they wouldn’t return now that the danger to her was gone.
His reply came from farther away, from the sitting room. She hadn’t heard him leave the doorway.
“You deserve to be happy too,” was his faint reply.
Her body shook with a silent shudder and a fresh flood of tears washed down her face.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, shutting her eyes tightly and trying to endure the burning pain in her chest.
And then a weight settled onto the bed behind her and a warm finger brushed gently down her wet cheek. She froze.
“It matters to me,” Richard whispered.
Chapter 46
Josh and Richard’s Reality Check album was released three months after Manda died. Everything was marked in that timeframe for Richard now. Before Manda had died, and after Manda had died. Though it had started out with the working title of Fairy Tales, the fairy tale was over and the new album was released three months after Manda’s death with a new title. They launched their concert tour several weeks later.
Performing again was hard for Richard. He’d thought he could handle it, but he hadn’t been prepared for the intensity of the emotions it stirred. He spent the day after their first concert in his hotel room, unable to pull together the façade of normalcy that had been his second skin in recent months. Well, normalcy probably wasn’t an accurate description. From the worried looks Josh constantly cast in his direction when he thought Richard wasn’t looking, it probably didn’t resemble normal very much at all.
Even that transparent charade was beyond him after that first concert though. The pain and loss had come flooding back so vividly it had been like reliving those horrible days immediately after losing her. Playing the songs he’d written for her, so many lifetimes ago it seemed, had been like a knife cutting into the still open, unhealing wounds that her death had left on his soul. Josh, seeing his brother’s clenched jaw and trembling hands, seeing the bleakness stealing back over his face, had asked him repeatedly if he wanted to cancel the tour. Richard had told him no and hoped it would get easier.
Josh had become very protective of Richard since Manda’s death. The two brothers had switched roles. Josh, who had always been more carefree and had always followed Richard’s lead, shouldered the responsibilities that Richard no longer seemed interested in or able to handle. Richard, always the leader and the protector, had faltered, unsure of himself. He blamed himself for Manda’s death. If only he had done a better job of protecting her. If only he had been at her side. If only he had never tangled her in the twisted skein of his life in the first place.
The first week after her death he had done little but sit and stare out the window. Josh had worried, of course, and had done what he could to try and console him.
“You did everything you possibly could. You can’t live in a vacuum, and you can’t blame yourself for something that someone else did,” Josh insisted. “You’re not God! Some things are just out of your control.”
Richard didn’t argue, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. He knew he was to blame, but arguing would just upset Josh more. He sank deeper into darkness. He couldn’t bring himself to care what happened around him. None of it seemed important. He had killed Manda as certainly as if he’d attacked her himself. He drifted, alone and disconnected.
It was his love for his brother that eventually broke through Richard’s black despair. He’d been immersed in his own guilt-ridden, self-torturing hell for a week when he heard Josh and Mikey talking. They were in the same room with him, but didn’t seem to realize he was listening. Perhaps they just didn’t care.
“I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m scared. He doesn’t react at all,�
�� Josh confided with an edge of panic in his voice. “He barely eats. He doesn’t sleep. It’s like he’s just waiting to die.”
Waiting to die? Did he want to die? Richard considered the prospect. No, he wasn’t ready to die. That wasn’t it. Life, no matter how barren, had to be endured. After what he had done to Manda, he deserved whatever pain it brought him. He wouldn’t take the easy way out. He just didn’t know what to do. Manda had entwined herself not only around his heart, but through the entire fabric of his existence. He realized that his vision of the future, of his life, had somehow come to have Manda as its center, its focus. Now that focus was gone and he was adrift, lost in sea of guilt and grief with no bearings, no idea which way to go to escape the darkness that surrounded him. No, it wasn’t death he was waiting for, it was life. But she was gone.
“It’ll be okay,” Mikey reassured Josh. “Don’t worry. He’ll snap out of it. Give him a little more time. You’ve done enough. It’s up to him now. Just give him a little more time. You look wiped out. When was the last time you slept?”