Whistles and clapping follow. Case hands the microphone to Thomas and asks, “Anything y’all want to say?”
Thomas clears his throat and then, “Thank you for the opportunity, Case. I’m not sure we could ever do justice with words our appreciation for the shot you’ve given us. And how much I admire you for who you are and what you do. You live your life by paying it forward, and if I ever get the chance to do for someone else what you’ve done for us, I hope I’ll be as generous.”
“You could start by paying it forward with me,” a voice calls out from the guests. “Jared Ryner.”
The name rings out in the otherwise silent tent. I look into the crowd and see that it came from the blonde guy from San Diego. My heart starts to pound so hard that I can feel it against my chest.
He drops the now empty plate onto the table, wipes his hands on his jeans. “Do you know how many years I spent in Nashville trying to get someone to give me a shot?”
People start to shift where they stand, uncomfortable and unsure of where this is going.
“Eight,” he says. “Eight years. Playing on street corners. Exit ramps off the interstate. Knocking on doors. Sending songs to record companies and never getting a call back.”
People are now starting to back away from the center of the tent, as if they all sense that something’s not quite right.
Somebody calls out, “Are you supposed to be here, Jared?”
The guy laughs then, as if something hysterically funny has just been said. “No,” he says, trying to catch his breath. “I suppose that’s the punch line to my eight years of working to get a break. I never actually belonged. There must have been some secret pass code no one ever bothered to let me in on.”
Another man’s voice rings out with authority, “Someone call Security and get him out of here.”
But Jared lifts the front of his shirt and pulls a handgun from the waist of his jeans. “I’m afraid it’s a little late for that,” he says, raising it up and firing it once through the top of the tent.
Screams erupt and people start to push and shove to get out. He points the gun at the center of the crowd and fires again. A man in a white shirt standing a few yards away from us tilts forward and then collapses onto the ground, blood spilling from his neck like water from a hose.
All around, women begin screaming. I am frozen where I stand. Holden steps in front of me and calls out, “Jared! Man, this isn’t the way. Put the gun down, and let’s go outside and talk.”
He looks at Holden and laughs. “Talk with you? The big hottie on stage? What would you and I have to talk about? No matter how good my music is, I’m never going to get the same chances as a guy who looks like you. How is that fair?”
“A man may die because of you,” Holden says, his voice calm and even. “That’s the next pressing thing on your list. You still have a chance to turn this around if you want to.”
“There’s no turning anything around now. It took me a while but I finally figured that out.”
I hear the wail of sirens in the distance. Holden steps back and presses against me, his body fully blocking me from seeing where Jared is or what he’s doing.
Case moves away from us and walks toward him. “Son. Come on. Put the gun down. You’ve taken this far enough.”
“I suggest you stop right there,” he says, pointing the weapon at Case.
Case raises his hands, saying, “Like Holden said, let’s go outside and see if we can work this out.”
“Don’t you see, Mr. Country Music Star,” he says, sarcasm underlining every word, “I’ve already got it worked out. Eye for an eye and all that. If I don’t get my dream, then it seems right that I cancel a few others on my way out. Am I the only one that makes sense to?”
Beck reaches out and grabs his dad, pulling him back to where we’re standing. “Get out of here, man! The police will be here any second.”
The sirens scream like they’re right outside the tent now. Car doors slam. I hear the sound of running. I step out from behind Holden and scream, “Go! Just go! End this now!”
Jared Ryner has a look on his face that I’ve never seen on the face of another human being. He’s not leaving this world alone. His eyes say it as clearly as if I have heard him speak the words.
It happens so fast there’s no time to say anything else, to move, or to run. He lifts the gun, fires, and Thomas slumps forward, then drops to the ground. I hear myself screaming, a wail I don’t even recognize.
Another shot, and Case goes down, falling backwards into the people standing behind us. The next shot takes Beck. He staggers and slumps to the ground next to his dad.
It is surreal now. None of this can be happening. I feel the bullet enter my body with the realization that I have been hit, only I have no idea where. My body is instantly infused with white-hot pain, and I drop to my knees. I hear a roar of fury, and realize that it has come from Holden. He is charging the guy, but the gun is lifting and I know what is coming. I hear my scream as if I am a million miles from it. I feel the earth tremble with my fury as Holden stops with the bullet’s impact. He stands for a moment, sways and then collapses.
Police are rushing into the tent, an entire force of them. Panic has taken over, and the screaming I now hear is not my own. I try to get up, lifting myself on one elbow. My face is wet, and I’m not sure if it’s with tears or blood.
I see the policeman body tackle the shooter, taking him down, down, down, but not in time to prevent Jared Ryner from putting the gun to his temple and pulling the trigger.
♪
4
PART FOUR - PLEASURE IN THE RAIN
40
Holden
I can’t wrap my brain around the pain in my left side.
I can’t think beyond it. Speak beyond it. Feel beyond it. It’s as if my entire body is on fire with it.
I don’t know if I am actually drowning in it or suspended above it, looking down at myself, connected only by this tether of savage pain.
I decide I must be above it because I can see the blood pooled on the ground next to me. Bright red soaking into the white of my shirt.
I hear the noise of sirens and screaming and crying. I just can’t see where any of it is coming from. I only see me. I know this can’t be right. I feel this indescribable pull toward awareness of what else I am missing. It’s like I’m at the edges of a dream, but not able to push myself up from the ether of sleep.
I try. Even though there is an enormous weight on my brain, pressing down on the very spot that controls my ability to wake up.
I’m not sure how long it takes. Seconds. Hours. Maybe days. I push against it until I begin to surface. Up, up, up. Breaking through the wall suppressing me.
Then it rushes in. All of it. The screams. The cries. The sirens. Around me, I see people. Some bleeding like me. Standing, bent over, falling.
I feel something on my chest then. Manage to direct my gaze downward and realize that it’s an arm.
Thomas’s arm. Football player bicep and shoulder unmistakable. He’s bleeding, too, his blood spilling onto my chest.
I want to raise up and see how bad it is. But I can’t. I can only look from the corner of my eye. My heart starts to pound because something else is trying to press through.
I struggle to latch onto it. And then her name.
CeCe.
Oh, dear God.
Where is CeCe?
I will myself to get up. But my brain and my body are somehow not connected. I can do nothing but lie here, flat, with Thomas’s arm draped across me.
I start to pray. Pieces of verses float up from the place where they have been stored in my heart so long that I had forgotten they were there. They’re delivered on the voice of a Sunday school teacher who had told our class to memorize such scripture because there would come a day when we might need to call on its comfort. I realize now I doubted the truth of what she’d said. And I had been wrong.
I hear footsteps, heavy booted feet r
unning at me. Two EMTs in rescue worker-clothing dropping down beside me. One directing his attention to me, the other to Thomas.
Their hands are quick and adept, checking my pulse, shining a light into my eyes. I try to form the question, and it takes me several seconds to force it out.
“CeCe? My-”
“Hey, man, don’t try to talk. We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”
“I need. . .to know where. . . she is.”
“You need to let us take care of you, son. Right now that’s the only thing that matters.”
“It’s not,” I say. Tears start to slide from the corners of my eyes. I see her face as she had looked. . .had it just been this morning? I swear I think I can feel her touch on my skin.
I have to find her.
But my protests to the EMT come out jumbled, and I’m not sure whether I’m speaking them or thinking them. I can’t see through the tears that won’t stop. I feel helpless. And I just pray. Every word a plea that if a life has to be taken here tonight, it will be mine and not hers.
♪
41
CeCe
When I was a little girl, Mama used to tell me about the bomb shelter drills they had when she was in elementary school. I would listen with a kind of half-disbelief. I don’t think I really believed then that anything that bad could ever actually happen.
A bomb dropping on a school full of children?
The world, in my mind at that age, couldn’t be that terrible a place. That kind of thing was limited to scary books and movies that I never had any desire to see because I couldn’t understand why anybody actually wanted to feel fear. Or for that matter, wanted to cause someone else to feel fear.
I see his eyes in my mind now, the look that had been there right before he pulled the trigger. I know that fear is exactly what he wanted me to feel. Wanted everyone in the room to feel.
My heart pounds against the wall of my chest, and the force of it fills my ears with a pressure so intense I think my temples might explode beneath it. This is all I can feel. I have no idea whether I am alive or dead or dreaming or awake.
I try to scream, but no sound comes up from within me. I’m trapped in this bubble of semi-awareness.
I was the only one, wasn’t I?
No, that’s not right. There’s something else. Something more.
More shots. There had been more shots.
Holden. Thomas.
This time, the scream breaks through, piercing my own ears with its wail. The protective bubble of denial surrounding me shatters beneath its jagged edges.
And now, I’m crying. With terror. With grief. I’m not sure which one will tear me apart first.
I feel hands on me, a woman’s voice attempting to offer comfort. “Shh, honey,” she says. “Hold on. Everything is going to be okay.”
A needle pierces my arm, and in what seems like an instant, a soft blanket folds in around me, my vision seeping to nothing more than a pinpoint of light until blackness envelops even that.
And my crying stops.
♪
I RECOGNIZE THE smell, but I can’t place it. It is clipped to a memory that nudges at me without effect.
My eyes are closed. I can’t make myself open them. They are weighted with something too heavy for me to push aside. I hear voices, one abrupt and authoritative.
“Has anyone found an ID for her yet?” the voice asks. “She looks like she’s probably over eighteen, but we need to know next of kin.”
My brain processes the words with foggy edges. And then the source of the smell comes to me. My granny’s long stay in the hospital.
Hospital.
I’m in a hospital.
And next of kin. Why do they need to find my next of kin?
“Blood pressure’s dropping.” This voice belongs to a woman, and she sounds worried.
“What’s taking so long with the blood?” It’s the man’s voice again.
I hear and feel the snipping of scissors simultaneously and realize my clothes are being cut from my body. Heavy footsteps retreat from the room at a quick urgent pace.
The woman’s voice, lower this time. “I guess nothing should really be a surprise in this world anymore. But can you imagine? They were just shot down like-”
“I know,” another woman says, and I can tell she’s on the other side of me. I feel her take my hand and lace her fingers through mine. “My brother was at the concert. He called a few minutes ago to ask if we were getting the victims. He’s sixteen, and he couldn’t stop crying.”
“It’s insane,” the other woman says. “Case Phillips. I’ve been in love with him since I was sixteen. It sounds like he might not make it.” Her words break at the edges.
“Don’t you just feel fury at how senseless these things are? These people never did anything to deserve this, and one person destroying so many lives.”
They’re silent for a moment. “I don’t understand,” one of them says.
“There is no understanding. It’s just hate, and a person feeling like they’ve been cheated. I know I shouldn’t say it, but at least he’s dead.”
The heavy footsteps return, the pace conveying urgency. I hear motions around me but feel nothing. The women are no longer talking.
The man says, “They’re waiting for her in the O.R. Let’s get her up there stat.”
I try to make words come out of my mouth. To ask where the others are. Holden. Thomas. Beck. But the fog again descends. And I am gone.
♪
42
Holden
I’m in a field. The grass is the color of a spring pasture in Kentucky, a deep, almost blue-green. It picks up the hue of the cloudless sky above. I’m walking with purpose as if I know exactly where I’m going, but there’s nothing visible ahead except for the same rich grass reaching toward the horizon. I have no idea how long I walk, but it’s effortless. I’m aware that I’m watching myself and at the same time walking. Searching, but not with any kind of urgency, just a peaceful sort of expectation.
And then I see her, so far away that at first I think it might be my imagination. I walk faster. Closer now, I know that I’m right. I realize that the distance must be farther than I initially thought because it seems to take a very long time for the gap to begin to close between us. My legs feel heavy beneath the desire to run. It feels like I’m fighting gravity with every step, pushing through some unidentifiable force that I can’t see but know is there.
I feel infused with love for her. It’s as if my entire being was created with the intent that this love would be my life source. We’re close enough now that I can see its reflection in her eyes. I realize with a wash of happiness that she has been created in exactly the same way.
The distance between us dissolves, and we walk into each other’s arms. It’s as if I have just completed a lifelong journey to a point where I was supposed to be all along.
We don’t say anything. We don’t need to. She rests her cheek against my chest, and I feel the exhaustion leave her. I am her safe haven, and like a boat that’s been chased to shore by waves that should have overcome it, she anchors herself to me.
I vow that I will never let her know the threat of harm again.
She tilts her head back and looks up at me. We drink each other in. We can’t get enough of each other. I lean down and kiss her, aware in a way I have no explanation for that we won’t be apart again; that this is permanent, forever, the way it should be when you love someone with every cell, every breath and every thought.
I have no memory of what came before, of how we got here or why. I only know it’s where we both belong and that it’s time for us to continue toward the horizon.
I pull back and look down at her, my hand anchored through her long hair. She smiles at me, entwines her hand with mine, and we start to walk through the vast field, purposeful, peaceful. I don’t feel the passage of time, just this deep sense of contentment and rightness.
But then CeCe stops. I instantly feel the
change in her and the peacefulness dissipates in an instant. She looks at me, her gaze regretful and pain-filled.
“What is it?” I ask.
“We have to go back.”
“Why? We’re already here.”
“We can’t leave him,” she says. “He’ll need us.”
I know suddenly that she means Thomas.
As soon as his name enters my thoughts, I’m flooded with the same fear I see in CeCe’s face. Selfishly, I want to tell her she’s wrong, that we have to stay. It’s too late. But I can’t because somehow I know she’s right.
I look down at our joined hands and feel the separation even as I will it not to happen. I’m torn between begging her not to go and an undeniable certainty that I have to go back as well.
In the very next instant, I feel as if a knife has been plunged through the middle of my heart. I’m in a room where everything appears to be made with stainless steel. I am on a bed of some sort. There are people all around me. They have on masks, and their hair is covered with light blue caps.
I hear a clink, like silverware dropping into a tin bowl.
“Good boy.” A man’s voice. “You’re back. That was way too close, son.”
I struggle to make sense of the statement and wonder if he’s even talking to me.
“All right,” the voice says. “We got him. Let’s not lose him again.”
I try to open my eyes to see who has said this, but they are too heavy, and I am too tired.
When oblivion returns, there is no blue-green pasture, and there is no CeCe.
♪
43
CeCe
Nashville - Boxed Set Series - Part One, Two, Three and Four (A New Adult Contemporary Romance) Page 26