“There’s you. That’s every reason, Blue.”
“I appreciate that more than you know.” Behind the shades my eyes were stinging from his beautiful words and the heartfelt way he had spoken them. My chest burned with a million regrets. It was all I could do to send him on his way without breaking down. “But before the accident happened we both understood that we had a limited amount of time to spend together before the tour. And we both agreed just now to take the future as it comes, day by day, right?” He didn’t respond, probably frowning at me for using his words against him. “Well, I’m out of the woods,” I continued. “I’ve been cleared to go home. I mean, what if I get the flu while you’re gone? Are you going to drop everything, leave the guys in a lurch and come running back to me to take my temperature and spoon feed me chicken soup?”
“No,” he gritted out. “But you and I both know what’s going on with you right now is a lot more serious than the flu, Melinda.”
If he only knew the true magnitude of it all. My inner voice begged me to ask him to stay. It would be so much easier to face my terrifying future with him by my side. But I couldn’t let him torpedo his career for me. I wouldn’t do that to him.
“I’ll call to check on you as soon as we land in Philly,” he decided unaware of the turbulence going on inside me. “You get better. You keep yourself safe. My rosary will help keep you safe.” I could hear reticence in his tone. “Until I come back for it. For you.”
“I will. I can do that.” Was his gaze on me? It felt like it was. Did my expression give anything away? Could he tell how much my heart already ached for him when he hadn’t even left the room? “Only don’t worry if I don’t respond quickly to your texts or I miss your calls.” I was pretty sure I could ask Siri to read my texts or call him, but I had never needed to use those features on my iPhone before.
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. He still had my hand, but I felt him shift. Had he figured the whole thing out because I was staring and speaking to an empty spot? “I don’t know how my eyes will be,” I rambled to cover my nagging thoughts. “They said I might have headaches for a while, and that I might get fatigued.” I offered up the half-truths halfheartedly.
“I understand.”
Was it my imagination, or did I already hear a thin layer of suspicion in his voice?
“Melinda.” I jumped at the sound of my dad’s voice and tugged my hand free from Sager’s sure grasp. Angry footfalls accompanied his looming shadow as he stomped closer. “Is everything ok?” He sounded tired. I was sure he dreaded the increased responsibilities that went along with having a daughter who couldn’t see, one who would now in many ways be even needier than he was.
“Yeah, Daddy. Everything is fine. Sager was just saying goodbye.”
“I’m not sad to hear that he’s on his way out. I’m fucking elated as a matter of fact.” The direction of his voice changed. “Have a grand time with the groupies.” He had shifted to address Sager. “And try not to ruin anyone else’s life.”
“I’ll call you.” Sager strong voice washed over me, ignoring my father’s jibes. His breath and then his warm lips touched my cheek. I stopped breathing. I released the rosary to hold his kiss to my skin. I stared in the direction of his departing footsteps. I couldn’t see his sexy swagger as he left the room and that loss elicited a fresh round of tears.
“Melinda,” my father exhaled heavily. “I don’t know what you see in a guy like that.”
Only that he is sexy as hell and infinitely sweet, my inner voice retorted, more sedate and resigned now that Sager was gone.
“I’ve got us booked on a flight tomorrow morning,” he continued, oblivious to me. “I called the first psychiatrist on the list. She can fit you in for an initial consultation the day after we get back. Physical and occupational therapy we’ll have to set later. They’ll come to the house to work with you.”
“Thanks, Daddy,” I said. A host of conflicting emotions warred within me. I didn’t want to live with him again. It didn’t feel right after having been on my own. It felt like failure. But what choice did I have? I had to accept help wherever I could get it. I was in serious denial if I thought I could ever regain the independence from him that I had fought so hard to obtain.
• • •
In an exhausted haze I fumbled for my cell after the second ring, eyes wide but practically useless. “Hello?” I couldn’t tell how long I had slept after my dad had left, after Sager had gone. I didn’t have a clue what time it was. The shadows in the room didn’t seem much different than they had before I had fallen asleep.
“Hey.” April’s voice. “How are you?”
“I’m ok.” Far from it, but I bit my lip. Though I would have loved to have her support, she was too close to Dizzy, and he was too close to Sager to risk telling her the truth.
“Yeah, that’s what Sager told us. But he seems pretty worried. Withdrawn. He hasn’t said more than a few words since we checked out of the motel.”
“Where are you now?”
“A restaurant near the airport. The guys are all inside eating. I just wanted to check on you. You were sleeping when I came by the hospital earlier. I didn’t want to wake you, but I wish I could have given you a hug.”
“I wish you could have, too,” I admitted. I might have to lie about the blindness but I didn’t have to misrepresent my feelings.
“So are you really ok?”
I shook my head, tears filling my eyes, my lip trembling. A sob escaped.
“I knew you weren’t.” She huffed. “I’m coming back.”
“No,” I managed, though my voice warbled. “You’re going home a couple of days after Philly, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I am, too. We might bump into each other in the customs line.” That was actually a very real possibility. And the bump might be literal not figurative. “Just look for the girl in sunglasses.”
“Sager told us about that.”
“It’s kinda hard to see though the lenses but my head...”
“Not gonna be embarrassed to give my best friend a hug in public just ’cause she has shades on indoors.” My heart pounced on the status she gave our friendship. I barely registered the levity of the rest. “I think maybe I should get a pair myself just to show some sisterly solidarity.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Sager
I zoned out in the Philly green room. The old ratty couch had multiple round holes from cigarette burns and dark stains from…I did not want to know. My mind drifted to Melinda again while the others went through their usual routine gearing up to go out on stage. King had his dark hair perfectly styled, his Cannibal Corpse tee off and his sticks out, using his jean encased thigh as a snare. War was tying back his shoulder length hair with a black scarf while Bryan penned onto a dry erase board the set list our lead singer dictated to him. Apparently we were switching up what we had already decided on in Vancouver. ‘Beauty’ was going to be the encore, dedicated to Melinda. It was her song anyway, but War wanted to make it official. A tribute to her resilient spirit. It wasn’t lost on any of them that my girl had grit or that she had insisted on me being here tonight instead of back at the hospital with her.
“Hey.” Dizzy moved between me and my view of the cinder block wall spray painted with obscenities. “You ok?” He flopped down on the coach beside me. The brown and platinum spikes on his head didn’t waver but the cushions on the old couch caved in from his weight and the springs squeaked in protest.
“I’m alright.” I glanced at my cell for the hundredth time trying like a girl to read between the lines of her sporadic one word replies to my texts.
Sager: landed in LaGuardia
Melinda: Good
Sager: holy shit! The Black Cat jet has a private bedroom in the back. Babe, you’re coming to visit me on tour!
Sager: on the way to the venue
Melinda: Great
Sager: going on stage in 15
Melinda
: Rockin
Sager: How are you feeling?
Melinda: Fine
“How’s she doing?” Dizzy glanced over at my phone. I scrolled through the texts to show him. His dark brows drew together. “It’s better than just ok.”
“I guess,” I allowed.
“Give her some time to adjust. She had a big scare. You both did. But she’s the one who is having to give up on her dreams.”
I nodded. I knew that for sure. My heart ached for her. I wanted to help ease her pain but that was hard to do when she was five hundred and twenty-one miles away. Yeah, I googled the distance. I felt the connection between us stretching thinner each and every mile.
“April said Bluebelle’s going home in a couple of days?” He rubbed his thumb over his brow piercing.
“Yeah.” It seemed too soon, but the doctors had cleared her to fly, and I understood why she wanted to be out of the state as soon as possible. Maine held nothing but bad memories for her. Vancouver was home for her, for me now too because home for me was wherever she was. I wasn’t too keen on her moving back in with her dad, though. I didn’t trust him to take care of her the way I would.
“April’s going back to Vancouver in a couple of days, too, right?”
He nodded and his eyes softened when he glanced across the room. The Mine bartender’s pretty jade eyes sparkled with mirth as she laughed at something King was saying.
“Do you think she could check up on Melinda? Maybe keep an eye on her while we’re gone?”
“That’s the plan, bro.” His gaze left her and settled on me. “They aren’t where they once were friendship wise, but they’re well on their way back. The pixie’s accident scared all of us. Made us all think about how fragile life can be. But it really hit April hard. She’s had a lot of losses recently. She’s still processing her stepdad’s passing.”
“Yeah, I remember how broken up she was at his funeral.”
His expression turned unfocused, his fingers curling into tight fists. I was pretty sure he was thinking about it too and how he had almost lost her.
As if she sensed his distress or maybe just that we were talking about her, April wandered over and took a seat on the arm of the couch. She wrinkled her nose. “I wouldn’t lean against that nasty thing with all the baby oil you’ve got on your skin,” she told Dizzy. “That sofa is filthy.”
“Noted.” He grinned and pulled her sideways into his lap. “But why only warn me? Sager’s got his shirt off, too.”
“He doesn’t slather it on like you do, babe. And I’ve got no plans to put my hands on him when he comes off that stage. You however…” She waggled her brows. “Well, let’s just say I rate you a ten every day but on stage with that guitar in your hands the sexy meter goes to an eleven.”
His grin widening, he grabbed her neck and pulled her face to his and kissed her soundly. I looked away, not embarrassed by the PDA. We were a rock band. A reprobate one. I had seen and participated in a lot of wild shit. But not anymore. I glanced away because seeing how it was with Dizzy and April reminded me of how I felt about my girl, and how much I already missed her.
“Sager.” April touched my arm. “You ok?” she asked empathetically.
She sounded just like Diz. They were a good match. “Just worried about Melinda,” I admitted. “I don’t trust her dad to make sure she gets to the counselor on a regular basis.” I had shared with the others about the anorexia diagnosis on the plane. I took the matter seriously. I wanted to make sure she took care of herself. “I was wondering if you could help make sure she attends her appointments while I’m out of town.”
“Absolutely,” she said, concern darkening her jade eyes. “That was my plan. I’m worried about her, too.”
“I’ll talk to Lace, tonight,” Dizzy offered. “She might be able to give our pixie some perspective. Since her rehab she’s a pretty outspoken about getting help when you need it.”
My worry eased a tad. It seemed our core unit of five was growing to include quite a few others.
“Five minutes, guys,” Samantha Daniels-Reynolds warned poking her curly head inside the room and making eye contact with War. “Get your people together, Jinkins,” she added firmly. Gone was any trace of the unsure Black Cat intern. She was married to the drummer from Brutal Strength and had the experience of several managed tours under her belt now.
War gave her a nod and put his hand up in the air. The silver skull ring on the finger he pointed and circled above his head flashed under the fluorescents. “Let’s go, men. It’s time for Tempest to rise up and blow the roof straight off this place.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Melinda
“Watch out you idiots. Can’t you see that my daughter is fucking blind?” my dad shouted. We were at the airport security checkpoint getting ready to go back to Vancouver. Finally. But now he was making a very public scene over some imagined slight. As if his announcing to the world that his daughter had a disability she hadn’t even begun to come to terms with hadn’t been bad enough, there was also the fact that he had let go of my hand. Without that anchor, untethered and unseeing, I quickly got swept up in the press of other passengers. Completely disoriented, beginning to panic, my heart began to thrum, especially when I realized that I could no longer hear my father’s voice.
Lifting my sunglasses to the top of my head, I shuffled my feet in a small circle straining to see more than shadows. I wished with every fiber of my being that I could find a frame of reference, but there wasn’t any to be had. It wasn’t like the hospital. This was a huge unfamiliar space, an indistinct jumble of shapes, and colors, and noise, a deafening roar of noise.
Feeling lost and overwhelmed, I anchored myself, sinking to the only steady thing I had, the solid ground beneath me. I don’t know how long I sat on the floor in the middle of the airport, purse forgotten at my side, legs drawn to my chest, face buried in my knees. Frightened badly and shaking uncontrollably. But it had been long enough that we had missed our flight. Airport security had apparently dragged my father off to admonish him, and if it hadn’t been for the intervention of a thoughtful Southwest employee who had taken charge of me, calming me with her gentle manner, who knows what might have happened.
The entire trip had been a nightmare I planned never to repeat.
Ever.
I had remained ensconced in my room since we had arrived home.
And I didn’t care if I ever left it.
Days passed, a whole slew of them. Nothing changed. I opened my eyes every morning hoping my vision had improved, only to have the shade of my wretched reality drawn down on me anew. Seven steps took me across my room. Two steps in the hallway with my hands outstretched brought me to the bathroom. The first couple of days home I had fumbled for my favorite bath gel, shampoo and brushed my teeth with a toothbrush that I desperately hoped was my own, but after that I had started to wonder, why bother? What did it matter anyway?
I lay in my bed a lot, replaying the day of the accident over and over again in my head, losing hours I could never get back on the if onlys. If only I had listened to Katherine. If only I hadn’t wanted to win so badly. If only I had never taken up skiing in the first place.
I cried.
Pathetic ugly sobbing tears by myself alone in the dark.
Sometimes I could hear my dad’s footsteps slow and stop outside in the hall. I could feel him watching me, but he never came inside.
He wasn’t a comforter.
What could he say anyway?
My daughter’s fucking blind.
Yeah.
As the shock started to wear off, that started to sink in.
The anger arrived in a blazing ball of fire next. It felt as though it burned me from the inside out. Nothing could extinguish it. I got up and headed for the bathroom, but I moved too heedlessly, tripping on one of my dad’s shoes out in the hall. I went down hard, my head striking against the wall as I fell. It started to pound. I nearly blacked out from the pain. I called out for
my dad, but like so many times in my childhood, he didn’t come. One of his women did instead.
“Oh, baby. Poor baby.” I stiffened as unfamiliar fingers smoothed tangled hair from my useless eyes. I had given up combing it after I had misplaced my brush. “Your dad told me all about it. That you’re blind.”
Her words slammed into me with a force harder than the blow to my head. Hearing the truth of it spoken aloud made it seem all the more real and permanent and hopeless.
“You were on your way to the bathroom, right? Let’s get you there.” Fingers curling around my upper arm, she helped me stand. Feeling dizzy and disoriented, I let her. The bathroom door creaked. It must have been closed, even though I told my dad over and over again that he needed to leave it open. The shadow of my helper’s form suddenly solidified. She must have flipped the vanity lights on. A thick cloud of her perfume gagged me as she led me inside. “Can you go to the bathroom by yourself?” she asked innocently.
I found my voice, impotent fury scalding my throat. “Yeah, bitch. I can. Go on back to bed with my dad. Get in one good fuck while he’s still interested. He’s not going to keep you around just because you helped me.”
“I didn’t,” she sputtered. “I wasn’t…”
“Go on! Get out!” I shouted, fingers curling tight into my palms and piercing my flesh. My empty stomach churned. I couldn’t remember my last meal. Soup, maybe a couple of days ago that Mary had dropped off. “I’m gonna be sick. Leave me alone.”
She scurried away. I heard her stumble out in the hall, probably tripping over the same shoes in her haste to get away from the crazy blind girl. Fumbling in the shadows, I found the toilet and dropped to my knees on the cold tile. I heaved and heaved until my eyes watered, but nothing came up. Sides cramping, I stood, located the sink, washed my hands and splashed cold water on my face. Afterward, I gripped the edges of the sink. I knew there was a mirror over it. I couldn’t see what I looked like anymore. But I imagined it was pretty bad, not that it mattered. Wave after hot wave of venom crashed over me.
The Complete Tempest World Box Set Page 153