Cherry Beats

by Vicki James

I miss your tits in the palm of my hands.

  That leather-clad arse.

  Your pretty green eyes.

  Dammit, Cherry.

  You make me want to come home.

  Presley.

  Cherry,

  They tell me I’m the king, just like you predicted.

  You’d hate me now, like this. Fucking hate me.

  Kinda hate me, too.

  It’s been two years, and you’re not going away.

  I thought I had stuff to say today because I’m melancholy, but now I’m writing, I feel like clamming up again.

  Two years. That’s all I had to say. Has it really been that long?

  Presley.

  Cherry,

  The Burden.

  That’s gonna be the next song I write.

  I keep waiting for someone to replace you, but they’re all hollow and empty. It drives me insane. They look decent on the outside, but inside they’re dead.

  Tell me to stop, and I swear I’ll stop, but your silence gives me hope that at least one person is willing to listen to Presley the man without knowing Presley the king.

  Presley.

  P.S. I still hear your voice in my ear and the sounds you made when you came over and over again.

  Cherry,

  I’m sick today. They’ve locked me away and told me I’ve got twenty-four hours to get myself better. Julia doesn’t fucking mess around. I’d tell her to suck my dick, but I’m scared she’d bite it off.

  I’m tired.

  Alcohol is like toothpaste or deodorant now, just something I need to use daily. Some days I skip the deodorant and just sweat whiskey.

  Worthless.

  Worthless and adored.

  Irony.

  The minute I’m nothing, I become the public’s everything. Feels like an execution. A slow one where the crowds snarl and smirk as they watch me kill myself through drum sweat and brandy tears.

  Shit, this could be a song. Misery makes for good poetry.

  I might come home soon, see your face once and feel better. Taste the medicine of you.

  Maybe I’d feel worse.

  What do you think?

  Presley.

  P.S. Rhett took a piss in my bathtub tonight…

  While I was in it.

  Hate me for me.

  Cherry,

  We’re number one worldwide.

  Number. Fucking. One.

  I want to celebrate with you.

  Presley.

  Cherry,

  Coops talked about Bryan Adams today—said his mum was a big fan.

  She’s in her late forties.

  See what I’m saying?

  You can do better than him.

  I can’t believe I’m fucking jealous of Bryan Adams.

  This shit is getting crazy.

  Why do I keep writing to you this way?

  Presley.

  Cherry,

  Do you want to know who I think the Devil is?

  It’s a genuine, normal guy.

  He’s smug. Got life figured out.

  He thinks clearly. He’s calculated… every damn step he takes is measured and without emotion because who needs that shit? Passion is fuckin’ crazy, right? It’s wild, like fire. So the guy who doesn’t have it is in control. He’s cool. He knows when to strike.

  HE’S the Devil.

  The Devil isn’t manic, wired, and full of sin, Tess.

  He’s calm, full of spreadsheets and strategies that will put him on top.

  The Devil doesn’t laugh like he’s evil. He isn’t covered in red scales or dressed in leather. He’s probably the owner of twelve ties and fourteen pairs of pleated pants. Everyone thinks he’s charitable and honest. That’s what he wants them to believe.

  Or maybe it’s a woman.

  Some boring bitch who talks like a baby at thirty years old only to fool people into believing she couldn’t possibly be evil.

  Maybe it’s a vixen. A temptress. A sarcastic motherfucker wrapped up to look like an angel.

  Perhaps the Devil is someone different to each of us.

  If that’s true, you’re mine.

  You mess with my head more than anyone ever has. All I can hear is your laugh, baby. Your laugh. It’s everywhere.

  How? How the fuck are you capable of being my saviour and punisher all at once.

  Poison Cherry.

  Presley.

  Cherry,

  Fuck U2.

  Fuck Bono.

  Fuck people in the music industry telling me who I should and shouldn’t respect.

  Just because someone sits in an ivory tower, it doesn’t mean I have to love them. I wanna love the girl standing at the bottom of that tower. The one getting her hands dirty, trying to keep it clean.

  All Bono has ever done is piss me off.

  I think it’s his glasses.

  Presley.

  Cherry,

  I need a friend.

  A real one.

  I need you.

  Presley.

  I read through them all, one by one. Some sharper than others. Some hating me for holding his thoughts hostage while others spoke of how much he enjoyed fucking me.

  “This is wild,” Molly said as she turned over letter after letter in her hands.

  Coming to the last one, the envelope read:

  You left me in Barcelona yesterday, Cherry.

  I swore the first time I said anything to you after you walked away from me, it would be in person, face to face. You’d hear my voice, not see my words because anyone can spin words to make them sound good if they practice enough. Anyone can write on paper that they’re genuine, and everything they put down is the truth.

  Not me.

  You need to hear my voice.

  You need to hear the emotion.

  You walked out on me without letting me speak, and when you did, you hurt me more than anyone ever has.

  So, fuck you for believing them above me.

  Fuck you for walking away.

  Fuck you for making me ache.

  Fuck you for all the times you told me you’d stay, only to run the first chance you got.

  That’s as angry as I’m going to ever be, and I’ll be honest, I needed to spit those words out somehow and tell you I’m angry because you don’t get to hurt me that way without there being some kind of penance to pay.

  Just like I don’t get to hurt you, too.

  The things I said to Janey Dominic that night, I can never take back. Those words passed my lips and you were never meant to hear them. I had the mask on. The one I hate so fucking much. I wanted her to think I was in control. Hell, I wanted to think I was in control, too.

  You were tying me up.

  How can one night do that?

  But I need you to believe me when I tell you that I was never in control. Not with you. You cast a spell on me, and I’ve been under it ever since.

  I need you, at some point, to believe I’d never betray you the way you think I have. I’d never intentionally hurt you, and I’d never use you for anything.

  I loved you.

  Still fucking do.

  You educate me and make me hungry for more… every day. Waking up with you made me enjoy things I’d never enjoyed before.

  Don’t let the worlds we live in dictate what worlds are allowed to collide.

  What’s wrong with smashing them together and creating something new? Something bigger and brighter than before? Rich and poor, common and posh, regal and trashy… they can run side by side.

  You’re so fucking regal, and I’m happy to be the trash.

  The only thing I’ve ever needed from you is your permission to finally let me love you.

  I refuse to live in a world where other people get to tell me what makes me happy, and if that means I have to walk away from the music to come back to you… I’d do it.

  I’d do it.

  But you need time, and I have to understand that.

  I have to give you time, even if it kills
me.

  I already know who I want to be.

  It’s time for you to figure that out, too.

  I’ve been honest with you about how I feel from the start. When you think you can be honest with me, let me know. If that’s never, then know one thing:

  Loving you has been the easiest thing in my life.

  I’ll never be the same without it.

  Nothing will ever feel real without you now.

  Presley.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “Are you going to contact him?” Molly asked.

  I shook my head, staring down at his pile of honesties in my hands.

  “What?” she’d shrieked. “Tessa Lisbon, this has got to stop. You’re sabotaging your own happiness for what? Because you’re scared? Because you can’t—”

  “He’s right, Molly,” I interrupted, holding up his last letter. “He’s right. This isn’t about him. This isn’t about us. It’s about whether I can handle loving someone famous, and I need to let him know when I’ve figured that out. I love him. Who wouldn’t? But this isn’t normal life. It would mean me leaving Hollings Hill, Bourbon, Fliss, BB’s… you…”

  “If I fucked you like he did, fair enough, stay, but don’t use me or Bourbon as an excuse.”

  “I need a few days.”

  “And what about what Presley needs?”

  I lowered the letter into my lap, raking over his words as I whispered, “Maybe he’s had it wrong all along. He isn’t the selfish one. He never has been. It’s me who’s selfish.”

  “Oh, baby girl,” she sighed, her shoulders relaxing in sympathy.

  It pained me to know I wasn’t as good with words as Presley was. If I could have texted him back with something that mattered, I would have, but the only things I could think to say were: Got your parcel. Thanks. And that wasn’t the woman Presley had fallen in love with.

  He deserved more. He deserved the fearless version he met at the beginning of a story—the woman who didn’t worry and stumbled over her own feet as much as her words, only to laugh it off and somehow make it seem charming to him. He deserved someone whole, without any doubts or fears. Someone who wouldn’t wake up one morning utterly in love only to hear one bad piece of news and then run from him without explanation.

  I had to learn how to be her again.

  For both of us.

  Early one midweek morning—after the media had all but cleared away, making it easy for me to slip out of the fire exit of my apartment—I stood outside my parents’ house, staring up at the simplicity of it, not recognising it as somewhere I once called home. I’d spent years there—years locked up in my room to escape the nauseating unit that I had to call my family.

  I loved them.

  I always would.

  But nothing is harder in this life than knowing you don’t belong among the people who brought you into this world. You don’t think like them, you don’t laugh like them, you don’t find pleasure in other people’s pain like they do. You’re different, and that’s got to be okay. You never asked to be brought into this world, but you can honour the beauty of it by walking away and doing what’s right for you.

  The curtains were still drawn in every room, meaning they were all in bed. Regardless, I made my way up the path, inhaled a big breath of bravery, and then I knocked.

  Three slow, precise, controlled knocks.

  By the time anyone came to the door, those three knocks had turned to twelve. My mother opened it; her bird’s nest hair wild, and her eyes squinted against the light of a brand new day. Mascara bled under her eyes from the night before, and it took a second for her to register who was standing in front of her, bold and new, dressed in jeans, a black tee, and a blazer, while she stood there in a dirty old dressing gown.

  “Hey, Mum,” I said smoothly.

  She blinked, as if to wake herself as she readjusted and tightened the loose belt around her waist.

  “Tess!” she cried with eyes alive, filled with fake mother’s love. Lisa Lisbon was used to working in a crowd. She knew when to stand taller, smooth her hair down, and make an impression.

  I mattered to her now. In her eyes, I was the gatekeeper to a new life.

  “My beautiful daughter,” she cooed, gesturing for me to step inside. “Come in, come in.” She peered out of the door and down the street. “Is Presley with you? Is he here?”

  “Mum…”

  “Tess, please tell me you didn’t bring him here without letting me put my face on first.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Oh.” She couldn’t hide her disappointment. Irritated, she wafted a rougher hand this time to practically demand I get my arse inside.

  “I’m not coming in. Not today,” I said quietly.

  Her face fell, the forced smile slipping like greasy oil from a smooth surface. “What’s wrong?” she asked, looking me up and down, taking me in.

  I looked smarter that day somehow, even though my hair was scraped back, and I wasn’t particularly wearing anything new. The blazer possibly scared her. She’d never seen me in anything so formal before.

  “I’m here to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?”

  “I’m going away for a while.”

  “With him?”

  “No, Mum.”

  “Why not?” She frowned.

  “Because I need to do something on my own first.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “From Hollings Hill? I don’t quite know yet. From you guys and this family …” I blew out a breath. “A while.”

  Her eyes narrowed, her body language shifting instantly. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be the distant daughter you pick up as and when it suits. I can’t be in the background all my life.”

  “In the background?”

  “I need to learn how to be okay with being in the spotlight—without feeling guilty about it.”

  “What on earth are you talking—”

  “Don’t do that,” I warned her. “Don’t pretend I’ve ever mattered. The only time I’ve really mattered to you in the last ten years has been because you knew I was with Presley.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, her lie betraying her voice.

  I smiled at her softly. This was the right thing to do, even if just for a few months, years, however long. I needed distance, and to enjoy that distance without guilt. To offload some thoughts and tell them the truth. I needed to realise it was okay to be at the forefront of the show, not just an extra locked up in her room, standing invisible behind a bar, or being the child nobody even knew was there.

  It was okay to be centre stage.

  To be adored by someone like Presley.

  To be adored by myself.

  “It’s true, Mum. We both know it, and it’s okay. Part of me understands, too. I know I’ve always let you push me aside, never demanded anything, and then slipped away to create my own life while Freddie just takes and takes and takes and takes off you. I can see why you don’t feel close to me. I’m as much to blame as you are.”

  She scoffed and raised her chin. “So, what? You think you’re better than us now? The lower class not good enough for Princess Tessa anymore?”

  “Not at all,’ I answered softly. “I don’t think I’m better, but I am different. And maybe I want more than this life you live. Is that such a bad thing? Shouldn’t a mother want her daughter to do more and be more than she ever was?”

  “I—”

  “You don’t, Mum. You never have. You’re riding on the memories of your youth, and in a way, you take it out on me. You want to go back to the beginning so you can get out of this life, too, and I’m not going to sit around and be what you want me to be just to make your ego feel better.”

  She was raging now, the colour rising to her cheeks in fury. “How dare you?” She took a step forward, her hand twisting around the door handle to hold herself upright. “Who in the hell do you think yo
u are?”

  “I’m the girl who has loved her family all her life, and who got betrayed by them the minute a reporter came sniffing along.”

  “I didn’t know they were there. I didn’t know anyone was taking pictures when we were out in the street.”

  I tilted my head to one side and studied her. “I think we both know you invited them here.”

  The fact that I knew the truth made her pale instantly.

  “You mattered more than I did when you made that decision, and now it’s up to me to walk away from anything poisonous in my life—anything that isn’t truly on my side. I won’t let you, Dad, or Freddie hurt me again, and if you try, I need you to know I won’t care. I’ll be out there, living my life, with or without Presley, doing my thing and becoming who I need to become. And if you can’t be happy for me, then I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”

  She blinked once, her mouth hanging open.

  “I still love all of you. I just don’t like you anymore.”

  Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the spare key to their home, and I dropped it on the step between us. Standing tall again, I exhaled heavily and turned to walk away.

  Halfway down the path, I stopped to glance over my shoulder, making eye contact with this stranger I loved for the very last time.

  “Oh, and, Mum?” Her nostrils flared, and she pressed her lips together. “Tell Freddie he’s a dick from me, too.”

  Then I left, walking out of the gate and down the street with a new sense of calm in my stride as my cherry Doc Martens helped me glide to a new existence.

  “How did it go?” Bourbon asked from behind the bar. It was still early in the day, and we’d arranged to meet at BB’s at the crack of dawn to check in on one another.

  “I stood my ground, which is more than I thought I would do when I came face to face with her.”