by L A Tavares
I turn toward her, my eyes on hers, and completely invested myself in where she is going at this point.
“I didn’t know he had a second agenda, Blake. That’s the truth. I didn’t know he was going to cut deals with you the way he did. You see, he never actually wanted you to leave the band—”
“He wanted Stasia to leave the band,” I say with a nod. Her eyes widen in shock that I already knew the ending to her saga. “Yeah, I was at the penthouse for your little heart-to-heart with Victor. He got what he wanted. Stasia signed. I’m trying to piece my own damn life back together now, so why the hell are you here?”
“I think there is a way to get Stasia out of her contract with MLA and back with Consistently Inconsistent.” Her voice is adamant, steadfast—like she means it this time.
My muscles tense at the sound of Stasia’s name coming off her tongue. I don’t want her meddling with any of my friends’ lives—Stasia’s, Xander’s, Kelly’s. The farther away from them she stays, the better. My shoulders rise and fall with each inhale and exhale. My voice grows loud enough that Terry doesn’t have to strain to eavesdrop anymore.
“Why do you care what happens to Stasia? Is this your good deed that’s going to make me change my mind about you? Your grasp at redemption? Your last-ditch effort at having a relationship with your child?”
She looks at me intently—almost through me—before she speaks again.
“It’s my last effort to have a relationship with both of my children.”
It doesn’t make sense at first, but all at once her words send me back in time to where I’m sitting on the top of the stairs listening to an argument I didn’t understand at the time, but it makes all the sense in the world now.
At the time I was so young—maybe five or six—and the memories are hazy, but there is something about hearing your mother’s voice after a year without it that you don’t forget. I had adjusted to life with my father when it had been just the two of us. I thought I’d never see her again. When I heard the sound of her voice, I thought things were changing. To me, her return could only be good. We could be a family. There was no reason for me to search for the bad side of having my mother back. I was naïve. I got to the top of the stairs, prepared to fly down them and into her arms, but her voice turned from the one I remembered to a harrowed shout. My father yelled in return. He’d never raised his voice. He wasn’t that kind of man.
“You can’t possibly think things can just go back to the way they were now, Sharon?” he had screamed. I still believe that he yelled so he wouldn’t cry. He loved her. He loved me. “You’ve destroyed this family. I gave you everything!”
“I know, I know that. And I know I’ve already asked for too much—” she cried, but he cut her off.
“No. Nothing more. I did my part. I took you in when you had nowhere else to go. I gave you plenty of chances to turn your life around and you went back to him. Again. So go be with him then. Obviously, that’s what you want.” His voice was quiet, serious. She fell silent, torn between two men who couldn’t be any more opposite of each other, but my mother? Well, she can’t admit defeat. She can’t lose a fight.
“If you kick me out, my son is coming with me.” My mother’s voice had echoed from their room up the stairs where I sat and listened to my life fall apart. We’d spent an entire year just us and years as a family before that and he let me go without saying a word.
I’ve wondered for twenty-five years why he didn’t fight for me and why he didn’t want to keep me with him instead of sending me away with her.
I was never his to fight for.
The realization sends me out of my head and tumbling back into the bar, but I still don’t know what to make of it or what to say. I stand and exit the bar leaving my mother behind me.
“Blake.” She grabs my arm but I shake free of her grasp and stomp to the door, throwing it open with my body. I scream into the open outside air. My frustration echoes through the street and draws attention from bystanders outside the neighboring establishments. The bar door opens and she joins me on the sidewalk. I have so many questions and she is the only one who knows the answers. I want to leave her behind—for real, this time. I want to walk away and never look back, but I can’t. I’m still tied to her in the worst way, held captive by the loose-end-ridden saga that is my life.
“He doesn’t know, does he?” My voice quiets. “Victor doesn’t know he’s my father?”
“No, he doesn’t,” she says. “I was already pregnant when I met Campbell. He was so kind, so sweet. He knew I was pregnant but he didn’t care. He loved us both—me and you—from the start. I tried to give you a better life. I tried to keep you away from this area and Victor because I knew this wasn’t a life for you. At the time I was making good choices, the best choices I could for you. Fast forward, a few years later, I was messing up again. I was chasing an adrenaline rush I couldn’t find anywhere else. I came back to Victor. I left you behind because, at the time, I cared more about catering to Victor and being the girl on his arm than I cared about you.” Her voice doesn’t waver, and she doesn’t try to sugarcoat it.
“Victor knew I had a son but not for so many years that he ever did the math—or didn’t care to. I tried to have both worlds. I tried to go back for you and be here for Stasia and in trying to have both I ended up with neither, digging a hole I couldn’t get out of. It was only recently that I started reconnecting with Victor, but he’s made it clear that Stasia isn’t to know who I am. That’s fine. He has his secrets, and I have mine.”
“I don’t want him to know.” I swallow hard. “I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“I know. I want you to take my advice.” Her voice is low, serious. Her teeth clench as she gives her warning. “Stay as far away from him as you can, Blake.”
“So”—I run my hand through my hair—“how do we get Stasia away from him?”
“You stay out of that, Blake. I’ll take care of it. It’s about time I do something right for you and your sister.”
My sister.
The words sound odd being spoken out loud. Stasia and I get along so well that I’ve kind of thought of her like a sister all along, but the reality of it is that I have something I’ve always wanted—someone in my life related to me by blood.
“Promise me, Blake,” My mother says. “Let me get some things sorted out and don’t do anything involving Victor or Stasia until I say so.”
“I promise.” I’m hopeful that this is the time she chooses to stay true to her word.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Xander and I sit on his balcony, screwing around with old acoustic guitars in between sips of an even older whiskey. They’re throwback times like nothing has changed, only everything has changed.
“Where’d she go?” Xander asks with his pick between his teeth while turning the pegs on the guitar to tune it.
“Her parents’, I think.” I pluck a few notes and shrug. “I don’t know. Trying not to think about it.”
“Doesn’t sound like you did too much thinking about it in the first place.” His words are snappy, mixed with sarcasm and wit.
“Space was a good move, Xander. I have a lot to figure out. Honestly, she deserves so much better than what I have to offer right now. I just want her to be happy.”
“She would be happy if you would talk to her. Let her help you. That’s what she wants.”
“I am trying to do right by her. A break from me is a good move.”
“For her…” Xander nods as he draws out the words. “I’m going to say this one time, Blake, then we can move on. Kelly isn’t the kind of girl you make decisions for. If she wanted space from you, she would have taken it her damn self. She was at your house when you got home because she realized she wanted to be with you and to be there for you. If you need space for you, then take it. But don’t you dare use Kelly as an excuse. She would have stayed if you’d asked her.”
Xander Varro, ladies and gentlemen. Always with the
logical approach.
“Have you thought about what you’re going to say to Cooper yet?” He plucks a few chords on the old six-string then stretches his hand and fingers. He says he’s totally healed and that his injuries don’t bother him anymore, but I notice the number of times per day he pauses to crack his fingers or roll out his wrist.
“Not particularly.” I down the last of my drink. “You’d all probably be better off if I stand my ground and don’t crawl back to Cooper.”
Xander closes his eyes and drops his head back to the chair. He fake-snores a dramatic sound that echoes through the open air. I laugh and kick his chair.
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, “I must have dozed off. I’m just so tired of you feeling sorry for yourself all the time.” He morphs his voice from a fake yawn to an annoyed yell.
“Blake, you came from nothing—actual, literal, nothing. You didn’t even have a room in the house you lived in. Your mother’s psycho boyfriend used you as a human punching bag. You spent most of your life underfed and underloved, and damn it, Blake, look at this.” He throws his arms in the air and looks around. “Look at where we are and where we live. Look at what we became! You didn’t do any of this with your mother or Victor or anyone. You did this. This band came from your mind. I wouldn’t have any of this if it weren’t for you.”
He leans forward and puts both his hands on my shoulders, giving me a gentle shake as he repeats the words over and over. “You did this. You did this. You did this. You did this, Blake. For all of us. The sooner you start recognizing how strong and capable you are, the better.”
He stares at me with his face only inches from mine, and in those silent moments we have an entire conversation with only our eyes, but the message is loud and clear. He sits back in his chair and tosses his long hair off his face and forehead.
“Blake, here’s the deal. If you’re done, I’m done. That’s it. If you walk away from this band, Consistently Inconsistent is over—a thing of the past.” He takes a sip of his drink and places it back on the table.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Xander.” I slam my glass too hard on to the table.
“It makes every bit of sense, Blake. We started this thing together and we’re going to finish it together, whenever that day may be.” He looks at me and his dark eyes soften in a way that makes him look like the young, middle-school version of him who I met all those years ago.
“The truth is, Blake, that I can’t do this without you. More than that, I don’t want to.”
* * * *
Then
The sky is a pitch dark, that odd blue-black where, when coming out of a deep sleep, you can’t quite tell if it’s late night or early morning. My phone vibrates against the bedside table. I ignore it and pull the covers over my head. It rings again in a persistent buzz like an angry bee that doesn’t care how many times you swat it away.
So I give in.
“What?” I snap into the phone without bothering to look at the name or number or time.
“Blake, it’s Cooper.” His voice is quiet like he’s choking on the tears that come with whatever he’s about to say. I sit up in my bed and my breathing picks up its pace as my heart slams against my chest. “It’s Xander,” he says. The tears he was fighting back break through over the line.
He didn’t have to say the words. Somehow, I already knew.
I don’t remember forcing myself out of bed, getting dressed or making any of the decisions I made to get myself from my house to the hospital, but there I stand at the emergency room doors, telling myself this is nothing but a nightmare and willing myself to wake up, but I don’t.
Everything moves in slow motion as I make my way down the tile hallways of the hospital. My feet won’t move any faster, no matter how hard I will them to. The people around me are blacked out of my peripheral vision. I pay attention to nothing except my destination. Nothing or nobody around me matters.
As I turn the corner a tear-stained Jana runs at me, into me, in a tackle of a hug. She collapses against my chest and sobs into it. I run my hand down the back of her head, my fingers dragging through her blanket of red-brown hair. Cooper walks up behind us with his head down and his hands in his pockets. Jana steps away, wiping under her eyes.
“How bad is it, Coop?” I swallow hard and try to maintain something resembling composure. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He totaled his motorcycle. He had his helmet on, thankfully, but his body is…ruined. I don’t know. There was so much information so fast I’m not really sure what we’re looking at. They said one of his hands is pretty much crushed, so I’m not sure what that means for his music—”
“I don’t give a shit about the music, Cooper. I just need to know that he’s going to be okay.”
“Honestly, Blake, I can’t answer that. I don’t know. No one knows. They’re taking him in for surgery now. We will know how bad this is if he makes it through that. It’s touch and go.” Cooper grabs my shoulder, which I’m thankful for. The force of all this information is enough to knock me to the floor.
Hours later—the longest, most excruciating minutes of our lives—the doctors tell us that surgery was successful, but the following twenty-four hours would be crucial to what happens next. For a while it was just Jana, Cooper and me, but eventually Theo and Dom join us. To try to break up the answerless hours, I wander around the hospital until I find coffee to bring back to the group. When I return, I realize I’m one cup short. To my surprise, Natalie sits by herself across the room on a couch-type seat near the windows. I hand out the steaming cups to each person then walk the length of the waiting room, handing her the one I had poured for myself.
Black makeup stains the area under her reddened eyes. She nods and reaches forward for my hand. Her grip on my palm tightens and her hand shakes with each sob. She is falling apart at the seams. I take the cup from her and place it on the table. Coffee isn’t the type of comfort she’s looking for. I take the open seat next to her and pull her in close to my chest and stay there with her until the black sky awakens into a pink-and-purple painting.
“I need to see him.” I push my hair back off my forehead and head toward the room he’s in.
“They asked us to wait,” Cooper says. “You can’t go in there yet.”
“Watch me.” I place my hand on the door handle and tiptoe into the room. The door clicks as I close it behind me. At the sight of him bandaged, bruised and hardly recognizable, I clap my hand over my mouth and take a few deep, steadying breaths. I can’t lose it—not here, not now. In this moment I have to be strong enough for us both, no matter how much that is to ask of myself.
Moving the chair from the corner of the room to his bedside, I sit at the head of the bed and lean toward him, but I don’t dare make any physical contact. The machines around him beep and tubes and wires flow from multiple places on his body.
“Man, Alexander.” I talk only to myself but I hope—I know—he can hear me. “I need you to fight like hell because…we started this together, you know? These lives we’re living, we did this—and we’re not done yet.” I lean in close to him and keep my head inches from his ear. “You hear me, Varro? We are not done yet. I need you, brother. I can’t do any of this without you. I won’t do it without you.”
* * * *
Now
The bells on the handle ring as I push the door to Chance’s open. Stasia faces away from me and Jana sits across from her. Jana smiles a wide-mouthed, teeth-showing grin and laughs at something Stasia said. I missed the joke, since the only part of Stasia I can see is her recently shaved undercut at the back of her head.
“Good morning, Blake.” Jana waves to me. “Want me to get you a coffee?”
“No, you sit and relax. I’ll get it myself,” I say, then pick up my pace and head toward the entrance behind the counter. “It’s black coffee. I mean, how hard can it be?”
“Don’t you dare, Mathews!” She scoots the chair back and runs toward me, putting herself betwee
n me and the opening in the counter. She laughs as I try to fight my way through, and when we look over, Stasia is laughing too. “Go sit down,” Jana adds. “I don’t need you messing with my stuff.”
I do as I’m told and sit across from Stasia, unsure of what to say to her or how much information I should share.
“Seems like you’re feeling a little bit more yourself today.” Stasia looks at me with eyes that are a mix of pissed and sympathetic. She seemingly wants to be mad at me for all my downfalls but she can’t.
“Xander got through to me, I think. His methods are…relentless but successful.”
She nods her head and looks out of the window at Chance’s. Jana sets my coffee down and I discretely hold up one finger. She nods, giving me some space with Stasia for a few moments.
“I wanted to talk to you about a few things.” I take a sip of my coffee.
“I can’t go back, Blake. I know that it sucks for you guys, and it sucks for the tracks we’ve already recorded. It sucks we did that Miami show and now it’s all over. But I don’t regret what I did. Consistently Inconsistent will be fine without me, but it won’t be the same without you.”
“You don’t have to be on that label, Stasia. There’s still a hand we haven’t shown yet. I don’t want you working anywhere near that monster if we can help it.”
Her eyes narrow as they find mine, her argument at the ready to fire from her tongue.
“He’s still my father—”
“He’s my father too,” I snap, cutting off her words and seemingly her thoughts. Her expression falls blank. I’d rehearsed this differently. “He doesn’t know it,” I add, while trying to read her expression. “Say something.” I’m unsure of what to do or say next. She’s silent for a long time as she processes. Neither of us know what the proper response is here.