by Emjay Soren
Chad
3 weeks later
Two weeks. It had been two weeks since I lost Carrie, two weeks since I lost my mind on Noah too. It was also the end of my last hour at the studio. I debated quitting or staying after the fight, but ultimately, I was almost twenty-five and needed more in the event we didn’t go big. I had spent my time buried in new material for the band and new art as I looked for a shop that would be mine.
After news of our mini tour with the Sinners though, word on the street was that a lot of labels were looking our way. So, I was on my way to meet with Noah at the request of Shamus and Cal. We needed to be able to show a united front if we had a shot in hell.
I agreed we needed to get beyond it, we were both irreplaceable in terms of the band. If I’m honest though, I missed my closest friend.
I pulled into A Bar Named Sue and looked around, seeing Cal’s jeep but no Shame or Noah yet. I make my way inside and find Cal. I order a beer from the waitress as we wait.
I drink my beer and think while Cal hits on the cocktail waitress. The whole thing depresses me though. I don’t want that life anymore, but the life I want won’t even answer my fucking calls. I lay in bed every night thinking about the million ways I could have done shit differently. Gramps knew something was up, the guys knew I was fucked up, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. I didn’t want to face that I had lost her.
“Hey!” Cal says and I look up from my beer mug to see everyone is here.
“Sorry.” I say and scoot in the booth and wait for the guys to get their order. Once we all have beers Cal morphs into the Boss of us all, as usual when it come to the band.
“What are the chances of me saying we all call bygones, bygones and shake on it so we can move on?”
I stare at him without an answer. So does Noah.
“A stalemate then?” Shane questions us both.
I roll the bottom of my beer on the table but say nothing.
Noah says nothing.
“Then it is what it is. I love this band and we can make it so if I gotta be the one to start so be it.” Cal pushes his beer back and steeples his fingers before going at us both.
“Chad, what happened was awful. It put Carrie in a headspace none of us can understand, let alone try to. That all coming on the end of Trisha’s bullshit is what caused the break-up. Not Noah.”
That has me looking up at him. “I know.” I admit, shocking Cal…maybe all of them as they look at me now.
“I know what I did. I know how I handled it. I know who I blamed, but it was all on me. I put myself in the position. I am pissed that I fought like I did. That all my shit including my name was drug through the fucking mud. I'm pissed that all the good was forgotten by one thing, one mistake.”
“Look,” Noah says, and I look at him. “I gave the wrong advice. I didn’t know she was going to have a run in with Cody while we were gone. The night of trust me changed shit and I should have said something, but I honestly had enough on my plate. So, I am a little to blame.”
Figuring that was good enough, I nod, and we fist bump and I assumed we would leave it at that.
“What I didn’t account for was Carrie’s trust issues. What I mean by that is I don’t think she knows how to see the forest for its tree’s. Face value is all she sees. No layers, no adventure. She is stuck in this little world that she feels safe in. Outside of it, the shit that’s a surprise and what we all grow from, buries her deeper. I thought she was growing and coming out of it, I didn’t know how long term everything from that night would affect her.”
I look at him, confused and concerned. “Meaning?”
“She’s just digging her heels in. With everything. Nose buried in her books and schools not for another two weeks. She just wanders around in her pajamas and cries a lot. Not just over you.” He says and looks to me. “All of it. I think Carrie will finally see the fucking forest after she heals a bit.”
I nod completely understanding the amount of shit she had to process, I just wish I could be there for her.
“Look, this entire thing is a nightmare I can’t fathom.” Cal says and then drinks from his beer. “I think that we can all do our part here to keep our heads level. Noah, you know we are here for you both, thick and thin.”
He nods but says nothing.
“Can we bury the hatchet and get back to being East of awesome?”
We all kind of laugh at his saying that means we are bigger than awesome, and we agree. I guess for now, we are where we need to be.
One week after that meeting…
We took the stage at A Bar named Sue that following week. I played two new songs, both about Carrie but the crowd was none the wiser. But they did bring the house down and the place was already packed. Once we were off stage, I saw Cal talking with Tayla Livingston, the PR rep we met when we toured with the Sinners. With TAT so heavy in the news lately, with Cody Beckett, the rave reviews from the eight-day tour had Heshan Aggression records desperate for us to be the new ‘It Thing’ as Tayla called it.
Once Cal’s dad looked it over and we gave our terms under his advice, it was done. We record next week, and we leave on a Midwest tour headlining for Sinners of the Slipstream in just shy of three months.
I knew the only person I wanted to tell, and she ignored my call and sent me to the unchecked and ignored world of voicemail. “Hey, you probably already know but we were signed tonight. We did its Carrie girl… I miss you and love you and even if you don’t answer I had to tell you first…”
I end the call and make a toast with the guys and Cal’s dad with a fifty-seven-year-old bottle of Scotch that tasted like shit. This was the biggest moment of my life and I sat here ready to fall apart as everyone cheered.
“Your excitement is killing the party.” Noah says from behind me. I lean back and laugh even though I didn’t feel it.
“Sorry man. I have a lot on my mind.” I stroke the etched glass in the glass in my hand absentmindedly as he stares at me.
“Thinking on leaving Harvey or Carrie?” He asks knowingly.
“Both I guess. Gramps will be good though; he has always wanted this for me. Carrie… she sent me to voicemail per usual.” I lean forward and drink the rest of the Scotch before setting my glass down.
Noah said nothing, just nodded. For us to be civil, we didn’t get deep. It seemed to work and honestly, I needed to get through this on my own before I ruined everyone’s future.
“I'm gonna head out.” I say to the guys and try to reach the level of enthusiasm they need me to have but fail miserably.
“We start early tomorrow so we are ready for the studio Monday.” Cal says and I smile nodding.
“I know dude, chill the fuck out.”
“He could do it blind and deaf.” Shamus says and high fives me.
“See you in the morning guys.” I say and make my way out to my truck. I don’t go home though.
I drive around town aimlessly and think about leaving this place. I think about all it brought us. We were always the golden boys of Gig Harbor and now we are leaving to be small fish in a fucking huge ass pond.
I have to leave her behind; I know that but it’s the worst kind of torture. I have loved before. Gramps, the guys, music, art… but she consumed me. The thought of never again steals my breath and takes me to my knees. I want to rage; I want to talk to her and demand she listen and wake the fuck up. I want to cry at her feet and beg for one more chance. I want to know how she can live without me, because I can’t stomach life without her.
I wanted things with Carrie I never knew I wanted. Kids, house, marriage, dogs, grandkids… I wanted to be the guy holding her in her nineties surrounded by the huge family we built as she said her last goodbye.
Forever.
She is my forever and what a shitty existence it will be.
I can’t accept it though. Not yet. I pull over to catch my breath unaware that I drove to her house. Like a fucking stalker I came here without thought or reason.
Not wanting to be caught I flip a bitch and head back home feeling like I lost everything, including my mind.
Chapter Twenty-five
Carrie
After sending all his calls to voicemail and deleting every text he sent without reading them he must have decided he would battle me face to face. It had been a month since we split. I spent most of that time crying or working. A lot of teary calls to Candy who in turn cried to me. We were both heartbroken and lonely and anxious to get back to school.
The knock on the door didn’t faze me because it was one of three people, Cassa, Candy or Shame who were dropping by like crazy since my assault.
I opened the door to see Chad, green eyes rimmed red with dark circles underneath. He looked like I felt and just the sight of him almost broke me. “Hi.” I said nervously tucking my hair behind my ears and wishing I was wearing something nicer… like a burlap sack perhaps? I was in my tattered yoga pants that were a very faded black as well as an old slave to the needle shirt from when Noah first started. Chad looked divine in worn distressed jeans and a long-sleeved hoodie (hood over his head because he needed to be sexier?) sporting the Slave to the needle emblem of a machine sweating out ink.
“I tried to get you on the phone, over text.” He didn’t say anything else though and stepped inside nervously and nodded to Noah who was watching a marathon of Ink Master on Spike. Once he saw Chad though he cursed, paused the show, and bailed from the room heading for his room.
“Well one would think that meant you were wasting your time.” I knew I sounded snide and flippant but he deserved my anger, even if he didn’t cheat on me in the most basic sense, I was pissed he covered it, slept with me bare and I didn’t think he ever had the intention of telling me.
“Fuck!” He bellowed and I flinched at the sound he made, then hunched from the shooting pain through my ribs. His voice softened marginally when he saw the flinch actually hurt me, but even calming down his voice was still angry. “Carrie just be civil for a fucking second. Please.”
“I can be civil. Can you?” I leveled my stare on him and he knew I was referring to his outburst just seconds before.
“I am dying inside Carrie.”
Oh God! His voice was broken and his face… oh God his face was full of so much pain. I wanted to beg him to stop! Leave! Don’t do this to us! We are so broken already. This is just shuffling the pieces so we can never find them again.
“I’m so fucking lost without you I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, or tattoo. All I do is sit in the house with Gramps downstairs making out with old ladies while I write song after song about you wishing like fuck I could go back in time.”
“We would still be here Chad. One day you will leave for a lot of more than eight days. I am heading back to school in two weeks. This thing between us was really bad timing and too many secrets between us.” I wasn’t making excuses this time; I was being realistic, and we never would have worked.
“Baby we don’t have secrets anymore. I told you everything. I haven’t seen or talked to a fangirl and I have dropped all my tatterfly clients. I won’t jeopardize anything that could be between us Carrie. I told you once and I meant every word baby. Your it, my all my everything.”
My anger was peaking. It was like a sick joke the way he could pull me in and twist me up inside. “You.Fucked.Another.Woman! I don’t care if you got off or not. Somewhere down the line between dumping her and dating me, you forgot to draw a line in the sand with Trisha and it got you busted. I don’t think there is another woman on this earth that would take a man back after knowing he fucked someone else and then fucked you. Bareback no less!”
“You think I wanted this?” He sounds defensive but angry too. He doesn’t deserve to be mad. “You think I don’t know all the ways I should have stopped her from coming around? I fucking know it Carrie, but no matter what happened that night, the minute I was awake and of sound fucking mind, she was toast.”
“Take away the fact that you didn’t sleep with her, do that and answer me this one burning question.” I am seething and trying not to cry though it is taking everything in me.
“Anything.” He answers me without a second’s hesitation.
“You never told me about cheating on Trisha, or that she was in love with you, or that she sang with you guys in fucking ballads no less. You never told me you almost knocked up a fangirl. Nothing! I feel like a fool Chad. All those times Noah tried warning me off but never saying a word because he was loyal to us both. Everyone knew your secrets and kept them from me. I came clean to you about mine. I may have left out the details for your benefit, but you knew my darkest place, you saw it clear as day in Seattle. You took me to bed promising forever, condom free damn well aware you were inside another woman just nights before. So, answer me, were you bareback in her too?”
That last part believes it or not had just occurred to me as I was ranting, now it was like the weight of the world waiting on the answer. That answer came in the form of him shaking his head yes. I wasn’t holding back anymore. My tears exploded from my eyes at his silent confession, my stomach rolling unaware of what she might have given him and in turn given me. I knew I was clean; I was going to be tested for the next six months just to ensure while I was passed out my dad didn’t do something he failed to admit. Knowing he took me condom free after he had been inside her, made me sick.
“Carrie”-
No!” I am shaking my head, bawling, and crumbling before him. “Do you know what it’s like for me every time I think of that night? I see her on top of you, as all the times I had done the same thing. I feel your hand at the small of my back, you telling me to come for you. I see you above me calling me baby just seconds before your lips descend to mine and we climax together. I think of how you pepper kisses along my jaw and lick my neck and when I think these things, I see you doing them to her, and it kills me!” I scream the last part through my tears, my eyes squeezing shut because I can’t handle the look on his face.
I have never once seen Chad drop a tear. I have wondered from time to time if he had been overwhelmed by emotion, but his face had been hidden from me and I never knew for certain. With my words before, the effect was clear in his shining green eyes and wet cheeks. He was fighting looking at me, looking anywhere to keep me from seeing his tears, as if this was the weakness, he needed to hide from me.
“You don’t get the right to look away from my sobbing Chad.” I step towards him and cup his face in my hands. His head is back, and he is looking at the ceiling blinking rapidly and his tears infuriate me. “You need to see what you have done to us. I never lied Chad, I always came to you and no matter how bad it sucked, I told you the truth. You promised I could trust you, knowing how deep that one word is to me. That trust means more in my life than any other, a small four-letter word with such an intense definition. You broke it, broke us and there is no forgiveness for this sort of thing. We were a fling Chad, no matter how much I love you or you love me, we are and will always only ever be a fling.”
When I admitted to loving him, acknowledged his loving me, he finally looked at me and I felt a knife-like pain slice my chest. I no longer felt pain in an emotional sense with Chad, it was all physical how deep I hurt.
“You can’t leave me baby, not like this.” His tears were falling, devastating me all while he shook his head no in defense.
But the words were simple enough to say regardless how deep it hurt. “I’m not leaving Chad. You lost me and there is a distinct difference.”
Chad
I made it home, but barely. Everything inside of me was broken and beat. Any question I had where a future with Carrie was concerned was abolished. I got in the house and went to the kitchen to pour the biggest glass of liquor I could find. I had to get through this. I officially had the world breathing down my neck for perfection and here I was shattered.
I gulped the vodka and poured another glass doing the same. I needed to be numb right now. I never understood the desire to feel no
thing until this second. I also never had an ounce of respect for my dad. He killed himself after my mom died and I may not agree with it or ever do the same, but I get it. If he felt half of what I feel now it was something I could understand.
I'm stronger than Louis Blake ever could be and that’s the only difference between my dad and me. I would find the way to rebuild my life. I might even be happy one day with another woman. Carrie would always be around, this music deal made sure of it. Maybe that’s my penance? To live the rest of my days knowing how bad I fucked up.
I didn’t go looking for ass. I wasn’t even nice to Trisha I wouldn’t risk anything with Carrie for her. But she was right in the end. I didn’t draw a line in the sand. I’m Chad Blake and with that title I didn’t need to make rules or live by someone’s code. I would fuck who I wanted and walk away without regret. I told myself that the women knew what and who I was. That they came willingly knowing I would only ever fuck them. Them knowing that made me feel superior to how I treated women. I never hurt them or mistreated them, but I used them and let them use me. Because of that there were no boundaries in place when I started dating Carrie.
I think about the fangirls at the show, the first one Carrie saw. How they spoke and treated her. I didn’t do anything; Noah came to her rescue and I assumed the serenade would be enough. It wasn’t drawing a line, it just told them she was there for the time being.
The fangirls in her head at the first after party. Fangirls who again, caused a huge problem one that Noah tried to protect her from. Not me, but Noah. Noah who fought to keep her from me and…fuck I see why now.
“Hey boy?” Gramps says as he walks in the back door and see’s me sitting with the almost empty bottle of Smirnoff.
I raise my glass but don’t make eye contact. I am scared to. I don’t ever want to see in Gramps eyes what I saw in Carries. He sets his lunch box and keys on the counter before he comes to sit beside me.