by Emjay Soren
“Bubba, she will be okay. She has a ton of support around her.” Carrie tries to comfort him, but it’s useless. We are all in shambles when we heard the news that Corey had all but disemboweled Cassa.
We have been in Seattle for a week, burying the news about her attack from every angle. Shame learning the news of this would tank our careers. He would not recover; he would quit and spend his life making up for leaving her.
We hated lying to him, keeping secrets from him, but after the night of her wedding we knew he had to let Cassa go for his mental state alone. Now he just fucked endless groupies and drank a lot.
“We need to agree as one that we hide it as best we can and if it leaks, we deal with the fallout. We need to remember that he made the choice to leave and not explain why. This is no more his fault than it is Cassa’s. I sat with her today and she loathes herself. She is humiliated, distraught and her mental state and needs are at the front of this. Period. He may not get it and he may get it but either way, we do this for Cassa repercussions be damned.” I say, sick of arguing about it. None of us wanted to betray him, but this we had to keep quiet. “When he finds out about it all, because one day he will he needs to know this discussion happened. He needs to know we took care of her to our best ability because in the end that’s what he would want us to do.”
We had this fight daily, in and out on the right thing to do. The right thing being whatever Cassa needed. She can’t deal with the fact Corey mutilated her, damn near eviscerated her. He took any chance she would ever have of children from her. And in it all she worried that Shame would never forgive her.
In between those fights Noah spent time playing trust me with her to bring her back to us. She was a mental case as she should be. Knowing one day we would have to answer to Shame, we wanted to do all we could. Cal couldn’t take it, he threw money at the situation and any legal help we needed his dad was involved, but after seeing her he fell apart and left back to California.
Carrie and Candy always shared time between Noah and I and Mike her brother sat vigil with his wife . Mike was a cool guy, we knew him and his wife Roni well, but Mike was all Cassa had after their parents and brother died. He wasn’t in a headspace to make any decisions.
So, we band together like always and saved who needed saving.
I sit out here alone now thinking about Shame finding out. I have never betrayed one of my guys, not once. Even when I fooled around with one of Cal’s girls back in the day. I always was straight with them. I give my high and mighty speech at Cassa’s wedding about charades and now…fuck we are all in, every single one of us.
My phone lights up and it’s after two in the morning but seeing Shame’s number I answer immediately. “What’s up?”
“You sound like shit.” He sounds sober and no cackling women in the background tells me he’s alone. That’s something.
“Tired. What’s up?” I lean back noticing the empty parking lot by the smoking bench and don’t even know how long I’ve been here.
“I was just checking in. Been laying some beats today and checked out. Saw Cal was back but he’s in a mood.”
Fuck!
“Yeah? I don’t know, haven’t talked to him.”
“Any drama with the ex?” My stomach drops and I don’t know if it’s a trap or if he just has some sick sixth sense.
“What ya mean?” I ask as calm as I can even though a thousand horses just took off in my chest.
“Carrie, stupid. Any drama?”
I breathe out the biggest breath and almost pass out. This shit had better be worth the stress. I'm twenty-five going on eighty this week alone.
“No, I think the days of drama are over. This is the new normal.” This being hand jobs, stress, and tours. There was no fun in my life these days unless I was on stage. That was still priceless.
“Welcome to the club. At least we can have fun with groupies.” The thing with his comment is that he is trying to pick up the shambles he threw his life into. He doesn’t know what is going on under his nose because he would never be flippant about fucking Randoms. He just wants me out slumming with him.
“Speak of the devil.” He says and seconds later I hear the feminine laughter in the background. “Hey, I have company, but we will go out when you guys are back.”
“Yeah man.” I say not really committing but happy to get off the phone.
“Give old Gig my best.” He says and ends the call.
I sit back and scrub my face debating if I should go or stay. I'm exhausted and not needed. Noah took tonight, I have tomorrow night. I text Noah that I am gonna crash at his place tonight. I need to be back in Gig. I don’t want to be in Seattle. I need home and Gramps sold the house and got a condo.
Me: I need out of the city and some quiet. It cool if I crash at your pad.
I hit send and grab my keys from my pocket and head to my truck.
Noah: Yeah, your safe. She is at the apartment with Candy.
Me: Cool.
I appreciate that he knew why I asked. I make my way to Gig in silence thinking of nothing and everything. Usually Carrie takes precedence over my thoughts when its silent and I have time to think, and she does now. So do many others.
I wonder if she see’s in Cassa’s eyes what I see in Shame’s. Regret. I see Cassa in that bed, beaten within an inch of her life. Changed forever at no fault of her own and I know if Shamus knew he would give up everything and never think twice about it.
I would do the same for her if I thought Carrie wanted me. Four months ago, it was me outside the hospital room I wasn’t welcome in, waiting to know she was okay. I offered walking away from it all to keep her, but she let me go.
I never thought that something so evil would take one of us down and Cassa needed us, but it puts me in the most dangerous situation because I am with Carrie all day. I see her cry and I want so badly to take her pain away and I know she won’t let me.
Too many drunk dials from her getting my hopes up telling me she still loves me, to the next day telling me she was just emotional and didn’t mean it. Texts, dirty texts where she tells me what she wants to do to me as we both get off, to radio silence until the next needy text or the next drunk call crying. I have let her destroy me because I deserved it. She has broken my heart twenty different ways since we broke up and I keep letting her in hopes that I’ll finally be forgiven.
I pull into Noah’s and realize I haven’t been here since my last fight with Carrie that ended us for good. Knowing I won’t be able to sleep with my mind on everything I decide to try to write lyrics, each word about her and I wonder if I will ever be free of it all.
I fell asleep at the table when I was trying to write lyrics that wouldn’t come, when I felt a hand on my shoulder and a gentle shake that jolted me awake. It was dark still and I was in the Beckett’s kitchen when I saw Carrie, like a dream.
“Carrie?” I whisper and I want to touch her to know if she’s real.
“Yeah, you scared the shit out of me.” She say’s and turns on the light over the sink and the soft glow floats across the floor. She is wearing boxers and a hoodie with her hair under a ball cap.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, even though it’s still her home.
“Candy and Noah, that’s what.”
I rub my neck as I pop it. “I thought Noah was at the hospital?” I stand to take my few beer bottles to the trash.
“Mike kicked him out. Noah get’s bossy when he gets worried. Candy knows how to calm that storm, but I don’t like listening.” She looks out the back window at the boathouse before looking at me. “Thought I would crash here for the night.”
“I’ll get out of your hair then.” I go to grab my keys and my hoodie when she stops me with her hand on my wrist.
“You don’t need to leave, Chad.”
I look at her hand on my wrist and it feels like a brand. “No, but I should.”
“Why can’t we just be normal? You used to sleep here all the time before we…�
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I wait for her to acknowledge our past and see that I am right here, but she just looks at me with the blue eyes that haunt my every second. “Exactly. Fuck you can’t even say it. Before we fell in love Carrie. There's no shame in saying it. It is what it is.”
She looks at me pointedly and I already know I outwore my welcome by that look. “I never wanted this for us.”
“I know.” I say and I'm so sick of this bullshit. I don’t know if it’s the stress of Shame and Cassa, the touring or the fact that I know damn well I cannot be friends or in any way platonic with Carrie Beckett. But I fucking lose it.
“You know what Carrie? You did want it. I groveled. I begged for forgiveness and you walked. All I did was give you what you want, always what you want, and I let you move on. I paid my fuckin dues so if all you want to do is remind me of it then our civility ends here.”
“Chad...” She reaches for me again, but I backed out of her way. I can’t let her touch me; I will lose all resolve because she is the one thing, I want more than oxygen.
“What?” I keep my eyes on the floor as I stuff my hands in my hoodie.
“I…” She didn’t say more, and I didn’t have time for her bullshit.
“What, Carrie?” I yell and she flinches like I'm a fucking threat.
“This isn’t what I wanted for us.” Her bottom lip trembled as she spoke, and I wanted to kiss her or wring her neck. I didn’t know.
“Me fuckin either but here we are.” I pull my keys back out of my hoodie. “It’s why I’m leaving.
I walk out the front door toward my truck when she follows me, crying out my name. I spin and come up on her quick fusing my mouth to hers and press her back up against the garage door. I kiss her for every second she’s been gone, for every song she hasn’t heard. I kiss her because both of us are in hell… I kiss her because she is my it, my all, my everything.
What I didn’t expect was for her to kiss me back.
I pull back, my fingers still tangled in her hair as we breathe heavily, forehead to forehead. “I have to go.”
She grips my shoulders, bunching the fabric of my hoodie into her fists, not letting me and it destroys me.
“I need to go, Carrie.”
“Why?” She cries breathlessly.
Hearing her like that swoops in and takes hold of my control and working brain. All I want, have ever wanted was to be here again and I know it’s not real. She wants to sandblast, so do I, but this is about everything but us. She’s hurting and wants me to be the bandage concealing the pain. And I can’t do it. To me or her. She will walk away after. And I wouldn’t come back from it.
“Because…” I say and groan as her lips come to mine. I press harder against her, my dick pitching a tent for the welcome home party.
Because you’re a huge red button I can’t push.
“I was wrong.” She says it, eyes on mine as I catch my breath.
“What?”
“I was wrong, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”
I close my eyes because I want to be here. I want to get through this, finally get through it, but I don’t know what she means, and I won’t make her mind up for her. I step back, forcing myself to create distance.
I can see us in bed, hell I see us against the wall, the garage even my damn truck. All teeth and tongues and I want it all like my next breath, but it answers nothing. Blue balls I can deal with, her backpedaling I can’t. This is a fantasy and not real. The last four months are the reality that she doesn’t want me. I want her, she knows it. She knows I will always give her what she wants, even if it kills me. And her using me will kill me. I do the only thing I can in this situation, the one thing that will give me the truth.
“Tell me what you want baby.” I say, I pull on every ounce of the guy I was before Carrie. I give her everything I have right here, the swagger, the fuck me voice and wait to see what she says. I can fuck any girl, but I can’t touch Carrie without devotion. I can’t turn it off, it’s just who she is to me. I know when a woman wants to fuck to avoid dealing with bigger things and any given Sunday before Carrie, I would be that guy to fuck the pain away.
But I can’t be him with her.
“I don’t know…”
I nod and step back further from her before I look at her, my heart on the floor at her feet. “I can’t pick for you Carrie girl.”
“Chad!” She yells to me, but I ignore her as I get in my truck. She follows me, screaming my name and it kills me to walk away from her, but I do. She is hysteric, tears streaming down her eyes as she begs for me to stop.
I can’t do this. I tell myself this every day, but it turns out that this is what I can’t do. And with that thought I drive away.
We are finally done. She tried to get in my head with who I always was, not who I am and took me down to nothing but a fuck. I may never be who I want to be and right now I don’t care. I just know I can’t be that for her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chad
Cassa was released the following day and I was headed back to California in the morning. I look at my phone as it alerts me to another text message and three missed calls. All from Carrie and I hit delete without reading them.
I can’t talk to her right now. She may want to fight or fuck and I'm not up for either. I can’t fall into the traps anymore. Carrie knows how to come to me if she wants me, genuinely wants me. She can get to me faster than even Gramps by simply asking Noah to bring her to me.
I hear a knock at the door and hope it’s her and pray it’s not.
Neurotic much?
I open the door to see Noah. “What’s up?” I hold the door for him as he enters and head back to packing.
“Just left Mike and Roni. They are taking Cass until her feet are under her and then she will move in with the girls.”
“Probably for the best. Mike will smother her, but she will be safe, and the girls will give her enough space to breathe but she won’t be alone.” I zip my suitcase and set it beside my overnight bag that I’ll pack in the morning.
“Got a call from Carrie too.” He says it all nonchalantly, but I know them both to well to fall for it.
“So, I'm on the shit list again?” I don’t even bother looking at him as I say it. What’s the point?
“I found it hard to paint you as the bad guy for not fucking her.” I look at him when he says it.
“Well you never wanted me near her. Guess you would be happy about it.”
“I actually think you did exactly what needed to be done.” He stands and walks to the small table in the room and grabs at the peanuts, ripping the bag open and pouring them in his mouth.
“Those’ll cost me twenty bucks.”
He laughs and pours more in his mouth. “You can afford it these days Starboy.”
I roll my eyes but laugh. “What makes you think I did the right thing?”
“Because.” He says through a mouth full of expensive ass peanuts. “I get the drunk dials when you don’t answer. I also get the details of your raunchy texts.”
I laugh at that. “Now you know how we all feel with you and Candy.”
“Don’t faze me none.” He shrugs and empties the bag, tossing it in the garbage. “Honestly though. She needs a wake-up call. You’ve been put through it with her. Make her sweat.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and open a beer after tossing him one. “It’s not even about that. I can’t stomach the letdown anymore. I get myself worked up and crash every time. I know she loves me, but it comes at a cost now and I can’t afford it.”
“Well, I came to tell ya not to sweat it. Figured you would know she would tell me; I didn’t want shit getting weird between us.”
I understood and appreciated the check in. We have come a long way since the fight, and we needed peace in the band now more than ever.
“You get that I have to move on, right? I can’t hang on a thread anymore Noah. It’s killing me.”
He looks at me for a f
ew minutes before he speaks. “I get it. Carrie will need to understand that too. I've stayed out of it since the fight, but I think you’ve done all you can. In truth it isn’t fair, doesn’t mean I like seeing her hurt and crying but she needed to do what was best for Carrie. Right or wrong, just like Sass and Shame the decision was hers.”
I nod and we drink in silence while I think about those decisions.
“Hey, let me ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“If you and Candy were done, like Cassa and Shamus. Would you want to know? If something bad happened, would you want to know?”
“Duh, dumbass. Of course, I would, you would too.”
I nod. “Yeah, but say we all banded together because she didn’t want you to know? What then?”
He seems to think on it for a few minutes before answering. “Yeah. I’d want to know that you guys did all you could to protect her. Id probably never forgive you guys just as I don’t think Shame will forgive us when he finds out. I respect Cass enough to see her side, that how she wants it handled is her business and not mine. She doesn’t want him to know and we need to respect that. It’s her story to tell.”
“I feel like total shit.”
“Me too, so does Cal who is completely fucked up over all of this. We can tell him one day, show him we protected her. He left her. I don’t care who he blames, he needs to own that shit and suck it up. She married a stranger to curb the heartache and she needs to own that shit. All we do is support them both and protect them both.”
We hang out and drink a few more beers before he heads back to Candy and Carries. He won’t be back in California until day after tomorrow. I had planned the same, but after last night I just need to get out of here and away from it all.
Maybe what he said was right, I had given all my tries and now it was time to move on. Maybe one day she would regret letting me go, God knew I would always regret that night on the bus. It may be bad now, but as we have all learned that to every bad there is a worse and I just don’t care to see it.