Chapter 28
CASSIE
“You don’t need to be here,” I croak as Nora helps me into bed.
“You think I’m just going to leave you like this,” my stubborn assistant says before muttering something in Spanish.
“You know, I’m going to start learning Spanish, and then you won’t be able to say anything behind my back,” I say. By the way my head throbs with pain as lie back on the pillows, I think that was a few too many words than I should have said.
“Well, let me save you the trouble,” Nora says, tucking me in. “What I said was, ‘you must think I’m a heartless bitch if you expect me to leave you like this.’”
“I can use my phone.” I lift a limp hand in the phone’s direction. “If I need anything.”
“I don’t want you to use your phone,” she says. “I want you to rest.”
“I was resting in hospital for three days,” I point out.
“Miss Cassie—” Nora starts.
“No miss. Just Cassie.”
“Cassie,” she begins again. “I am paid to help you, and right now, you need my help ensuring that you rest. And you will do that best if we unplug your phone.” She reaches out and does exactly that. “Anybody who wants to see or speak to you has to come through me.”
The pain in my head intensifies at just the idea of Kevin trying to contact me, trying to talk about what happened.
My stomach swims with nausea when I think about Stephan reaching out.
In fact, the only person contacting me that doesn’t make me feel sick right now is Pia. But she’s in Europe, on her tour.
“Thank you, Nora,” I say. Looking at her lap, I see she has her Filofax, her finger tucked between two pages.
“Something urgent?” I nod at her hand.
“No, well, yes, maybe.”
“Is it to do with the band? The … accident?”
“Yes, sort of. I wanted to make you aware of something, but only if you feel up to hearing about it.”
I push up a little so I’m sitting. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“It’s not ideal, but…” She trails off, flips the Filofax open, and then pulls out a cutout from The Washington Post. She places it in my hands.
I gasp, loudly.
It’s me. Unconscious. In a hospital bed.
“How on earth…?” I look up at Nora, who has her own frown of concern.
“We believe a member of the nursing team did this. We don’t know who or if they took their own photo, or let someone in who did. But yes, it was a leak.”
“This has to be illegal,” I say, the shock now tightening my chest.
“I can contact your lawyer,” Nora says, “or the police.”
I shake my head, unable to make those kind of decisions right now. It was hard enough deciding not to involve the police in the first place.
“Does Kevin know?”
“Yes. He asked me to tell you when you were at home. It wouldn’t have been pleasant for you to know while you were still in hospital.”
I think of all the kind nurses and doctors and porters who took care of me. One of them did this?
“No, it wouldn’t have.” I glance back at the cutout and try to read the text, but I’m too tired, my head is too painful, and I can barely read more than two words at a time. “What does the article say?”
“It explains where you were picked up. That it was where Stephan was staying. And that he hasn’t been seen since the … accident. There have been similar reports in other publications, along with the same photo.”
My jaw tightens at just hearing Stephan’s name. “They can’t have gotten all that from a nurse or doctor.”
“No. Kevin believes there was another leak from someone at the hotel or the label … or both.”
A sudden, hot urge to cry makes my eyes burn, but I fight it back with what limited strength I have.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say.
“There’s something else,” Nora says, and a small smile appears on her face. “But this time, better news.”
“Oh?”
“You’ve been nominated for a Grammy.”
“The album? But that can’t be. It was released too late last year…”
“No, not Evergreene. You. And Pia Lindberg.”
“‘What I Want’ has been nominated?”
“Yes, for best single.”
Despite the pain, the nausea, the exhaustion, my heart picks up its rhythm. Pia’s image fills my mind. I wonder what she thinks about this.
“Oh, wow,” I say softly.
“Aaaand…”
“And?”
“And they’d like you both to perform the song at the awards ceremony in February next year.”
My heart’s happy rhythm flatlines.
“What did Pia say?”
Nora looks surprised by my question. “Oh, I don’t know. But Kevin thinks you should do it,” she says.
“Of course he does,” I scoff before wincing when another shot of pain sears into the right side of my temple where the stitches are pulled tight over my swollen skin.
I dread to think what I look like.
Well, that has to be one advantage of Pia being on the other side of the Atlantic right now. At least she isn’t going to see me looking like this.
“You should sleep,” Nora says. “We can pick this up after you’ve had some rest.”
I nod, too tired to argue and too preoccupied by everything Nora has just told me to make more effort to be coherent.
“I’ll check on you in a few hours, see if you need anything.”
“Thank you, Nora,” I say, and then I roll over onto my better side and pray that sleep comes to take me away from having to make sense of all this new chaos that is my life.
I wake to shouting voices, and it makes me freeze in place, lying in my bed, my eyes wide open. The light in my bedroom has changed–it’s darker–meaning I’ve slept most of the day, but when I realise the pressure in my head has eased, I know I needed it.
Straining to hear what’s being shouted, and from where in my house, I stop breathing when I realise I recognise both voices, and one of them is getting louder, closer to me.
I’m sitting up as Pia bursts through the door. She’s looking back at Nora behind her and telling her, “I’ll leave if she tells me to,” but as soon as she sees me, she stops talking and stops moving.
Her eyes scan my whole body up and down and then back up again. Her face creases into a person I’ve never seen before. She looks horrified and terrified and so very fragile, like she might shatter like glass.
I must look awful. I bring a hand to my face as if to shield myself from her view, and that prompts her to move.
Pia rushes towards me, sits on my bed and grips my wrist. She brings my hand away from my face, and those wise brown eyes search me. Slowly, she lowers my hand into the cradle of her other palm, and then she schools away the fear that wrinkles her brow, and she smiles.
It’s the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. And maybe it’s the painkillers I’m on, but in that moment, I know it’s a smile I want to see every day for the rest of my life.
“Cassie, shall I—” Nora speaks from somewhere near the door. But I don’t look for her. I can’t take my eyes off Pia.
I can’t believe she’s here.
“It’s okay, Nora,” I say. “You can leave us. And take the rest of the day off.”
“But what if you need help with—”
“I’m here now,” Pia says, firm and final.
“Okay, well, you have my number,” Nora says, and then I hear the door click closed. My next breath comes a little easier than the last.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper.
“Pardon?” Pia shuffles closer.
“Shit, sorry,” I say, raising my voice. “I can’t believe you’re here. You shouldn’t be here. You have more dates in Europe.”
“Fuck Europe,” Pia says, and I find myself laughing, but that hurts my head, so I stop.
“What do you need?” She picks up one of the orange pill tubes from my bedside table.
“What time is it?”
“Just gone seven in the evening,” she replies.
“Okay, I need more painkillers. Codeine.”
“How many?” Pia has already found the right tube and is unscrewing the top.
“Just one,” I say, sitting up slowly.
“Let me get you some fresh water.” Pia stands and walks to my ensuite bathroom like she’s been here before, like she belongs here. She returns with a glass of water and hands it to me before taking her place again on the bed next to me.
After watching me swallow the pill, she takes the glass and puts it down.
For a long moment, we just look at each other. I still can’t believe she’s here. I am so happy about this fact, I want to grab her, hold her, keep her here. But I daren’t.
“What are you doing here?” I repeat, loud enough for her to hear.
“Looking after you,” she says, and she punches the pillows behind me. I assume to plump it up, although it looks a lot like tough love from where I’m sitting.
“Pia, you’re not supposed to be here,” I say, letting the grim truth into my thoughts finally.
“And neither should you be,” she says, and she presses gently on my shoulders, pushing me back so I’m reclined on the pillows she just assaulted. “Just wait until I get my hands on that fucker. I hope Stephan Greene has a funeral plan in place already.”
“No, Pia.” I reach for her hand. “It wasn’t his fault.”
Her thin stare tells me she doesn’t believe me.
“Not exactly, anyway,” I say with a sigh. “He was drunk. Or high. Or both. I tripped and fell. He didn’t hit me. And I shouldn’t have gone to his hotel room in the first place. I should have stayed away. But I thought he was in real trouble—”
“He is in real trouble.”
“Pia.” I squeeze her fingers. “Please. Don’t waste your energy on him. I don’t want to talk about him, about what happened. I just want to be with you. I’m … I’m so happy you’re here.”
Pia’s throat works as she swallows. “I’m happy to be here too.”
“What did you tell Martin? He must be so pissed off.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Pia says with a crafty smile that reminds me so much of the Pia I thought I knew before … before I really got to know her. I liked that Pia, I realise now. Even with all her bravado, all her cursing, all her middle fingers, I liked her back then. But now…
“Do you have to go back?” I ask, to stop myself indulging that line of thought.
She frowns. “Back where?”
“Europe. Your tour dates.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not going anywhere, Cassie.”
“I must look so bad,” I say, but I don’t hide my face from her. I no longer fear what she thinks. I’m more interested in what she’s feeling.
“You look as beautiful as you always do. You and all that golden hair and sunshine freckles.” She uses her fingers to comb my hair away from my face. “Folk’s English rose. A human songbird. The music industry’s golden girl.”
She’s quoting all the names I’ve been called in articles over the years. I reach up, cup her cheek with my hand and do the same. “Femme Fatale. Punk rock’s rebel with a cause. The angriest woman in rock’n’roll.”
Pia smiles and closes her eyes, leaning into my touch. Then she opens her eyes, fixes me with a steady gaze and says, “I wonder what they’d say if they knew about us.”
“I … I don’t care,” I tell her, because in this moment, in the bubble of my bedroom, I really, really don’t. “Do you?”
Pia’s eyes are moving again, roaming my face, looking at her hands, my hand. She doesn’t settle.
“Pia,” I say, a prompt for an answer I so desperately need.
“You should rest,” she tells me. And I know she’s right, but also it feels so wrong of her to not give me an answer.
I’m about to tell her so, but she’s kicking off her boots, standing up and yanking her jeans off.
“What are you doing?” I ask, because as much as I love seeing more of Pia’s skin, I am in no position to take advantage of it.
“Getting into bed with you,” she says, carefully climbing over me. “I told you, you need to rest. I’m going to make sure you do.”
When she’s under the covers with me, her arm wrapped tightly around my waist and her mouth peppering kisses over the curve of my shoulder, any annoyance I feel melts away.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” I say again.
“I’m not going anywhere, Cassie,” she repeats, and that’s plenty answer enough for any question I have.