Chapter Twenty-Five
Scarlett
“Because we’re here, in this town. Together. Forever. Even when we’re gone… we’re still here”
“You’re finally here!”
Polly and Zayla found me before I could pass the threshold, nodding at security, then leading me deeper into the bowels of Ryden’s celebratory tour party.
Being in this industry, you have to know that rich people celebrate everything.
Cat died? Poor thing, let’s host a gala in commemoration of their life.
Oh no! Stranger spat on you today? Drinks on us!
Ryden’s tour coming to an end? Obviously that was a means to celebrate, but none of these people really gave a shit about him. None of these people knew the struggle it took to get here.
That’s why despite my feelings on the matter, I still showed up.
Not only because of history, but because I knew he deserved it. Every last bit of praise.
He deserved it.
You both do, Emory would’ve said.
Maybe her ghostly advice had some influence on my decision. Ryden could thank her in prayer later.
Oh Emory. Still showing up from six feet under.
“You look marvellous by the way,” Zayla looped her arm through mine, taller now in her jaguar stilettos.
“To be expected,” Polly grinned, handing me her drink.
I took a sip, made a face. “Is this Macallan?”
She shrugged. “Some dick at the bar said it’d be too strong to handle.”
“So you took it anyway,” I smirked, handing it over.
She hammered it back in one gulp. “The sweet taste of victory.”
A league of her own.
We waded through producers and musicians, my eye out for the only person I cared to congratulate. The guest of honor, missing, at his own party.
“Have any of you seen Ryden?” I asked.
Before they could answer, Tav appeared, side by side with a woman I’d never seen before in my entire life.
Huh. New fling?
She said something, they both did, but over the music I couldn’t hear for shit.
“WHAT?” I yelled.
“NICE TO MEET YOU!” The unknown woman said. She had brown hair, blonde streaks, pretty face, square jaw. Her eyes were wide, eager. Coke? Did Ryden sell it to her?
Get that fucking thought out of your head, Scarlett Emory-Blake.
Where the hell is he?
Tav lead us five to a quieter booth in the back.
“These parties rupture my hearing,” Polly folded an ear. “Aren’t they networking events?”
“Just an excuse to have fun!” Zayla beamed.
And to award the artist who wasn’t even present.
“Scarlett, glad of you to make it.” Tav tapped my elbow. He was drinking something clear.
“Mhm,” I folded my arms, “where’s the boy of the hour, then?”
He sighed. “Morty took him home.”
Anger pelted up my spine. “Of course he did, right! What?” I laughed, “he couldn’t handle being here? In a room full of people who fawn over him? That was too much for the great Ryden Spectre?”
Cut the bullshit, Scarlett. You’re fucking angry.
And I was.
Not the time.
I couldn’t help it.
I was angry.
Angry at the world. Angry at Ryden for reminding me of what I fought so hard to forget.
Angry at myself for letting the past effect me, willing myself to find a solution without result.
“How many times have you wished on a split end instead of an eyelash, Scarlett? Even with the best intentions, sometimes, you’re looking in the wrong place for answers.”
Fucking Sue.
Love, happiness, it wasn’t in the cards for people like me.
Why did he even write that damn song? Torment? Torture?
An outlet, Scarlett. That song was a coping mechanism. You have your own.
NO.
We agreed to keep those feelings sealed behind concrete walls. Is that not why we moved to the Concrete Jungle?
Eyes darted around the table uncomfortably. I withdrew into myself, deeper and deeper, drowning. “Did he even show up tonight?”
Tav nodded. “For a time, Red.”
“He was picking fights with everyone.” Polly didn’t look at me as she said this. “The team suggested he should leave. Bad press or whatever they said. So, Morty took him home.”
I glared at her, blood pulsing. “You couldn’t have led with that?”
“We wanted you to have fun,” Zayla tried.
“I can’t have fun knowing he’s fucked, don’t you get that?”
“You walked out today,” Tav scolded, leaning forward. His face was handsome, mature, but aged in a way even I would never understand. “You walked out because the kid wrote a song.”
“It was more than that –”
“I don’t doubt it,” he held up a hand, “and I’ve always stuck my neck out for both of you. No one knows, no one’s goin’ to know what you guys have gone through.
“But whatever’s whirling about in your mind or his, that’s not public consumption –”
“But that’s why I was pissed – why I am pissed, Tav. He gets millions of streams a month, people are going to hear it and link it back to –”
“To what, Red? You pride yourself in no one knowin’ you, so who’s gon’ know?”
I swallowed, veering back.
“Your anger, all that bubblin’ rage, that’s your tack, sweetheart. You are what you say you are, big, bold and free, but even fire dies out eventually.”
That flame within me sizzled in response.
“Go on and see him. He’s got the show of his life tomorrow, and if that boy fucks it all to hell, that’ll haunt him forever.”
His date beside him turned away, pulling Polly and Zayla into conversation. Maybe she had the good sense to know this moment was way out of her jurisdiction. Or maybe she was just as superficial as the rest of them.
“Listen,” I turned back to Tav, settling into our privacy. “I just needed to cool off, needed to think.”
“We all need to think sometimes.”
“Yeah.”
He leaned back, cupping his drink. “What got in your head?”
“May I?” Glancing at his glass, he pushed it my way with two fingers. I took a sip. Gin. Straight.
Maybe we were both having a night.
“We’ve been through a lot together.” I shook my head. “Sometimes I think we’ve been through everything.”
“Welcome to life, Red.”
“We’re grazing thirty, Tav, we aren’t there yet.”
“It gets worse,” he sipped. “You make the most of things.”
I quirked a brow, looking at the celebration all for Ryden’s legacy. “Haven’t we?”
He stayed quiet for a moment, silent, looking at me intently. “Don’t think you’ve tried it all.”
“What’s left?” I grimaced, stealing his drink. “There’s nothing we haven’t done, no line we haven’t crossed, I mean – except –”
“Except bein’ together.” Tav filled in the blank I couldn’t bring myself to say.
I shooed his drink away without thinking. “I don’t need that stressor in my life. He’s unmanageable at the best of times. I can’t – I won’t break my own boundaries.”
He sighed. “Why’d you put ‘em there in the first place?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You know damn well what I mean. Knowin’ each other, growin’ up together. I see it, see…” he twirled his glass, “see what’s there.”
I looked away. “You don’t understand.”
“Don’t need to understand what’s in front of my face.”
I crossed my arms, forcing down the emotion. “Getting old, Tav? Can’t handle the liquor like you used to?”
He simply laughed. “Amore de ferro.”
“What was that?”
“Amore de ferro, iron love.” Tav smiled. “My ol’ buddy from back home, Noah, had a girl like you. Made of that same iron. Hard life, tough to break. He… I mean, soft as they come, had his own shit, though. They worked it out.”
Breathe, Scar. “We’re not the same.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
Silence.
“Just remember, Red. Sometimes you can’t see what’s right in front of you cause you stabbed your own eyes with a knife.”
I pinched my wrist so that I wouldn’t cry, so that all the feeling I’d supressed wouldn’t come rushing in like a tidal wave, drowning me from the inside.
I felt the overwhelming rush to see Ryden, make sure he was okay, take care of him, love him, hate him, everything – all of it –
He made up my heart and all of its pieces.
Broken or whole –
He was beating in my chest.
“Enjoy your night, Tav,” I knuckled the table, slipping out of the booth.
“WE’RE RUNNING SOUNDCHECK AT NINE AM SHARP. GET HIM SOME ELECTROLYTES!” He called over the music.
I shot him a thumbs up as I made way for the doors. Polly grabbed my arm before I could leave. “I didn’t mean to keep that from you.”
“I know.”
Her eyes were sad. “You just… deserve to have some fun sometimes.”
“I know that, too.”
“I’ll…” she shook her head, pulling me in for a quick hug, “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Polly,” I called before she disappeared into the crowd. “You’re a good friend.”
She exhaled, pressing her lips together. “And you’re a good person.”
And that parting comment was what kept me going, past the darkened streets of winding avenues, all the way to Ryden’s front steps. And when I saw that his door was unlocked, empty bottles leaking off the kitchen table, I prayed for patience, exercising all that good in order to save my person.
***
The bottom of my boots crunched glass as I walked down the corridor to his bedroom.
His bathroom was in disarray, mirror shards scattered all over the vanity. Droplets of blood soaked up the design. It felt too close to our past.
It felt like a time machine.
His door was ajar.
I took a breath, sealing my eyes. Here we go. Then, gently, I pressed it open.
Ryden’s bedroom was dark, the panoramic view of the city highlighting his unmade bed, music sheets scattered overtop the couch and stuffed into Harley’s guitar case. One of his earliest records played on vinyl, soft, blurring out the white noise.
And there, in the centre of the room, stood Ryden.
Like a statue, he stared out his window, overlooking all of New York.
I could see myself in the reflection of the glass. He could see me too. There was no use in speaking as I approached, heart pounding, unable to look away from the cuts across Ryden’s knuckles, his bare back shunning me away from the hopelessness in his eyes.
Closer and closer I stepped, watching the slow movements of his hand, holding his drink – a deep brown liquid - up to his eye.
“So much world,” he whispered, gazing at the city lights through the fog of his glass. “So much world and I’m stuck in mine.”
I swallowed, coming to his side. “By your own choosing.”
He turned to me slowly, eyes bloodshot and swollen. He’d been crying. “I thought you’d be with Abe Turner.”
I frowned, turning to the urban glow. “Get out of your head.”
“My head’s fine,” he defended. “I’m happy.”
“You’re miserable.”
“I’m forgetting.”
“And what good does that do?” I demanded, anger spilling through each word.
“Drinks don’t taste good.”
“Then why do you drink?”
“I’m forgetting,” he repeated, glancing at me in beats, then back to the city. His home.
The silence was deafening, despite the soft melody of Violence playing in the background. I knew why he chose to put that song on.
He was trying to forget the past he just relived.
He was trying to separate himself from the man he used to be.
“I drink to forget,” he whispered. “But it doesn’t work.”
I turned to him, wanting to reach out, soothe him. But my own limbs betrayed me. “Drinks won’t change the past.”
“So I’ve been told,” he sipped.
Then sipped.
Then sipped.
“It’s not a fix, Ry. This isn’t a fix.”
“I don’t want a fix.” Suddenly he was alert, sharp. “I want sanity – space, the shallows instead of drowning in the fucking deep all the goddamn time!”
I opened my mouth to speak but he cut me off.
“That song was just as much about me as it was you, don’t you get that? I cope by writing, I cope by singing, I cope by being a fucking rock star!
“You… you –” He struggled to speak. “You didn’t have to leave.”
I could see it now, the anger in his eyes wasn’t for me or even himself…
It was for his mom.
“I didn’t want you to leave…” he breathed.
Without thinking, against all that I am and all that I’ve been, I pulled him against me, tightening my hold on his waist.
Like second skin, he sank deeper into my body, curving his arms around mine. I grabbed at the flesh of his hard muscles, shutting my eyes.
This is too close. This is too close.
Too close.
Too close.
TOO CLOSE VIOLET!
NO! SHUT UP! I shouted at the voices in my head.
HE’S MY –
He’s my…
“You’re home,” I whispered, grabbing hold of Ryden’s neck, pulling him back to face me. “You’re home.”
My heart stilled at the sight of him, those eagle eyes that held promise for the future. The little boy who protected me, protected his mother, until he fractured inside.
“You don’t need to forget,” I whispered.
He rested his forehead against mine. “Forget with me.”
Just…
Day by day, Scarlett.
One foot at a time.
I slid my hand up his arm, cupping his cheek, fighting the sensations deep inside the trenches of my heart. “Do I feel like home?”
We locked eyes – eyes sunken with sorrow, glittered with tears. “You’ve always felt like home.”
And we stayed like this, interlocked in front of the city we conquered, high above the ground that held our rotten roots –
Perched above the tree we planted from ash.