Chapter Thirty-Six
Scarlett
Ten Years Ago
It’s kind of amazing how fast things take off when you launch the rocket and anticipate the supernova.
By that I mean, Ryden’s success was never an option.
It was a prophecy.
One full year of posting him and Emory singing on YouTube and it took off.
We had gained almost seventy thousand subscribers and ALL of them wanted to watch Ryden live.
So I made it happen.
At seventeen, I couldn’t do much. Measly posts, hidden recording sessions… lots and lots of Emory’s weed.
But the second I turned eighteen, I combed the streets of downtown and marched into every bar with open ears and happy hours.
I may have not been old enough to drink, but I knew how to obtain what I wanted.
And I wanted needed a fucking win.
The first two I stopped in denied me at the door unless I knew a guy who knew a guy – or I sucked off the heads.
One would’ve involved me talking to anyone other than Ryden and Emory, the other would’ve involved biting.
So… Nope. Onto the next.
In our town, bars were more common than gas stations. Factory workers spent their days in gray rooms and evenings under the heavy fluorescent lights of Cobalt Blues.
It was the biggest bar in town. Usually, they only invited blues and jazz artists to perform on their rickety little stage, but it brought the crowd from nearby counties.
That was the next bar I hit.
And I would NAIL that homerun.
Dressed like a Winehouse groupie, my heels wiggled out of my feet (I stuffed tissue into the backing), but I stood tall. Yanking down Sinead’s ratty old pencil skirt and one of Emory’s tube tops, I strutted in there with an ego so bright they would fucking squint.
I slapped a palm on the bar. “Scotch.”
The bartender, a burly man with dark hair, two septum piercings and an owl neck tattoo quirked a brow. “What kind?”
Fuck. “Uh, the brown one.”
He laughed, continuing to wipe down his glass. “Never heard of that brand.”
I rolled my eyes, taking a seat on a peeling barstool. The cracked red leather pinched my ass. “I need to see your manager.”
“About the brown scotch?”
“NO, God. You know I’m not old enough.”
He smiled. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Yuck, get me your manager.”
He shrugged. Didn’t even fight me on it.
That was the day I realized being rude to older cheeky men was an advantage to utilize. They thought me weak, spineless, na?ve. I thought them disgusting, creepy, and malleable.
We both played our hand.
Only my bluffs were always royal flushes.
“Wanted to see me?”
Now this guy… I could work with.
He was cleanly shaven, decently dressed and most certainly did NOT give off the pig aura of the bartender.
“Huh,” he snorted. “What can I help you with, missy?”
I clicked my tongue, readjusted my top. I didn’t need that kind of showiness for this guy. He was all business.
So was I.
“My name’s Scarlett Blake, actually. Not Missy.”
He coughed a laugh, raking big hands through thin, blonde hairs. “Alright, Ms. Blake. I hear ya. What can I do for you?”
I rolled my shoulders back, and pulled out two hard drives: one with Ryden’s covers, and one with all the hidden recordings I took of him and Emory’s duets.
“You’re going to want this. It will make you big money, Mr…”
“Acton,” he replied. “Blaise Acton.”
“Well,” I continued, “Blaise Acton, like I said, watch these in your little office. Because one day, the man on this tape will put you behind a bigger table, in a much larger chair.”
Before he could say anything, I turned toward the door, slapping a one on the bar. “My number’s on the back of that bill. Don’t give it to the barkeep, Mr. Acton. He was seconds away from serving me some brown scotch.”
I walked out the door hoping he’d get fired.
I walked out the door knowing Ryden was getting hired. Damn, I thought.
I’m good at this.
Then another thought –
Maybe one day, I could be Ryden’s manager…
Maybe… One day.
***
“I…” Ryden was lost for words. It put the biggest smile on my face.
“I don’t know what to say, Scar.” He looked up at me. “Th – Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” In a second, I was wrapped in his arms rocking back and forth. He hoisted me higher, as high as his nineteen-year-old self could lift, and spun me.
“I can’t believe you did this for me,” he cried. “Wha – What did you even do? How did you convince him?”
In just two days, Blaise Acton called Sinead’s phone (I’d moved all my stuff into the basement apartment Ryden and I moved into after he sold his mom’s house, grabbed Sinead’s phone on the way out because as if she’d ever miss that thing in La La Land), and told me he wanted Ryden to perform on Saturday night.
“That Emory girl… bring her too. I’d like to put her up on that stage if the crowd’s receptive to him.”
That’s what he said.
That was my homerun.
“… and I told Mr. Acton that the creepy bartender was going to serve me alcohol.” I laughed, swiping the laptop from Ryden’s lap. “Look at all these comments, they love you! Should I post about you performing? Your first show, Ry! Do you think they’re going to come? They have to come!”
I shut the laptop, unable to contain my excitement. “You can quit the estate work, the magic shop! They never paid you what you were worth, and now – now Ry, you can demand it!”
But Ryden’s eyes never left mine. Not when I responded to every single fan with the address and time of Ryden’s first show, not when I pulled the laptop back and stared at the ceiling with wonder – wonder at how I pulled this off – how our dreams came true – and not when I turned to face him.
His eyes never moved.
“What?” I laughed. “What is it?”
But he didn’t speak.
“Okay now, now you’re scaring me Ryd –”
I felt his lips against my cheek before I could finish my sentence, felt his hand slick up my spine as he rested his forehead in the crook of my neck. “You’re the life I’ve been waiting for, aren’t you, Dove?”
I didn’t move.
Not because I was shocked (I was), but because I didn’t want to.
We… We practically grew up together. I’d known him for seven years. Everything that happened before him was irrelevant, my loyalty to him now, irrevocable.
His lips gently kissed my neck, then slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled away. A tortured expression painted his face, a coating of pink swam beneath his cheeks.
He was embarrassed to have touched me.
[Should I have been embarrassed to have liked it?]
“Th… thank you, again, Dove. I –” he stuttered, “I can’t wait to sing for yo – I mean, sing to uh – to the audience.”
I swallowed my feelings because that’s what I needed to do.
We were starting this journey together. We were embarking on our path to freedom.
This was the first step.
I could be his muscle. He could be my ticket.
My aggression, his talent.
Emory… Where – “Where’s Emory?” I asked.
Both Emory and I shared the reclining couch while Ryden took the twin mattress under the window. The basement apartment was below a duplex, and our upstairs neighbour was a cat lady with a death rattle – but we made do.
Emory moved out when I did, but her adoptive parents were more than supportive and helped us all through. They were happy she was finding her own way with good friends, and good friends we were.
Except…
“Is she with Jared?” I questioned, flipping out Sinead’s phone. I scrolled to her number.
Her “contact” happened to be a guy she met at the foster homes before she left. They lost touch but she told me they reconnected when she saw him at the Pier a few years ago.
Why she kept him a secret was beyond me. But people’s business was their business.
Lord knows I had a stack of bones in my own closet to keep hidden. So did Ryden.
“Don’t bother, she is.” Ryden grabbed a pile of sheet music and Harley. “I think she’ll be home soon, but hey,” he nudged me, “do you mind if I practice a few songs? I’ll play in the bathtub so it doesn’t bother you.”
I sighed. “You never bother me.”
He smiled, that deep sunken dimple making me melt. “In that case, I’ll be at the kitchen table.”
***
I watched Ryden play for what felt like hours.
He strummed his guitar so peacefully, scribbling song lyrics while humming a melody. I’d never seen someone so organized and chaotic, someone who poured their entire being into a sheet of paper and a set of strings.
His whole heart hid beneath the lyrics of his music, the anger and love he had for his mom bleeding out through each song.
That was how he coped.
Not speaking, never speaking.
Playing, strumming, singing.
I’ve tried asking him about it, her absence in his life – the closure he never got.
He told me it was her choice, that everyone had free will, and he had no choice but to move on.
I couldn’t accept that. I had a fascination with pain, the psychology behind why people committed wrongs to those they loved.
Then I researched eagles.
Did you know that the mothers coax their young out of the nest in order to teach them how to fly?
Fledgling, I think.
I fell down a rabbit hole of articles when I found that out. I guess I found some solace in knowing that maybe… maybe if Clara really did love Ryden, that she did it for a reason.
That she had to do what she had to do because she knew Ryden would never leave this bum town, never leave her side.
That wouldn’t have been a life for him, to care for a woman who couldn’t care for herself. Maybe she knew that. Even being his mother.
Or maybe she just left because she wanted to.
I couldn’t believe that, though.
I couldn’t stomach the thought that someone couldn’t love Ryden.
No. One day, millions of people would.
One day, he’d be the biggest rock star on this planet.
And I’d be right by his side…
Helping him fly.