32. Broken Heartache
brOKEN HEARTACHE
GRAYSON
I fucked up. I never went after her.
She’s going home soon. I’m pretty sure if not today, then tomorrow, and I haven’t spoken to her or tried to even explain myself. I just blamed it all on Hollywood, but then again, I wouldn't even know what to say.
“You know you could do something instead of moping,” Charlie says from my room door. Damn it, I forgot to close that.
“There’s nothing to do,” I reply. I mean, what can I do?
She’s gone, if not now then she will be. Maybe I’m just not meant to fall in love and keep the girl. “Are you serious? Go talk to her, call her, chase her down if you have to!” Charlie says, getting louder with his words as the sentence continues.
“Called already, showing up at the house would be weird and chase her down, isn’t that a crime?” I turn toward him.
“Then do something other than nothing.” Charlie walks into the room and plops down on the bed beside me.
I don’t know what to do.
“Come on.” Charlie stands up.
“Where are we going?” I ask him.
“To talk to her, now to the car.” Charlie charges out of the room with an arm up like he’s really about to march into a battle. I guess it is a battle of some sort. A battle of hearts.
Driving in the rain makes this seem hopeless. It's like the weather already knew it was going to be a failure. Pulling up to the house that she is supposed to stay in while being here in LA, I can tell no one is here. There are no cars, Alexia’s light is off and it’s early for her to sleep, it’s looking like nothing is going on.
“They aren’t here,” I state, not even bothering to get out.
“How do you know?” Charlie puts the car in park and looks closely at the house.
“No cars, no lights and later in the night so they would be home. They aren’t and no events only they would have gone and not us are going on,” I explain.
“I’m going to try calling her,” Charlie tells me and grabs his phone.
“You go knock on the door.”
I appreciate Charlie trying so hard and wanting to help me fix this, but it’s just making me sad and upset. It’s never going to get fixed. I’d have to pull a miracle out of the sky in order for it too. I get up to the door and knock, and no one answers, so I ring the doorbell to be safe, but again, nothing, so I go back to the car.
“No answer,” Charlie says as I get inside.
“Let’s just go.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Charlie wanting to say something, but he doesn’t; he just puts the car in drive and leaves.
“This will be fixed, you two are meant to be,” Charlie says. For a guy, he’s a big hopeless romantic, and I like that for him. But for me, love has never worked out, so why should I get my hopes up now?
As we drive back to The Fortress, I scroll through Instagram just to keep my mind occupied, it barely works. I searched Alexia on Instagram a few times and checked back to the messages I sent her. Nothing. That makes my heart sink. I should forget about it. Love sucks anyways.
A notification covers my screen, and I look to see an email from my father and our family lawyer. I click on it and the email is explaining that my father has called us to court to testify against my mother because she has filed for full custody of us and money for abuse and troubles. He wants to go against her in terms of defamation of character due to the video and say she is unfit.
This is ridiculous. This whole thing is really to protect his image. He already got off for abuse, considering nothing happened after the video was put out, and now he wants to sue my mother. I go to form an email and tell the lawyer I will not testify against my mom; instead, I’m on her side.
I look up to see we are arriving back on the road we live on as we drive by. I'm pretty sure I see Zara outside, walking in the rain. “Go back,” I tell Charlie.
“I think I saw Zara.”
Charlie stops the car and backs up the person and it's her in some sweatpants, a T-shirt that’s soaked through, and a big MorningStar jacket with some yellow Converse.
“Z, why are you in the rain?” Charlie wines down the window.
“I didn’t know what else to do. I thought everything was okay, but Shawn won’t answer calls or texts. And we have each other’s location, so I know he’s been at the fortress, so I don’t understand why he’s not speaking to me,” Zara answers.
“Get in the car,” I tell her, and Charlie unlocks the doors. Zara gets in the car, good thing Charlie doesn’t care about wet car seats.
“When did you two stop speaking?” I ask as the car starts to move.
“The day after Shawn told what your managers told you two about me and Lexi.”
He must have scared her pretty bad for Zara to be walking here in the rain and that’s weird because he seemed completely normal lately. Although I’ve been in my own world so if he was off, I wouldn’t know. Charlie pulls into the garage of The Fortress, and we make our way inside and just so happen to find Shawn in the kitchen eating some fruit as we come in.
“We have something for you,” Charlie says in a sing-song voice, causing Shawn to look up.
“Did you walk here?” he asks Zara, looking obviously very pissed off.
“You weren’t talking to me, and it’s the only way I could see if you were okay, and no, I didn’t fully walk. I had my brother drop me off at the movies closest to here and told him I was meeting friends which he fell for, then I got on a bus that dropped me off a mile away and then I walked the rest here,” Zara explains.
“Till we picked her up,” Charlie says. Wow, I knew she might go through all that to see him, but I never thought I’d see it happen. He would totally walk in the rain or her, but damn, she lied to her brother, probably used all her allowance, and walked a mile. She has to be tired. Charlie hands her a bottle of water.
“You can’t do that. You should have called someone to get you.” Shawn stands up and puts his bowl in the fridge.
“And have them tell me you don’t want to see me.” By the sound of her voice, Zara is definitely about to cry soon. Me and Charlie share a look knowing it’s time to leave them alone. I hope Shawn doesn’t make her cry.
I go back to my room quickly before Charlie can get the chance to say anything especially about Alexia not being home to me. I don’t want to talk about it right now, especially with finding out about my dad suing my mom. I close and lock my door, so no one can get inside and bother me. I have no idea what to do about any of this. Everything is so wrong and nothing can be fixed, at least not by me.
I can’t do anything about my dad suing my mom, but I can go see my mom in the hospital. Plus, I need to get Bea so she doesn’t have to spend another night with her friends. I’m going to have to be a better big brother right now, my problems can be fixed later.
“You’re even more famous than you were,” Charlie says as I come down the stairs.
“I don't think that's possible,” Scarlett says, flipping her hair and flashing her pink highlights.
“Why would you think that?” I ask. He holds up a magazine and I go over and look at what he was looking at.
The article in Spotlight Weekly pictures me and Alexia at the beach, and it’s discussing what they think happened at the beach and what our possible future will look like considering I’m a rockstar. “What are you gonna do?” Kenan asks.
“Don’t know.” I shrug.
“You should start thinking,” he adds.
“Well, I’m going to see my mom now,” I tell them and head to the door.
The doorbell dings off, and for a moment, everyone kind of looks around because it’s sudden because I don’t think anyone invented anyone over. “I’ll get it,” Zara volunteers.” Getting up from her chair going to the door.
“Who is at the door?” Shawn asks Zara. No response. Shawn stands up and walks to the door as all of us look around at each other.
“Gray!” Shawn calls out. Panic weirdly sits in for a moment, but I sit the magazine down and walk toward the door. I didn’t expect to see who I saw when I got to the door, but standing in front of me was Jazzlyn. I haven’t seen her since she disappeared after the night, she took my virginity and left me heartbroken with a note.
“Go away,” I state.
“I came to give you something,” she says.
“No,” I reply.
“Is this because you have some new cheerleader girlfriend?” she pouts.
“You’re happy to see me?” She’s kidding, right?
“And why would I be happy to see you?” I ask her.
“Never mind. This is from your father.” She hands me an envelope.
“You should know he plans on bringing me into court,” she informs me.
“Why would you be telling me this?” I ask.
“I’m not that bad of a person.” Jazzlyn flips her blonde hair.
“You’re joking,” Shawn scoffs.
“You’re still a dick, I see,” Jazzlyn says.
“You’re still a bitch,” Shawn replies.
“Does she still not talk?” Jazzlyn refers to Zara.
“Don’t talk about her like that,” I say.
“Go away,” Shawn says, and I close the door.
Zara has stood frozen in front of the door the whole time, probably due to shock. Jazzlyn is the reason why she is more skeptical of friends. Jazzlyn used her to become my girlfriend and then stopped being her friend after she left me and then just became really mean to her.
It sucks she showed up here, but I know whatever is in this envelope is going to suck more.