December 22
Melody never expected to be grateful for the camera trailing five feet behind her on the sidewalk, but here she was. Without its presence, she probably would have stayed in bed for the entirety of the three days that followed Beat breaking up with her. Although he hadn’t technically broken up with her, because they’d never really been together in the first place, had they? Reconciling that fact with the aftermath of destruction in her chest wasn’t easy—they’d felt like boyfriend and girlfriend—but she didn’t really have a choice, did she?
A strong wind carried down the block lined with brownstones, whipping the ends of her white woolen scarf and tickling the newer, shorter fringe of her bangs. She’d cut them herself last night after watching two measly TikToks on the subject. They didn’t turn out terrible, but she wasn’t winning any prizes for precision, either. They only reached the center of her forehead, instead of her eyebrows, where she’d been aiming. There she was—a walking cliché. Break her heart and watch her desperately find a way to make matters worse.
Oh well.
They would grow back. Her heart probably wouldn’t. Or if it did grow back, it would be some awkwardly stitched-up Frankenstein version of it.
“Miss Gallard, the crowd is assembling quickly,” said a member of the security team. One of six who was flanking her on the way down the sidewalk after a trip to the bookstore to pick up her latest project. An old copy of The Giver that desperately needed to be restored to its former glory. “Do you mind walking a little faster?”
“Sure,” she said, looking down at her feet and ordering them to comply. They could barely manage a slow slog, let alone a brisk pace, but she did her best, everything hurting. Everything. The sockets of her eyeballs pounded, her ribs were sore, fingers stiff, skin cold. The world around her looked like fake plastic movie sets. What happened?
What happened?
Melody realized she’d stopped walking completely when Danielle left Joseph’s side and rested a palm in the center of her back. “Mel, are you okay?”
No. I can’t even feel the package in my hand.
Up ahead, a group of onlookers were taking pictures of her with their camera phones. On the way to the bookstore, she’d seen herself on television through the window of a pub under the headline, “What Caused the Split?” For the last three days, every time she ventured outside, people asked, “Where is Beat? Why did you break up?” It was constant. On the internet, theories were flying. They ranged from an unwanted pregnancy to another woman to a difference of opinion on pizza toppings.
“Mel,” Danielle prompted, softly. “Do you want me to call an Uber?”
Before Melody could answer, Danielle’s phone started to ring. Again. It had been ringing nonstop for the last three days, probably the network wondering why she wasn’t doing anything to bolster ratings. Apparently cutting her bangs didn’t count.
Danielle sighed and answered the phone. She shot Melody a glance and then turned away. “She’s surrounded by security,” Melody thought she overheard. Followed by, “Turn on the live stream and see for yourself . . . well, if you never turn it off, then why do you keep calling to check in? You can see everything that’s happening. You can see she’s safe . . .”
Security started ushering her forward then, obviously having given up on her actual feet. Come on, she could do this. Walk. Her apartment was only two more blocks, long though they were. Bracing her shoulders, Melody reached down deep for some strength and worked up a brisk pace, setting one foot in front of the other. Security moved with her, Joseph taking up the rear of their posse. People ran alongside them in the street or stopped their cars in the middle of the road to watch her pass, their curiosity about the breakup coming across loud and clear, even when they didn’t ask.
Join the club.
She had no idea what happened.
One minute, she’d been on cloud nine, in love with the most magical human ever to be created and lucky enough to have her affections returned. The next, the lights had gone out and she’d been surrounded by impenetrable darkness.
When they passed the community garden on her right, Melody knew they were only half a block away from her destination and she glanced up, hoping that seeing her door might give her the final impetus she needed to get inside, away from the cloying curiosity. But instead of seeing her door, she saw a person instead. A woman.
A manacle closed around her throat and locked tight when she realized it was Trina.
Trina stood outside of her door.
Her mother was here.
Her guitar case was propped up against the metal gate—and if that pungent scent in the air was any indication, Trina had recently partaken in a midafternoon joint.
“Mom?” Melody called, as they drew closer.
“Oh my God,” Danielle whispered behind her, apparently having finished her phone call.
The people who had been following Melody on her errand took a collective gasp—and all hell broke loose. Camera phones changed their target, flashes went off, voices rose in volume. Trina didn’t even bat an eyelash. Didn’t pay them the least bit of attention, really. Her focus was trained on her daughter.
“I know. You told me not to come. Either way, I’m not due a visit for another five or six weeks, but . . .” she started, jerking a thumb over her shoulder, “mind if I crash for a few nights anyway?”
Trina’s unexpected appearance was Melody’s tipping point.
For the last three days, she’d been too numb, in too much shock, to cry. Trina showing up on her doorstep in the middle of her anguish proved to be the kick she needed to burst the dam. Scalding tears pressed to the backs of her eyelids and overflowed, a sob bursting from her mouth. She cried like a toddler, right there in front of everyone in the middle of the sidewalk. Vaguely, Melody was aware of Danielle’s phone starting to ring again, but the sound faded behind her as she jogged through the gate to Trina and threw herself into her mother’s arms. Halfway there, it occurred to her Trina might not hug her back after the scene in New Hampshire, but her heart couldn’t be broken any worse than it already was, could it?
Might as well be reckless.
Thankfully, after a surprised jolt, Trina did wrap her arms around Melody.
Chaos was breaking loose in the street, more and more people arriving, probably having watched the rock star’s arrival on the live stream.
“We should get inside,” Melody muttered thickly, fumbling for her keys in the small cross-body pouch she was wearing.
“Sounds good.” Trina coughed, her own eyes holding a suspicious sheen as she surveyed the street, her attention drawn by the shouts of her name. “Damn. How long has it been like this?”
“Since the stream started, pretty much. It has died down in the last three days because I’ve done nothing but work and watch Bob Ross reruns.” Melody unlocked the door and stepped aside to allow Trina, Danielle, and Joseph to follow them in. “There was a spike in viewership when I cut my own bangs. I think we broke the record for most crying emojis sent at one time on the internet. So that’s nice.”
Trina brushed Melody’s bangs with her index finger. “Very punk rock.”
“A bad demo tape, maybe.” Melody unbuttoned her jacket and hung it on the peg, her mind automatically flashing back to Beat hanging up her coat on Monday night, his scent and size and safety making her apartment feel like a little bubble of heaven. “What are you doing here?”
Trina eyed the camera. “Is that thing going to keep rolling the whole time?”
“It’s here until Christmas Eve. Part of the contract I signed with the devil.” She winced. “No offense, Danielle.”
“None taken.” The producer was half hidden behind Joseph. “I’m not here.”
Melody hummed. “Do you want something to drink, Mom?”
“Something stiff, if you please.” Trina skirted around the couch and sat down, in the way only a rock star could. She sprawled, her limbs taking up as much space as possible. “Why am I here, you asked. Well. I guess I’m still piecing that together.” Trina gave one final, wary look at the camera and sighed. “I hated the way we left things, Melody Anne. A phone call didn’t seem like it was going to be enough.”
Melody processed that while pouring a glass of whiskey for her mother, carrying it into the living room and finding what little couch room was left for herself. “You didn’t come here because you changed your mind about the Steel Birds reunion?”
“I’d still rather die.”
“Womp womp,” Melody said, looking straight into the camera lens.
A corner of Trina’s lips jumped, but her amusement ebbed just as quickly. “You don’t usually cry when you see me. Is there something wrong?”
“You really make zero use of the internet, huh?”
“Hell no. It’s a man-made plague.” Trina shifted her position, crossing her arms over her middle in a way that was almost . . . self-conscious? “But if I did hate my sanity enough to look at the internet, I would find out what’s wrong with you on there?”
“You would find a lot of theories.”
“What’s the truth?”
Melody’s throat ached harder and harder until she sucked in a breath. “Figures that the first time we ever have a heart-to-heart conversation, millions of people are watching.”
Trina scoffed. “We’ve had heart-to-heart conversations before.” Her confidence in that statement faded almost immediately. “Haven’t we?”
Melody attempted a smile, but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate today.
“It’s that man, isn’t it?” Trina said quietly. “I warned you about him. He comes from spiteful stock.”
Those words struck Melody like stones. Even now, her heart denied them. Beat wasn’t spiteful. He was wonderful. She was missing something. She wasn’t seeing the full picture. That’s all. Or was she pathetic to be thinking like that? “Mom, I should warn you that Octavia Dawkins apparently watches this live stream.”
“Does she?” Trina turned slowly to face the camera, smiled, and lifted a middle finger. “Sit and spin on it, you pretentious hag.”
“That’s nice,” Melody murmured.
“Uh-oh,” Danielle said from the other side of the room. “Hold that thought. The server crashed. The viewer count started shooting up when Trina arrived and it just kept going . . .”
“Looks like I’ve still got it,” Trina said, openly preening.
“Yes,” Danielle confirmed. “Well, I’ve got to work on this. Don’t say anything important until we get the feed up and running again.”
The producer and the cameraman left through the front door, a cacophony of excited shouts filling the apartment, before they were once again muffled. Some of the tension released from Melody’s shoulders at the reality of being off camera, even temporarily. God, she wanted it to be over. It was bearable before because she’d had a teammate, but the weight of expectations and pressure was too hard to carry alone.
For good measure, she reached back and turned off her microphone.
After a full ten seconds of heavy silence, Trina cleared her throat. “Melody Anne . . .” She put down her drink. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Begin with what?”
Her mother laughed without humor. “Everything.” She paused. “First of all, you made the devil dance with your performance of ‘Rattle the Cage.’ Did me proud, even though I was pissed as hell.” She frowned. “When did you learn how to play the guitar?”
Being given a compliment by her mother made speaking difficult. “Years ago. In my early twenties.”
“That long?” Trina blinked. “You didn’t think I’d care to know? I’m a musician.”
“You just answered your own question. I wouldn’t have been . . .” She shrugged jerkily. “It’s just that you’ve had this grand success and it’s hard not to measure myself, and everything I do, against that. It’s hard not to assume you’re measuring everything against it.”
“Oh. Damn.” Trina seemed to take that in. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you felt that way.”
Melody nodded. “Well, I’m sorry I called you out in front of your friends.”
Her mother’s eyebrow rose. “Are you? Seemed to me, you were enjoying it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t enjoy it. I just said I was sorry.”
Trina laughed, good and long. “That’s fair enough. I suppose I had it coming.” After a moment, she grew serious. “It’s a little ironic that you didn’t tell me about learning to play the guitar because you didn’t think you’d measure up. Because . . . I don’t talk to my housemates about you because I know I haven’t been a very good mother. They’d probably ask me questions about you and I wouldn’t know the answers.”
“You could.” Melody sat very still, afraid to rupture the moment. “You could ask me.”
“I’m going to start, if that’s okay.” Trina coughed to cover her voice cracking. “Every time I leave my comfort zone and come down to New York, I feel like I’m reliving the past and I’m just so exposed and regretful, I can’t think of anything else. I should have been focusing on you. I should have been doing that for a long time.”
Acknowledgment. Apparently that was all it took to want to forgive someone. Just to have them acknowledge that you were hurt, out loud. “We can start now, Mom.”
“Thank you.” Trina slapped some moisture from under her eyes, visibly trying to regroup. “Seems like a good chance to tell me what happened,” Trina said, trying to sound casual despite the emotion still threading her tone. “With the enemy spawn, that is.”
A chuckle snuck out of Melody, but it transformed into a shaky sigh. “That’s the thing, I don’t really know what happened. We spent the night together, things were . . . I thought they were great. Me and Beat, Mom . . . when we’re together, I feel like I’ve known him my whole life. I can almost read his thoughts. And I swore it was the same for him. No . . .” She shook her head adamantly. “I know it’s the same for him. That’s why I’m so confused. He would never hurt me . . . but he has. I don’t get it.”
“What did he say?”
“We went on the Today show and I sort of confirmed we were together. But we hadn’t officially decided to be together. It just seemed like a given.”
Trina leaned back against the couch cushion, considering that with pursed lips. “You’re right. That doesn’t make any sense.”
Being validated by her mother was like taking a deep breath for the first time in days. “Really?”
“Really.” Trina frowned. “The man might have been carried in the womb of a demoness, but, uh . . .” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, you were in the county jail for an hour and he acted like you’d served a ten-year sentence of hard labor. It was obvious that his sun rose and set on your happiness, Melody Anne. When you were singing ‘Rattle the Cage,’ he looked at you like his heart was dangling from your pinkie finger.”
That was painful to hear. All of it. “Maybe he changed his mind.” Melody swiped quickly at the tears that escaped her eyes. “I’m trying to remember everything we said while we were live on the air, but it’s a blur. I think we were both caught off guard by them bringing out Fletcher as a surprise guest—”
“Who?” Trina’s back went ramrod straight. “They brought out who?”
“Fletcher Carr,” Melody repeated. “You remember, the original Steel Birds drummer.”
“Remember him? He’s the reason the band broke up.”
That confession knocked the wind out of Melody. “He is?”
“My God.” The color had leached from her mother’s face. What was going on here? “Why the hell would he resurface after all this time?”
“This is why you need the internet, Mom. Or at least an email address.” Melody wet her lips, wary of how Trina would receive this next piece of information if the man’s reappearance had already triggered her so hard. “He offered to be part of the reunion. Live on the air.”
Trina shot to her feet and stomped to the other side of the living room. “Oh, the unmitigated nerve of that bastard.” Were her mother’s hands shaking? “Does Octavia know about this?”
“I assume she does.”
“And?”
“And . . . I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to Beat in three days.”
Her voice cracked on that last word, drawing her mother’s attention. “I’m sorry if it seems like I’m ignoring your pain. I just . . . I can’t believe Fletcher would pop up like this out of nowhere. I’ll be honest, I was hoping he’d died in a freak accident or something. But isn’t it just like him to sit around, waiting in the shadows for his chance to terrorize us again.”
The truth hit Melody like a thunderbolt to the stomach.
Waiting in the shadows.
Terrorize us.
Beat’s odd reaction to Fletcher walking onto the soundstage. How he’d hardly spoken after the drummer’s appearance. And afterward, when they were off the air, he’d been an entirely different person. Not the man she loved. Not Beat.
“Oh shit,” Melody breathed, nearly doubling over. “Oh my God, Mom.”
Trina stopped pacing. “What?”
Telling Beat’s secret was wrong, but Melody did it anyway, because the truth was going to tear her in half if she didn’t let it out. “Beat has been getting blackmailed for five years. By his biological father. He wouldn’t tell me the man’s identity, but that’s him. It’s Fletcher Carr.” Her entire body was starting to shake—for so many reason. Chiefly among them was denial that Beat had been confronted with his emotional captor live on the air and he’d been reeling from that blow all by himself. Without her. Ridiculous that she should leap to worry for him while in the midst of her own torturous pain, but that was love, apparently. Putting someone’s well-being in front of your own. He would have done it for her . . .
He would have done it for her.
Melody lunged into a standing position, then had to use the arm of the couch for support so she wouldn’t topple over on her shaky legs. “That man. He must have said something to Beat. He must have . . . something to do with me, maybe? I don’t know.”
She was so lost in the shock of her realization that she didn’t notice her mother had gone white as a sheet. “Melody Anne . . .” Trina closed her eyes, swiping a wrist across her brow. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but take me to Octavia, please.”
