I have fallen… free me please, tell me goodbye."
By the end of the song I had tears, as did Carrie and Cassa, but Noah looked furious by the emotion we showed and left the stage in a fury.
"What the…" Carrie said and looked to Chad for answers but he wasn't there. None of them were. "Let's go!" She said in a panic and I immediately feared the worse.
"He shouldn’t have done this. God dammit Noah!" She said as we sprinted after them. Once we got to the guys Carrie was in tears. "I knew he couldn’t do this." She cried to Chad who held her, rubbing her back trying to soothe her.
"Babe, he'll be okay. It's the first time playing with these acoustics. Whatever pissed him off is an entirely different beast." He tried calming her down, but it was Tay that said the wrong thing.
"Carrie, honey look at me please." She did and I could see the tears wet in her eyes, but she was strong as she tried to explain to his scared sister. "He can't keep running and hiding. He needs to force a reaction."
"I completely disagree." I say and slap a hand over my mouth feeling like a fool for speaking. I don't know Tayla very well, she hasn’t been around hardly at all and when she is it's usually spent arguing with Noah. "I'm sorry Tayla, I mean no disrespect, but you're wrong."
"No, I am positive I'm not." She didn't say it mean, but I was so done with this shit. Just her certainty after all I have seen from her is the bullshit she feeds from the labels ass to Noah's mouth.
"Babe, I love you. I do, but maybe listen to the girl who works for a dollar because all she wants is to help him. The same one you hired to be with him twenty-four fucking seven." This was Cal, Cal who is never one for chit chat unless he is messing around. I didn't even know he knew my name if I'm honest.
"Do you know what that song was about?" She asks me with righteous indignation. "Did you even listen to it?"
"Tay…" Carrie says in warning.
"Oh please tell me she knows what the fuck I am talking about!" Tay all but hissed to Cassa, leaving me confused and obviously off their page.
"No, she wasn't supposed to hear it!" Carrie snaps in response.
"How do you know?" She asks Carrie, who looks to Cassa with guilt.
"Cass knows? You know?" Tay asks.
"Shame told me!" She says and looks to Shame, obvious remorse in her tone.
"Noah told me and I shared it…" He looks to Cass dramatically. "With my wife in the strictest of confidence."
I hear her mumble and apology when Cal chimes in. "What Does it matter? We all fucking know and his tripping out wasn't anything other than acoustics." He looked to Tay. "We talked to him, he is not a danger right now."
"What is going on?!?" I scream, all of them turning to me. "As the sponsor, whatever big secret I missed I should know."
"Oh my god, I am so done!" Tay spits and starts charging for the bus, everyone running after her, including me now more confused than ever.
Noah
I hauled it off that stage with such fury and pissed off entitlement I didn’t give two fucks if she was behind me or not. I watch my shit, I keep myself in check twenty four fucking seven and all I wanted was time alone to go see Candey. To explain that I couldn’t walk the balance anymore, between life and death, here and now, past and future. I couldn’t keep loving her, keep being faithful to a ghost. I wasn’t even faithful. I was fucking fangirls and imagining it was Bright. I wasn’t faithful to my girls memory. I was pretty much in the same state of mind I was every time I fucked around on Candey in the beginning.
Pattern much?
I feel guilt non-stop when I think of fucking Bright. Bright who doesn’t want anything to do with me after my last attempt to touch her. Bright, who just watched me sing a song I wrote for her assuming it was meant for Candey. It was in a sense, I am letting go in one way or another. She pities me, and I want to fuck her, Not the sexiest of situations.
I could have changed the path, but I pushed her away every time. I lead her to the truth in the most fucked up of ways. What had once been basic and sexy need, was now suffering and pity.
I just… fuck I just want to move on. I don’t want to be in this cycle of ‘oh poor Noah’. I can't stand being in this cycle of missing Candey anymore because I am stuck, and I need to be unstuck. I hear Bright behind me and I don’t care anymore. I want to kill Tay and Carrie for thinking she was the right fit. I try to fix what's broken and she keeps tearing at the wound, and I can't heal while needing her so fucking bad.
I can go weeks not talking to her and it sucks just as bad as keeping her close. I want her either way, and the guilt of that is killing me. Add to it her thinking I'm damaged goods and a junkie.
Sweet shit right there.
They all watch me like I am a fucking newborn and fragile and it blows my mind considering I have seen them all at their worst. She watches me like I am some lost junkie that at any sign of trouble I will run off to the needle. She has no idea the pattern of my drug cycle, triggers, needs. None of it. She carries that notebook around following every textbook case of addiction, but never once asked me to define or explain.
I pull out my iPhone and call Jenny, slamming the door to the bus behind me and locking it. Jen answers on the second ring. “Hey doll face.” She says, chipper and excited for my call.