Trust Me (39 page)

“You’re gonna fuck this whole thing up Carrie!” He shouted and made a move to come at me when Shamus stepped in front of him, blocking me from his outburst. I do not think Cal would have hurt me physically, regardless how angry he was; but that didn’t stop him from screaming out his anger at me. “Every fucking time he gets any room to breathe here comes your toxic as hell bent on fucking with his head some more! He has written some of the best stuff
ever
because of your latest and greatest excuse for your break up- and though it benefits us, I can’t help but hate you for making him into
that
guy!” Cal pointed over his shoulder at the drunk as ever groper: Chad Blake who was blessedly oblivious to his guitarist’s outburst.”

“How much more do you think he can take before you turn him into a drunk or even worse a junkie?” Cal I know had no idea how fucking close those words hit home. Noah and I had danced that route time and time again. Thinking for even a second I could send Chad there, to that dark place made me want to run and stay gone forever.

“How many more fangirls will he need to bang to get you out of his head? Stop fucking with him Carrie…” Cal lost his fire when Shamus placed an arm in front of him and Noah came from behind, looking at me knowingly before pulling Cal away from me. Noah was telling me with no words to drop it and walk away, enjoy the show and party with him after. “You can’t keep hurting him Carrie it’s not fair. Enough is enough.”

I didn’t listen to Noah and his eye lecture.

Terrified that Cal was right, certain that he was I wanted desperately to make him see, to make him understand. “Because I love him Cal, I will pretend you didn’t just call
me
toxic. Because I love him, I will pretend that you didn’t accuse me of possibly turning Chad into some drunken gigolo or worse, my brother.” I looked to Noah who winced at my comment but took it in stride knowing I was right. “Because I love him I will explain to you why I find it so hard to stay away from Chad fucking Blake!” I screamed through the room and stood in Cal’s face, toe to toe. He may be right, may be wrong. Either way it didn’t matter. I was there for a reason.

“I know Chad and I know his dick, on a very personal level. I know what he thinks, how he feels I know his lucky socks have more holes than fabric anymore and that his favorite guitar is the one he bought second hand off you after mowing your parents lawn for three years in a row. I know Chad, Cal, and I know that had I forgiven him and come along on this tour as he would have wanted; watching nightly as he fought off women, his concern would never be on the next show or writing a new song. It would be on me, and if he was doing the right thing by following his dream after the slip up on his last tour. He would worry non-stop that he would fail and that I would resent him. Oh yes, Cal, I know Chad Blake. I know how deeply he loves me. I know that I center his universe and I know that
you
know how bad so many people want to be me. I do not relish Chad in pain. I hate it.” My voice hitched and my tears started to fall. I hated crying in front of Cal but I had to defend my actions before everyone thought I was a heartless bitch hell bent on destroying the only thing I loved most in this world.

“And because of how bad I need him, I came to see him tonight. I needed to be a little selfish because I am miserable every minute of every day without him. I can’t breathe…” I choked on a sob remembering Chad telling me the same thing all those months ago. I was so deep in the anger I didn’t understand him and where he was coming from. Now I just missed him so much it ate through every other thought and emotion I had and none of the bad stuff mattered. I loved him and missed him beyond reason or doubt. Days and nights combined into one miserable experience because it lacked my source of light and that source was Chad.

Now I had opened the hatch and my words were slipping free of their own accord. “I gave him up for you guys and the freedom to be in this world with no fear or guilt or worry. I gave him up for his fans and for the future that so many other bands would kill for. I gave him up because I have dreams of my own and they involve education and being someone other than Chad Blake’s girlfriend. I gave him to you and the world and I did it because I love him, but it doesn’t lessen in anyway how deeply I miss him. I was the one left behind.” I turned to leave, terrified that Chad would come see what the hold up on the party was and I did not need him to see this. I was always somehow ruining things for him. “I’m sorry I was selfish tonight. I needed to see him and hear his voice and I couldn’t let him come home and not see him. It wasn’t possible.” I wiped my eyes and smiled at Cal and Shame and Noah. “I’m glad he is making music the fans love and I’m sorry if he is hurting but I wish you could see that I did it out of fear of losing the one thing I cherished above all other things. Please don’t tell him I came.” I looked to Noah with tears in my eyes and saw him red faced and angry. At me or Cal I didn’t know. “I’m sorry.” I choked on my tears and ran out the door and into the freezing Seattle rain.

I had come to finish my story, I officially and most definitely got closure of the worst kind but an ending just the same. We were truly over, so much it seemed, there would need to be a new term for what I once called a broken heart. It was the end of us entirely. Without closure there would be no end of us continuing to hurt each other.

*

“You ok?” I jumped about a million feet at the sound of Shamus outside of my car window. Shocked that he walked all the way out here. I had parked about as far from the building entrance as possible because I got here and needed the walk inside to calm my racing heart. Now I couldn’t leave fast enough. How he made it through the lot without about a hundred screaming women hell bent on a Shamus James original and publicly known courtesy of tabloids ‘Screaming Orgasm’ was beyond me. Shame had become quite the playboy in the last few months.

“You scared me half to death Shame.” I ran my hands through my hair and shook off the startled vibe he gave just seconds before. I didn’t need an encore of the fight from ten minutes before. I was staying away for good. I had said my piece. “Why you here Shame?” I asked exhausted and ready for tonight to be so over.

“Can I sit with you for a minute?” He asked kindly and waited, hunched over looking in the window with his hands tucked close to his body. I felt even more awful knowing he was freezing to death. Even if he was coming to let me have it to, I could still be nice and keep him from going hypothermic. Besides, Shame had remained my friend even though I kept secrets from him.

Shamus slipped his six plus and close to perfect form in my car and cupped his hands to his mouth blowing into them to warm up. He was a good looking guy and easily could hold a candle to Chad in the looks department. He looked at me and smiled, rubbed his hands together again before sitting back and taking a deep breath… here it comes…

“You know that I get it right Care?” He asked. There wasn’t a note of anger in his voice and he seemed genuine.

“Get what?”

“Why you walked away but also why you came to the show tonight.” He shrugged his shoulders before shifting his body toward me more comfortably.

I couldn’t hold back the sob that retched from my throat at his words. Jeeze this just sucks so much I couldn’t even find the words. He had no idea what I was hiding from him but came to support me anyway. I felt the worst kind of guilt knowing the secrets I held of Cassa’s knowing he missed her like crazy and hated leaving her behind.

“You know how me and Sass were hell bent on proving the world wrong?” He asked only upping my guilt.

I nodded unable to say a word.

“We were the ones who were wrong. I look back now and wish like hell I had never walked away from her. My leaving made her mad, and that anger sent her head long into bars and nightlife and now she’s knocked up and married to a guy she barely knows. My chance was snuffed! One bad mistake and she will never be mine again all because I listened to a scared old man.” He took my hand and forced my eyes to meet his. “He was wrong Carrie. My old man was dead wrong making me think she could never be happy, that she would never forgive me for dragging her along if I failed. He talked me out of taking her, got in my head enough to make me think he had a point. I think Cassa would have stood beside me regardless. I was a coward and it cost me dearly.”

Fuck!

He didn’t know Cassa was divorced. He didn’t know she was almost murdered. He didn’t know Cassa was at Jerry’s almost non-stop when she wasn’t with me and Candy. He didn’t know a lot of things, but her being so close to Jerry seemed wrong after learning Jerry had been the cricket in Shames ear. I wanted to tell Cass what he said, but it wouldn’t be fair to break his confidence and not Cassa’s.

I got what he was saying though. I wasn’t dense. But Chad and I were far more brutal to one another then he and Cassa ever were or could ever be. The way he left proved that. Shame knew he couldn’t look her in the eye and walk away. We were both pussy’s the way we ran.

Chad and I never pulled punches, we were never afraid to hurt the other but Sass and Shame were. It was our biggest weakness but also our greatest strength that we could be so honest.

“Chad and I are…” I tried to find the right word when Noah’s words came to me as if he were next to me. “Chad and I are unique.”

“More like stupid if you give in to all the bad shit. You were right Carrie, Chad would go bat shit crazy worried if you weren’t happy;
has
been bat shit crazy since you guys ended. You were also right by declining coming on tour with us the first time. You and Chad have a fire that cannot be doused that easily but it burned out just the same. Do you really think that eight days is what broke you guys? If you really think that then you’re not the people I thought either of you were.”

Shamefully there was another reason I had ended us that only Chad knew. “Chad is beautiful Shame. As I guy I don’t expect you to understand a female point of view, but let me spell it out for you so you can try to understand. He is chocolate, and sin and orgasms and life. He is everything that women crave in one seriously smoldering sexy package. I see how women look at him Shamus. I know what he was like before we dated. Take all of that and add some celebrity into the mix, with about twenty thousand screaming, beautiful sex crazed women who are far more experienced than I ever would be and tell me how he would chose to come home to me?” I took a deep shuddering breath because tears started falling about the time I hit chocolate. “He is sex personified when he is on stage. He strokes that fucking guitar like he used to stroke me. He writes these amazing songs and sings them and achieves the task of getting about half a stadium hot and wet. Chad is sex up against a wall. He is a beggar and a pleaser, a sinner and a sufferer. He is so completely unattainable to a messed up girl like me. I was set up to fail the night I chose to stay late at the Joint to clean some fucking dishes!”

“Baby girl how could you think that?” Shame asked and pulled me in for a hug. Had anyone else held me this close or called me baby girl and I’d have kicked them in the junk. However Shamus and I were one in the same, our situations made us kindred. He was as lost without Cassa as I was without Chad.

“The same way that you think about Cassa, Shame. We are both playing losing hands. Cassa moved on and so did Chad. I have seen the way he is with women when we’ve been apart. Now he is practically buried under a pile of pussy, what the hell do I have to offer?”

“Well I would normally say pussy, but as you stated…” Shamus laughed as he said it but flinched when I slapped his shoulder.

“Stop you know what I meant. What the hell can I offer long distance that could possibly keep him satisfied when there are hundreds of women lining up waiting for Chad to get lonely once again?” I shook my head and leaned back against the head rest of the driver seat. “No one can compete with that Shamus. It’s the worst kind of unfair fight.”

“Honey the only Chad Blake you have known in the dating world is the ‘Post Carrie Beckett’ Chad Blake. Chad was never like he is now before you Carrie.”

I laughed sardonically. “Thanks. I feel a ton better Shame.”

“No you think Chad is bad now? Carrie you have no idea how bad it was before you. Chad didn’t know last names of his women, let alone the few first names he remembered. He had like three girlfriends, all mild in comparison to you, before you even met. Each one of those girls used Chad for status. One even used him to get back at her ex. Another would use sex as a weapon. Every time Chad fucking pissed her off, she would fuck a guy that Chad knew and we all know her as Trisha. Once she put him through the ringer he finally gave up and made them the playthings instead. Until you Carrie I swore he would fuck his way through America content to feel nothing. You hit him like a freight train. Girl you linebackered his ass and he has been trying to keep from admitting you are gone and to move on. Instead Carrie, unfortunately, he fucks himself through his pain. The women be damned.”

“God Shamus that just makes it worse.” I groaned and tore my fingers through my hair. “As callous as it sounds, I would prefer he use my pussy in that situation. What the hell am I supposed to do? It doesn’t change anything Shame. I’ll forever be left feeling less than adequate and he will still be in there fucking Right and Left.”

When Shame looked at me like I made no sense I realized he had no clue who Right and Left were. After explaining he couldn’t stop his laughter. “Honey your missing the point. With you in the picture Carrie there is no Right, Left, Up, Down. When you let Chad in, you are all he see’s. Trust me sweetie, I know Chad the male whore and he doesn’t need that dirty dirty when you’re in his heart.”

“Dirty Dirty?” I asked confused.

“Sucky Sucky Fucky fucky?” He said in definition, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Classy.”

“Really Carrie? Dirty Dirty is hard to hear yet you have no problem saying Chad is buried under a pile of pussy?” His laughter was contagious and I couldn’t help but laugh.