Page 23 of Creed

Fourteen endless days have passed and I could fucking kill my band manager right now. Wrap my hands around his fat, greasy neck and squeeze until the lights go out behind his beady little eyes. He insists that it was his assistant’s fault that there was such a colossal fuckup with the mail. But he doesn’t have a fucking assistant and what he doesn’t realize is the importance of me getting my mail on time.

One, I pay my own fucking bills, and just like any other adult, I gotta pay that shit on time. Two, it’s been months since I’ve received a letter from Collins and I was getting worried sick, knowing the struggles she’s been going through and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it since I’m not blood related to her. That fuckup of a slip has haunted me every damn day for years.

I stopped responding to her letters because the guilt of what she was going through was just devouring me from the inside out, and I didn’t know what to say anymore to make things right with her.

I had slammed the door to my bus in Steve’s face so I didn’t have to listen to his blubbering as he handed me a giant stack of mail with trembling, stubby fingers. I start shuffling through the mail, my eyes scanning for a particular pink envelope with those fucking signature lightning bolt stamps. How the fuck she still has them after all these years baffles me.

I’m getting nervous that there’s nothing there from her until a flash of black catches my eye. Black? I pull the envelope with that signature stamp and rush back to my bedroom to read it. I share my bus with Riley, and I don’t want anyone barging in on me reading one of Collins’ letters. Not that Riley barges. He’s too respectful for that shit.

Some of the things she tells me can be borderline traumatizing for even me to read and I sure as fuck don’t need any of my bandmates setting their eyes on the private details of her life.

I settle with my back against the headboard of my bed in nothing but my boxer briefs and run my fingers through my damp hair. I had just stepped out of the shower this evening when Steve knocked on my door with two weeks’ worth of mail in his hands.

A nervous energy rolls through my body and has me ripping open the black envelope and I prop my elbows on my bent knees as I unfold the paper, something falling from the fold, but I ignore it for now and start to read.

Dear Creed,

This is actually my hundredth letter to you, and honestly I don’t know why I even bother anymore. You’ve stopped answering and I just don’t see the point in writing anymore when it feels like no one hears me…

“Fuck,” I whisper to myself, my heart squeezing painfully, feeling like it’s in a vice grip as her words sink in. I stopped responding but I didn’t realize how much she needed the contact.

The more I read her letter, the more worried and anxious and angry I feel. Worried because she was a good kid with a pure soul who had been dealt a shitty hand in life, and I hate that I couldn’t take her in and care for her. Anxious because it’s been two goddamned weeks since she mailed this letter. And fucking angry at myself for ignoring all the signs she’s been sending in these letters, and angry because I want to kill this Guy fucker who has custody of her.

Get me out of here, Creed. Please.

Her written cry for help throws my mind back to a moment eight years ago when she got lost in the woods at Bear’s parents’ house. How she clung to Asher, then to me. I was a wreck then, too, from all of the images of her face contorted in fear, screaming out my and her brother’s names as she wandered aimlessly in the woods until Bear found her.

“Fuck!” I yell it this time. I notice she’s left her phone number at the bottom of the letter and I waste no time in sitting up and searching frantically for my phone. My hands are shaking uncontrollably when I find it and dial her number.

With every ring, the words of her letter play on repeat in my head…

He’s the kind of pig who thinks he can put his hands on me without any repercussions…

Her phone goes to voicemail. “Goddamnit,”

I dial again.

I’m scared, Creed…

Voicemail.

Again.

I’m trying to make it to my eighteenth birthday…I’m losing hope…

I’m begging you to help me…

Voicemail. “Come on, Collins, please.” I beg, sending my voice out into the universe in hopes getting my fucking desperation to her, needing her to answer. “Fucking answer, Stardust. Come on…”

I dial again.

I just want to disappear…

The phone clicks, like someone answers but nothing happens. I’m met with silence. I check to make sure I dialed the correct number. When I confirm it’s correct, I take a breath, trying to calm myself, but my voice still comes out rough and raw.

“Collins…”

I sag back onto the edge of my bed, waiting for her to speak. There’s a pause on the other line that feels like an eternity, before hearing her voice for the first time in eight years.

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