Page 150 of On The Edge
My heart drops because I get it now. I understand why she believed Louis. My fingers tighten around the phone and I make a vow right here and now.
When we find her, she will always know how much I love her simply for her.
Our masks on,the warm-up music pumps up the crowd while the four of us stand on stage trying to muster up the energy to give a shit about this.
“We have to do something. Her business partner was a bust. Stalking her through social media is getting us nowhere. It’s like she’s disappeared,” I yell down from the scaffolding to Kai. The guy’s posture tells me he’s just as miserable as we all are; he’s sitting back against the speaker right by the walkup to my little stage like he does not give a damn if people see him.
“Maybe she did,” Kai says, his voice muffled by the mask.
“What?”
“All this has me thinking, maybe she is trying to tell us to leave her alone. Think about it, Adam,” Kai says earnestly, but I can hear how tired he is, as he stands up and turns to look at me. “Her phone number isn’t working, but only for us. She’s blockeduson her socials. She’s not answering any messages Reis has tried to send. We can’t get anyone to go check on her. Maybe… Maybe she doesn’t want us anymore.” His head drops down, and I can see it.
He thinks we should give up. Not because he wants to, but because he really thinks that it’s what she wants.
I scoff, shaking my head and standing up. I see the tech guy telling me to sit down, pointing at his watch, so I sit back down but yell at Kai.
“Look at me, Kai!” He turns back to me, the neon edges of his mask making the movement slightly sinister when I know that really, underneath he’s dying.
“We’re not giving up. So don’t even think that. We’ll honor her wishes the moment she speaks them, not any sooner on information that we don’t truly have. Got it?” The lights flash overhead and that’s my cue.
“Got it?!” I yell again. I need to hear him say it, because this isn’t over. Melody is ours and we aren’t giving her up.
“Yeah, bro. I got it.” Kai nods, pulling the guitar into position and waiting for my lead in. “Let’s go.”
“Thank you so much and goodnight!”Reis screams into the mic, his voice raspy and hoarse after this show.Back-to-back shows are fucking brutal, and usually we stress for nothing except the next show. Everything else is handled and done for us. But this tour? This tour, we actually had something outside of work that we cared about. And we found out the person who usually makes tours so easy is a backstabbing, backwater trash, fuck nugget that deserves to go get punched in the dick until it stops working properly.
We all wave to the crowd and walk off stage. The moment we’re out of the crowd’s line of sight, our smiles drop. Life feels like it’s been sucked out of me, like I’m bleeding all over and nothing will staunch it.
“You guys, that was a great show!” Paul praises kindly, holding the tablet that caused all this fuckery in his arm. Unfortunately, it’s still intact. Kai wanted to smash it to pieces, but Paul convinced us he needed it to run the tour. Apparently it’s got all our schedules, the lighting cues, the sound system controls, all the PA stuff on it. It’s a bit of a necessity.
I’d gladly buy a new one if I got to take a sledgehammer to the thing that caused me this much pain.
Because taking a sledgehammer to Louis' head would be prison time for sure, and I can’t win Melody back from prison.
“Thanks, Paul,” Kai tips his head up in recognition before walking towards the dressing room. Fuck, he’s deep in his feels.
“Do you need anything from us?” Reis asks, handing the microphone to the tech guy and turning to Paul.
“No, nothing. We’re set for tomorrow. I’ll pick you guys up from the hotel at nine am, then we’ll be off to Edinburgh. Last stop before the bookend with London.” he says everything so quickly, his eyebrows rising with intent because he knows exactly how much it means for us to get this tour done with. We need to get back to her. “Three days. Three days and you’ll be sitting on the plane to Oklahoma.”
“Thanks, Paul. We appreciate it.” Reis nods, patting Paul on the shoulder and walking off to head to the dressing room as well. I give him a tight-lipped nod and help Markus walk to the room. He’s still slightly swaying on his feet. He’s lucky he’s such a fucking badass guitarist because I don’t know how he gets on the stage every nightthishigh.
“Three days?” Markus asks me, eyes focusing in and out as he looks at me like he’s realizing he can let go just a little.
“Yeah, man. Three days. You have to get your shit together. I know you’re hurting, we all are, but you can’t be doing this. Not if you want her back.”
“She doesn’t care. She had liquor, I have drugs. But since you so fucking rudely put your nose in my business, I’ll be honest.” Markus rolls his eyes. “When she was here… I didn’t need this shit. She made me feel so fucking good, I didn’t need to take anything to escape. Now she’s gone, and nothing works like it used to.”
My heart breaks deeper for him. I understand what he’s saying. Maybe not onthiskind of a level, but fuck, I get why hes been hitting it harder lately.
“I just need her back. I want her back. Why’d she leave?” He starts groaning as we walk through the hallway.
“She didn’t want to. Remember? Paul said she didn’t want to.” I keep repeating that to myself. Holding onto the memory of Paul saying she was heartbroken. That she didn’t want to leave. That she didn’t choose this.
“Why didn’t she ask us?” he slurs and I swallow hard.
That’s the question, isn’t it? It’s just a little too close to home, like history repeating itself painfully.
