Chapter 32
Sam holds the hotel key card above the slot and shoots me a smoldering look. “You know I’m going to attack you as soon as we get inside, right?”
I keep my expression blank. “Well, I’d like to unpack first, take a shower, and relax.”
“Screw unpacking but hell yes to a shower.” He slides the key into the lock and opens the door.
I rush past him, dropping my suitcase near the closet. Since the room is a standard double, I run behind the chair in the corner.
Within seconds, Sam’s leaning over the chair, with his hands bracing the wall on both sides of my head. “The chair ain’t gonna stop me, honey.”
I raise a brow. “You didn’t just call me honey.”
“I did,” he says, grinning as he bends down and runs his lips over my chin, down my neck, and into my cleavage. He sucks the skin there, and my knees start turning to mush. One of his hands slides down the wall and pulls my tank top lower, giving his lips more access to the swell of my breasts.
Giving into a rising tide of lust, I am about to slip down the wall when someone pounds at the door.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sam says against my skin. The pounding continues. He stands up as a sneer twists his full lips. “Each one of those fuckers knows why I got my own room.”
The pounding grows louder.
“Let me get it.” I shove at his shoulders.
He steps away from the chair. “Oh no. I’ll get it, and shove a boot up someone’s ass.”
“You’re wearing flip-flops,” I say with a giggle, coming out from behind the chair.
He glares at me over his shoulder before whipping the door open.
Both of our mouths fall open at the sight of the person standing in the doorway.
“Hey, guys,” Seth says, stepping into the room. After kicking the door closed with one of his beat-up checkered Vans, he punches his brother lightly on the arm. “I always wanted to visit California, bro. More like LA but Fresno works.”
Fists clenched at his sides, Sam looks like he’s about to blow up, and I’m aware it has nothing to do with us being interrupted. His expression is angry and worried and desperate all at the same time.
But his brother just crosses his arms and grins at him.
The music blasts above us on the stage. It’s the last show, and the fans are roaring from behind the line of bodyguards. Seth is my shadow as I shoot pictures of screaming fans. I take shot after shot as he looks from the stage to the crowd. As I switch lenses, I catch his shocked expression and understand it instantly. It’s mind-blowing how much Luminescent Juliet’s fan base has grown in the past six weeks. The concert seats are nearly full, and except for the extra-smalls, we’re out of T-shirts today—we sold out completely fifteen minutes after the doors opened.
Sam does his bouncing thing and winks at girls in the front row. Usually, he winks and flirts with me when I’m up here with my camera, but I’m aware he’s not going to go there with Seth next to me. After tearing Seth a new asshole, then calling his mother—who reminded him that Seth is an adult, even if he lives at home still—Romeo plays off us being together as friends once again. Wanting to keep Seth calm, I go with it.
And since Sam had sound checks and interviews for most of the day, Seth has been with me. He’s been polite and kind of quiet. No crazy talk has come out of him all day. He even helped bag T-shirts and hats in the booth in between making runs to the nearest beer stand. Though he’s had a few tall beers, he doesn’t seem drunk, just a bit happy. He offered to buy me a drink, but essentially being at work, I declined.
The band starts their most popular and final song, “Inked My Heart.” I stand in front of center stage, getting pictures of each of them one last time. They all wear sentimental expressions. Justin still appears sad and emotional as he sings. Gabe’s expression is reserved as he beats out the slow tempo. Romeo looks over the crowd with nostalgia. And Sam stares at me, then Seth.
As I lower my camera, I notice Seth looking from Sam to me. But Sam’s attention has returned to the crowd. I start jotting in my notepad, trying to ignore Seth’s stare. I can’t help imagining the direction of his mind, and suspect he’s having thoughts of Sam and me together behind his back. I don’t look at Sam again, just take notes about the energy of the fans.
Right before the song ends, I wrap an arm around Seth’s arm and yell in his ear, “Let’s go get a beer!”
Nodding, he lets me lead him by the arm, and we move to the side of the stage as the song ends. The crowd’s excitement is deafening. The guys in the band move to the front, bowing and waving. Seth stops and watches, his face a picture of concentration.
“Come on. I’ll buy,” I say, trying to tow him backstage as the lights come on. Recorded music bursts out of the speakers, and the roadies appear to change the stage around for Griff.
The guys start coming down the ramp. We’re standing a few feet from it, and though I tug on Seth’s arm again, he jerks away from me. His eyes narrow and his mouth twists into a sinister snarl. He takes a few running steps, and then dives through the air at Gabe. I gasp. It’s a dive of at least five feet.
Eyes wide, Gabe drops his sticks as Seth slams into him. A checkered Van flies up and lands on the ramp. As they tumble toward backstage, a gasp and instant murmur rises from fans who could see the tackle.
Security guards, the band, and I rush across the ramp.
Seth is sprawled across Gabe, hands around his neck. He chokes him for about two seconds before guards wrench him off. Sam rushes in and grabs Gabe, who looks like he is about to kill Seth. Romeo helps Sam hold Gabe back when he goes ballistic, intent on attacking his assailant. Justin and Romeo start dragging him farther backstage, and the guards holding Seth follow. He twists, spits, and kicks at them while yelling obscenities at Gabe.
Shocked, I follow behind. A man next to me is on a radio, instructing someone to call the police. I feel like a lifetime has passed, but the entire episode was less than two minutes.
Justin takes Sam’s place holding Gabe, so Sam can try to calm his brother.
Seth spits in his face. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” he screams. “You won’t listen! You won’t listen! And you’re fucking her! You’re fucking her!”
He thrashes his body in between the guards, and he tries to kick Sam with a bare foot as I wince about being the “her.”
Seth keeps yelling and spitting, but another guard comes over to Sam. Pulling him back, he says something too low for the rest of us to hear. Sam shakes his head violently and grabs the guy by his collar. “Call an ambulance,” Sam loudly hisses.
The guy tries to argue.
“He’s mental! Call an ambulance!” Sam says again, and lets the guy go. “And get him out of here!”
By now, people hanging out backstage are crowding around us.
The guard who Sam yelled at directs the guys holding Seth to a storage room near the exit. Seth yells and spits the entire way. Sam follows behind them. They disappear into the storage room. The remaining guards get people to disperse, and I’m left in the circus of people, completely disoriented.
The crowd finally thins. Gabe, Justin, and Romeo are gone too. Several security guards stand in front of the storage room. After picking up Seth’s lone shoe, I wait as two EMTs push a gurney into the room. I’m relieved to see them and not the police. After a half hour, they push Seth strapped down on a gurney out of the room. Sam walks alongside his brother. His expression is so worried and torn, I have to stop myself from rushing to him.
Once they disappear out the back exit, I slowly make my way toward the dressing rooms as the backstage returns to normalcy. The muted thud of thrash metal comes from down the hall—Brookfield likes to get pumped up prior to going onstage. I knock several times before Justin peeks out and then lets me in. With arms crossed, Romeo leans against a wall. Across from him, Gabe punches another wall.
“Stop it,” I say, moving behind Gabe and dropping Seth’s shoe on a table. “He’s sick, Gabe. He’s delusional.”
Gabe pauses and looks over his shoulder at me, through his hair. The strands lift in sync with his heavy breathing.
“He’s schizophrenic. He believes you’re bad, an alien or something.”
Gabe’s fist drops as he turns toward me. “An alien?”
“Well, that explains a lot,” Justin mumbles from somewhere behind me. “And I’m not talking about Seth,” he adds with obvious laughter in his voice.
I lift my hands and shrug. “Like I said, he’s delusional. His brain doesn’t work right.”
“An alien?” Gabe repeats, then starts laughing so hard he has to reach out for a table to support him. “He thinks I’m a fucking alien! That shit is too funny!”
I look around the room to find Justin and Romeo grinning.
Suddenly, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I dig it out in a rush to hear Sam’s voice asking, “Has Seth been drinking?”
“Ah, yeah, he had a few beers.”
“He shouldn’t be drinking,” Sam snaps.
“Um, I didn’t know,” I say slowly. I know he must be freaking out, so I’m trying not to let his angry tone affect me.
“How many did he have?”
“Maybe three or four?”
“Sixteen-ounce drafts?” Sam asks incredulously.
“Yeah,” I answer in a small voice. “I didn’t know he couldn’t drink,” I repeat, though I’m not sure I could have stopped Seth from doing what he wanted, anyway. “I’m sorry.”
Sam sighs. “It’s all right, Peyton, I’m just—they have him in straitjacket, and even drugged up, he’s flaming pissed at me right now.”
“Where are you? Do you want me to come find you?”
“I wish,” he says, his voice sad. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Is Seth going to be okay?”
“After they regulate his meds, he should be as okay as he gets.” The phone is quiet until he says, “Shit, I miss you already.”
“I miss you too,” I say tightly, hearing a forlorn tone in my own voice that matches his before I hang up.
I sincerely hope Seth gets better, but he has always been the wild card. His disease and its implications were things Sam and I haven’t talked about over the past week. We ignored the world outside the bus window, yet Seth has long been an unspoken issue.
That I used to date him is odd enough. However, I’m aware Seth’s schizophrenia adds an entire new layer of difficulty to Sam and me being together. And the instability of his disease, his obvious dislike of our being together, could come between us.
I sit in a row of chairs in front of the huge glass window at the Fresno airport. Justin and Romeo are a few chairs down. Both of them are on their phones. Gabe is hungover from the huge end-of-tour party last night—a party that was totally lame for me because of Sam’s absence. He’s on the other side of the walkway, lying across several chairs.
Sam isn’t with us.
His mother flew in yesterday. They’re staying at a hotel near the hospital. They hope to fly back, with Seth, by the end of the week. Sam says Seth’s doing better, but the doctor doesn’t want to release him until his new medication is working effectively.
I haven’t seen Sam in two days. I miss him every minute, yet him being with his brother is more important than my melancholy, obviously.
As a 747 taxis by the window, my phone vibrates, and a picture of Sam lying on the couch in the back of the bus flashes on the screen along with the text: Can you find somewhere private and call me?
Why? I text back, confused.
Just do it! Please!
I’m suddenly scared that Sam is going to share bad news—Seth isn’t doing well, Sam’s letting me go, or who knows what else. So I stand on shaking legs and head to an area of unoccupied seats. After setting down my carry-on and taking a deep breath, I call Sam.
“Hey, Peyton,” he answers.
“What’s going on?” I quickly and nervously ask.
“I wanted to send you off with a memory of me.”
“Huh?”
“I’m going to put the phone down. Just listen until I pick it back up, okay?”
“Um, okay.”
I hear him set the phone down, then the chords of an acoustic guitar echo. I’m trying to place the familiar tune when he starts singing:
Even amid falling leaves
She was brighter
Than the summer sun
Fell under the spell of her
Smiling brown eyes
Faster than a breath
And when she’s gone
It’s always night
And I’m under a bleak moon
A bleak, bleak moon
She’s more than beauty
She’s a generous soul
Rich with laughter
She makes me
High on life
She makes me whole
But when she’s gone
It’s always night
And I’m under a bleak moon
A bleak, bleak moon
He rolls into the instrumental, and overwhelmed by the song, I draw in gulps of air, imagining his fingers flying over the guitar stem, imagining the tender look on his face, and wishing he were here with me. Then he starts the last verse, and my throat burns.
From the shadows
I watched her shine
Trying to be content
That she’d never be mine
Never touch the sun
Never hold her brightness
Now she’s gone
It’s always night
And I’m under a bleak moon
A bleak, bleak moon
The song ends and I wipe the lone tear rolling down my cheek. I don’t deserve such a beautiful song now, much less years ago when he must have written it. I recall being worried about being portrayed as a bitch, but the way Sam sees me fills me with pride, hope, and fear—I want to be what he sees. I want to be what he needs.
“Peyton? You there?” Sam asks, breaking me from my turbulent thoughts.
“Yeah, um, wow,” I say in a rush of air. “I’m sure that’s really not me but thank you.”
“That’s you. It was you even then.”
Someone pokes my shoulder, and I turn to see Gabe. “We’re boarding,” he says loudly.
Nodding to Gabe, I reach for my bag and say, “I have to go. We’re—”
“I heard. It’s okay. I told my mom I’d meet her soon at the hospital.” He sighs sadly into the phone. “Though it will be the middle of the night, text me when you land?”
“Yes. Text me when you wake up?”
“The moment I open my eyes. Have a safe trip, Peyton,” he says in a desolate tone before hanging up.
With a sigh, I turn my phone off.
It feels like I’m turning my connection with Sam off.