Catch Me (40 page)

“What do you want, Brooklyn?” he growled into the phone. “I’m busy.”

Tears pricked my eyes. “Nothing,” I whispered. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He let out a loud sigh. “Sorry. But yeah. Later.” Then he hung up the phone.

I’d never felt so alone. I’d never felt so broken, so lost, so worthless. And the only person that could help me was gone. I sobbed, swallowing a couple of pain killers that I’d taken from my dad’s bathroom cabinet and washing them back with the vodka I’d filled my water bottle with. When I knew we were closer to San Francisco, I told the driver that he could drop me off at the Golden Gate Bridge. He furrowed his bushy black eyebrows in the mirror and asked if I was sure. I said yes with my bitchy attitude and he didn’t bother talking to me again. I took out one little blue pill that had a star drawn on it. My favorite drug, ecstasy—my Shea drug, I called it.

I waited for it to hit, but I knew it wouldn’t for another ten minutes. When the car pulled up to the bridge, I threw a handful of hundreds his way, not bothering to wait for change and jumped out. I staggered my way up the walkway, moving out of the way for runners and tourists. I smiled at some kids that fathers carried over their shoulders and blew kisses at the tweens that walked by and checked me out. I was wearing an oversized sweater so there was nothing to check out, but boys always look at blondes. It was one of the reasons I liked when my hair was that color.

Shakily holding onto the cold railing, I made it to the middle of the bridge with tear-filled eyes. My head lolled every which way from the amount of things in my system, but I felt happy. I felt free, I felt tingly. Every time the wind touched my face, I smiled.

Until I remembered.

And then I didn’t smile anymore. My chest shook as sobs exploded through it at the memory of my lost friend, at my father’s cold voice when I called, and my mother’s indifference. Once I stopped crying, I looked around, trying to spot the cameras. I had heard they put cameras on the bridge to record the jumpers. I read somewhere that there were actually survivors. I hoped I wouldn’t be one of those. I hoped I wouldn’t be “Chris and Roxy Harmon’s drug addicted daughter who killed her best friend and attempted but failed to jump to her death.” I could already hear the jokes that would be made about how I couldn’t even kill myself right, about what a complete failure I was, just like they’d reminded me of countless times over the years.

I could already feel the pain shooting through me at my mom’s berating voice. I thought of my brother, my uncle and my cousin, the only people that would care. But for some reason the thought of my brother was the only one that scared me. He’d been absent a lot over the years, but never ignored me. I felt bad, but not bad enough. The pain had consumed so much of me that I wouldn’t let anything stop me. When I saw Alcatraz, I began to cry again, thinking of Ryan. I screamed, not caring who would hear me. I sobbed loudly, not caring what passersby thought of it.

And then he found me. And he told me he was looking for me. And I believed him. And then I blanked out. I went into a beautiful, shaky state of oblivion. I wondered if I would find Ryan there. I wondered if he would be waiting for me with his cherry colored cheeks and dazzling smile. I wondered if his wavy red hair would be waving in the wind. I wondered if he was happy and at peace. I wondered if he would forgive me and tell me he still loved me.

The next time I woke up, I was in a hospital bed looking into the exhausted brown eyes of Uncle Robert. He cried hysterically when he saw that I was awake. His cries stabbed my heart. They made me feel guilty and sad.

“Where’s the guy?” I asked.

“What guy?” my uncle asked, rubbing my hand in his.

“The one that gave me hope,” I said.

My uncle cried again, louder, shaking the bed with his sobs. “Oh, Brooklyn,” he repeated through his tears. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

I blinked my tears away and ran my fingers through his soft hair. “It’s okay, Uncle Rob, you’re here now.” I wanted to soothe him somehow. I felt bad for making him feel that hurt. I didn’t want his pain to match mine.

He sniffled, wiping his tears with the backs of his hands. “I’m sorry, baby girl. I’m sorry you’re hurting.”

Tears fell down my face. “I need help,” I whispered, praying he would take me seriously.

“Of course. Of course,” he said, his voice hoarse as wrapped his arms around me. “We’ll get you help.”

I felt myself breathe for the first time in years, as if in his arms I found the peace I was so desperately waiting for. My mother came by to visit me. She acted heartbroken by the whole thing and I believed that she was. Her eyes were hurt as she looked from me to my uncle. She stayed for one day and promised that she would put me in the best rehab facility she could find. She made good on her word and sent me to a good facility in Newport.

I spent my eighteenth birthday there, cutting a cake with the rest of the patients. I’d learned to appreciate having them there, holding my hand through all of it. We had a lot of days where we wanted to sign out, and we could have. But we didn’t. We held on to each other, all of us did, and together with our sponsors, we survived our time there.

Shea visited me a couple of times. The first time was on my birthday. He looked miserable as he walked the halls to get to me. The last time I’d seen him was Ryan’s funeral, and we barely talked there. We couldn’t quite process that we were burying our best friend. When Shea saw me in rehab that first time, he fell to his knees in front of me and wrapped his hands around my waist.

“I’m so sorry,” he cried. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you’re always there for me.”

“You’re here now,” I whispered. “And that’s all that matters.”

And it was. We hugged each other and spent the rest of the day together talking like we never had before, because that time we were both sober. That time, we couldn’t hide behind our masks. I think that was the first and maybe the last time we ever spent a day like that. Shea promised me he would never do heroin or ecstasy or any heavy drugs again. He said he couldn’t give up marijuana. I was okay with that. I was just happy knowing he would give up the rest. I knew he wouldn’t break his promise to me. Shea and I never broke our promises to each other.

“I love you, BK,” he said on his way out. “You mean so much to me.”

So much wasn’t everything, but it was enough for me.

I take a deep breath when I step out of the airplane in LA, closing my eyes against the beating sun. I have a feeling this one breath will have to give me the strength I need to get through this trip. Turning my phone on, I see a voicemail from Shea to add to the four I have from my family. I scroll away from that screen, not wanting to talk to anyone unless I absolutely have to and groaning when my phone lights up with an incoming call from Hendrix. I answer it and he tells me that the driver is waiting to take me to the lawyer’s office.

Sure enough, when I tug my suitcase out of the building, a tall young man dressed in a black suit sprints over to me and introduces himself as Carson. I say hello to him and quickly climb into the back of the SUV, while he places my suitcase in the trunk. Clutching my phone, I look at it for a long moment, contemplating whether or not to call Allie again. I decide to wait, hoping she’ll call me before I speak to the lawyer. As we drive down the Pacific Coast, the urge to call her becomes unbearable, so I do, and again my call goes directly to voicemail. I don’t leave a message this time, though, but I do send her a text message that says to please call me back.

Sighing, I connect my earphones to my phone and sort through my playlist, choosing a song by Sleeping At Last. I close my eyes and think of my times with Allie, reminiscing on our college days and the parties we went to together. The look on her cherub face when the date I set her up on with her now husband went well.

When I get to the attorney’s office, I check in with the receptionist and am soon greeted by the lawyer’s secretary. Drew, my brother’s lawyer, is actually an old friend of his and I’m glad to see it’s him I’ll be dealing with and not one of my parents’ old fart attorneys that think they know everything. Drew sits down on the other side of the desk and slides me a stack of papers. I grasp them, running my fingers over my name, Allie’s name, the name of my brand, to convince myself that this is real. My best friend is really suing me.

Tears threaten to fall, but I won’t cave to them. I won’t let them win, not here. Not in front of Drew.

“I just don’t understand,” I whisper.

Drew takes my words as an opportunity to explain to me, in layman’s terms everything the lawsuit says. Allie is basically suing me for not holding up my side of the bargain and wants half of the company’s earnings and anything that it will earn in the next ten years. I laugh because there is no bargain, it’s my company; it’s my baby. It’s something I built up from nothing but my imagination. Fab represents my love of music and is my way of trying to fit in with my successful family. It’s what I made to show them that I, too, can be somebody.

We only have about ten clients right now, and that’s not including the contracts with recording studios that I was working on. Quite frankly, as much as this situation makes my stomach turn, I’m flattered that Allie would want half of my earnings for the next ten years. At least it shows that she believes in me and in my brand enough to think that it’ll still be around then. I swallow loudly, hoping to rid myself of the emotion that’s bubbling.

“Well, the kicker is she has already supplied some microphones to some studios in Long Beach,” Drew informs me.

My mouth drops open. “No, she didn’t,” I say, gasping in disbelief.

Drew’s blond eyebrow rises. “Yes, she did.” He hands over some pictures of the microphones with dates and names of studios they’re in.

“Where’s the money for this?” I ask quietly, scrolling through my phone to pull up my bank account as I rack my brain over the recent invoices I’ve seen. I would remember studio microphones though, so I know these weren’t in any of the papers I’ve seen.

Drew smiles and it makes him look like a shark. It reminds me of everyone I’ve ever worked with, including myself. An odd sense of calm passes over me. I don’t even want to know what that says about me.

“That’s the best part. She didn’t put it in your business account. All the money for this went directly into hers. Because she’s been keeping this from you, she’s pretty much fucking herself over before she has the chance to see any money from her suit.”

As much as it hurts me that Allie is doing this to me, I just want it all to go away, so I ask if there’s any other way that we can solve this without going to court. Drew tells me that the only way would be to get her to drop it, which he says probably won’t happen.

“This can get ugly, Brooklyn. I need to make sure you know that,” he says and I know he’s pretty much preparing me for a shit storm.

Because my mother is lawyer happy, suing people left and right if they even look at her the wrong way, I’m familiar with things getting ugly. My father has been sued in the past as well, but his cases are usually much cleaner than my mother’s.

I shrug. “She asked for it.” I’m trying to sound as nonchalant as I want to feel.

It kills me that the reason I let Fab take the backseat when I started working at Harmon was because I thought I could trust Allie to be my right hand girl and work with me on all of this. Letting out a breath, I stand to shake his hand before I start walking out of his office.

“Hey, Drew,” I say, glancing over my shoulder. He looks up from his desk. “What if she calls me and apologizes and drops the entire thing before you draft the papers?” My voice is low, almost a breath, but I know he hears me. His mouth turns up slightly.

“I doubt she’ll back down. That would be best case, but don’t hold your breath. I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to get screwed over by someone you trust.”

I nod. “I’m used to being screwed over.” I’m amazed at how steady I manage to keep my voice as I say the words.

When I get out of there I call Hendrix and tell him everything. He agrees that I did the right thing. Next I call my father, who actually stands by my decision and seems understanding about the whole thing. My father can be a huge asshole, but he knew the right thing to say this time. He also tells me that he spoke to Michael Wilde, who told him I had been to his house. I give him the short version of the story and tell him that Nick and I are friends. I don’t have the kind of relationship with my parents where we talk about things like dating, so I know my answer is enough for him. I speak to Nina on my way to my favorite hotel on Sunset Boulevard. And when I hang up with her and feel that I have just enough energy to make one more phone call, I call my mother.