My Rock #3 (The Rock Star Romance Series - Book #3) (6 page)

He really did think
I
was
easy.
I
didn’t blame him; I’d already dropped my
panties a few times. If he knew
me
though, he’d know
that it wasn’t something I went around doing. It started out as infatuation
with who he used to be, and
me
trying to forget the
past. Now…it felt like more in my heart, but I wasn’t’ kidding
myself
.
I
knew he didn’t feel it.
I
was a big girl; I could live with that.
I
couldn’t live with just walking away.

“Listen, Tristan…I like you, a lot. But, nothing is
happening between us again unless you’re ready to get some help.
I
also don’t do sex unless it’s exclusive. If you’re fucking
other girls, I’m not fucking you.”
I
was hoping maybe
if I spoke his language that it would make a difference. Sex he understood. He
actually listened when the subject was on the table. It didn’t help though; all
it did was piss him off again. He ripped the papers out of
my
hand and turned and stormed out of the room.
I
stepped
out after him and, of course, Tony the AP was standing there in the hall,
looking after him.
I
felt nauseated. This wasn’t good.

“What was that about? Was he having another temper
tantrum?” I was
pretty sure
if I said yes that Tony
would want to know the details and my lie would have to get bigger and bigger.
I
hated lying.
I
really hated all
of this.
I
went with the closest version of the truth
that I could think of off the top of my head.

“No, I mean not really. He’s mad, but at
me
. It was probably my fault this time,”
I
said. “I was just worried because I heard a rumor that he and another
contestant are messing around.
I
know there’s no hard
and fast rule against the contestants dating, but it seems to me like it would
be awfully distracting to them both this late in the game. He said it was none
of
my
business.
I
guess maybe
he’s right. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
I
could feel
the sweat beading on my forehead.
I
hoped he couldn’t
see it.

“I don’t think you overstepped here,” Tony said. “I
appreciate that you’re concerned about the contestants, that’s actually a big
part of your job.
I
think it’s great that you took
that initiative. Thank you, Elly.”

“You’re welcome,”
I
said.
He seemed to have so much faith in
me
, misplaced,
obviously.
I
felt like a big, fat, lying jerk.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

TRISTAN

I
took the fucking stupid paper out of Elly’s hand before I left.
I
have no idea why I took it; I was just pissed, and instead
of putting my fist through the wall, I grabbed the papers. When
I
got out to the bike, I stuffed it in the saddlebag before
taking off. I
had no intentions of filling
it out.
I
had no idea where she got her nerve. What made her think
it was even close to being her place to pick up rehab papers for
me
?
I
’d met controlling women
before, but this took the cake.

I
put my helmet on and drove out of the lot wondering what she was thinking. Did
she think
I
was going to thank her? She saw some
paraphernalia on the floor, but she never saw
me
use
it; she never saw me use anything. For all she knew, the pipes could have
belonged to someone else. Hell, they could have belonged to
my
parents—who, by the way, are addicts. Neither of them can function in society
any longer.
I
may not give a shit about society, but I
can function in it just fine. She could go fuck herself if she thought
I
was desperate enough for a piece of ass that I’d agree to
that. It was just like a woman to try to manipulate with sex.

I
got on the on-ramp for the freeway and the words, “I care about what happens to
you,” came back to me.
I
didn’t believe that. Why the
fuck would she
care
about me? She didn’t even know
me
. We’d fucked a few times, but we’d never really talked
about anything. There was so much about
me
that she
didn’t know.
I
could have been an axe murderer for all
she knew. She should have been more careful about who she attached herself to.
I
bypassed my exit and eventually veered off the junction
for 605 towards Seal Beach.
I
didn’t have any
destination in mind, I was just driving.
I
didn’t want
to go back to my apartment. Brooke was supposed to be coming by;
I
didn’t want to deal with her.

I
drove down towards the beach and rode along the frontage road where I could see
the water.
I
loved the ocean; something about it made
me feel calm. If Elly knew
me
at all, she’d have known
that was why I used the drugs….most of the time.

 
Emotionally,
I
was jacked up, I admit that.
I
parked the bike and got off. It was cool out, but not cold.
I
don’t know if I’d have noticed the cold, anyways. Most of the time,
I
just felt numb….except when I was with Elly. Damn her!

I
took off my boots and walked out onto the sand.
I
thought about the old saying, ‘Life is a Beach’; what a bunch of bullshit that
was. If life was a beach, then
I
was drifting
somewhere out in the tide, washing up every so often, and then being pulled
back out and under.
I
always felt like I was waiting
for something.
I
had no fucking clue what it was.
I
doubted that rehab was the answer.
I
’d
been down that road; I didn’t know what good it could possibly do to take that
route again.

I
walked out to the edge of the ocean where the tide was just beginning to wash
up.
I
stood there in the dark, watching the waves, and
thought about how much like the ocean my life really was. Some days the tide
eased in, slowly…like it was doing right then. It crept across the sand and up
over
my
feet and around my ankles. Most days, that’s
how
I
liked it.
I
didn’t want
anyone to notice me, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do and have everyone
around me leave me the fuck alone.

Then there were the other days, the ones where
I
wanted to come crashing in like when the ocean crashed
against the side of the pier or pounded the rocks.
I
wanted to be on stage—center stage—and I wanted the whole world to watch me.
I
wanted to be loud, make noise, and get noticed. Elly and
other people who knew
me
might have thought that
change from day to day had something to do with the drugs, but it didn’t. That
shit was in
my
head and I used the drugs to try to
tame it. It would have driven
me
crazy if I didn’t.

There was one seagull picking at the shells and sea
crap that had just washed up. While
I
walked along the
beach I watched him fly in and out, searching for food…searching for something.
I
could feel his pain.
I
was
always searching for something. He seemed to know what he was looking for and
he would dive towards it. But every once in a while, he would get too close to
the water and
I
would watch him struggle to keep from
being sucked down. Every day felt like a struggle to
me
.
The bird at least knew what he was struggling against and moving towards
though.
I
had no fucking clue.

Sometimes when
I
went
there, I would get inspired and go home and write a hot, new song. Other times,
I’d leave feeling more lost than I was when I got there,
like
a piece of me got left behind. All I ever really wanted was to feel at peace
with
myself and my life
. Most days,
I
didn’t think that was ever going to happen. The weed helped; it draped a
peaceful veil down across
my
brain for a while and I
didn’t worry about stupid shit when I was high.

Of course,
I
always
over-did it.
I
’d smoke until I was nearly comatose. If
I
didn’t have a gig, I’d be just fine with that.
I
wouldn’t have minded sleeping through some of the shit.
But days when
I
had to make a living, whether my heart
was in it or not, those were the days when I’d put the powder up my nose or
melt it into the pipe and bring myself back up.
I
knew
that was drug abuse, I wasn’t stupid.
But an addict?
Did
I
have a problem? Could
I
stop if I wanted to?

I
watched the colors of the moon bouncing off the ocean and I wished that I could
look at it like other people and see the beauty in it.
I
looked at it and I saw the moon, and I saw the ocean.
I
rarely saw beauty in anything. Even the girls
I
fucked.
I
would look at most of them afterwards and
I’d feel sad. Not for them, but for
me
. For how low
I
’d sunk. Did that make
me
a
narcissist?
A sociopath?
Again, no
fucking clue.

I
did see the beauty in Elly when I looked at her. She was hot...but
not
the
hottest
girl I’d ever been
with. Yet if any of the others had suggested to
me
that I went to rehab, I’d have walked away without even so much as a glance
backwards—after I told her to mind her own fucking business, of course. With
Elly, it was different. She’d opened
my
eyes back up
to what it was like to feel good things. At first, it was awesome, but
I
realized in order to feel the good, you had to feel the
bad.
I
didn’t want to feel that other shit.
I
wanted to stay high so that I didn’t have to. Did that
make
me
an addict?

Maybe
I
was slated to be an
addict from the start. Seriously, considering how
I
was raised, how the hell was I supposed to turn out? When
I
first started performing, my parents were renting me out for parties, weddings,
and shit.
I
’d have to stay up real late and then turn
around and go to school the next day. When
I
complained about it, my mom would give me one of her ‘happy pills’ to get me
through the day. After a while,
I
couldn’t sleep at
night, so then she’d give me one of her ‘sleepy pills’. After a while,
I
discovered that I could buy even better stuff on my own. I
left the shit
laying
around my room for a while; I
know she saw it, but she didn’t say anything about it. When
I
finally started hiding it, it was just to keep her or the old man from stealing
it.

“Shit!”
I
yelled out to the
dark sky.
My
words bounced off the ocean and back at
me. Elly sticking her nose in
my
business made me have
to think about all of this—and that pissed me off.
I
didn’t like thinking about it.
I
hated my fucking
childhood, I hated my parents, and yes, I hated the way I was living my life.
But who the hell was she to tell
me
what I should do?
If
I
did go to rehab and get clean, was she going to
stick around? In
my
experience, no one ever did.
That’s why the only person I’ve ever depended on was
myself
.
I
’m the only one that knows what’s good for me.
I
don’t think that makes me a narcissist: I think it makes
me a realist.

I
finally walked back up to where I’d left my bike. It took
me
twenty minutes to clean off my feet and put my socks and boots back on. The
salty air had made
me
feel calmer; for some reason, it
always did.
I
climbed back on the bike and headed
towards the freeway.
I
planned to get high and go to
bed.
I
wasn’t going to think about that shit anymore,
and I sure as hell wasn’t going to check into some fucking rehab where they
would try and force me to talk about it.

By the time
I
got back to
the apartment, it was late.
I
parked the bike and took
the papers Elly gave me out of the saddlebag.
I
rolled
it up in my hand and took the stairwell up.
I
was shocked
when I saw Brooke sitting next to my front door. Damn!
I
figured she would have given up and left by. What the hell was up with these
persistent bitches?