Exit Wound (5 page)

“Frances, let me through,” he said as I blocked the bathroom door.

“No, not until you tell me why you’ve been acting so weird.” He tried dodging me, and I proved quicker than he was, even while fending off a hangover. He was pretty sluggish this morning, and even though I knew it was partially due to a hangover, alcohol wasn’t the only thing that I could smell from the stench of his sweat.

“What did you do last night? Huh? You normally don’t act like that.”

“Frances, would you let me pee, goddammit!” He shoved me to the side. I was so shocked by his use of force I stared in disbelief at the bathroom door he slammed shut in my face.

Shaking my head, I went back over to the lounge area where everyone was giving me weird stares.

“Everett is acting weird,” I said.

“Bea, he is acting weird to
you
, but to him, he is acting completely normal. Things have changed for all of us since the last time we saw you,” Rian said.

I didn’t have the time to argue once Everett came back. He sat down next to Splinter, acting as if nothing had happened between us.

“Can someone pass the bacon?” he asked. I obliged and took a piece off of the plate. From the looks of it, he was ready to argue with everything and everyone today.

The way Everett was acting indicated how angry he was. The way he chewed, sipped, and did everything was angry. It was so odd, and even the rest of the band was taking notice. Everett was the kindest guy on the planet. He’d never seemed to have an angry bone in his body, but now I could see that had changed.

While we were waiting for the lunch stop during our driving, I was able to hang out with Ben in the back of the bus and talk. It was nice, and I started to realize that he hadn’t really changed that much. He was still goofy and awkward, and he still wanted something to cuddle with at night. I tried my best to keep up with all the things he was telling me. All the breakups and relationships I had missed, all the memories he had made without me—there was so much I had missed out on since I was still in school.

“So what about you? Is there anything you want to share with me?” he asked.

There was plenty I wanted to share with him, but I didn’t know where to begin. I tried to talk about Mackynsie, which proved difficult. I wanted to tell him how I had lost my virginity—though, I figured that he wouldn’t appreciate that story. Heck, the experience wasn’t that great to begin with—why would I want to go around sharing it?

“So, when I was applying to colleges,” I told him, “I decided to major in music production.”

“Really?” he asked with great interest.

I nodded, and he smiled.

“You’ll be great, Frances, I’m sure of it.”

“Thanks, bro.” I hugged him, and I didn’t know how I felt about sharing that with him now that I had.

It was weird, and seemed as if it were incomplete, as if there was more that I was supposed to share with him about it. Was I supposed to tell him how I came to the choice to major in music? Did I tell him how I landed all the scholarships for the music major? I had no clue, but I knew that for now my brother was happy, and for the moment, I felt normal. That was all I wanted: to feel normal.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was day six of tour, and we were headed to Lexington, Kentucky. Personally, I found nothing interesting about Kentucky until I learned there was a statue of Superman in the town square of one of the cities we’d be going through. That made it a little more bearable.

I was still worried about Everett. He had gotten better, but he still wasn’t himself. Every time I approached him, I felt like I was bothering him, so I never got around to asking what had happened to make him so angry. I don’t think anyone wanted to know or to ask.

When the others were getting breakfast, I was doing my hair. Being on tour hadn’t done it any favors, and the curls were a mess. I looked like a deranged poodle. Thankfully, I knew a few tricks to manage it—though, I doubted I would have enough bobby pins to last me the whole tour. Or contacts, for that matter.

“Hey, has anyone seen my box of contacts?” I called into the bus. No one had. Then I got to thinking…Everett. He hated the contacts. Would he have thrown them away? Though I was unsure, it was worth asking. When he passed by the bathroom, I caught his arm, and it felt foreign, like I was touching a stranger.

“What is it, Frances?” he asked after a moment of silence.

“Yeah, uhm…have you seen my contacts?” I asked him, trying to sound as sweet and nice as possible.

“Yeah, I think I saw them in the trash back in Charleston.”

My eyes grew wide—Charleston, West Virginia was a whole city ago, a whole state away.

“What have we done with the trash from Charleston?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I suppose we left it there.”

He walked off, and I about lost it. I couldn’t believe how cool and collected he was about the whole thing. He may have liked my eyes, but that didn’t mean he could just let my expensive contact lenses go into the trash!

“Everett Graham Thompson! I don’t believe you!” I shouted, and everyone, including Splinter, looked at us.

“Why? I didn’t do anything,” Everett replied, and I was ready to blow a gasket.

“You did too! You knew my contacts were in the trash by mistake, and you left them there! Why would you do that?”

His anger was flaring up again, and I could tell he was fighting it. I didn’t want to add to the flames, but I was angry—and when I was angry, everyone had to deal with it.

“Everett, just because you don’t like something I do—”

“Just because you don’t like something about yourself doesn’t mean you cover it up!” he cut in.

“Who said I didn’t like it? I never said that!”

“It was all over your face when I mentioned it back in New York!”

“You’re reading way too much into this!”

“And
you’re
reading too much into
this!
”

Splinter took me back into the bathroom and said, “Finish getting ready. You can wear your glasses if you need to.”

I rolled my eyes. “They weren’t prescription.” He appeared confused by this, so I pointed to my left eye. “It’s called a partial heterochromia iridium. A sectoral heterochromia
.
One section of my eye is a different color than the rest.” He looked intrigued.

“That’s pretty cool,” he said. “I was always wondering why you had different colored eyes during different days of the week.”

“Well, it’s fun that way. Wait, you noticed my eyes?” I asked self-consciously.

“Yeah, I mean you’re beautiful. Your eyes are killer. Forces I can’t control pull me into them. If looks could kill, your eyes would be murderers.” He looked embarrassed then by his enthusiasm. “Yeah, just hurry up and finish getting ready. We’re getting breakfast at a diner.” He went off after that, and it left me with a lot to think about.

My eyes are killer? My eyes could be murderers?

Was he insane, or was he smitten? Every time I looked back over at Everett, I wished my eyes could kill. Specifically, I wish they could kill
him
.

***

We were sitting in a private room in a diner in Lexington. It was usually used for parties, but we wanted some alone time away from the fans. Normally, Ben was okay with them asking for autographs and pictures, but today, he wasn’t in such a giving mood. I could understand that. I wouldn’t want to be bombarded by people who wanted nothing but a picture or a signature every day.

By the time we had gotten to the diner, they had stopped serving breakfast and were starting the lunch shift. This was okay with me, since their lunch menu looked more promising than their breakfast menu did. When we were done ordering, we sat around the table in silence.

Dean, the tour manager, was preoccupied with his tablet, and Ben was more focused on the little napkin he was writing on. Grayson was on the phone with his fiancé, Lydia. Rian was texting some girl, and I could see him laughing with joy, something I didn’t witness very often.

“Careful, Rian. With the way that girl has you laughing, she’ll have you buying rings,” I mentioned, and he shook his head.

“I’m never going to settle down.”

“Never say never,” everyone said at once.

I took a look at Everett, who had only smiled for a moment. I wanted to ask him something, but I couldn’t get over the fact that Splinter was shaking his leg underneath the table. I went to kick his foot to make him stop when I noticed he was staring awkwardly at his hands in his lap. I let him go on with what he was doing after that. I continued to watch everyone around me because it intrigued me. Boys I hadn’t seen in six years were suddenly men, and there was a kid from high school I barely knew that seemed to notice me more than I noticed him.

This is why I was a people watcher. As an observer of people, you often find them doing little things that make you question what
you’re
doing when you think no one is watching. It made me think of how Splinter had noticed my eyes when I didn’t notice him at all. He was at the bottom of the food chain at Rosewood, and I was at the top. With all of these things in my mind, I was getting up to go to the bathroom when our food came, as well as an old acquaintance of Ben’s, K.L. James.

“Hello, you guys. Boy, have you grown since I’ve last seen you,” he said. “Beatrice, is that you? Wow, what a beauty.”

“K.L., what a surprise,” Ben said. He was trying to sound pleasant, except it was really hard for him today.

“I know I dropped in uninvited,” K.L. said. “I heard about your show tonight, and I happened to see your bus around back when I was driving by. I thought I’d come in and say hello to some old friends.”

K.L. James was a famous music producer. He’d signed Ben and Eden Sank in their early days—though, it hadn’t really worked out. K.L. was previously known for his punk-rock influences and his way around a distraught, grungy crowd. When he signed Ben and the band, he was going for a more pop sounding machine. Ben hadn’t liked it, and they’d split ways. After six unproductive months, trying to find a label that would take them once they’d been with K.L James was hard. It hadn’t worked out well, and things had gotten a bit harder for them after that. Obviously not for long.

“Beatrice, may I borrow you for a moment?” K.L. asked me.

“Uhm, sure.” Halfway through my sandwich, I wiped my mouth and hands and walked with K.L to the back of the room where we couldn’t be heard.

“Beatrice,” he started. He never called me Frances, or Bea—just Beatrice. “I want to see how you feel about signing on with me for a publishing deal. If I remember correctly, you’re quite the songwriter, and you’ve got a good voice. What have you been doing with that since I last saw you?”

Last time I saw him, I was twelve. I didn’t think the songs I wrote were good, but I thought that I had an okay voice.

“I’m not interested,” I said. “I’m going to college in the fall, and I won’t have time for outside activities.”

“Ah, yes. You’re attending Dartmouth on a music scholarship. Tell me, what are you planning on doing with a degree in music?”

“You’ve been stalking me, haven’t you?” Despite my joking tone, my words stung more than I intended.

“Maybe I have, but for good reason. You went to Rosewood Academy, and that, my dear, is a great academy for budding artists.”

“Like I said, I’m not interested.” I left him standing there and went back to the table to finish my lunch.

“What did K.L want?” Ben asked.

“To congratulate me on graduating from Rosewood.”

Ben nodded, and I was glad he couldn’t see the deception in my eyes.

When we got to the venue for the dress rehearsal, I was already feeling tension between Splinter and me, the last thing I needed. I felt vulnerable, and maybe he saw that too and was ready to attack. Would he attack? I couldn’t be sure. Maybe he wasn’t that kind of guy to attack a girl when she was down; although, I didn’t know Splinter like I knew everyone else.

I knew the basics. He wore a man-bun, skinny jeans, Vans, and douche-y V-necks. He was a total hipster and wouldn’t even admit to it. Maybe that was why I despised him so much. Either way, I knew that we had to get along for this whole internship to work. I wanted it to work.

This would be the last I saw of him. After this summer was over, I was going to Dartmouth, and he was going wherever he was going next. We would never cross paths again. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel about that. If Mackynsie were here, she would tell me to be thankful.

While I was working backstage later that evening, I heard a few new guests entering the premises. One was K.L., and the other was Ella Green. Ella Green was well known for her publicity stunts and her YouTube videos. Although I had never seen one, I was pretty sure she was here to interview the band. As for K.L., he was here for the same reason he was at the diner where we had lunch: to reel me into his world. I refused, knowing that wouldn’t stop him from trying again.

“Frances, can you take Ms. Green and Mr. James to the green room?” one roadie asked me. I threw the towel I was haphazardly folding to the side, and I went to guide Ella and K.L. to the green room.

When we got there, Ben was celebrating something, and he wanted me to hear it. He showed me the invitation that had been waiting for them when they got here. It was for the American Music Awards in November, and when I saw that he and the band were nominated for an award, I was just as giddy with excitement as the whole lot of them. Ben and I hugged and jumped up and down, squealing in excitement.

After we came back to our senses I said, “Oh, guys, Ella Green and K.L are here.” The sound of Ella’s name struck a fire in Ben. Not a good fire either.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

Ella was suddenly screaming at Ben. I was so confused, and so when Ella kept yelling, I yelled over her.

“Shut up! What the hell is going on?” I asked.

Ben waved his hand, signaling that I should leave this alone, and I ignored him.

“Don’t you know?” Ella said. “I wanted to date the wonderful Ben Morrison, but he refused. He
refused!
Like, who refuses to date
me
? I’m
Ella Green
for Christ’s sake. I’m the mother—”

“It’s time to shut up, Ella. I can see your ego loud and clear.” She gasped at my comment, more enraged that I even spoke to her during her outburst than the fact that my brother had refused her invitation.

“Who are you? Like, what are you even doing here? You were folding towels when I came in—you’re a little, good for nothing—”

It was a reflex, and I mean it when I say this—but I punched her in the nose. Usually I’m pretty good at controlling my anger, and other times I don’t realize how angry I am, and my reflexes take over. She was wailing like a child and holding her head back as she stumbled around as if my punch to her nose had debilitated her ability to maintain her balance.

“Dammit, Frances! Do you know who she is?” Ben was yelling at me now, and I didn’t know how to react. He was rushing to get towels and ice for Ella.

After a medic checked her nose and said it was fine, she was escorted off the premises, all the while shouting about how I was going to pay for this. I was like a child stuck in the time out corner when Ben came back. My arms were wrapped around myself for safety, and I hung my head in shame.

“What are you doing, Bea? Do you want to get us into trouble? She’s a YouTube star. She could easily post a rant about this and make it go viral overnight!”

It was time to prepare for the show, and I tried to leave, except Ben wouldn’t stop yelling.

“Frances, if you keep screwing things up the way you are, I’m going to regret ever bringing you on this tour! How can I show the world how wonderful my sister is if she keeps acting like a whiny, spoiled brat with an uncontrollable right hook?”

I could tell Everett was about to call him out on his behavior, but I shot him a look that told him not to.

“I’m sorry, Ben, it won’t happen again. I’ll go back to folding towels.” I had never been so isolated and demeaned in my life. So much for sibling love.