AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instantly, whatever positivity I’ve drudged up from somewhere deep inside evaporates like smoke. My jaw clenches as my eyes slip across the table to my phone.
Don’t play it. Don’t fucking play it.
I play it; the voicemail, that is. AKA, theonecommunication I’ve received from Melody since the day it all went to shit. My eyes close as her voice—cold and lifeless—echoes from the phone speaker.
“Hi, it’s me. They told me you had a cell phone now, and that this is the number. So, I’m just going to say this here and then never again.”
Her breath draws in, and my jaw clenches like I’m bracing for the hit.
“I was just using you, Jackson. For the story. Sorry, but it is what it is. What happened with us was wrong and fucked up, and it’s for the best if we leave what happened on the island and move on. I am, and I think you should, too. It’s over. Don’t try and contact me, or I’ll spin a very different narrative about what happened. And I think we both know; they’ll believe me over you. This also goes for my mom’s book. Don’t fight the release or Iwillbury you. Goodbye.”
That’s it. Full stop.
The masochist in me is tempted to play it again—as I do sometimes. But not today. Instead, I just let the brutal sting of it sink into my skin as I grit my teeth and stab my gaze through the table in front of me.
I want to dive headfirst into conspiracy theory land: that, obviously, Melody was forced to leave that message. That she’s under duress or something. And maybe that was a theory I could rally behind…
That is, until I saw her. Not face-to-face, but when she and Judy were onGood Morning Manhattantogether a few months back.
Smiling. Laughing. Fuckinghuggingeach other as they reminisced about being “raised by rock ’n roll”. And of course, touting Judy’s upcoming book: “Havoc Love”.
I mean, fuckingshoot me.
Cliff, my manager slash attorney, wants me to fight the book on the very obvious grounds of it beingcompletely full of shit. And easily refutable shit, at that.
For instance, I amone-hundred percentsure I’m not Melody’s fucking father.
How, one might ask, could I—a man with a storied history of casual relationships and questionable choices be so sure of this fact? Well, for one, I neveronceeven touched Judy. Because, frankly, she always skeeved me out. She never once came across as a fan or the kind of girl who just wanted to “be with the band”.
She came off aseager. As someone with stars or dollar signs in her eyes and the claws to get her way to the top no matter what. And I never once had even a passing interest in her.
But how—aside from knowing without question that I never screwed Judy—do I know I have a zero percent chance of being Melodys father? I mean, to avoid a he-said-she-said situation?
Well, there’s the tiny, little, minute detail that I had afucking vasectomywhen I was twenty.
I’m not her father. I’m notanyone’sfather. But still, despite Cliff harping about it for the last four months, I’m not going to be fighting the book, legally.
But is it because of Melody’s bizarre threat to ‘bury me’ with…something?
Not in the slightest.
It’s because the girl I fell completely in love with on Falstaff Island stuck a knife in my heart. And eventhinkingabout her, or the book, or any of it, makes me want to go out to the nearest bar or liquor store and consume everything in fucking sight. Or go out and buy a Scarface amount of cocaine to shove up my nose until my heart stops.
So, yeah. That’s where I’m at.
In the end, it turns out “the enemy” really was the enemy all along.
Fuck her.
So, for now, like I said, it’s one day at a fucking time. I’m old enough to understand I’m notactuallya deity. And I’ve lived with my demons and my addictions long enough to know how fragile the current state of my sobriety is.
Not to mention, how lethally important it is for me to keep it going.
And so, the routine it is. Wake up. Don’t consume drugs or alcohol. Eat breakfast. Don’t consume drugs or alcohol. Try and write. Don’t consume drugs or alcohol.
This shit is fucking exhausting.
Usually, the morning routine is followed by heading into the studio by early afternoon. I try not to keep pace with the absolute shit-storm of rumors surrounding me and my “return to the world”. But, that one about me recording they basically nailed.
